Forget Field Notes and Moleskines -- commodity Reporter's Notebooks are the best value for taking notes on places. When you buy them by the dozen, they cost just $1.75 each. 

And they fit very neatly into a jacket pocket, or a backpack.

And you can flip those pages fast, end-over-end, so they don't slow you down.

A Reporter's Notebook

They are difficult to find in real-world stores, but Amazon carries them in bulk.

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