WalknTalk Tom Sawyer Journal

Made with thick, fragrant leather and a whole lot of passion, the WalknTalk Tom Sawyer Journal is more than your average notebook—it’s part of founder Nathan Minnehan’s mission to inspire self-discovery through handcrafted, archive-worthy goods. Sourced in the US, the oil-tanned leather cover features an embossed logo and vertical elastic band closure, and the Roman numeral stitching in two-tone thread creates an Old World aesthetic. The built-in pen loop is initially better suited to slimmer pens, but may stretch over time. Inside, the eco-friendly vellum paper is bound in three signatures of 22 to 24 sheets apiece, each page soft, smooth, and pleasant to write on.

The seed for WalknTalk was planted on the sun-drenched streets of Buenos Aires, where lifelong traveler Nathan Minnehan made and sold leather-bound journals while studying abroad. At the end of the semester, he sold his guitar, bought 60 pounds of leather, and returned to the States with a plan—and in 2012, WalknTalk was born. Today, the Chicago-based company makes products that are built to last, using leathers hand-picked from tanneries in the Midwest and California. A portion of its profits are donated to youth exchange and student travel through the WalknTalk DreamBox Scholarship.