Update + Future Travel

Jul 3, 2011 by Joel

Wow it is hard to believe that I have been home from US for over a month already. The saying “Time waits for nobody” is definitely true, and I really think that I have let time slide away from me just a little since returning home.

In terms of keeping this blog up to date on my last trip, honestly it became a little bit of a disaster. Which I am still trying to work towards rectifying. While it will definitely be out of order, I do still plan to get online updates for most of the cruise, as well as a 3 days stop in San Diego after the cruise. This post however is not to make excuses but is to identify what it is I need to do, and most importantly why things did not work out, and how these sort of issues can be avoided in the future. Not just for me either, I hope to explore some factors that you may be able to take into account on your own blog or writing project as well.

Getting Up To Date

One of my first goals with this blog currently is to get up to date. I am unsure exactly how detailed this will be at the moment, initially I had wanted to post about every port of call in detail, however this may not be such a simple undertaking at this point, with some of the details being over 2 months old in my mind. Photography will definitely be a part of the sharing though, along with as much detail as I can.

Also as part of the getting up to date there will be some posts about the specific cruise I was on. Information about the ship which I was on for the 28 day cruise. But most importantly some information that may be helpful for other first time cruises, things that I never knew, didn’t think i needed to know or anything else that seems of interest.

My time frame in getting things up to date is by the end of July. I see this as being feasible, and if not somewhat almost a requirement, as it is hard to depart on another journey and start sharing about that, without properly wrapping up the previous one.

What Was The Problem

From the time that I have had to think through it probably my biggest issue in not keeping the blog up to date. Or in fact keeping up to date on writing something each day, was a complete lack of knowing what to expect.

The cruise was a fairly different experience to regular travel, for me at least. When traveling I generally organize what I am doing and where I am going to occur during the day time hours. Occasionally things will spill over to night time, however this is a rare occurrence and depends on the city that I am in. In contrast I found traveling on a ship, your evenings quickly become a full part of your schedule, depending on choices you make.

Consequently this led to the time that I often spent working on things like blog posts and such, became the time that I was eating dinner, seeing the evening show, and not down time like I was use to. This has an effect which is multiplied whenever you have a port day, where generally you are off the ship most of the day then fall into the evening routine on return.

Solving this problem for my next cruise is going to be a rather easy task. Knowing what to expect now I can take steps to try and work things to better allow me the time I need. Or just allocate that time at a different time of day.

Future Travel

At this stage I have two trip planned in the next 12 months, at this point I will be traveling slightly more then in the previous 12 months. However depending upon my actual schedule I may be will fit in a third trip a little closer to home. But only time will tell, if that is possible and just what that trip will entail.

Trip 1 – is a little later this year and will be a cruise. I am again going for a longer cruise, being able to get on the ship, and settle in and not have to worry that in just seven short days you will again be moving on is something that is a good thing for me. This is why I enjoyed the 28 day cruise because I was able to see so many places without having to think about packing my bag and moving between places.

Trip 2 – will not be until 2012 and I will be visiting Europe. I have few details on this trip at the moment, as I have not even finalized the dates that I will be flying and such at this point. I will share some more as I get close though.

Possible Trip 3 – There are two options which I am considering for this trip. The first could be a short trip to New Zealand. Alternatively would be a road trip to Melbourne. Only time will tell if this trip is something that I can fit in and just when I may be able to fit it in.

The one thing that I can confirm now though is that I will be more up to date on updates if not daily, at least every few days. I mean what is the point in maintaining this blog if I am not going to make the effort to keep it up to date.