On Wednesday I dove into the first half of Traveler’s Company’s much-anticipated “B-Sides & Rarities” collection, looking at two somewhat-hyped papers: Their new Washable Paper and Super-Lightweight Paper. Today, I’ll open up the rest of the refills, including two devoted to correspondence (the Letter Pad and Message Pad), two intended for highly-specific use cases (“Sticker Release” Paper and the Accordion Fold), and a new accessory, the Cotton Zippered Case that let’s you turn your Traveler’s Notebook into a wallet.

The Letter Pad: Midori MD Cotton Paper (Finally) Comes to the Traveler’s Notebook

Midori MD Cotton paper is one of my favorite fountain pen friendly papers on the market today, though it’s currently available only in blank pads and notebooks in “F” sizing. At one point, Midori made their standard A5 notebooks in MD Cotton, but sadly those have since been discontinued. Now, however, you can purchase MD Cotton paper for your Traveler’s Notebook in the form of the new B-Sides & Rarities Letter Pad, which contains 30 sheets of paper ruled for letter writing on one side, with a 3mm grid on the other. Out of all the new “B-Sides & Rarities” refills, this is perhaps my favorite, though I will likely use this one as a notepad as opposed to written correspondence.

The Message Cards are fountain pen friendly, and perfect for adding short notes to gifts and packages. If you don’t want to carry the full refill around with you, you can also detach a handful of the cards and store them in the pouch of your Traveler’s Notebook. (See below.)

Special Purpose Refills: Message Cards, Accordion Paper, and a Sticker Album

The next three new refills I plan to discuss are the ones I will likely use less frequently, simply because I don’t have as much of a personal use case for them in my daily rotation, though they’re still interesting. The “Message Cards” (pictured here) are a book of perforated, letterpress-like correspondence cards that you can use for short notes or gift tags. The “Accordion Fold” refill is a booklet containing 13 pages of folded watercolor paper, which you can extend map-style to create illustrated itineraries, multimedia travel journals, or even a timeline of your plans for the year. Finally, the “Sticker Release Paper” is made from the same paper used for sticker backing. If you collect stickers or tags from your travels, or are looking for an easy way to organize your washi tape collection, this refill lets you add, remove, and reorganize them in an album-style refill. (Note: I don’t have a sticker collection or much artistic ability with watercolor paper to show you how to use the Sticker Release or Accordion refills, though you can check out some stock photos from Traveler’s Company in the product listings to give you some ideas.)

Last But Not Least: Add Functionality to Your Traveler’s Notebook (Particularly the Passport Size) By Turning It Into a Wallet

I’ve been waiting for the right moment to add a Passport-sized Traveler’s Notebook into my daily rotation. What I would love to do is to be able to carry the Passport-size notebook as a wallet, if only on occasion, to reduce bulk and avoid carrying both a wallet and pocket notebook. The new Cotton Zippered Case might do the trick, since it contains two card slots, perfect for identification, library cards, and credit cards (though I wouldn’t overload it), and a zippered pouch, where you can stash coins, ticket stubs, and even cards that you’d prefer to keep in a more secure location. This accessory adds less bulk to the Traveler’s Notebook than the standard PVC zippered pouch, and is available in a standard size as well as the Passport size shown here.

When I first saw this product announced, I was skeptical, but the thin cotton material actually adds very little bulk to the notebook.

Takeaways and Where to Buy

I plan to get a lot of use out of the B-Sides & Rarities collection, even though I will use some refills and accessories more regularly than others. (The Letter Pad will see a lot of use.) Honestly, you don’t even need to have a Traveler’s Notebook to take advantage of some of these, particularly the Letter Pad, Sticker Release Refill, and Memo Cards. With respect to the latter two, I’m not sure I see a circumstance in which I’d ever actually carry them in my actual notebook, though I may keep a set of the Memo Cards in my desk.

You can purchase these refills, along with the rest of the Traveler’s Company “B-Sides & Rarities” Collection, in the T.G.S. Curated Shop. The Gentleman Stationer is an authorized retailer of the full range of Traveler’s Company products, including the Traveler’s Notebook and TRC Brass accessories, and I recently placed a reorder so almost everything should be in stock.

Check out these links to read further about the Traveler’s Notebook System, including how I set up my own personal Traveler’s Notebook and some of my favorite refills and accessories.

Inspired by the tracks that used to appear on the “B-Side” of vinyl singles, the “B-Sides & Rarities” collection from Traveler’s Company features refills made from unusual papers with unique properties that serve a specific purpose. There are six different refills, available in both Standard and Passport size, and today I plan to look at the first two: the “Washable Paper” refill and the “Super Lightweight Paper” refill. The first as you might guess, is waterproof (or water-resistant, choose your own terminology), and the second contains ultra-thin (yet strong) onionskin paper.

