travelogue

name	travelogue
description	Log travel experiences during trips — save photos, places visited, meals, activities, and memories as structured daily entries in Obsidian. User shares updates via Discord/Telegram with text and photos; agent organizes everything into a rich travel journal.
category	travel

Travelogue

Capture and organize travel experiences into a rich, searchable Obsidian journal. The user sends updates during trips (text, photos, impressions) via Discord or Telegram; the agent logs everything as dated daily entries with structured metadata.

Workflow

The user sends messages during their trip like:

• "We just arrived at the hotel, the oceanfront room is incredible"
• "Had lunch at [Restaurant] — the [dish] was amazing" [with photo]
• "Road to [destination] today — [Stop 1] was beautiful, but the water was brown from runoff" [with photos]
• "Sunset at [Beach] was unreal 🌅" [with photo]

The agent:

1. Parses the update — extracts date, location, activity, impressions
2. Saves any photos — stores in ~/.hermes/travelogue/<trip-name>/photos/
3. Writes/appends to Obsidian — daily entry with structured format
4. Confirms — brief ack to the user

Directory Structure

~/.hermes/travelogue/
├── {trip-slug}/
│   ├── photos/
│   │   ├── 2026-04-05-001.webp
│   │   ├── 2026-04-05-002.webp
│   │   ├── 2026-04-06-001.webp
│   │   └── ...
│   └── meta.json          # trip metadata (start/end dates, locations, etc.)

Obsidian Vault/
└── Travelogue/
    └── {Trip Name}/
        ├── 2026-04-05 — Departure & Arrival.md
        ├── 2026-04-06 — Day 1.md
        ├── 2026-04-07 — Day 2.md
        └── _Trip Index — {Trip Name}.md

Entry Format

---
date: 2026-04-06
trip: {trip-slug}
location: {location}
tags: [travel, {destination}, {year}]
---

# 2026-04-06 — {Brief Theme or Day N}

## 📍 Places Visited
- **{Place}** ({context, e.g. mile marker, neighborhood})
- **{Place}**

## 🍽️ Food & Drink
- **{Meal at Restaurant}** — {dish notes}
- **{Drink/Snack at Place}** ({flavor/notes})

## 📸 Photos
![[photos/2026-04-06-001.webp|{description}]]
![[photos/2026-04-06-002.webp|{description}]]
![[photos/2026-04-06-003.webp|{description}]]

## ✨ Highlights
- {What made the day memorable}
- {A specific moment or sight}

## 📝 Notes
- {Practical info, e.g. cash only, advisory in effect, hours}
- {Travel logistics}

## 🏨 Stay
- **{Hotel}** — {Room description}
- {Anything notable about the room or view}

Photo Handling

When the user sends a photo:

1. Save the photo to ~/.hermes/travelogue/{trip}/photos/YYYY-MM-DD-NNN.webp
   • Convert to WebP if needed: magick input.jpg -quality 85 output.webp
   • Or just save as-is if already compressed
2. Reference in Obsidian using ![[photos/YYYY-MM-DD-NNN.ext|description]]
3. Add the description the user provided (or generate one from context)

For Discord/Telegram image attachments:

• Discord: Images arrive as URLs or attachments. Download with curl -o path URL
• Telegram: Images may be file IDs — use the Telegram file download endpoint
• If the user sends a MEDIA: path, it's already saved locally

Trip Index Format

---
trip: {trip-slug}
start: {YYYY-MM-DD}
end: {YYYY-MM-DD}
tags: [travel, {destination}, {year}]
---

# {Emoji + Trip Name} — {Date Range}

**Travelers:** {Names}
**Hotel:** {Hotel name}, {Room type}
**Car:** {Vehicle, rental company, confirmation #}
**Flights:** {Outbound flights}, {Return flights}

## 📅 Daily Entries
- [[{YYYY-MM-DD} — {Theme 1}]]
- [[{YYYY-MM-DD} — {Theme 2}]]
- [[{YYYY-MM-DD} — {Theme 3}]]

## 📊 Trip Stats
- Days: {N}
- Photos logged: {N}
- Restaurants tried: {N}
- Beaches visited: {N}

Entry Naming

• Format: YYYY-MM-DD — Brief Description.md
• If it's the first entry of the day and user hasn't given a theme, use YYYY-MM-DD — Day N.md
• If the user mentions a specific activity, use that: 2026-04-06 — Road to Hana.md
• If multiple updates come in for the same day, append to the existing entry

Appending to Existing Day Entry

When a second update comes for the same day:

1. Find the existing entry for that date
2. Append a new section with a horizontal rule separator
3. Add the new photos, places, and notes under the relevant subheadings
4. Merge into existing sections (don't duplicate "Places Visited" — add new items to the list)

---
# existing content above
---

## 📸 Additional Photos
![[photos/2026-04-06-004.webp|Sunset from hotel lanai]]

## ✨ More Highlights
- Caught an incredible sunset from the lanai around 6:30pm

Obsidian Vault Path

Read from OBSIDIAN_VAULT_PATH env var, defaults to ~/Documents/Obsidian Vault. Always create the Travelogue/{Trip Name}/ folder structure if it doesn't exist.

Tips

• Be conversational when confirming — "Got it, logged the Road to Hana day with 3 photos"
• Don't over-process the user's words — preserve their voice in the entries
• If the user sends a photo without context, ask "What's this one?" or describe what you can see
• At the end of the trip, offer to generate a summary/trip recap
• Track running stats in the Trip Index (photos, restaurants, beaches, etc.)
• Use emojis as section headers for visual scanning in Obsidian