best website for RTW trip
 

I am planning my next RTW and since friends and family want to get updated on my journey I am interested in buying a site that can let me upload pict and video , maps and also a blog .

any recommendation ....

Thanks
Hendi

this one?

Web
 

That was a very usefull reply (not) , I will use this site for sure I like the fact to have a personal one too.:nono:

I use google, which offers blogger (for blog, duh) and picasso for pix. I can't say it is a perfect solution, but it is more or less functional, which beats some alternatives. would be interested in other, better solutions.

The "SPOT" locator has a photo and blog site the "SPOT Adventure"
SPOT Adventures

The Spot can also track you.
I have the SPOT I and it has worked great for over a year.
They have come out with a SPOT II and there is a recall on it.

I would not get the SPOT II until they have it fixed but you can still get the SPOT I for not very much.

It doesn't cost much to get yourself a 'real' website set up rather than using a free service - at least then you know you can upload photos/videos and not have to worry they will be deleted/disappear/site closes down etc..

I bought my own domain name, hosting and webspace, mailboxes etc from Fasthosts which probably cost about £30 all in for the year and comes with a template web site designer which lets you build a decent looking website.

Well that put me in my place for what I thought was a sensible reply! An offer of free web space for your own web page which can be updated from any internet cafe including photographs and I assume (perhaps wrongly) links to free video hosting on youtube. Seems good enough for a number of people judging by the number of active pages on the site.

I think they meant to use this site as your blogging/photo site. The guys at HU will set you up one if you ask nicely.

On the left side with all the other links, under Blog, there is a "Create Your Own" button. Well, that's on the HU main page, it's a little different on the forums. Anyway, the page is at http://www.horizonsunlimited.com/tstories/

Web site for personal use
 

Try "'get jealous"' its free can upload pics and a diary. Its basic but works good. Its used a lot with backpackers.

Blogs etc
 

A while ago I wrote a brief piece on free tools for overland websites...

Click here for the list - Part of the Overland Live Blog

Personally, I would recommend creating a Google account (email etc) and using Google's services:

Blogger - easy to configure and setup + gets indexed quickly by Google
Picasa - Free photo service plus integrates neatly into Blogger & has a Windows / Linux application
YouTube - we all know this one

Plus, I would then add a Twitter account.

All the above items can then be automatically updated to Twitter plus you can send txt messages. It's a great way to keep everyone updated.

Setting up a website
 

Hi Hendi,

we're in a similar position and have been doing plenty of research into the pro's and cons of different offerings for creating a website.

We were looking to be able to write a diary, load photos, embed a map and video etc, as well as having a couple of pages to house info on planning etc for hubbers looking to do future trips.

we've also been speaking with several friends who work as web designers and the general consensus has been that the simplest way to set up a website that will look like a 'real' bespoke site (but without the cost and knowledge of programming code), be cheap and allow us as non-experts to be able to adapt/edit it was to use Wordpress

We've only just set up the account so I can't show any work in progress but would suggest you have a look.

Good luck!

I used Web Hosting : Professional Web Hosting from Just Host i'm no techie and found it easy to use, a couple of bucks a week cost wise.

Pete

Wordpress.com or blogger.com (a Google service) are the most popular and easiest ways to create a blog online.

If you want something nice-looking yet easy to use, have a look at squarespace.com. It's not free but they have very pretty templates and a great user interface that even my grandma could master.

Happy blogging,
Julian

If you want to see a basic Blogger blog, you can check out mine:

motoreiter

I use my own domain, but google provide the hosting for pix and blog, blog template, tools, etc. Pretty easy, I'm sure you could do a lot more with it if you know what you're doing. plus, I don't think google is going anywhere.

i've heard good things about wordpress too, but don't know how/if its different from blogger.

Good point moto .. that's a serious consideration.



.

hi,

i took a 2 column blogger template and hacked it to three columns. Use google account and google docs for all copies and traveldocs.

i use firefox / scribefire blogeditor to write posts. not perfect, but goog enough.

from my blog i link to my smugmug website to all my photoalbums, i use that to upload all my hi-res originals to.

see www.sanderonasingle.com

cheers,
Sander

Sander, how did you include the map of where you are in your blog, I've always wanted to do that...

Hello!