Washable Paper: A “Waterproof” Paper Option for Those Who Risk Getting Their Notebooks Wet

Water-resistant paper is always a mixed bag in terms of writing experience, tends to be expensive, and typically can’t be used with fountain pens or other water-based inks. Here, with their new “Washable Paper” refill, Traveler’s Company has foregone Yupo or Rite-in-the-Rain paper in favor of the same material used to make laundry tags, with interesting results! Most notably, instead of the ink sitting on top of the page, resulting in extremely slow dry times, the Washable Paper absorbs ink. Not only does this render dry time and smearing to essentially non-issues, but it maintains “water resistance” with even the most non-water-resistant fountain pen inks. For example, if you get caught in the rain, spill a glass of water, or, heaven forbid, send your notebook through the washing machine, your writing should remain legible. And because the paper was specifically intended to be washed, it will retain its original shape and not fall apart or stick together.

For this test I cut a sheet of Washable Paper from the refill, and wrote a few lines with various pens, including fountain pens loaded with some of the least water-resistant inks in my collection (various colors of Iroshizuku and a generic black cartridge). Note that extremely wet inks will feather a bit on this paper since it’s so absorbent. Like most waterproof papers, ballpoints and pencil work the best, but fountain pens are at least usable here, with much quicker dry times. — For this test I cut a sheet of Washable Paper from the refill, and wrote a few lines with various pens, including fountain pens loaded with some of the ***least*** water-resistant inks in my collection (various colors of Iroshizuku and a generic black cartridge). Note that extremely wet inks will feather a bit on this paper since it’s so absorbent. Like most waterproof papers, ballpoints and pencil work the best, but fountain pens are at least usable here, with much quicker dry times.

As you can see, while the fountain pen ink definitely washed out after a 30-minute soak, I can still read my writing to a degree which would allow me to salvage the information if the notebook ever got sent through the washing machine. I doubt there would be any effect at all on writing done exclusively in ballpoint. Just to reiterate - NONE of the fountain pen inks I used here had any water-resistance whatsoever, and would likely disappear entirely from standard paper.

Super Lightweight Paper: An Ultra-thin Option with Better Dry Times than Tomoe River

As I discussed in an earlier post, Tomoe River Paper faces an uncertain future. The company that manufactures the paper has announced its discontinuation at various points over the past couple of years, only to backtrack, most recently announcing that while they intend to shut down their own production by the end of the year, they are exploring ways to outsource the manufacturing. Honestly, it all sounds very contingent to me, and I can’t imagine what I’d be doing if I were running a business dependent on the continued availability of this paper.

Traveler’s Company, for its part, is clearly exploring alternatives. While it’s standard “Lightweight Paper Refill”, which contains 128 pages of Tomoe River paper, is a favorite among many, the new “Super Lightweight Paper” from the “B-Sides & Rarities” collection deserves consideration in its own right. Instead of Tomoe River, the Super Lightweight refill contains 128 pages of what appears to be onionskin, an even lighter and thinner translucent paper originally used for airmail correspondence (due to its light weight) and typewriters (due to the combination of light weight and strength). Traveler’s Company describes this paper as “oilproof”, which supposedly “does not allow for oil to penetrate easily so it is hard to smear when using a fountain pen.” I’m not sure of the science behind that, but I can attest to the fact that this paper has a much quicker dry time and much less smearing than Tomoe River paper. On the other hand, it has a slightly “draggier” feel when writing with a fountain pen, and you will have more show through due to the fact that the paper is thinner. (The exact amount of show-through will vary depending on your writing pressure and ink choice.)

You’ll notice that while there is no bleed-through on this paper, there is show-through, especially where I used heavy writing pressure. It could be difficult to use both sides of the page. With pencil or a ballpoint, you would probably be fine.

Takeaways and Where to Buy

While I probably wouldn’t use these two refills as my primary everyday writing paper, that’s not what Traveler’s Company intended with the B-Sides & Rarities collection. The Waterproof Paper would be a top choice for a camping or boat trip, or a travel situation with a high risk of spills (train trip, for example?). Some might opt for the Super-Lightweight Paper as a replacement for the Lightweight Paper Tomoe River Refill, which I presume may be in short supply as manufacturing issues with Tomoe River paper are sorted out, but be aware of the show-through that might prevent you from using both sides of the page for standard writing. Stay tuned as I work my way through the rest of the newly released refills!

You can purchase both of these refills, along with the rest of the Traveler’s Company “B-Sides & Rarities” Collection, in the T.G.S. Curated Shop. The Gentleman Stationer is an authorized retailer of the full range of Traveler’s Company products, including the Traveler’s Notebook and TRC Brass accessories.