Thought Id start a post about blogging for all you social media nerds.
There are a few free online blog providers, Wordpress and Blogger being the most commonly used. Open a free account, set as many or as few settings as you please and start blogging.
I use Wordpress for our blog. I run the Wordpress software on my own server so I have complete control of the data where I sometimes do advance postings, but you can get a free Wordpress or Blogger account and run it on their cloud.
Our blog is hidden from search engine spiders, so no-one should find it outside us and those I’ve given the web address to. It also has a password to view it. We’ve been actively using our blog for many years and its quiet extensive.
The blog selfishly actually started off as a means of avoiding our responsibility to make actual contact with family whilst we were away travelling ... we would add just enough info to appease them, and they didn’t expect (or get) any actual contact. They felt part of our activities, we didn’t really care and they never knew.
The blog quickly evolved into a very detailed travel diary, updated constantly every day and many times multiple times a day. Its much like an electronic picture book and is a dynamic and permanent record of our holidays, and other activities ... all safely secured and accessible in one place. It is far better than photos alone provide.
We can post direct to the blog via simple Wordpress Android or iOS Apps on our phones. The blog posts default to a predetermined trip category and provides a running commentary with minimal input. The App is basically a simple single screen where you type, take a pic, add a video or a GPS position and press send.
We generally post quick tit bits via the phone during the day, and do extended posts at the end of the day on the tablet …. With a refreshing tonic. A quick phone post with pics takes less than a minute.
Are your eyes glazing over ????…. stay with me, this is where it becomes priceless for us
We can go back through years of our blog posts which are grouped into trips or activities. When you have such detailed text and photogaphic travel histories its incredible, in a tragic way the unfortunately massive amount of info and detail you forget and forget quite quickly.
We all remember the big ticket events from our holidays, but its the other 80% of the trivial day to day stuff no-one commits to memory or paper and just disappears. Our blog solves that for us, and is constant source of memory refreshment we would otherwise have lost.
Because we also blog to a small audience each post has to be and detailed enough for the non participants to understand, and that makes it much better and more entertaining to us years later. The majority of the blog is made up of the stuff that would ordinarily be lost. Its all in the details and the little things rate a significant mention .... such as a breakfast time disaster, an in-van movie night because of bad weather, an odd looking hippy walking down the street. Photos of these things alone, without text don’t tell the story and don’t take in may have happened before or after the photo.
Our blog value was highlighted when we went overseas and the hotel internet was very hit miss. We didn’t bother with the blog for that reason and it is a massive regret now. Out of the 3 weeks, we remember big things but the details of the day to day is now lost. I’ve always got a camera on hand and I’ve always taken way too many photos …. But the difference of the photos versus the blog is no contest.
I cant recommend strongly enough, especially if you have young kids, to blog blog and blog some more; just for your own families benefit. We can watch our kids growing up through the blog posts. You wont regret it.
There are a few free online blog providers, Wordpress and Blogger being the most commonly used. Open a free account, set as many or as few settings as you please and start blogging.
I use Wordpress for our blog. I run the Wordpress software on my own server so I have complete control of the data where I sometimes do advance postings, but you can get a free Wordpress or Blogger account and run it on their cloud.
Our blog is hidden from search engine spiders, so no-one should find it outside us and those I’ve given the web address to. It also has a password to view it. We’ve been actively using our blog for many years and its quiet extensive.
The blog selfishly actually started off as a means of avoiding our responsibility to make actual contact with family whilst we were away travelling ... we would add just enough info to appease them, and they didn’t expect (or get) any actual contact. They felt part of our activities, we didn’t really care and they never knew.
The blog quickly evolved into a very detailed travel diary, updated constantly every day and many times multiple times a day. Its much like an electronic picture book and is a dynamic and permanent record of our holidays, and other activities ... all safely secured and accessible in one place. It is far better than photos alone provide.
We can post direct to the blog via simple Wordpress Android or iOS Apps on our phones. The blog posts default to a predetermined trip category and provides a running commentary with minimal input. The App is basically a simple single screen where you type, take a pic, add a video or a GPS position and press send.
We generally post quick tit bits via the phone during the day, and do extended posts at the end of the day on the tablet …. With a refreshing tonic. A quick phone post with pics takes less than a minute.
Are your eyes glazing over ????…. stay with me, this is where it becomes priceless for us
We can go back through years of our blog posts which are grouped into trips or activities. When you have such detailed text and photogaphic travel histories its incredible, in a tragic way the unfortunately massive amount of info and detail you forget and forget quite quickly.
We all remember the big ticket events from our holidays, but its the other 80% of the trivial day to day stuff no-one commits to memory or paper and just disappears. Our blog solves that for us, and is constant source of memory refreshment we would otherwise have lost.
Because we also blog to a small audience each post has to be and detailed enough for the non participants to understand, and that makes it much better and more entertaining to us years later. The majority of the blog is made up of the stuff that would ordinarily be lost. Its all in the details and the little things rate a significant mention .... such as a breakfast time disaster, an in-van movie night because of bad weather, an odd looking hippy walking down the street. Photos of these things alone, without text don’t tell the story and don’t take in may have happened before or after the photo.
Our blog value was highlighted when we went overseas and the hotel internet was very hit miss. We didn’t bother with the blog for that reason and it is a massive regret now. Out of the 3 weeks, we remember big things but the details of the day to day is now lost. I’ve always got a camera on hand and I’ve always taken way too many photos …. But the difference of the photos versus the blog is no contest.
I cant recommend strongly enough, especially if you have young kids, to blog blog and blog some more; just for your own families benefit. We can watch our kids growing up through the blog posts. You wont regret it.
