The evolution of my travel journal

Before email, it was all about the travel journal. Sometimes I went through more than one and had to acquire another abroad. Record every sight, every meal, what I paid for each souvenir, what my traveling companion had done to get on my nerves.

Before blogs, assuming I wasn’t traveling with her, it was all about emails to my mother. “Save these. They’re a record of my trip.”

Before wifi, it was all about hunting down an internet cafe, where I could email my mother, and after blogs, write posts about my adventures, for my six readers to see.

Before my Nook Tablet, I sat down at internet cafes in India, Thailand and Vietnam, and tried to remember that clever thing I thought of in front of that Buddhist shrine, and tried to reconstruct my thoughts for a blog.

What the addition of a tablet and omnipresent wifi have done for my travelogues! Not only can I check Facebook at nearly every cafe, but the WordPress app that works offline allows me to write a blog post as easily as jot something in a travel diary.

Resting on a bench in the Hermitage, have a thought about the Renoir before me? Blog about it now, post it later.

Rob’s iPad adds a whole other dimension. He can take photos, somewhat surreptitiously at times, edit them, and upload them on the same device.

Plus, we’ve got maps and guidebooks on our devices, which we can consult without looking (as much) like the clueless tourists we are.