Midori Traveler's Company | Traveler's Notebooks, Inserts & More | Brutally Honest Review Ep.1

Girl, take care of your health please! You’re awesome and deserve to have healthy lifestyle (mainly you need help in the stress eating area). Learning to relax your nervous system will help you feel your best self! Praying for you! 🙏❤️

I greatly appreciate your honest review of the quality of the Traveler’s Company notebooks. That is a concern of mine, since discovering the Midori Company no longer sells them. Can you recommend a company that offers comparable quality leather covers to Midori? Thank you.

My issues might be the exact opposite to yours: the leather seems fine to me, but it's far from "unique," especially for the price. Everybody's looks the same unless you stick stuff on the exterior of the leather itself otherwise ruining the leather.

Personally, I've seen high quality actually unique notebooks selling for comparable prices, if not for slightly less or more money. I think more people want that name brand. Little Mountain Bindery and Galen Leathers are excellent examples of quality AND style for about the same price and that's just two off the top of my head because I shop there myself.

Kinda like "Beats" headphones. They are overpriced and known bad quality (Don't take my word for it, Google it) but people want that name brand. People in the know, KNOW. Not to say that Travelers Co is bad quality, but def not worth it to people that shop around and compare apples to apples.

I think what you're saying about the quality of the TN leathers is a bit contradictory. While leathers are, of course, graded, that doesn't mean that a particular kind of "high quality" leather is the best leather to use for a particular application. For example, it would be ludicrous to use a shell cordovan leather for a TN cover. The TN aesthetic calls for a more rustically tanned and finished leather, and that variation in color and surface textures (both the grain and the flesh side) from cover to cover is by design. It behaves the way the company wants it to because they chose the right leather for their purpose. Personally, I purchased a "high quality" leather TN-style cover from another company, and I hated it. It was too...boring.

Thank you for making this video!! I still have all of my original branded Midori’s in their boxes. Even the airport edition which still was branded as Midori. I do notice how supple the original ones were compared to the new ones that are now branded as Travelers Company. The camel has more of a suede feel, the brown and black one can get smooth but with a matte finish. I’m thinking of buying the leather balm that travelers company offers, to see how the camel would patina. I’ve use different types of hand creams as well as olive oil to soften my leathers TN’s. But it is really depends on ones use. Great video!! I hope in the near future there will be another travelers caravan so that I get to speak to the owner and ask him why has it changed the tanneries or where they are sourcing their leathers. I hope one day they released one in red!

Im slowly saving up to buy my first one :)) im so excited

Will the matte ones eventually become shiny over time and extensive use? Also where did you get those brads on the corners?

I'm glad I watched your video. I almost bought one of these notebooks.
Now that I've seen this video I came to the conclusion that the leather is of poor quality.
Instead of buying a travelers notebook I'm going to build/create my own notebook (buy exotic leather, cut it into the right dimensions, buy those elastic straps and punch some holes into the leather; done). To me it's crazy that they're charging this much for a piece of leather of said quality.

Authentic, no one can touch that about them!!!! Simplicity, encouraging the adventure of life! They are the best! No one can take away from them what they represent! And those that enjoy them are just as fantastic!

Great honest review. I'm thinking of going to this system of journaling. I will mow do more research

Very interesting review. Over the past six years I’ve actually bought other traveler’s notebook brands, and even made some of my own inserts and accessories for fun, but I’m returning to my original Midori and Traveler’s Company brand Notebooks and accessories this year because I prefer their leather and the simplicity of this notebook by far. I’ve been generally very disappointed with the third party knock-offs/competitors (including Chic Sparrow). I’ve ordered and bought from individual small business makers who say they use as good or better leathers and craftsmanship than Midori (I started with the original Midori), but their (American and Canadian) products after shipping aren’t really that much less expensive! And often after adding things like just a pocket or two, a pen loop, and some extra elastics can actually cause their notebooks to run a good deal more price-wise! More importantly, their faux-Midori type notebooks, even in ‘high-quality” leather, just don’t feel as good to me for daily journaling. I love the inserts and accessories made by Midori and Traveler’s Co. I would LOVE to buy Superior Labor products, but they are just really out of my price range. I enjoy your brutally honest reviews and look forward to more!

Thank you for your thorough reviews. Would you consider doing one on Speckled fawns? I have several notebooks from them and I am kind of disappointed. Particularly because of the dimensions and the (lack of) finished edges...

My very first TN was a Midori and it is the brown. I got rid of the camel, blue and olive just not my jam😩. Thanks for sharing and loving these reviews.

thank you so much for doing such a fair and in-depth review! 💗 traveler's company notebooks are pretty much the only ones i use, and it was fun to learn more about them. at times, i'm tempted to try traveler's notebooks by other brands, but in the end i find i'm happy with what i have. i just really love how the ones by traveler's company age, and four elastics are waaayyy too much for me. 😂 your collection is beautiful!

Thank you for making these types of videos! I have watched all 3 that you have done so far and learned so much about the leather products I have in my collection.

Just wanted to say also- you can actually buy Midori MD cream paper by the pad and make your own inserts for half the cost 😉. They come in A5 or A4 size.

Nice collection. As for the variation in leather , very very expected in natural leather that changes with use and time and isn’t chemical-ized (I mean no chemical is used to unify them all as one). That is what I love about these travelers notebooks. Same with my chic sparrow , speckled fawns and similar TNs (and I have quite the collection of the same leather and color). What also makes each piece unique is which part of the animal was used! You can easily sell these if you don’t enjoy them 😉

Thanks so much. Nice collection.