Writing your trip reports

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VPS

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I am in awe of the amount of effort that people put into trip reports and am very grateful. I'll name a few names here @amaroo @RooFlyer @JohnM @drron but there are many more

I've had a few trips and just haven't got around to writing them up and although I have good intentions I don't always get around to it.

Can I ask everyone how to do you keep a record of what you have done and do you write on the go. One of the things that hinders me is that although I like photos on my phone I do take a lot of photos with my camera and sometimes want to tweak photos (both camera and phone) and my OCD doesn't like posting photos that are not quite square or need a bit of a crop.

Do you travel with a laptop or do you use a phone or a tablet.

Let the learning begin and thanks in advance
 
I travel with a laptop or tablet.

I try to keep up with my TR on the go, but I'm not a slave to it.

My better photos are taken with my Sony camera, whick I download to the laptop and it's better if I post from there. But sometimes I just post from my phone and use the phone photos.

Leaving it to you get home tends to be a better TR from me, as it's more considered and choice of photos also more considered. But then you are busy with other things and it tends to be slow!!
My photos act as my diary, supplemented with Wikipedia etc.
 
I have the same query, as I really enjoy reading everyone else’s trip report, even if I never intend travelling to that area ..thinking about Rooflyer and JohnM ‘s latest TR.

I am just back from 3 months away in Italy, Croatia, Scotland and England and have heaps of photos to go through - but my travel is the “cheap and cheerful” variety and I imagine not of much interest to many AFF members.
 
I keep an old fashioned notebook, where I jot down notes for each day. That provides me with a reminder of the highlights for each day.
I use a mix of phone and camera for the photos. The phone photo's can be handy as they have date/time info, and sometimes gps co-ordinates. My camera has the date/time stamps which I use to sort them.
I also have MrsK to keep me in check when I try and wax lyrically about the events - she calls it exaggerating - but I don't care
 
We’re not all as rich as some! It’s really interesting seeing someone else’s perspective and interests. Recently, I was engrossed with the @bigpetebrown photos here Planes trains and automobiles - USA summer, are we mad?

I am just back from 3 months away in Italy, Croatia, Scotland and England and have heaps of photos to go through - but my travel is the “cheap and cheerful” variety and I imagine not of much interest to many AFF members.
 
My TR photos are all shot on the phone for simplicity. I can do basic editing on the phone if required.

My usual method of documenting places and events is to take a photo of them. By that I mean, take a photo of the monument/scene, but also of the sign or plaque that describes the place.

For strange events, memories of meals, experiences and Mrs H’s knee problems ;) :rolleyes::p, I usually type out a few notes on the phone.

Oh, that reminds me... I must complete the Nordic Skies & Skis TR, since I’ve now been home eight months.:oops:
 
I do them on the run. If I wait til I get home it will not happen. If I’m using a camera then I wifi the pix to my iPhone and post online from there. There is always a bit of downtime each day or so to do this.
 
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I have the same query, as I really enjoy reading everyone else’s trip report, even if I never intend travelling to that area ..thinking about Rooflyer and JohnM ‘s latest TR.

I am just back from 3 months away in Italy, Croatia, Scotland and England and have heaps of photos to go through - but my travel is the “cheap and cheerful” variety and I imagine not of much interest to many AFF members.

Not everyone flies first class or even business and it doesn't matter if you stayed somewhere cheap and cheerful. I'd encourage you to have a go (says me who is procrastinating)
 
I am just back from 3 months away in Italy, Croatia, Scotland and England and have heaps of photos to go through - but my travel is the “cheap and cheerful” variety and I imagine not of much interest to many AFF members.
I think anyone's travels are interesting, and your experiences and photos are equally valuable. Please post them up. I did a 'delayed' trip report that was two years old as I thought there wasn't anything new, but after going back through them, there was a lot the AFF community enjoyed - especially my 'dumb things I did' sections
 
Thank you!!

I originally used to write a trip diary then I'd translate it into the blog I used. I have books of notes. I still have a trip from 2004 or 5, our first trip to the USA together, that's waiting for an online version to be written :)

Back then it was Travelpod, now it's TravelArk. Nowadays I take notes on my phone, or scribble on maps and I use our photos as a memory jogger to write the blog / trip report.

