Why Write A Travel Blog?

Statue of Poet and Priest in Ljublijana, capital of Slovenia.

Slovenian National Poet Frances Preseren.
 

I am currently giving speeches on languages. A side issue is placenames and sightseeing in the countries. One reason for learning languages is to help you get around. Not get lost. Find your way to major sights. Check opening times on the doors of closed restaurants. Read signposts. Now I am putting my researches on languages on my travel blog. I tried running a sparate language blog, but I got more readers for eactly the same post on a travel blog. More people are interested in travel than in learning languages. 

But is the number of readers relevant? Yes it is. Both for the satisfaction and as a commercial undertaking. 

Why would you start to write a blog?.

I started my travel blog primarily to maintain my reputation as a travel writer. 

Secondly as a record of my travels. A way to organize my trips into specific subjects. Later I used drafts as a wishlist or planning device for forthcoming trips.

A blog is written log on the web, a daily record of thouhts, actions, descriptions or instructions. The two extremes are the business blogs, which tells you nothing about the writer but praises a product which the writer wants you to buy (such as a destination and a package holiday.  They want the maximum number of readers, and buyers, The more readers, the more potential buyers. The more blog readers, the more the writer will be paid by advertisers. 

The extreme opposite is the writer who has nothing to sell, no readers, writing to record their own thought,s a diary, such as a record of their summer holiday, so they can re-read later. 

You can use a blog for all sorts of things. You could write family recipes, recipes you collected from aroud the world, record your hobby or sport, your holidays hiking, at music festivals, wine tours, show your children growing up at beaches around the world, or write the first draft of a novel set in foreign countries (or Murder on the Epress Train). 

Order of Reading Posts

Your most recent post comes at the top of the list. I wrote a novel inclduing Ukraine, the USA, and UK, and found the problem with using a blog for it is that you have to follow the chapter or scene every day fom when the first post is released to to get the flow when writing, but also when reading to read it in the right order. This is confusing for a new reader, or yourself if you come back to it a year later. If you start by reading today, and then look at yesterday, and so on, you are reading the novel in reverse order. 

You might start a blog as a hobby, an account of travels or life in another country, then when you gather readers, or gain confidence, you ahcnge the style or improve it and turn it into a business. Or use it confidently to write another blog for a business.

If you had a blog with only two posts, yas on Facebook, you might be able to pin the earlier post. Alternatively you could change the dates of the posts.

Why Choose Blogger?

If you are writing a personal blog, for yourself, your family, or a hobby, I suggest you start with blogger.com which is easy to use. They have a template. You just need to decide on a title, picke the layout, start writing and if you have one, add a picture. You could take your theme or favourite post from Facebook as a starting point.

If you are selling products, running a business, you might be better off using a more complicated system which lets youselect the shapes of pages, and fonts and do more complicated things, and add buy now and sign here and so on. (You can also get commercial firms to run a blog for you) For example, if you were selling cosmetics, you could run a blog on look more beautiful. Every blog post would end with a product, such as buy this cream for your skin, or this fruit for your health. 

If you already have a miling list you might have readers straight away, or a sign about your blog in your shop or on your products. 

However, if you are just starting your first blog as a fun experiment, your first blog has no readers in the first five minutes, unless you have mentioned something imortant, such as your eye witness account of a g into a plane crashing into a train or giving birth to ten children in ten minutes.

You can go onto the statistics page and see how many readers you have. When you write your blog post first thing in the morning obviously the first secodn after you have finished writing it the number is zero. Your thought is, how can I make this popular and attract readers.

At this point you have to consider, two people, the writer and the reader. What do you want to get out of? What will the reader get out of it. Where I had dinner last night might interest your children or your mother. Where to eat the best Italian food in the world, and get free drinsk at weekend, will attract more readers. So you might want to change your title, or change the whole subject matter or emphasis. 

My son is in Search Engine Optimisation. I started writing my first blog on travel to tell eidotrs and people promoting destinations what I could say about destinations, resorts, and individual museums, hotels and restaurants.

Photos

I asked my son for advice. He said, one photo at the top is not enough. Look at the top selling blogs. They have two or three pictures, sometimes a picture to illustate the idea in each paragraph. So your title Spain for sun, sesa and sand, has to have a map of Spain, a sunset picture, a view of the sea, and a sandy beach picture, ending with a buy now or link now to the package tour of airline, or several. You should be plannin your whole, year, as a committee might to for a year of Toastmasters meetings. Plan for people taking holidays Christmas, Easter, and summer February is Valentine's day, roamtic destinations. Easter might be skiing, midnight mass, tours to the Vatican, and chocolate musuems and factory visits. Through the year you have national days New Year's Eve around the world. Events like boat races, horse races, car races, football and tennis, and animal shows. 

How will you find enough subjects to write a blog on clothes or travel every day. I just need to walk along my own high street to see restaurants, shops selling suitcases, parking restrictions, bus routes, taxi services. The supermarket has food and drinks from around the world., seasonal decorations and seasonal products. I did a blog post when the clocks changed to British summer time.