I've been using one.com for a couple of years now and it's great! I have my web site there. They also have blog and a big and secure space to upload photos and documents. And the best thing! It does not cost much. As has been mentioned by Susan and Grant, it's better to pay for storing services then to use the free ones. Because you'll know that it will be there the next time you log on and might need a very important document!

Cheers Tom

I question this logic. I know that google will be there next time I log in. Some outfit called One.com? Not so much...

Worst case google starts charging for their services, but at least in the meantime I get the service for free. And actually the trend has been in the opposite direction--google has been expanding, not contracting, the free service (more storage, etc.).

Why is one.com better than google, other than the privilege of paying for the service?

Do it all for you...
 

.... excellent suggestions so far... but if you're looking for something that just does it all in one place then for travel there are a couple of options - the best at the moment is called Travel Pod

Travel Blog to Share your Trips - TravelPod

let's you set up a blog, upload photos and videos and automatically creates a map for you so people can see where you are, where you posted from etc.

m

+1 for Google's offerings here. Blogger, Google Sites, Google Maps, Picasa should be just fine, if you don't want to host things here with HU.

A lot of people say Wordpress is better, can produce more professional looking sites, and is more flexible, and I think it possibly is if you know what you're doing. But that's the important thing, to get the best out of it you need some web-skills. If you don't have them then it's really no different from what Google can give you.

I really don't see why people pay for this stuff unless they're skilled web-designers, most of the free stuff has huge numbers of templates and add-ins, so your site won't look the same as everyone else's.

And when it comes down to it it's really about what you write and the pictures you post, not the html/css bling you throw in.

web
 

Thanks for your help guys,
I plan to use the HUBB but also a more personal site for my personal view of the trip and communication with family and close friends.

Online or off?
 

My better half started using WebX5 since we wanted to be able to write a diary, add and position pics and generally muck about while being somewhere other than paying in an internet cafe, i.e. sitting under a tree, on a beach etc not online. Paying someone else to start it would not really work then since we won't be anywhere near the person who could hopefully fix it!

She's since found that a little too limiting, though if you want something really simple its OK, but we weren't asking a lot!

So we now have Serif WebPlus 10. Either of these programs do not cost much, but X5 is simpler. She had a live usable site 36 hours after opening the X5 box having done nothing like it before.

Both take a lot of learning, they have instructions but often don't have the answers you want, part of the learning process may be redoing everything you've just done cos the font and framesize doesn't suit some pc's for instance, mucking up the whole format with pictures and text overlapping.


The specific problem for us with X5 is for a diary you don't really want one long list of entries, by the time you've added pics it becomes a huge 1st page to download (read). So you introduce layers, eg 1st is The Trip, 2nd is UK, then 2010, then the date, four only allowed. So you could have an unmanageably big list with a years worth of entries scrolling off the bottom of the page, but its not obvious there is more than you can see, and while moving the cursor down its easy to slip off the side meaning you have to start again. Annoying. You can't right click to enlarge a photo, so the nice small pixel size you need for fast page download is all you get. And you can't attach anything, like a manual you've found useful, a fuel price spreadsheet etc etc.

And, no spell check :(

WebPlus 10 has a good support network if you can get online, a huge helpful manual although still with holes, and a spellcheck and webcheck (advising you of things that might not work when uploaded). You can attach better quality pics on seperate pages so the users initial download speed stays high, although this may make the periodic upload of your updates a lot longer. It has a lot more features, but takes longer to learn. You may discover a fab new way of presenting a page when you've already too late to change it!

With either you then end up with the software on your C drive, the website on that or a seperate hard drive, and just the revisions and updates on a pendrive you then take to the internet cafe for speedy (!?) upload. (WebPlus 10 searches your sites files and picks out all those you've altered saving you having to remember!)

Best advice would be to make a totally fictitious website to learn with. Then after a week of solid graft, when you discover all the things you should have done, you'll only be binning something of no value. Only a couple of days work making a solid start on what you do want will then have more chance of it turning out how you had hoped.

If you can write code then go the whole expensive hog and get Dreamweaver. But whichever you may go with, you end up with a product and skill that may make you some money en route or back home?