We have travelled business on our last few holidays, me paid, bigal points. After next year the plan is to drop back to Y+. Well see how that goes ;)

Once we get wherever we go we're not penny pinchers, but we're also not five/six star hotel people. We're more boutique hotel people. We don't travel enough to have hotel status so it's what's got the best review in our budget in the location we want that gets our money.

We take an Acer high spec 'modern pc' as they now describe the ultra thin laptops. I download our pictures off phones and cameras onto it every night. If we have wifi I try to backup my phone photos to google photos each night. I create a word document that is my first draft of a trip report. I' a rambler. My writing style annoys bigal no end but it's me.

Over the weekend we booked an Intrepid Kenya and Tanzania 15 day overland - The Masai Heartland - for next July. No fancy lodges, just tents, no power apart from on the bus during the day. I'm not sure how I'll write that each night as we made a boo boo with the laptop and it has a very short charge. If I drop it accidentally one day I'll buy an HP Yoga with 10 hour charge.

Before then three days in Kakadu glamping (cheaper then the standard room!) at Cooinda first weekend October then five nights in Vanuatu between Christmas and New Year. First flight with Virgin in years.

Stay tuned :)
 
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Trip reports are my memory.The pictures jog it when writing up.I used to take notes but not now.There are times I realise I have left something out.Usually not that important.
We both take a small laptop and most nights download pictures and resize them.I still use Picasa.Mostly I am a bit behind because I do post a lot of photos-probably too many.However on this trip I am virtually live and it does make it easier.Basically because as we age we just can't do what we could even a few years ago.So we plan to have spare time most days and days which are rest days.
Yes the last 12 years have seen a lot of travel much of it high end.That is only because I have been able to work part time so as to afford this travel.This can't last and at some time in the next 2 years I will finally retire.The next few work stints though will be paying off debt as I have prepaid 4 cruises as I feel the AUD is likely to crash.

So there will be a lot more mundane travel as well.Still some luxury because of various points I have accumulated.
My hope is someone will get something out of the reports be it a restaurant or hotel or whatever.This is because quite a bit of what we do has come from information gleaned from other's TRs.

So give it a go.It gets easier the more you do.
 
For me trip reports are easily the best "feature" of this site, and I would encourage everybody who travels to contribute.
The view from my office is also a wonderful resource and there is a great opportunity to improve the whole sites look and feel by encouraging the daily views with mini day in the life type "tweets"
Where am I today, what I ate, how I got here.. a day in the life of a Affer….
 
Hey great thread - thanks for all the insights. When I and Mr LL travel he does most of the photography (using a Nikon) and we both do a bit with our iPhones. I keep a very detailed travel blog (on my own website) - updated daily with screeds of information about each day. I also keep a spreadsheet of ALL expenses both pre-paid and on-the-go - at the end of the trip I add this all up and work out an average daily cost - very interesting to see how no matter where you go or what you do the average daily cost works out almost the same (particularly if you factor in a "cost" for frequent flier flights - which I do at 2 cents per point). Of course this average daily cost creeps up from year-to-year. Exceptions to this "rule" are extraordinary trips like Antarctica.

Anyway - I've never posted a trip report as it seems like double the effort after writing my daily blog - of course I could/should cut/paste into trip report entries. On our last trip I did post a few photos on the "view from my office" thread - I find other travellers' in this thread posts are almost like a TR in any case. Also, I have found that trying to post photos taken with the Nikon is problematic as they are simply way too large and re-sizing has variable results - but iPhone photos are easy so must remember to always take a few key photos with my phone.

Finally - the last reason I have not written a TR is that many seem to focus on airport lounges and in-flight F&B which I certainly enjoy but don't really consider these photos and descriptions to be that interesting (to me at least).

We're off to Vietnam and the US (Yellowstone and a few other national parks in Utah) on Friday (on the infamous CX mistake fare) - will do my best to post a TR as I go. Hopefully it won't include major issues transiting HKG.
 
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Photo editing and getting those photos level. I feel you VPS. It kills me taking something that isn't level let alone uploading something that isn't!

It's amazing how good the photos are that a phone can now produce. We take so many on phones now and on our recent trip to the states on more than one day decided to leave cameras behind. I have an iPhone X and my partner went away with a new Samsung S10 Max+.

We have LightRoom on the laptop and I have a a dumbed-down free mobile Photoshop app on my iPhone but I use the Windows photo app on the laptop to level and crop photos and do rudimentary exposure/contrast/colour editing.

Cameras - I have a Samsung NX500 with three lenses and bigal a new Sony RX10 IV.
 
