Why you should journal during your Peace Corps Service
The benefits of journaling our well documented. Aside from organizing your projects and promoting mindfulness, journaling in Peace Corps gives you an areal view of your service that your future self will be happy to have. Learn why journaling is the most popular habit of Peace Corps Volunteers in this month’s article.
"Journal writing is a voyage to the interior."
Your Peace Corps service will be one of the most transformative chapters of your life.
Like any major life event, your service will be filled with highs and lows. There will be days when you feel overjoyed and fulfilled, and others when you’re unsure if you made the right decision. These emotional peaks and valleys are entirely normal—they’re part of the process of growth and adaptation.
In navigating these ups and downs, establishing mindful habits can help you stay grounded and make thoughtful decisions. One of the most effective and widely practiced habits among Peace Corps Volunteers is journaling.
Why Journaling Matters During Your Peace Corps Service
The benefits of journaling are well-documented: it reduces stress, enhances your mood, sharpens your mind, and even bolsters your immune system—an underrated perk in environments where maintaining health is critical.
Beyond these universal benefits, journaling during Peace Corps service offers unique advantages. It serves as a way to:
Process Your Experiences: Journaling helps you work through challenging moments and reflect on positive ones, giving you clarity and perspective.
Preserve Your Memories: Years down the line, you’ll appreciate having detailed accounts of this life-changing period. Journals can act as personal archives that help you remember the people you met, the cultural nuances you observed, and the impact of your work.
Simplify Reporting: Peace Corps VRFs (Volunteer Reporting Forms) are essential for documenting your projects and progress. Journals can double as a reference, making it easier to recall the details of your activities, like workshops, community events, and outcomes.
Tips for Effective Journaling
Start Small and Consistent
Don’t feel pressured to write lengthy entries every day. Start with a few sentences about what stood out to you—whether it’s an interaction, a success, or a challenge. Consistency matters more than volume. Over time, this habit will grow naturally.Use Prompts to Spark Ideas
If you’re unsure where to begin, prompts can help. For example:What made you smile today?
What’s one thing you learned about your host culture this week?
Describe a challenge you faced and how you handled it.
Prompts like these can make journaling less daunting and more meaningful.
Make It Portable and Durable
Invest in a high-quality journal that can withstand the wear and tear of travel and daily use. Moleskin journals are a popular choice—they’re durable, compact, and have a timeless design that makes writing feel intentional.
How Journaling Helps Beyond Your Service
The habit of journaling doesn’t just support your Peace Corps experience; it has lasting benefits for your personal and professional life.
Self-Reflection: Regular journaling helps you understand your emotions, track your growth, and identify patterns in your thoughts and behavior.
Communication Skills: Writing about your experiences sharpens your ability to articulate ideas and convey complex emotions, which can translate into stronger personal and professional communication.
Career Development: Your journal can act as a source of inspiration for future projects, speeches, or even job interviews. Employers often appreciate the unique insights and stories Peace Corps Volunteers bring to the table, and your journal can help you recall them vividly.
Journaling isn’t just about documenting your journey—it’s about enhancing it. So grab a journal, start small, and let this habit become an anchor in your Peace Corps service and beyond.
How to stay healthy and fit during your Peace Corps service
With your Peace Corps service comes new foods, drinks, and daily habits that might have you feeling a little less ‘healthy’ and ‘fit’. Here you’ll find some advice on how to manage your diet, find creative exercises, and, when necessary, calm your mind.
While this might not be high on the list, it is something to consider.
Twenty-seven months is not a short period of time. As you prepare for your Peace Corps service, you may do well to consider how to keep your mind and body occupied. Take it from us, there is a lot of spare time and you’ll want to find something with which to fill it.
This article aims to be a bookmarked resource for you to come back to. Let’s look at the highlights:
Diet
Exercise
Mindfulness
Living your best life
Diet
In 2011, Michelle Obama unceremoniously kicked the food pyramid to the curb and introduced America to the simple and easy to understand ‘My Plate’ nutritional guideline. Basically it says, eat more fruits and vegetables, cut back on refined sugar and try to get more creative in your protein consumption.
Admittedly, this may come as a challenge while serving in the Peace Corps.
