Travel Blog -- Lots of Questions

[TenOC]

In the past when I traveled I simply posted photo on one of the free websites. See my travel photos in my signature below.

This year my DD will be traveling with me. She want to create a blog. I have a number of question.

1. I lost a number of photos when picasa went offline. I now use Google Photo. Will I need to pay a website fee (forever) to keep the blog online?

2. What is the advantage of a Blog vs a shared posting using MS Word posted to either MS OneDrive or Google Drive? I have lots of free space on each.

3 DD suggested that she simply post to Facebook and not create a blog. I did not have a simple answer on why not to.

Any suggestions are welcome.

[accsys]

We have used My Trip Journal to recount our travels for 10 years now (see link in signature) and have found it very easy to use. It can be used for free as long as you don't post too many photos and are willing to have your viewers put up with the ads. We pay $99/year and have no ads and unlimited photos as well as the ability to keep different journals for each year's travels.

[DiskDoctr]

Keep in mind some basic security precautions.

1. Age of your daughter. Anyone can be stalked, but it is more common for girls

2. Delayed posting. Many environments allow you to post up information but not make it public right away. For example, if you are staying at xyz campground and going horseback riding at abc outdoors tomorrow, it would be better to wait and post that info AFTER you've finished and moved onto the next spot or activity.

3. Not posting ahead of activities. Similar to above, but more like not telling people online that you will be out of town (and your house will be empty, etc)

4. Family pics should be very non-risque. Bathing suits, night wear, you get it...

5. Home address, last names, etc should be restricted. Keep it to first names and you might do better.

6. Limiting viewers to people you know and/or approve. For kids this means Mom and Dad approve them first 😉

Blogs can be a lot of fun and add excitement when people follow your adventures and support you. It's unfortunate to think about the above items, but if you do it ahead of time, you can still have plenty of fun and enjoyment!

Hope this helps and doesn't curb your (her) excitement too much 😉

[vermilye]

I post daily to both Google Blogspot, and a larger website that includes more photos, links to other blogs, etc that I pay for at 1&1.

The advantage of the 1&1 site is it is mirrored on my hard drive (and backed up) so if the service goes away, I can relaunch it at another ISP. Of course, since the full website is 6.34GB, it might take awhile to move it!

[valhalla360]

Facebook is fine if you just want people to keep up to date in real time but once things get a little older, it's really hard to find anything.

Any of the blogsites (even paid) can go under and if they do you may lose your stuff. One solution is once you post, save the post to a folder on your hard drive. If the site goes down, you still have everything.

We use wordpress but lots of options that are similar.

[GordonThree]

Everybody is "free" but they all have platform lock in. Google photos locks to blogspot or Google+.

Facebook locks to it's constellation of services.

Imgur maybe?

[Lwiddis]

Save photos to a flash drive as a backup. 32 gigs runs about 15 bucks.

[AsheGuy]

Google's blogspot.com is free, see our signature below for link to our use.

Click here for what you can do with Google Photos as it now exists. Be sure to click on "i" icon on individual photos for captions.

I personally don't think Facebook is useful for a blog-like platform as everything gets lost in the static that goes on with Facebook. It certainly is not useful if you want to allow people to easily find your travel posts. First hurdle you have to be a FB member and there are still many that are not members.

[fpoole]

Yah, it's a tricky one.

I simply use the Google setups. which has the WEb page, Blogger, and photo gallery.. all free and seems to work ok..

Here's what I have to get an idea.
See the side menu for the blog and galleries for the photos..

https://sites.google.com/site/poolesweb/home

Hope that helps


Some use Word press? ro something like that..