It’s a time saver and taking brief notes jogs the brain later without feeling you constantly have to be writing. Then a little more detail at night before you go to bed will make for good writing later on your blog.

Jackie, I enjoyed your post and agree with your reasons for shying away from the travel writing aspirations. After the Laos trip (last December) I haven’t taken my laptop with me on a holiday (only on sponsored blog trips). I enjoy unplugging and thinking about the posts later. I guess that’s not the best approach for keeping traffic high to the blog, but it’s a question of priority

@Farnoosh I guess we all strike a balance between staying on top of the blog and unplugging, as you point out. Scheduling is a great tool, and for my paid blogging clients I am also building up advance posts to cover my vacation. As for this blog, it might have to survive untouched for a couple of weeks while I’m away. That thought bothered me once, but less so now.

@retrotraveller love your point about the beauty of writing later and reliving the highlights of the trip. I shared that same pleasure on our last trip away. It’s a sneaky way of extending the holiday joy

The reality was that I ended up tweeting about the journey from home to the airport and then the journey from the airport back home on my return. Why… well there were opportunities, I saw one Internet cafe and almost walked in… but two things struck me.

The first was memories of sitting in dark, smoky Internet parlours for up to four hours uploading images and emailing, the second, and most important, was that I could use the 2 hours to explore the town I was in – after all we travel to experience places, see another side of life and embrace new cultures.

So, for me it is better to keep a diary and write about my experiences when I get back – hence my blog (in its infancy) is retrospective… “contemplative of past situations, events, etc. looking backward”.

I think writing after the event also allows you time to consider what you write and add in facts about the places that you often find out when you get home.

And, to me anyway, writing later brings back fond memories and lets you relive experiences – especially nice if you are back at work – living the same old humdrum life, and wishing you were “on the road again”.

I also have a really hard time writing about my experiences while they are so fresh in my mind. Some things spill out, like when a baby died a the clinic I volunteered with in Indonesia, but for the most part, I felt like my experiences there were sacred and overwhelming, not to be described or deconstructed by a blog post.

I enjoy travel most when I do just that, travel. Analyzing the experiences and putting them out for the world to read and judge can come later, in my opinion! Check out this post for more about why I’ll never be a travel writer: http://letssitoutside.blogspot.com/2010/02/i-dont-want-to-be-violinist-or-travel_23.html

Good luck and safe journeys!

On my travels I visit Museums or architectural and design relevant places such as Dessau, and then I may well post a daily report on the website (see the series on the Bauhaus). As I don’t write tourism pieces but focus on design, I can get away with not writing anything day to day but that does put pressure on proper note keeping and the imagery, as the actual Review may be written six months later.

Sometimes I need the time gap to work out what and how what to say what I need to say – immediacy has its dangers.

My partner says I never take holidays, but life is a long holiday if you enjoy what you are doing. I don’t think that is an issue, although as I get older I do need to sleep more…