Blogs as you travel

I do NOT believe in posting on any social media while on a trip. It lets everyone (including thieves) know that you are not home.

Well, I am not planning on posting our addresses or even full names or for that matter the State some of us are from. Also in each case, there will not be an empty house, no different or riskier than the post you just made, or for that matter as Rick Steves travels and blogs. Thanks for the concern, to each their own, but not an issue in my book.

I have a friend who doesn't post on social media while he is traveling, either. But he is such a regular poster that when he drops out of sight for awhile I know he is traveling. :)

But to answer your question, I use Blogger. It is simple to use, simple to customize, and to add pictures or videos. There is also an offline app where you can write your post, then just "send" when you are done, so you're not online while writing. I have found that it is the easiest way to keep in touch with home since they see a post from me every day.

I agree Nancy, in our case, four guys, there are maybe 20-30 people plus family that are interested in the trip, so some public access seemed best to update as we go. That way, if they are interested, they can follow, if not, then they are not bothered with emails or a Facebook Post. It also saves having to recap on our return, just direct them to the page.

The Tumblr page took about 15 minutes to set up, pos]ting is easy in an app or by logging in, so all looks good.

I did a blog a couple of years ago for a month long driving drip across the United States. My family and friends loved it or at least they said that they did. I used blogspot and I just sent a link to interested people and they opted to follow it. My daughter did a trip and used Tumblr for her travel blog and liked it. She is off to college so I can't ask her for details.

Yes. I did it for several weeks from South America. It was 100% via my iPhone. I took no laptop an used a wifi memory sick to back up my photos.

• I set up a blog on Wordpress and downloaded the app. I set my blog to private so it wouldn't be searched by search engines.

• I also downloaded Resize Image to shrink my photos to small size. This let me keep the original photo plus create a copy that was significantly smaller for quick uploading to the blog. It reduces an 8M picture down to 0.3M (you choose). I found the quality a little fuzzy at that level of reduction but there are other larger options too.

• I used an iPhone 6s for Everything. It was a little slow on 3G but I could still post.

• I used the photo editor on the iPhone Photostream to edit my photos. It is reasonably powerful. I could crop, change exposure, saturation, etc. good enough for a blog.

• I used the Dictation feature in Notes to create the text portion of my blog. This is superior to typing (IMO). Autocorrect is your friend. I then copy and pasted it into the Wordpress app.

• After I loaded the text I inserted photos. I added captions to the photos as needed.

One nice feature is that Notes and Photo editing and resizing can be done offline. That minimizes connection times and data usage.

If you're doing a moderate amount of writing, small stand and bluetooth keyboard may be a good choice. Wirecutter has some pretty good reviews for portable bluetooth keyboards.

I have used Travelpod for many years. It is free, has an address book, allows huge amounts of photos, and I have never had problem posting from abroad. I have done 3 Europe trips and two domestic. You get reader stats, can do a lot to link things..........I really like it.

If you want to check mine out, it is http://www.travelpod.com/members/billhall . You can take a look and check out the format and template. You're stuck with their template, but it looks good and people seem to like to read it. They make their money by selling bound copies of the blog. (Not required. I did buy one several trips ago and it was nice.)

If I was doing that, I'd go the @Cindy H route

Sounds like a blast, btw, please post your blog as now I'm interested too : D

Paul's trip began in mid-September, and he is, no doubt, home by now.

but he hasn't told us where his blog is!

I blogged on Wordpress but mostly posted on Facebook and only posted to friends, not acquaintences.
Also have you considered using Tmobile? I had unlimited data and was able to use my Iphone from verizon without buying a new phone. For $60 a month (no contract) I had the Tmobile plan from September to October and terminated it when I got home.

I've been blogging on Blogger during my France trips since 2010, and think it's great. It's easy to use, serves as a type of diary, and family and friends can keep track of our trip.