Vacations enable us to get away from our routines and have a relaxing time, and most of us want to relish our vacations when we actually have opportunities to take them.
However, no matter how wonderful your plans might be, there might be one hiccup to your dream holiday: you are a blogger. What is more, you are one of those bloggers who blogs every day. How do you truly take a vacation when you are glued to your computer for hours on end?
The stress of keeping up a blog affects both you and everyone around you. If you spend all your vacation time writing, your travel companions will likely feel neglected. On the other hand, if you ignore your blog, you will probably lose followers.
Nevertheless, you can still have hope! Managing your blog while enjoying your trip might seem impossible, but it is not. And you SHOULD be taking that vacation.
A little planning ahead and strategic thinking will keep your followers happy without compromising your travels. Here are three useful tips you can apply to keep your blog running smoothly while still enjoying your ideal holiday.
Tip #1: Strategize Before You Leave on Holiday
You should strategize in advance about how to blog on topics related to your trip. You can write some of those blogs ahead of time (see Tip #2) and some of them as you are on holiday (see Tip #3). Tip #1 is all about coming up with the outline of what you are writing about.
Often times, your audience prefers you to blog about the activities you’re doing. They love being a part of your life and feeling connected to you, so one creative way to look at your time off is to see it as a source of content for your blog. For example, spontaneous cell phone videos are not only interesting but they also allow for shorter blog posts (and your audience will certainly understand that your video production is not up to Hollywood standards).
Before your trip, plan the topics and outlines for your posts. Coming up with an idea or topic for a blog is often the hardest part of writing one, and doing so ahead of time allows you to write your posts quickly and easily. If you already have at least the basics of your trip itinerary, then the majority of your work is already done.
When I begin creating a blog post, I brainstorm to come up with several ideas. As a blogger, you likely already have a method for brainstorming, but I find it useful to come up with a broad idea and then narrow it down. One way of refining a topic is by entering a general idea into Google and then sorting through the suggested search terms.
Next, plan out several key points you would like to touch on for each topic and make an outline. Since your posts are about your vacation, this strategy should give you plenty of ideas.
For example, if you are planning to visit Iceland and you know you have an excursion to the caves there, you might go to a page like “Caves in Iceland.” Once you read an article about the beautiful caves, how can you help but come up with ideas for your blog, both before and during (Tip #3) your vacation?
Another approach is that you might want your vacation blogs to be focused on a theme. Themes, like relaxation or adventure, are easy to brainstorm about before you leave.
Tip #2: Write Your Blog Posts Ahead of Time
With a little dedication, you can write enough blog posts ahead of time to keep your followers happy until you return. Some bloggers become overwhelmed and believe they don’t have time to write posts in advance, but planning ahead actually isn’t as difficult as it seems.
Accomplishing this task is a matter of dedicating a little extra time each day to writing, and you don’t necessarily have to write an entire extra blog post in one day.
Here are some tactics that can help ease what might seem like an overwhelming burden:
- Start early. For example, if you already write one blog post a day, start writing your vacation blogs 30 days ahead of time, and write two posts per day. If you are only going to be gone for seven days, you’ll be done in no time.
- Don’t feel like you have to write long posts. You could choose some YouTube videos or inspirational quotes and images and write a short blog post around them.
- Consider lining up guest authors. It’s a good idea to have a guest author write a post during the time you’re still at home and use that day to write a post for when you will be gone on holiday. This strategy also ensures that the post gets done instead of your guest author “forgetting” while you are gone.
When I’m feeling overwhelmed, I like to write a portion of a blog one day and finish it the next. Simply save the documents to your computer and post them as needed, or schedule posts to be automatically updated to your blog. Another technique is to write the post on the blog, allowing the blog to inspire you, and then save your half-written post as a “draft” to finish the next day.
Tip #3: Get Up Early While Vacationing
If you truly don’t have time to plan your posts or outlines in advance, you can get up an hour early each morning during your holiday. I personally find writing to be enjoyable and relaxing. Getting up early and sipping coffee while updating your blog can be an excellent way to start the day. As an added benefit, writing daily serves to keep your writing skills sharp.
The key to Tip #3 is to treat writing as a joy and not a task. While vacationing, you have a unique opportunity to write in a beautiful, relaxing place, so view the chance to write about it as a gift. But even as you are grateful for that opportunity, do remember not to work the rest of the day.
Final Thoughts on Maintaining Your Blog
Your vacation and your blog don’t have to be at odds with each other. You can easily maintain your blog while on vacation by strategizing, writing in advance, or getting up an hour early each morning.
Deborah Anderson wears many hats and her addiction to acquiring knowledge. From professional training as a sound engineer at the Los Angeles Film School, to graduating summa cum laude in software architecture, and then on to becoming the director of Information technology at the high profile Bel Air Investment Advisors, she often comments that she is only just beginning. She enjoys sharing her knowledge discoveries with her readers and is always ready to offer a helping hand.