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Haven't done one for a while, but my method was to keep notes when travelling on a note program (Google Keep for Android) which could then easily be used as a base when back at home.

This included transcribing menus when on a flight etc.

Think the more you can do on the fly the better, as it still takes some time to finish everything off.
 
Thank you!!

I originally used to write a trip diary then I'd translate it into the blog I used. I have books of notes. I still have a trip from 2004 or 5, our first trip to the USA together, that's waiting for an online version to be written :)

Back then it was Travelpod, now it's TravelArk. Nowadays I take notes on my phone, or scribble on maps and I use our photos as a memory jogger to write the blog / trip report.

We have travelled business on our last few holidays, me paid, bigal points. After next year the plan is to drop back to Y+. Well see how that goes ;)

Once we get wherever we go we're not penny pinchers, but we're also not five/six star hotel people. We're more boutique hotel people. We don't travel enough to have hotel status so it's what's got the best review in our budget in the location we want that gets our money.

We take an Acer high spec 'modern pc' as they now describe the ultra thin laptops. I download our pictures off phones and cameras onto it every night. If we have wifi I try to backup my phone photos to google photos each night. I create a word document that is my first draft of a trip report. I' a rambler. My writing style annoys bigal no end but it's me.

Over the weekend we booked an Intrepid Kenya and Tanzania 15 day overland - The Masai Heartland - for next July. No fancy lodges, just tents, no power apart from on the bus during the day. I'm not sure how I'll write that each night as we made a boo boo with the laptop and it has a very short charge. If I drop it accidentally one day I'll buy an HP Yoga with 10 hour charge.

Before then three days in Kakadu glamping (cheaper then the standard room!) at Cooinda first weekend October then five nights in Vanuatu between Christmas and New Year. First flight with Virgin in years.

Stay tuned :)

Well Al doesn't need to read your TR because he's there with you but I like your writing style so tough biccies Al :)

Looking forward to the Africa TR
 
Hey great thread - thanks for all the insights. When I and Mr LL travel he does most of the photography (using a Nikon) and we both do a bit with our iPhones. I keep a very detailed travel blog (on my own website) - updated daily with screeds of information about each day. I also keep a spreadsheet of ALL expenses both pre-paid and on-the-go - at the end of the trip I add this all up and work out an average daily cost - very interesting to see how no matter where you go or what you do the average daily cost works out almost the same (particularly if you factor in a "cost" for frequent flier flights - which I do at 2 cents per point). Of course this average daily cost creeps up from year-to-year. Exceptions to this "rule" are extraordinary trips like Antarctica.

Anyway - I've never posted a trip report as it seems like double the effort after writing my daily blog - of course I could/should cut/paste into trip report entries. On our last trip I did post a few photos on the "view from my office" thread - I find other travellers' in this thread posts are almost like a TR in any case. Also, I have found that trying to post photos taken with the Nikon is problematic as they are simply way too large and re-sizing has variable results - but iPhone photos are easy so must remember to always take a few key photos with my phone.

Finally - the last reason I have not written a TR is that many seem to focus on airport lounges and in-flight F&B which I certainly enjoy but don't really consider these photos and descriptions to be that interesting (to me at least).

We're off to Vietnam and the US (Yellowstone and a few other national parks in Utah) on Friday (on the infamous CX mistake fare) - will do my best to post a TR as I go. Hopefully it won't include major issues transiting HKG.
Getting there is lots of fun and yes there are some that focus on airport lounges and F&B but you can just ignore that and focus on the destination. Unless I think I'll be flying on that particular flight sometime soon I just flick over the menus etc but they are invaluable when you're about to go on that plane. If the writing style or an overload of photos isn't something you want to look at you can flick through very quickly which is what I do on some and others I read in great detail. I've still got to get to Yellowstone but loved Utah so looking forward to your hints and tips.
 
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I’ve been a bit slack and really need to add to a couple I started about a year ago. Keep getting photo memory feeds on FB from a year ago. When I get a bit of time I might write up a couple of TR’s. Sometimes they might just have one little piece of info or idea that helps someone, well I know I do when I read others
 
I do everything via the phone - photos / content. I don't take notes and don't do it live.

One of the biggest issues I've had was learning to push the embarrassment aside and just take those bloody food photos ;) Phone is a brilliant and easy way to go about things, using airdrop to select and collect photos from the family's four phones provides a good balance and mix of content.
 
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