How to Refill a Travelers Notebook (With Photos)

The whole point of a travellers notebook is that the leather cover is permanent and the paper inside is disposable. Fill an insert, swap it for a fresh one, and carry on with the same cover you've spent months breaking in. It's a beautifully simple system — but if you've never done it, the first refill can feel slightly mysterious. Which elastic goes where? Can you run more than one insert? What do you do with the notebook you've finished?

This is the plain-English walkthrough we give our own customers. At Burecho we make refillable full-grain leather covers by hand, so we've refilled a lot of notebooks, and none of it is complicated once you've seen it done once. If you're still getting to grips with the format itself, our overview of how the refillable insert system works is a good companion to this guide.

How the elastic system works

Before the how-to, it helps to understand what you're actually looking at. A classic travellers notebook is disarmingly simple: a leather cover with elastic bands threaded through it, and paper inserts held in place by those bands.

• Inside the spine there are one or more elastic loops running top to bottom. Each loop cradles the folded spine of one insert.
• A separate closure elastic wraps around the outside to hold the whole thing shut.
• To add a second or third insert, you either use the cover's extra internal elastics or add a connecting band that clips onto the central spine elastic.

That's genuinely the entire mechanism. No screws, no rings, no glue. The paper is held by tension alone, which is why swapping inserts takes seconds.

Step 1: Remove the finished insert

Open the notebook flat and find the elastic running down the centre of the insert's spine. Gently slide the top edge of the notebook out from under the elastic, then the bottom edge. The whole booklet lifts away cleanly — there's nothing to unclip or unthread. If you have several inserts, take them out one at a time so you don't lose track of the order.

Tip: before you remove a finished insert for good, it's worth dating the front and back covers. A shelf of filled inserts becomes a chronological archive, and a date on the spine turns a stack of booklets into something you can navigate years later.

Step 2: Prepare the new insert

Fresh inserts often arrive flat and stiff. Give the new one a gentle crease along its existing fold so it sits naturally open — run your thumb down the spine a couple of times. If it's a brand you've not used, it's worth checking the paper suits your pen before you commit to it; nothing's more frustrating than filling a notebook whose paper feathers your ink. Our guide to the best pens for leather-bound notebooks covers which combinations bleed and which behave.

Step 3: Fit it under the elastic

Open the cover flat. Take the central spine elastic and tuck the folded spine of the new insert underneath it, feeding one end in first and then the other so the elastic sits neatly in the fold. Centre it top-to-bottom so equal amounts of elastic show above and below. Close the notebook and check the insert doesn't stick out past the cover — if it does, it isn't seated properly in the fold. That's it. You've refilled it.

Step 4 (optional): Add a second or third insert

This is where the travellers notebook really earns its name — you can carry several notebooks in one cover. There are two common ways to add capacity:

1. Use the cover's extra elastics. Many covers come with more than one internal band. Simply seat each insert under its own elastic, the same way as the first.
2. Add a connecting elastic. A short loop of elastic (sometimes with a small metal clip or a bead) hooks onto the central band and creates two new channels either side of the spine, each holding an insert. Stack as many as the cover will comfortably close over — usually two or three before it gets too fat to shut neatly.

A popular setup is to run different insert types side by side: a lined one for journaling, a dotted one for planning, and a plain or kraft one for lists and sketches. If you're planning a trip, our piece on travel journal ideas and our real-life test of what actually fits in an A6 travellers notebook are both worth a look before you load it up.

Step 5: Reset the closure and go

Wrap the closure elastic around the outside of the cover to hold everything shut. If you've added inserts and the cover feels tight, that's normal — the leather will relax with use. Your refill is done, and the cover you've spent months softening carries straight on into its next chapter.

Choosing your next insert

Half the fun of a refillable notebook is that each refill is a chance to change your setup. Common insert options include:

• Lined — the default for journaling and long-form writing.
• Dotted — flexible for bullet journaling, tables and sketching; see our guide to bullet journaling in a refillable leather notebook.
• Plain — best for drawing, mind-mapping and unstructured notes.
• Grid — handy for planning, diagrams and anything numerical.
• Kraft or accordion — folders and pockets for tickets, receipts and keepsakes, brilliant on trips.

If you're deciding between an A6 and A5 cover in the first place — which changes what inserts you can buy — our A6 versus A5 journals comparison lays out the trade-offs.

Caring for the cover between refills

The cover is the part you keep for decades, so a refill is a natural moment to give it a little attention. With the inserts out, you can see the full leather flat. If it's looking dry, a light condition keeps it supple — though don't overdo it. Our guides on caring for full-grain leather goods and specifically how to condition leather without ruining it apply equally to a journal cover. Handled well, the leather darkens and softens into a patina that's unique to you — which is rather the point of buying a good one.

What to do with finished inserts

Don't bin them. Filled inserts are the archive the whole system produces. Date them, and store them together — a shoebox, a drawer, a shelf. Over a few years you build a run of dated booklets that's genuinely lovely to look back through, and far more tactile than scrolling old files. Some people keep a slip of paper in the current insert noting what came before, so the collection stays in order.

Ready-made or your own cover

Any standard insert size will fit our covers, so you're never locked into one supplier for paper. The cover is what you invest in and keep. Our personalised full-grain leather traveller notebook is built for exactly this cycle of refilling, with a wrap closure and free engraving if you'd like a name or date on it, and our refillable notebook cover works the same way. If you're gifting one, a short engraved message makes it personal — our guide to personalising a journal with engraving has ideas. Browse the full range in our leather goods.

Once you've done it once, refilling becomes second nature — a thirty-second ritual that resets your notebook without losing the cover you love. That's the quiet genius of the format: the paper is endless, and the leather only gets better.