What about clothes. How do I find 365 subjects without spending a fortune.I can take a photo of myself in what I am wearing now. I have red sandals. I can write about sandals for travelling. On my travel blog. Wearing a red outfit on my clothes blog. What about my navy jacket with pockets? I can write about clothes with pockets for travelling. I can write about different colours of jacket on my dress outfits blog. dressof the dayyangelablogspot.com

Copying Posts

I could copy my entire blog post from one website to another. But my son warned me that Google might not pick up the second website. It thinks its the same website, or that I have copied another website. Even if its not plagiarism, Google reckons a reader doens't want to read the same thing twice. So I need different phtos. Soe everywhere I go I take two photo. From two differnet angles. One close up, another from a distance. That wasy I can do post with different picures. I can change the title. One post is on Seasides in Span. ANother is the best Spanish sandy beaches.  

Statistics

I look at my blog statistics throughout the day. I had 7,000 readers of my blog post in my travel yesterday. If it gets to lunch time and I have fewer than 3,500 readers, I either change the title or write another blog post.

Links

A friend of mine from another Toastmasters club in the UK, Harrovians, told me I should put links on other media. So I put a link to my blog on Facebook. Then on LinkedIn. Than on Pinterest. Then on Instagram. My readership shot up. Of course, you ought to be doing that every time. But even when I forgot or was too busy, I still seemed to benefit from a permanent increase in numbers. Either I ahd acuired regular readers, or people kep reading the links in my profile on LinkedIn and other places.

If you are starting a new blog, take a look at my blogs. If you have any questions come back to me. I can write a blog post for you with the answers.

Making your travel blog with a MacBook - photo problems solved

My copmuter systems are not shaking hands.

I write an amusing travel post for you and go to load up the essential picture, the photo of the food at the restaurant I'm reviewing, or the travel suitcase. A picture is worth a thousand words. But I can't load up the picture. I thought it was because I did not know how to do it. Or the internet was slow. No. I and you and others have had the same problem.

You may have had trouble loading up your photos if you have a new MacBook or have installed new software on an old machine. In the good old days, you were probably able to move photos instantly simply by clicking on the little icon above your draft post, the one with the cute picture of the blue sky, then clicking on pictures, but wherever you search, no photos appear, just a blank screen.

I had moved from Blogger to Wordpress but it didn't help. That's because the new software and your Blog post on either Blogger or Wordpress won't talk to each other. If you go onto the forums you will find that you are not the only person with this problem.

The solution seems to be to move your photos out of the new photo system (with the rainbow petals on a schematic daisy) onto your desktop. Then move them across. From the computer using customer's point of view that's a time consuming, backward step. You have paid a lot of money to install what you thought would be a new system and instead you are worse off than when you were on the old system.

From the point of view of the paying customer, it's time Apple and Blogger and Google and the big boys, and girls, got together. It's no good pretending that it's not our company, not our fault, not our problem.

If you are running a tourists industry, (and a computer is a kind of tourist industry), you want to ferry people from one country to another. It's no good creating a wonderful plane or ferry service when the foreign country won't let anybody from your country land. You advertise your wonderful modern ship. But it can't get into the ports where your customers used to go on holiday.

You land them on a remote island, with no sight of the destination, and no guidance how to get there. (And you have charged them a lot of money.) Some of them will try to get back on the overcrowded sinking little boat (the old laptop with iPhoto, which keeps sinking under the weight or volume of pictures and data.)

Others will shout out you. But nobody seems to be listening. If the makers of the grand cruise ship, admittedly a beautiful ship, although it won't take you to your destination. won't listen, or at least don't admit that they have heard or intend to do anything, what's left for the customers to do.

Get together. Post information. (As I am here.)

Hope that the go it alone experts will come to everybody's aid. Appeal to them. As I am now. Go and work for Apple, Google, Blogger, Wordpress, and solve the problem. If you are in marketing, persuaded your boss that you should contact the other company and do a deal which will benefit both of you.

What if you've tried to get a job with 'the big boys' and failed. Or you are far away from their office, or in another country. You don't have a great cv. Or you prefer to work from home. But you are smart. You think you can solve the problem.

Do us all a favour. Tell us the solution. If you like, if you care more about fame than money, or think fame will lead to fortune, add your name to it. The Fred photo fix. The Smith software solution. The Ali apple answer. The Lim longterm solution.

All those computer geeks who are spending their time doing damage to big companies instead could be doing everybody a favour and and instead of being hidden villains in danger of going to prison they could become popular heroes with the chance of being famous and respected by finding us solutions. Get our photos back up on our travel blog posts. Fast. Thank you.

Then you will have the pleasure of seeing a great picture on my blog posts every day, not just at the end of the day or week, when I've had time to do things the long way round. Yes, I'll come back later and add a photo - if I've got time.

