Tuesday, April 24, 2012

Guest Post: Mlungu Brett on travel blogging



About the author: The guest post is that of a now experienced travel blogger. Brett (and his friend Darren) spent nearly a year travelling the world, all the while posting news, tips and photos on each leg of the jorney. In his first guest post, he talks about the best ways to go about blogging one's travels. You can find the Mlungu Trek blog, and see for yourself how it's done, at www.offexploring.com/mlungutrek.

Travel Blogging

The first step in any working class hero’s multi-month travel plans is to get off your behind and have that awkward conversation with your boss that you’re thinking of taking leave...for 9 months! You may not be so lucky as to be awarded this leave request and if it goes this way, and if you’re taking this seriously, then you’ll most likely follow this conversation with a less awkward one that is started and concluded very quickly with a crisp white envelope and contained letter that is slipped onto your boss's desk informing your boss of the start of your notice period and due resignation.

Once that’s out the way, you’re in for an exciting ride of excessive money spending on plane tickets, travel equipment, travel accessories, visas, accommodation and lots of farewell drinks. While you’re sipping on these drinks with all your envious family and friends many of them will most likely ask how they can keep in touch. In today’s connected world of email, Facebook and Twitter, the medium that is farthest reaching, most informative and very simple to use is a travel blog (take into account the less-technology-geared-with-no-Facebook-account people in your lives that you’ll want to update on your travels...generally parents and grandparents).

The travel blog exceeds the simple use of telling people where you are and what you’re doing. It’s a memory bank that you can look back on to remind yourself of your travels, to document any little travel tips that you have for specific places and to look back on when people inevitably come and ask you for help about specific places that they’re travelling to. It also gives you a place to post pictures, videos and thoughts.

As a travel blog enthusiast, you have three options for getting your blog up and running:
  1. Use an existing free travel blog provider (sites like: www.offexploring.com; www.travelblog.org; www.travelpod.com)
  2. Use an existing free blog provider (sites like: www.blogger.com; www.wordpress.com; www.weebly.com)
  3. Create your own website
Using a travel blog provider is the easiest route as they provide a format for your blog and it usually has the quickest and simplest interface for both uploading and viewing. The other advantages are that you become part of a travel community where you can probably interact with other bloggers using the site, quickly see what other bloggers that are in/have been to the same places as you have to say, upload as many photos and videos as you want, get a nice interactive map showing where you’ve been and where you’re going and you can possibly even book accommodation or other things for your trip. Remember they have a captive audience of like minded people to advertise to and offer services to, so they’re probably going to be relevant and helpful to your trip. And at the end of your trip, they’ll probably offer you an opportunity (for a fee of course) to print your blog and pictures and messages into a nice journal. The disadvantages of the travel blog provider is that there is probably little room for customisation and uniqueness as all the blogs follow the same pattern, format and layout. Our particular blog provider had no tracker to show how many people had been visiting the site and had no way of adding Google Analytics to perform this function. Connectivity to Facebook and Twitter were available but not great.

The general blog provider will swap the travel specific attention to the blog for a more customisable user interface that allows the blogger to create something unique and specific to their needs. Another nice thing here is that you can probably add entries that either have nothing to do with your travels or nothing to do with any place in particular – something that we found lacking in our travel blog and that would have been useful. One of the downsides is that you may not have the ability to create photo/video albums on the blog site and might have to link to another provider, say www.picasa.com or www.flickr.com, for this.

The website route provides the most space for customisation and you can literally create whatever you want here. This is your domain and you are in full control of how it looks and works. The biggest downsides here are: cost of hosting the site; cost of how much you can place on the site if you want to store your pictures and videos on the site; and you need to know how to build the website.

Just remember, the main reason for your travel blog is most likely to let people know and see what you’re doing, where you’ve been and where you’re going. It is also your memory bank that you’ll look back on when you need to remind yourself of what you’ve accomplished or you’re asked to help others that are going to places that you visited. The balance of customisation and features you need while keeping this in mind is probably what’s going to determine which of the above routes you will take.

So, get out there, experience the world and let everyone you know and meet travel vicariously through you by following your travel blog.

Words by guest writer: Brett Sacks (brettsontour@gmail.com; www.offexploring.com/mlungutrek)