You can see the out of date X5 site she did here

Independent overland travel through Africa in a Unimog called Moglet

the updated site with WebPlus10 is still being updated ;)

The stickers with the website address on the side of the truck came from here

DiveSigns.com: Reflective hard wearing vinyl stickers for all your diving needs..., Be Seen When It Counts

made with SOLAS tape backing, which is durable, tough and what gets put on liferafts etc. The black stealth tape is cool but not quite as reflective. You could buy SOLAS tape on Ebay etc, and black lettering from lotsa places I'm sure! I've put a clear protective film over the letters because tree branches were doing a good job of pulling them off, but the tape is stubborn stuff!



Serif update and restructure completed, so hyperlinks, forward/back buttons and an eaier to use site all round! :)

RTW web trip report
 

thanks for all your sugestion.

this one seems good too

Personal Travel Websites | Off Exploring

Web Site
 

You can build your own, very simple, upload photos & Film and have live chat,get email and mesages etc. I have just put one up for our pending trip, Check it out.
Globetrekkers

Cheers
Paul

Sorry to harp on about Blogger and the like, but the post above about X5 reminded me of something.

If you're taking a laptop/netbook with you, you might want to try installing Windows Live Writer. It's free, and will let you compose and format your blog posts offline, so when you're near the web you just connect and it updates for you. It works with the major free blog sites and also has additional features for youtube uploads, tweets with shortened urls, basic photo-editing, and all manner of toys.

So, if you're interested in blogging under the shade of a tree where you want and not in a sweaty paid for internet café it's a good free thing.

Thanks for the Windows Live Writer tip. This is so cool, exactly what I need.:thumbup1:

Did it work? I just tried to update mine and it comes up with some stupid error about objects, which I can't find a solution to. But if it works for you, I'll go see if there's an update.

It did work for me. I already had live writer on my system (found out after I tried downloading from your link), so just linked it to update our blog and did a test and it worked fine.:D

I can highly reccomend Wordpress. It is free, it is open source, and it is the most advanced system out there. Also, it is the most used system and very easy to use. You buy a domain, and install it on your web hosts servers in five minutes.

Visit my website below and have a look.

Presentations about Blogs from Ripley 2010
 

I gave a couple of presentations about how to go about setting up a blog at the UK Travellers meeting last year.

You can view them online here...

In a nutshell....

The HU Blog facility should be your first port of call - even if you're also planning a separate site.

Going beyond the HU site, Wordpress is by far the best blogging platform (Blogger is also good, but nowhere near as flexible/powerful as Wordpress). It's free, but choosing between the hosted and self-hosted versions depends on your requirements. As someone else mentioned, Justhost.com is a good/cost-effective hosting provider. Use other services like Youtube, Picasa, Flickr, Google Maps, etc. to add rich content. Integrate with your Facebook, Twitter and other social channels.

Iain.

+1 for wordpress, we looked at quite a few different solutions, but wordpress seemed to fit our requirements,

Easy to up date, blog format, google maps, flash slideshow, + 1000s of other plugins etc etc. Support is also good through the forums,

We found blogger very limited.

i prefer making the website myself.
Don `t like this "freepages".

Book your own webspace and book your own domain
and use:

+1 Joomla! Main Page - Joomla! Documentation
or WordPress › Blog Tool and Publishing Platform or TYPO3 - the Enterprise Open Source CMS: Home

But may be: You need some time to get used on it. So start with your webpage a couple of moth before you leave ...
Otherwise you may have a lot of stress during your trip.

web
 

agree . I think I will go with World press

+1 for wordpress.

It's also very powerful once you get through the learning curve which can be daunting at first.

Take the fact that you can post by email or mobile. Especially useful if you have limited bandwidth in foreign countries.

Here is our blog to give you an idea. Riding2up Blog

Oh and did I mention that it is FREE?!

Hi,


Mee to


But using programs like this does not cound as "maing the website yourselfe ;)

Get use to type basic HTML in Notepad, later on PHP, CSS, Javascript and others will follow :)

Have fun, Tobi

I was lucky because a local company set up my web site FREE and aloud me to administer my pages by linking to Face Book. So although the home page is static, daily statements and pictures , I have control of.
This system is easy for the likes of me [ not very tec], and with free wii fi in many places, economical too. I charge the net book up with an invertor plugged into a ciggy lighter. First 2hrs riding, book is fully charged.