There is no getting around it. If you are a vegetarian, vegan, or have specific dietary restrictions, your options are going to be limited during your service; the scale of which depends entirely on your country of service and ultimate site location (if you would like a dedicated article on this topic, let us know in the comments).
The best option that we have found is to confide in other volunteers and to create support groups that can compile and share creative recipes and dietary workarounds. More often than not, other volunteers have lived out this experience and can offer advice that is country specific.
Join your Peace Corps Country Facebook page to ask if a volunteer recipe book has been made. Make a care package list for friends and family to send throughout service, and communicate with your fellow Peace Corps Trainees.
One of our favorite websites, Devex wrote a nice article that offers some great insight as well.
Exercise
Chances are, your gym options are going to be slim. A good and semi-obvious workaround is to do bodyweight exercises, go running, and try some yoga. Since exercise is such a personal journey, we’re going to avoid recommending one thing over another, and instead just suggest that you google a few programs, bring a good pair of shoes, and be open to new avenues of staying healthy that your future community might show you.
In country, you will likely find that exercise equipment is difficult to come by and surprisingly expensive.
You definitely do not want to arrive in country with a portable gym on your back, but a few small, light, and strategic items can help make all of the difference.
Some volunteers make some serious health goals when in country. A friend of PathwaytoPeaceCorps had a strap gym that was pretty impressive.
But Running is by far the most accessible and therefore popular exercise choice for Peace Corps Volunteers.
Imagine yourself lacing up and running on the country road. The light taps of your shoes on the gravel and dirt is all that you hear. You see the sky open up as the sun peeks above the horizon and you feel a wave of relief wash over as you realize you are a in a foreign country, serving a community, and growing in ways you couldn’t imagine.
Thankfully, Xero Shoes has been kind enough to partner with us and also offers a discount to PCVs when they contact them (with proof of acceptance to Peace Corps).
Prio Running and Fitness Shoe for Men and Women
Whether you’re out on a run, trying out a new trail, hitting the gym, or toeing a slackline, you’ll love the Prio’s combination of freedom and protection.
If you plan to get some new shoes through Amazon, consider using one of these affiliate links we provide. This site is supported when new Peace Corps Volunteers enter Amazon from one of our links and purchases something.
In return for purchasing your needed products through our links, we will continue to scour the internet for all of the Peace Corps Volunteer Discounts we can find.
Hydro Flask recently partnered with us and now offers a discount to PCVs when they apply for their ProDeal. Just click the link and scroll down.
Hydro Flask 32 oz Wide Mouth
Mindfulness
They say mindfulness isn’t difficult, but remembering it is.
Far be it from us to offer concrete advice on how to be mindful while serving in the Peace Corps. Like exercise and diet, a person’s mind is inherently unique and cannot be put into a box or a cleverly written and engaging article.
After a long discussion, our team landed on two key items that we believe to be the best place to start.
The first is to journal, and journal often. The truth is, it doesn’t matter much what you decide to write or in what way you choose to organize your experience. The most important thing is to reflect on when you feel good and when you feel bad. Recognize your wins, evaluate your losses. At the end of two years, it’ll be the most entertaining read you could ever imagine.
Here are two popular journals that hold up through a Peace Corps service:
The second option is to do some form of meditation. This does not require you to tap into your inner Siddhartha. The basic idea is to breath deeply, recognize the absurdly unique experience that you are living and find some joy in it.
Don’t try and do it all by yourself. Calm and Headspace offer enjoyable guided experiences that give you a place to start.
Living your best life
At the end of the day, you are only as healthy and fit as you let yourself feel. Whether you are working with youth in an urban environment or hiking to fill your water bucket at the community well, the Peace Corps is going to challenge you.
The last thing you will want is to have some archaic outline of how you should look and feel, weighing on your shoulders.
Exercise when you want to. Dig into the care package when you need to.
This is your experience to have and share with your community. Enjoy it.
Congratulations on making it through this article and preparing yourself for your Peace Corps experience. You can find more information about the Preparing for the Peace Corps, The Application Process, and Concerned Parents in our other articles.
Remember you can support this website by clicking the "support' button and purchasing all of the items you'll need for the upcoming experience through any Amazon Affiliate link. Anything you buy, we get a small % from Amazon. It really helps us keep the site updated and running.
Hope to hear from you!
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