I have been hooked to the Matador network recently; a network that is all about being a travel blogger; traveling around the world and getting paid to write about my experiences. The network links all the travel bloggers around the world and even a subdomain to a online university that teaches travel blogging, photography and videography. One can even submit their work to the network to be selected for publication.
It seems all elusive and too good to be true.

And because of all that information being at the tip of my fingers, my fingers are itching to tap on those keys and start that new entry on my lastest travels and also because of this itch, I started flipping back to my blog to read what I have wrote on my past journeys.

To my surprise, I wrote nothing.
N-O-T-H-I-N-G.

I mean, there are some photos here and there uploaded to my blog to show the world where I went, especially my favourite shots of the world above the clouds from thousands of feet in the air, I did not document any of my travels in writing. Majority were just photos and those photos were uploaded to Facebook and are only available to view by my friends.

I need to slap my hands like how the speaker Leslie Choudhry did.

Then again, this realization spark a new excitement because now I have tons of pictures and materials and travel stories itching to be tapped out by my ten fingers; and because so another idea to find the root cause of my delay writing of such fantastic stories.

So, I have decided to compile a list of top 5 reasons (by random order) I felt why I didn’t travel blog previously.

1. There are too many photos.
On an average 1-week travel, I take about 600-800 photos on my DSLR camera, and that does not include the photos in my mobile phone. Sorting them out is a huge pain.
Seriously, being someone who is very detailed in doing things, it is a tedious job and I cannot get over myself by not doing it.
I usually will edit the photos, almost every other one, and save it in 3 versions. YES, you heard it right, 3 versions. Not counting the original file, I usually would save a PSD file, which contains all the editing marks; an optimised version, which is the high-resolution jpeg file of the edited photo and a low-res jpeg file of the edited photo.

2. Instant upload on Social Media.
With the vast progress of mobile technology, one can upload pictures with maybe a 140 character caption onto any social media platform instantly in a wink of an eye. All you need is a cheap mobile data line to achieve this; and since many of us can’t do without Twitting, Facebooking, Instagraming, Google+ing and Tumblring on the go, this was one of the HUGE reason blogging is totally forgotten and thrown out of the window.

3. No / slow WIFI access
I love to bring along my laptop overseas then try to squeeze out some time in the wee hours during my travel to select photos and to upload to Facebook (if I can’t get any mobile data line) and to blog a little.
However, when the WIFI is iffy even in my own hotel room, let’s just say, ‘let’s forget about it’.

4. Too tired.
Once the plane touchdown back home, I start my routine to catch up my sleep due to jet lag. Comparing 600 – 800 plus photos, not including videos and mobile pictures to sleep, I rather choose sleep.

5. Friends keep asking about your travel photos.
See No.1.

Anyone who read the above will say, you can write it when you come back, instead of doing it while traveling? Well, I have to say, once you have slept enough, it’s back to work and school, and all the time is taken up by those 2 huge components, and some of the above reasons come back to play again.

Back to my itching to write.
So, what am I going to do about it, you may ask?
Well, I have given some serious thoughts, yes, I think I did, and I came up with these 5 steps to help myself to get back on travel blogging again.

1. Plan ahead
Yeah, write, it’s the same layman term everyone is taught in classes, in courses and everywhere else.
However, my planning is slightly different.
Since I plan all my travels to a tee, (I hate packaged tours), I decided to plan my blogging into my travels instead. Not squeezing out time to write, but a procedure to follow so that my writing will be on track. I will elaborate further.

2. Set-up blog posts and lay out the ground work.
All blogs now have a function where you can schedule ahead your blog posts.
Since I plan my own where I want to go in my trips, I can go ahead and layout my blog posts first.
Saving the number of drafts for a number of days, or based on which experience I want to write about then put it on schedule to draft.

3. Select 3-5 photos for each post.
Depending on the theme or topic of my writing, I think 3 – 5 photos is feasible. Photos need not to be all-so-perfect, after all there’s a saying that a picture speaks a thousand words right?

4. Highlight 3 experiences / reflections in point form on each theme each time.
I think 3 is more than sufficient to begin with; just to set my mind in motion. Jotting them down during my journey can help stimulate my memory when I come home. They act like sub-topics to my posts and by not writing the full blog post actually saves the frustration of sleeping late at night during my trips and suffer the next day. More emotional/reflection/blahs.. can come in later when I am actually writing the blog posts.

5. Fill in the details last, after I come home.
No excuses on no-wifi blah blah blah I guess.
The details can come in when I am actually processing my photos and that can help fill my story.

I got the inspiration to write this self-reflection after I saw how Sparklette wrote about her travels when I was doing my travel research to Japan. And since I am going to Honolulu and Japan in April 2013, I’m going to put these steps I had came up to test and experiment with it and see how it goes.

Meanwhile, I am going to use this too as a guideline to write my past travels.
So, stay tune for more stories.