BootsnAll Travel Community

How difficult do you find it to keep your blog updated on the road?

Are you like me: too lazy to do it on short trips and too technically inept to do it from a PDA?

Do you lose large chunks of your travelogue because you are far from the nearest internet café and/or because you end up losing your travel diary?

Do you get back home and leave it too late and then never get back to it?

I just never seem to find the time to update regularly while travelling, and then get stressed out because I'm still stuck near the start and the trip's almost over. Then I have to find the time to catch up at home, because if I don't I will regret not having these memories written down in a legible format. But it sucks and it feels wrong. Blogging from the road is way cooler.

So what's your experience? (Note that I don't carry a laptop for various reasons.)

I do travel with a laptop usually, and I find that I end up keeping very abbreviated notes in Word or something during the actual trip. Sometimes I have time to turn those into blog posts when I get home, sometimes I don't... I'm kind of a bad travel blogger. But just know you're not alone!

Sometimes it is, but I will usually just post something short to say "I'm doing nothing".

I also carry a laptop which makes life much easier.

The thing with blogging is you really need to post on a regular basis or people lose interest. I will often write stuff in advance but not have it go live for several days. If I know I will be in an area without Internet I will try to schedule something to go live during that time.

Once you reach some sort of critical threshold of readers, they will start to bug you when you don't post..

Yup I´m finding it hard! And people are starting to say it to me. I had my laptop up until about a month ago, and it was fine then. But I left my laptop in Ecuador while I do some traveling in Central America and now it´s damn hard! Putting up photos in an interner cafe is turning out ot be hard.
I´ll just have to catch up when I get back to Ecuador.

Preparing stuff in advance is a really cool idea!

I've just played around with editing the time stamp, and it would appear that an entry on a Boots blog remains hidden until the time matches. That would be a cool way of 'updating' the blog while you stuck in the jungle/diving on a desert island

Of course the problem remains of how you get organized enough to prepare stuff in advance...

And cybersusst, I find that uploading photos is the greatest pain of all. I tend set aside special 'uploading sessions' whenever I'm near a fast computer with USB, but I often have to back up on CD and wait until I get home. On short trips, time is just too precious.

Break a post up into multiple parts. You don't want to be posting anything too long anyhow. Then you can spread it over a few days.

I will manage my photos on my laptop then move it to a USB drive if I need to take it to an internet cafe. I only upload about 1 in every 5 to 10 photos. The rest I store on an external HD and burn to DVD and send home.

I kept a cheap $0.50 notebook with me and wrote down things as they happened. Not details, but just enough to remind me later "really bad chinese food." "no electricity at campsite whole time." "slipped, fell, bruise the color/size of eggplant".

I updated the blog ranging from every few days to once a week. however, in Morocco I couldn't use the keyboards so didn't update the whole time. After I was back home I updated that section and though I had all my notes, I wasn't as 'into it" as when I was on the road.

That's exactly my feeling.

I find a notebook indispensable. Even when carrying a PDA/laptop, it's the only way to jot down those quick top-of-the-head impressions.

Hey Guys,

I have managed to update my blog with photos for everyday I have traveled for the last two years. I carry a laptop and end up averaging an hour a day getting photos edited,

We have decided not to try and do blog entries every day - mostly to avoid the 'I did this, and then this' type of blog, which we aren't too keen on.

Actually though, we have been doing our blogs more like individual diary entries - I guess it's both being writers. So they are more diary and less travel logue.

It is helping that two of us are keeping the blog though, that makes it easier. We have been here a month so far and we've managed to average around 5 blog entries a week.

I think it's sorting the photos that takes the most time. I'm so glad we have a laptop with us. I'd hate to be doing all the processing in an internet cafe.

I don't thing many people actually read our website either way. I think it's more just the odd family member. We both just see it as a record of our trip that we can have to look back on in the future.

I always make the attempt at a semi-regular update if possible while travelling. Our Sand and Tsunamis blog is mostly a method of keeping friends and family up to date with what's happening while we're living in Japan, but ends up only getting updates when there's something "bloggable". The good stuff seems to happen when we're on the road.

We went to SE Asia last fall, and I was able to make a few updates at internet cafes. In China in May, I made a bit more of an effort to make daily updates. It eventually worked out to an update covering a couple of days, but worked. I'm still updating those entries with pictures even now, though, as it was difficult to find a place where I could upload them.

As for notekeeping on the road, I'm a big fan of the Moleskine notebooks. With several sizes and covers to choose from, and a handy elastic band to keep it closed, and a pocket in the back for bits and bobs, it's the best "analog" way I've found to keep up with things. Somewhat on the pricey side at around $15 for a pocket notebook, it's worth every penny. Hell, if they were good enough for Hemingway, I guess they're good enough for me as well!

FWIW, if you want to see the god (little g, of course) of daily blogging, check out Boots n'all Alumnus The Global Trip Erik Trinidad and his Global Trip. 503 days of blogging...he said that it got to the point that it sometimes was a bit of a burden. But, for the community of regular readers that sprang up in the comments section, he was quite the role model. His new site is definitely worth a look.

Cheers...

