Tips for Blogging on Vacation

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Recently I had a terrific question in the comments of one of my posts asking about how I kept up with blogging while on vacation. So I thought I’d share a few tips for blogging on vacation that I’ve learned along the way.

Tips for blogging on vacation

 

  1. First, if you plan to blog during vacation, make sure the places you are staying provide free Internet service.
  2. Before going on vacation, have a few posts written and ready to publish ahead of time.  Guest posts are great for this, like this one on 5 Ways to Keep Kids Reading This Summer.  I had the title, post, pictures, tags, and all the SEO information filled out for each of the posts so all I had to do was hit publish the day I wanted the post up.
  3. Along with having your posts ready and waiting, remember it’s okay to cut back on the number of posts that get published when you’re on vacation.  I decided on 2-3 posts/week while we were gone, and I had a calender reminding me which post to put up each day.
  4. We all know that social media takes up A LOT of time.  My advice?  While on vacation, focus on just one or two social media platforms — preferably the ones that drive the most traffic to your site.
  5. For Facebook, take advantage of the option to schedule posts ahead of time!  Don’t know how?  Once you type in your status update, look to the bottom left before you hit “post.”  There should be a clock icon.  Click on it and choose when your status will update.  I came up with 2-3 different status updates each night to be posted the next day at various times.  I have my FB status go directly to my Twitter account, so I was actually posting to both each day without having to actually go to Twitter.
  6.  On vacation I decided not to do any blogging business during the day; I wanted to soak up every moment with my kids and my sister’s family.  (After all, they had driven all the way from Iowa to surprise my parents!)   That left the time in the evening once the kids were asleep to publish posts, do a little social media, check email, and link up places.  (I tried to limit my work to one hour or less each night, which meant email didn’t always get checked.)   Thankfully, quite a few of the family-friendly places I link up with have their link up parties up the night before.  At home I link up with the rest in the morning, but on vacation, I worked only at night, so these were skipped.

 

Guess what I discovered?

I was working smarter, for less time, and still getting a decent rate of traffic!

Best of all, I was able to thoroughly enjoy our vacation and visit with my sister’s family without feeling like I had to update Facebook, write a new post, or other blog business.

 

If you plan on blogging while on vacation, remember, it’s a vacation!  Have a great summer, everyone!

 

Keep the kids busy on vacation with these ideas:

 

Comments

  2. Great list! As a family travel blogger, travel and blogging are my “job.”

    My family knows that our adventures are part of “business” and they’re supportive. But, as a passionate blogger, I had to learn to set boundaries. Some things I do to keep blogging from interfering with vacation are:
    1. Get the “blog photos” on arrival at a destination. The kids are willing to pose for the few shots I need. The rest of the day we all can enjoy.
    2. Think about the posts you want before you travel. Especially for sponsored travel, knowing the “story angle” desired helps ensure I’ll have something quality to write about.
    3. Use hoot suite to schedule tweets and facebook posts ahead of time. You can manage special tweeting easily this way.
    4. Don’t worry about the traffic! (I do ask friends to visit and share my posts before I travel, but the truth is readers come back whenever you do. A small dip in numbers is okay!)

    Blog to live, don’t live to blog. If your family gets irritated with you because the blog is like your favorite child, you’ve gone too far.

    • Some great tips for travel bloggers! Love the idea of getting the “blog” pics out of the way right away!

      I learned over vacation that I really can do most of the blog stuff at night/in the morning before the kids are up. The past couple days I haven’t touched the computer during the day.

  4. Great suggestions, especially as I consider how to navigate this road of travel, family, and online life in the next few weeks.

  5. Isn’t it nice to learn that blogging can complement life instead of run it? 🙂

  6. That is one reason I didn’t mention we were on vacation until we were almost home. My FIL was at our house a lot, too, since he lives next door. I didn’t even tell my guest bloggers that’s why I was looking for guest posts. 🙂

    Have a great time!!

  8. Great Tips! What I do instead of spe ding time hitting publish, I schedule all of my posts for the week of vacation ahead of time. I also schedule social media for those posts! It’s easy to do and saves last of time!

  9. Awesome tips! They will come in handy when I go on vacation 🙂 I wish that I could schedule on WordPress, but it never seems to work for me! I’m hoping I will be able to post from my tablet while I’m gone!

    • Me too — I just made sure to put the post up the night before so it would be up in the morning. One day I’ll figure out how to schedule posts to come up on their own.

      Have a great vacation!

  11. Excellent tips! Scheduling is key but I love the part about cutting back the posts while you are away 🙂

    Thank you for linking to Raising Imperfection.
    Please come back Friday to see if you were featured. 🙂

  14. I featured you today over at Feature Fridays! Please feel free to grab the feature badge and place it on your blog!

    ¤´¨)
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    (¸¤ Lanaya | xoxo
    Raising-Reagan.com

  15. This post won the free jewelry at Family Fun Friday. I can’t send it out until August but please contact me via e-mail with your address and maybe some colors you like so I can send you either some earrings or a necklace. Congrats and thanks for linking up.

    • How exciting! Thank you!
      I will definitely be emailing you soon. (My email is currently all screwed up, which is why I haven’t yet.)

      Thank you, again!

  16. I think the day has arrived where we need internet access almost everywhere we go. And you’re right. The best time is at night, so you can spend every minute with your family.

    • Really, there does seem to be access everywhere you look nowadays.
      I’ve enjoyed doing more of my work at night now, and not stressing to get things done since I seemed to have kept most of my traffic over vacation.

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