Blogging from the Road

The only job I’d love more than the one I have now would be to become a travel writer. Our camping trips, bike trips, snowmobile trips, each is an opportunity to tell a story and share with others our experiences. Even it’s local, if it’s somewhere I’ve never been, I want to share it.

When I first launched my blog in 2010, it was called Making Tracks: Tales from the Road. My objective was to write articles about our trips, whether on the motorcycles or snowmobiles, with photos and reviews of the businesses we visited.

Then it morphed into more of a photography blog, where my focus went to fine art photography (and microstock). I dropped Making Tracks and my blog became Kathleen Howell Photography, or just kathleenhowell.com. Now I’m back to focusing on microstock primarily, not so much fine art, and I still love to document our travels and adventures. Perhaps it needs a name again.

I’m writing this because today was the June meetup for Michigan Bloggers. One of our members posted on the Meetup page about taking a motorcycle road trip (after my own heart!) and is interested in blogging from the road. We have our upcoming motorcycle trip out west in a few months, and I’ll be doing the same, and I can’t wait! I decided to outline my regular strategy here and share what I’ve learned and what’s worked for me.

On the bike I take with me of course my phone (Samsung Galaxy S4), my DSLR (Nikon D5500) and my tablet (Motorola Xoom) with a Bluetooth keyboard. Last year I dumped TMobile for Verizon and though I’m paying more now, I have a data signal pretty much EVERYWHERE I go. Even in the middle of our 80 acres in South Dakota.

Photos I take with my phone that are used on my blog, I share to Dropbox so that they can be accessed and posted from my tablet later.  Blog posts are drafted right in the WordPress app on my phone, or on my tablet if I have WiFi. We have WiFi at the campground, but it’s patchy when the campground is full, due to everyone overloading it with their devices.

If I can’t connect to WiFi, I use an app called Penzu. It’s a really nice online journal with free and pro versions. I love that it’s accessible offline, allowing you to create drafts, and then upload them when you have a signal. You can then copy the draft from Penzu to WordPress. It’s what I’m using right now as I type this!

So say we go off for the day, visit several places and stop somewhere for a bite, with no WiFi for example. I could use my data and just draft the blog post in the WordPress app, but since I’m on a limited data plan, I’ll key my notes into Penzu and sync up when we return to the campground.

Photos are added from Dropbox, and if I use a photo I took with my DSLR, I can still upload since my camera is wireless. I can pull the photo from the camera to the Nikon app, upload it to WordPress and voila!

I like being able to share our travels as we go, the only downside is the time it takes to do it. Typically this all takes place at the end of the day, sitting around the campfire with a beverage – with our friends.  I try to balance writing and socializing to get it all done!

Do you blog from the road when traveling?  What works for you?