I think it depends on whether you are keeping as a journal or actually if your good and have a following. In the end you need to enjoy the process and not make a chore and spend hours in a internet cafe instead of checking the sites or enjoying your time in a country.

I kept a blog when I traveled for 6 months but not for short trips. Now I look back and I'm glad I did it...its my own journal. I found many of my friends read it but rarely others. Next time I think I will do more of a Photo Blog.

I blogged my first trip this summer...all 60 days...I could not do it everyday and sometimes I would get emails about the lack of posting...But when I wrote about everyday, sometimes putting in a few days at once and I would have to spend 1-2 hours getting it all in...it was more for my family across the country and some friends, and for myself for remembering the trip, so I put more effort in...It was a pain in the ass from time to time but you would be shocked as to where internet has reached in this world...

This is one thing that I really hope that I do and am able to keep up with. Once I hit the road the goal is going to be to have an update for every day. I do tend to write in my journal daily so I'm not worried about material, but rather about updating at internet cafes.

I really wanted to update my blog every few days while in spain, but then I got sick - twice - they left me in bed a few days... and I find that I'm now posting stories when I'm back at home. :-( Not happy about that.

Also, the internet was sort of hard to get to on the island. That made it more difficult.

The tefl logue isn't a personal blog, so it's a little different, but I found it exceedingly difficult to update it on the road. I cannot believe how much time and money I spent to make that possible.

I like writing, I'm not short of things to say and opinions to share, and I just enjoy reading the boards here and other tefl blogs. But after that experience I would think twice about recommending someone keep a travel blog, well, maybe better to say expecting to update it frequently and have people call it "good."

I had a laptop, and I need to write on my laptop, not at an internet cafe surrounded by noise and smoke and whatever else...granted, I need the internet to write about as well, I can't just write every post on my own and then just save it and post...but sometimes there is no USB drive, or it is not working and you have to switch, sometimes one place is full and you have to go to another; if you try to find wifi you are carting your laptop around all the time, and then you get a coffee and find out wifi doesn't work or wifi goes out. Or the power goes out at the hostel, or there is no plug in a convenient location, or someone else is using it. Each issue individually is not a big deal - I would usually tell people to just chill out about it - but when something happens every day it really makes it harder.

I do like writing, and I spend time online anyway, but the effort that would need to go into updating a well written blog daily is very large.

I actually am pretty keen at keeping my blog updated in as much detail as possible when I'm traveling. I think it's more for me to remember my trips. My blogs really don't tend to be reader-friendly- usually big chunks of text without any pictures until I get back and mass upload them all to some site.

I look forward every day (or whenever I can access an internet cafe) to writing a detailed entry in my blog (maybe half an hours worth of typing)- I can't write separate emails about my goings on to all my friends, so I can do this and everyone can read!

I don't update my blog everyday on the road but I generally don't have a problem keeping it updated at least once a week. When I'm on the road I want to share everything, plus take a break with some technology, so I generally don't see it as a chore

I've hit a point where I have so many photos, I release one per day on my site. I have them lined up almost a month in advance.

I also have enough photos and stories that I seldom lack something to say. It is just a matter of how long I want to write.

It is a LOT of work, but I have mostly kept up while moving, although I am behind again now and just hate that feeling. It is horrible writing it from a distance of time. I have a lot of people following us so I feel an obligation to some extent....but sometimes I do feel like taking a vacation from my blog.

I really do enjoy the creative process, but I hate the time it takes. The pictures are the worst for me as we have over 400, 000 pictures and just keep taking them,so it is quite hard picking only 12 for each entry. We take tons of pictures and there are usually too many to choose from.

Finding internet connection and uploading is sometimes a real pain and that slows things down. I give the uploading task to my husband and sometimes it is easy and sometimes it is a nightmare that takes hours or days.

It was hard to adapt to the free flow that must be used for a traveling blog when on the move, as there is no time for any real editing or you never get it up. I usually need lots of rewrites, but had to go with the flow.

I write much more than most people do in blogs, but my audience enjoys that and the extra pictures. I am going to try to be less wordy in the new year,but not my forte.

Still, I am really glad that I have kept this blog of our multi-year trip around the world as it is has been a priceless keepsake. It has also meant a lot to family and friends and keeps them close. I have been amazed at the people from around the world who have enjoyed the story and pictures and I really appreciate knowing that it helps other travelers, inspires, gives pleasure to those who enjoy it vicariously and some families use it as an educational tool. Those things help motivate when it feels hard.

It does, sometimes, feel like a job ( and a slog) as I juggle travel research, a bouncing 5,6, and now 7 year old interrupting constantly and my duties to her, exploring the local terrain and sites, and just living,..... but it has been worth it. I can not even tell you how much time has been put into it....TONS. I had no idea what I was getting into before I began. I am amazed any one does a travel blog while moving.

We have not lost any of our story. We travel with laptops, so that makes it a little easier as I can do some writing sometimes while we roam or when hubby and child sleep. We also travel very slow which also helps. When we travel more quickly I fall behind and then catch up when we stay in one place for a month or so. It is important to not get too far behind as it could reach a point of no return.

On the road I live in 3 worlds, the one I am in ,the one I am researching that we are going to and the one where we just left that I am blogging about.