• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to footer
  • Home
  • Advertise With Us
  • Contact
  • Cookie Policy
    • Privacy statement (CA)
    • Cookie policy (CA)
    • Privacy statement (UK)
    • Cookie policy (UK)
    • Privacy statement (US)
    • Cookie Policy (US)
    • Privacy statement (EU)
    • Cookie policy (EU)
    • Disclaimer

TechWalls

Technology News | Gadget Reviews | Tutorials

  • Reviews
  • Tech News
  • Tech Guide
  • Gadget & Apps

Reporting From the Road: Tips for Traveling Bloggers

Updated on Jul 26, 2013 by Emmanuel Banks

For many bloggers, the high point of their career is when travel becomes apart of the job. Whether the blog is paying for the trip for you, or you are reporting with your own funds, traveling outside of your home base is a gift and a curse for many. If you are in the technology realm, you may be required to travel to a conference, workshop, or social media event. Fashion blogger? You may find yourself traveling to interview people in the industry, or possibly cover a fashion show. It is fun to travel for work, but to make your reporting from the road worthwhile, you must follow these tips.

Bring Your Office With You

When you are traveling on the road for pleasure, one thing you want to do is get rid of work all together. However, when you are traveling for your blog, it’s important to find the best way to bring the office to you on the road. This is done successfully with having this checklist. First, make sure to obviously bring your laptop. This will be the mecca for your office on the go, without your laptop, don’t expect a successful story. Secondly, I highly recommend an iPad. You may be thinking to yourself, “I don’t have the money for an iPad”. Not to worry, an iPad can also be rented. How? One photography rental site, BorrowLenses, doesn’t just rent out DSLRs and accessories. You can also rent a 64GB Wifi iPad 2 for 3 day, 1 week, 10 days, 2 weeks, three weeks, or even by the month. An iPad is perfect for those places where a laptop just wouldn’t work out space wise. Most hotels and convention centers have an active WIFI connection, so your laptop or iPad will always be connected. One travel tip, make sure the place you are staying or where the event you are covering, will have such a connection. If such a connection isn’t possible, make use of your smartphone. Most smartphones these days have great mobile blogging applications that will allow you to keep the website well updated while traveling and reporting.

The Essentials of the Knapsack

We expect that you don’t want to bring your whole suitcase everywhere you go while reporting. Here’s what you should look into bringing with you when you are on the go reporting. First, it’s important to bring some sort of device to capture the event. You could bring a DSLR or a pocket digital camera, this will allow you to have some photos to accompany the reporting. Aside from a DSLR, you’ll need something to jot down interviews and other notes to accompany your reports. You may think that this would be where I would recommend some digital device. Not always in this case though. Bring with you a notepad or possibly some recording device is better in my opinion. They provide a faster way of gathering information, and due to the fact that you may be using your iPad or laptop for other reporting, you want to make sure to preserve the battery life on those devices as much as possible. Other smaller things to add into your sack can include something quick to eat, like a granola bar and water, because you never know how long the event can last and whether or not something good will be there for you to enjoy. You may also want to bring with you chargers and a spare battery for all of your devices with easily detachable batteries. You don’t want an embarrassing moment.

travel-blogger

Experience the Vacation

We’ve covered the essentials needed for reporting the story. However, once you are there, there’s a good chance you’ll be there for more than a day. With a place being new to you to visit, you’ll want to ensure that you create memories for the time. If you are 100% driven on covering the story, your readers will see this and not find the reporting to be with personality. This is why I recommend writers to also have a special piece on possibly covering points of interest in the city you are reporting. For example, if you are covering a technology event in Silicon Valley, why not have a piece on covering technology startups in the area. You may even be able to interview a couple to feature in an article. Being in a new city presents a great amount of extra articles to have for weeks to come. It’s important to try to make the trip 55% enjoyment, 45% work.

Plan Before Hand

One important tip is to plan your trip before you go. If you just jump in and not plan any time for enjoyment or for meeting up with others during the event you are covering, you’ll try to fill in any extra time you have with work. Planning before hand to try out a restaurant in the area with a fellow reporter or individual in the industry can not only be a great time to relax, but also the perfect time to network. If work seems to be too hard for you to handle, due to the fact that you are not only reporting in a new city but also having to travel to and from there, you can always get a writer to report for you back at the office. They can be the individuals to organize and edit for you, leaving you with the lighter but still exceedingly important job of gathering the content. You’ll feel important in this process because the content wouldn’t be available without you, and the writer in this will feel like an important part of the story.

Build Relationships

In the end, the best tip we can give is to use this time as a great way to network and build relationships in the industry. They will be the individuals you will go back to again and again to collaborate new projects and to also possibly be a friend to visit when in the city. Aside from other jobs and industries, the blogging world is a fun and booming industry that makes it possible to mix fun and work at the same time. New relationships can create great material for future articles and reports.

Disclosure: We might earn commission from qualifying purchases. The commission help keep the rest of my content free, so thank you!

Reader Interactions

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Footer

New iDPRT Printers – SP450, SP420, and Zeva 1966 Photo Printer Reviewed

Munbyn P44S Wireless Thermal Label Printer Review

Master & Dynamic MW75 Wireless Headphones Review – Get Lost in the Music

3DMakerPro Mole 3D Scanner Review – Affordable, Portable, and Easy To Use

Follow TechWalls

YoutubeFacebookTwitterInstagram

Recent Posts

  • New iDPRT Printers – SP450, SP420, and Zeva 1966 Photo Printer Reviewed
  • Munbyn P44S Wireless Thermal Label Printer Review
  • POLYWOOD Classic Folding Adirondack vs Member’s Mark Adirondack Chair – Which Is Better?
  • BLUETTI’s New Expandable Outdoor Solar Generator AC60 & B80

Copyright © 2023 ยท All Rights Reserved

Manage Cookie Consent
We use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. We do this to improve browsing experience and to show personalized ads. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behavior or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.
Functional cookies Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes. The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
Manage options Manage services Manage vendors Read more about these purposes
View preferences
{title} {title} {title}