Can you help? Can you spread the word? Can you like this post or forward it? Please do so.

Angela Lansbury B A Honours, travel writer, blogger, author, speaker.

Making a travel diary from any notebook

You can make a travel diary and/or dictionary from any notebook.

The bigger the notebook the more space you have to write. A large hardback notebook could go in a backpack.

However, a big notebook can be heavy to carry around. Sometimes, when I am away for a weekend, or taking a weekend or day trip by plane or train or ferry, I travel light with just a small notebook in my pocket.

Bulk Buy for Savings
Where to buy a notebook? I buy in bulk, sets of three notebooks.  In a cheap shop such as Poundland. Notebooks with ribbon markers.

Same Colours or Varied Colours?
A set of same colour notebooks, for one long trip, or different colours show which country is which.

Flag Cover
You could mark each travel notebook with the flag of the country. Print out the flag if you have a colour printer. (Flags on Wikipedia for that country or under flags.) Or print in black and white to save ink and go over the coloured section with a felt tip pen.) Your home diary has your home country flag. Very quick even to send somebody else to look for your home diary or travel trip diary.

Fancy Covers - Guard Against Loss
Fancy covers are ideal for a notebook to take to a conference, where so often somebody leaves behind their clipboard or notebook or both. So if I leave mine behind on a desk, as I leave a room I glance back and I can spot it at a distance, on the desk or under my chair. I immediately know its mine. Even strangers will remember that I was the lady with the notebook with the peacock or rainbow or cats on the cover, and return it to me, or tell me the room where they saw it left behind.

DIARY BOX AND PHOTO BOX
The First thing I do is label the front and back covers and the spine with the country and date.
Prepare your show box to store the diary and label your shelf so the shoe box always goes back the same place. You might keep your diaries alongside the dictionary and travel guide. Or a photo box. Label the photo box on all sides with the name of the country, and date and possibly also season.

COVER/TITLE, INDEX, PAGE NUMBERS
Your travel diary needs a COVER, TITLE, INDEX and PAGE NUMBERS.
Start with a box for a title, possibly underneath a box for a flag or photo. Alternatively print a flag or photo as background, inserting a box for the title. You can write in the title by hand or print it.

Use the font of your choice and enlarge it to fit the front cover, horizontally. If you print it too big, it may fit long ways or even diagonally.

Label the back cover and spine, if any. Or use a box as cover. Or reinforce the cover with white card stuck on or folded over and attached with glue at the spine, or just with a ribbon like a restaurant menu.

Make an index at the front and another contents at the back. At least write the words index at the top.

Count the number of pages. Ideally you should have that number of lines, one for each page. If the number of pages is, for example 50, but you have only 25 lines per page, you have a choice. Make the inside cover the index and draw lines in pencil.  Divide the index page into two vertically and write - or print - small. Continue the index on the back inside cover or back page.

It's important to start the index before you start writing. The first time I wrote a travel diary in a notebook, I forgot the index and then had too little room at the end of the book for a contents list, which was longer than the inside back cover.

PAGE NUMBERS
Rather than counting pages, then numbering pages, number pages, then you get the word count.

If there are a large number of pages, number pages 1 2 and 3, then only the odd numbers. You could write numbers top right. Unless you like to turn down or tear off page corners. I usually number pages in erasable pencil the first time, then go back and write neatly in pen. You might decide to start numbering after the index, rather than have pages 1-3 listed as index.

TITLE PER PAGE
You might write a title on each page - especially if it's a loose leaf notebook, a Filofax, or a ringbinder.
You could write out generic headings with dots such as
Date .............................
Country .......................
City .............................

Printed DIY Diary
You could print your own diary. Some companies will print a dairy for you with a title and cover photo.

Or print pages with headings and dotted or solid lines, boxes for photos or drawings, page numbers. Print a cover. Use a stapler which does up to 6 pages. Or carry the pages in a folder. Later punch two holes and tie it all together with ribbon.

HONEYMOON AND VIP TRIP GIFT BOOKS
For a special journey such as a honeymoon, anniversary, trip to see grandchildren in Australia/overseas, print a book with photos and text. Use your handwritten notes to print off the day's event's each day.

BLOG BOOK
Write a blog on your trip and create a blogbook. Do not reveal you are away if your home is empty. Even if it isn't, you don't want granny, plus children, housesitter, flatmate, neighbours, cats, dogs and budgies, surprised by phone calls and knocks at the door day or night.

You might write up your blog after the event, for example, the Monday and Tuesday after a weekend away. You could even reminisce a month later, or produce a book a year later, or when you retire.

RETURN ADDRESS
You might put your address and return to details on the back cover. For security you might prefer your address on the inside cover, in which case you will probably want your index starting on page 1 and not on the inside cover.

For security, instead of revealing your home address when away travelling, you could give the address of a relative or neighbour or your office - or your hotel.

Angela Lansbury BA Hons, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.

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