Not getting blogged down: a personal reflection of writing while travelling

Attempting to get online; early morning on the Mekong

Only a few weeks ago I asked on 501 Places about the best way to keep blogging while travelling. Many people responded and shared their tips and personal strategies, and I took these on board as we set off for our month in Asia. Now that we’re back home, I thought I would take the chance to reflect on my own experiences and what I have learned from a month of being on the road and trying to keep 501 Places up to date.

I carried a small Asus netbook, bought on the strength of two criteria: weight and price. It was very light and took up no more space than a book, so on that score it was perfect. And the low cost meant that I could be less cautious about leaving it unattended from time to time, knowing that its disappearance would not be heart-breaking. That said, the processor in the netbook was woefully inadequate. It would take 10 minutes just to check messages, Facebook, news etc., when at home it can take 2 minutes. I would caution against buying the absolute cheapest; there is a benefit in carrying something dispensable, but there is a balance to be struck and I would have spent a little more on a faster machine.

Connectivity was good but not great. We stayed mainly in decent guest houses and modest hotels. Most places came with wi-fi although many only had it in the lobby, and a few charged a small fee. This meant that I would have to sit in the hotel’s public area to surf the net, something that I was not inclined to do frequently. Photos in particular proved a real headache to upload, and three or four images could easily add an hour to the time it took to load a post. In fact, when faced with this option I often chose the internet cafe instead, as for around $1/hr I could surf on a faster and larger computer and get far more done.

There was certainly no shortage of material to write about. Every day we experienced something new; unusual river crossings, corruption-fuelled border crossings, scary tuk-tuk rides: all the stuff of future posts. But it seems far easier to write about these things after the event than while they are fresh in the mind, despite my initial instinct suggesting otherwise.

And here’s the main point. Within the first 24 hours of the trip I realised that we were having way too much fun for me to spend the time needed each day to post on this site. We were exploring small towns in the evening when I could have been blogging, trying new foods, enjoying a massage or meeting with friends we had just made. These were activities that couldn’t be put off till another day or until our return; unlike the writing. So the blog post quickly dropped to twice weekly, and then weekly.

Blogging is something I have come to really enjoy. Sharing my thoughts, experiences and opinions about all things travel has quickly become a passion. But to write about these things with the benefit of having enjoyed such a rich variety of experiences, it was necessary to let go of the discipline of daily updates and just accept that some stories will be better told later. After all, which of our experiences would I have missed if I had been in my room blogging instead?