Why is maintaining a travel blog a good idea?
Travel can be a full on experience and many of the more immediate memories and feelings from that experience can fade, if they’re not recorded while still fresh in the mind.
Blogging is also a great way to set some time aside and think about the travelling experience more deeply, and to find meaning and greater satisfaction in the travel experience.
To top things off, blogging is a great way to let family and friends share in the fun and excitement of the experience of a lifetime.
The Best Travel Blogs
There are many blogs that are set up specifically as travel diaries, offering travel maps to show users journey as they progress around the world, along with easy to use photo uploads and location-specific blog pages. Some of the more prominent blogs include travelblog, which works like a travel information website as well as a blog, with suggestions for hostels, hotels, airlines and insurance.
For a more straight-laced site, travelpod is an excellent, high quality site; the best of its many functions is a photograph upload tool similar to the photo tool on Facebook; thus pretty simple to use.
Prepare Before Leaving
To get the maximum satisfaction out of an online blog, it’s best to set it up before leaving. This creates an opportunity to play around and practice with the site and get a hang of how blogging works. Also, Internet access can be hard to come by overseas; Internet cafes can be expensive and wireless hotspots can be sporadic, thus it’s good to be efficient and ready to go from the outset.
A good idea is to create a ‘goodbye’ blog post centred around a leaving party or packing for the airport to get some practice.
What to Write in a Travel Blog
A travel blog can seen like an exciting idea, until the dreaded writers block hits – or worse, writers diarrhoea, where words flow to an excess. It’s a good idea to read other blogs and get a sense of what an interesting blog is like to read. What is it about a good blog that draws the reader in and makes them feel like they’re ‘there’, wherever the traveller may be? A good blog doesn’t dwell on every little detail, nor does it fly through and describe a lot in only a few paragraphs.
Managing the Tone of your Blog
A good way to start is with a descriptive line or two to set the atmosphere; “The grey skies above mean a day of rain for Glasgow”, or “Monaco is a mini paradise of rich colors and even richer citizens”, followed by observations of unique cultural details and interesting personal experiences and anecdotes.
After all, the blog is something that will be read by friends and family and they’ll want to know the personal feelings and perspective: how the writer is enjoying (or not enjoying) the place they’re visiting. Finally, don't forget to end with a statement summarizing your experience.
The Importance of Pictures in Blogging
Never underestimate the importance of images as a means of communication on the Internet. While well written prose is important, many people use the Internet as a purely visual medium and will more likely be drawn into reading the text if there are interesting images attached. And, as the old cliché goes; a picture tells a thousand words. Something that could take one or two paragraphs of poetic ramble to describe could as easily be covered by uploading a single image.
And for people that aren’t friends and family, a blog with lots of colourful, exotic images will be more appealing than something text heavy. Of course, an all photo blog can be dull as well. Readers always want to know the stories, facts and details behind photographs, so a good mix of photo’s that compliment the words are ideal.
How to Maintain a Blog While on the Road
Maintaining a blog requires a lot of work and finding the time and the means can be challenging. Nowadays many people travel with laptops and, thanks to an abundance of wireless hotspots, connection to the Internet is easy. Many hostels and hotels have free or cheap wireless Internet and Internet terminals.
Quite a few shops will offer free wifi with purchase as well: try McDonalds or Star Bucks to name a few. It’s advisable to take notes while travelling, otherwise important details may get forgotten or lost. Taking notes doesn’t have to be a full on thing: scribbling down a few lines about what happened during each day just before going to bed can make things so much easier when Internet access suddenly becomes available.
At the end of the day, a blog can be hard work but it can also be extremely rewarding. It’s important to decide from the outset whether it’s feasible, whether there will be time and the means during the trip to update in a way that is sufficient and satisfying.
A blog can be much more fun than a simple hand written travel diary, and can enhance the travel experience; it’s well worth the consideration and effort. There are many useful rules and guidelines for blogging, but never forget to let natural creativity have at least some part in the process.