Travel with Angela Lansbury: Following Family And Friends Online: Mapping and Tracking Their Trekking From Grand Hotels to Gorgeous Guest Houses

What can you tell from this map?

The capital of Java, and Indonesia, is Jakarta, in the North-west. The plane symbol tells you that you can fly into Jakarta. On the far East of the island is the ferry crossing at Banyuwangi, to Bali.

The word Nusa means island. (You sometimes see Pulau, which also means island.)

Problem
You follow family and friends online. But you could go further. Map and track their treks. Note where they stayed, from Grand hotels to gorgeous guests houses. Maybe homely hostels or horrid Hostels. Some people put everything about their travels on Tripadvisor. That's enormously helpful.

A friend or family member tells you about their travels.

Six months later they or you have forgotten that wonderful resort and hotel. They see you.

You ask, "How was Bali?"

They answer, "It was Java."

Or you say, "You promised to take me to that wonderful hotel on Bali."

"Which one?"

"You must remember.

Malaysia mainland to the left.

"I don't know. I stayed in a dozen. I've thrown away all the brochures."

We went back to a clifftop hotel in Bali called Kupu-Kupu Barong, meaning butterfly. A repeated word is a plural in Malay-Indonesian (same language like British-American English). The swimming pool was small. I would have preferred the grander hotel with the big infinity pool but that was out of our price range.

Answers

You can ask for a copy of your friends' and family members' route in advance. Or help by making them a map.

Years ago my late father tracked me as I went around the USA on a Greyhound bus and sent home postcards.

Tracking
My parents were surprised to find that after travelling anti-clockwise, New York, San Francisco, LA, New Orleans, I reversed direction.

When I got home to London, I explained. I had waved goodbye to a British boy, flatmate of my boyfriend in London, who went south to Machu Pichu in South America. I linked up with a French girl who wanted to go clockwise and accompany me back to San Francisco!

Keeping a record, including research and photos, as they go, also helps watchers if you don't like the photo of place your traveller loved.

Look at a trek across Java. You might be thinking, "Yes, after your night on the mountain, a cold shower and a bench to sit at seems like heaven. But I would prefer a proper hotel with hot showers, mosquito nets and tablecloths."

Here's a record I've made, now I have time to gather together some of the hotel and homestay photos I have been sent and match them up with research on the names of the locations.

Banana Homestay

Several countries have accommodation called Banana Homestay. This one has wifi.

Bamboo Tales And Benches
On closer inspection, I find one interesting detail of local life. The wooden tables are made of lengths of bamboo. So are the benches.
The wall is painted yellow "like bananas" the photographer says. To copy the theme of the name of the homestay, Banana homestay.

Open Ceilings and Back Walls
The ceiling is covered with cloth. I presume this covers the open to the sky roof. This photo reminds me that you see open-to-the-sky roofs in Indonesian bathrooms. (We had one at the Kupu-Kupu Barong hotel in Bali). Public room buildings in Bali and Indonesia have an open roof.

Other rooms have an open side, sometimes next to a fence or wall covered with plants. The ladies toilets in the Night Safari in Singapore were this style. So was a Ladies toilet in a Community Centre in Singapore.

Researching Bali and Java's Nayuwangi
Banyuwangi is your stop in Java, after arriving on the ferry from Bali, or catching the ferry back to Bali.

Banyuwangi Regency is not a five-star hotel but a place.

Wikipedia enthuses:
Banyuwangi Regency is a region on the eastern tip of Java, Indonesia, just west of Bali over the Bali Strait. It has diverse nature areas with protected jungle and marine life. The volcanic Ijen Crater features a turquoise lake 1 kilometre in diameter. The crater's naturally igniting sulfur creates distinctive blue flames that can be seen during nighttime hikes.

Sounds really interesting, if you are into hiking.

Banana Homestay
I looked at the photo of the Banana Leaf Homestay. I need a chair with a back.

I looked up the Banana Homestay guesthouse on Tripadvisor. People have such different experiences of the same place. One said you have to get a taxi or Uber. Another said the hotel owners picked them up personally.

Several spoke warmly of the trip to Ijen. I went onto Wikivoyage and found a photo. Unfortunately, it said that due to volcanic activity the night excursions are banned, and daytime hikers see nothing inside the crater because it is filled with smoke.
However, in July 2018 my friends planned a trip. They also scheduled climbing Raung. They were hanging around the guesthouse overnight, waiting for other members of the group to fly in next monring.

Ijen Crater from Wikivoyage.

I read the accounts again, paying more attention to every detail. You need torches, okay, and gas masks! Not okay.

That's the great advantage of being the stay at home armchair traveller. You can enjoy seeing all the sights, well away from the inconvenience of cancelled trips - and potential danger!

On the other hand, I went hitch-hiking in Madeira. After we had booked, I read that we need torches to walk through the tunnels. I was alarmed. But I never went near a tunnel. The serious hikers marched along the longer trails through tunnels. I stayed with the slow group, plodded along the easier paths, stopping to take photos as I went.

Scheduled Travel Posts
Meanwhile, I schedule my posts so they come up a few days or weeks later, for security reasons. Also to be sure I have posted every day even when I am away and can't write.

Time Needed To Write Reports And Posts
You'd be amazed how long it takes to edit a post. Up to three hours. You can't do that on holiday.

TripAdvisor Reviews I am a keen reviewer on Tripadvisor. I like to be able to look back at my own reviews.

Your Reviews Are Your Records - But For How Long?
I hope the Tripadvisor management won't take down old reviews. One person in the audience at a session on Tripadvisor at the World Travel Market, said that reviews over a month old were out of date and not relevant.

I disagree. If you had a bad or good impression of a place a year ago, you need to recall what upset you and whether that issue has since been addressed. When I wrote regularly fora Trusted Places, I assumed my reviews would last forever. It was like a blog, a record of my trips. Then the company was taken over by Yell (Yellow Pages) who decided to concentrate on the UK and drop all the foreign reviews.

I had not taken the precaution of writing them all in draft on my laptop before loading them up, but wrote them directly onto their form. As a result all those hours of work vanished forever. The photos. The amusing descriptions and funny phrases. All gone.

A relative of mine does not write on Tripadvisor. He treats it like Ebay. He thinks if you have a complaint you should first approach the management privately and give them a chance to put things right. Not tell the world.

Tracking Trips On the other hand, having everything duplicated on your laptop or phone means you soon run out of space. So how else can you keep track of your trips and those of family and friends?

Mapping and Tracking Trips and Treks

You can download and print a map to follow a friend's journey. Or make an online map.

I am a member of the AA. My father was for years. The sent him a certificate when he was in his nineties.

For planning my next trip, I like to keep a record of the tourist boards:

Also check the Tripadvisor reports on scams, such as a car driver-cum-trip-organizer refusing to go unless you pay a surcharge for photos when the location has no such charge.