My first effort at a written record of my travel experiences was in 1989 when I traveled to China. Ten glorious, mind altering, and life changing days. This was my first trip out of the United States. And if you don’t count the family all night drive from the low country of South Carolina to Daytona Beach, Florida to visit my grandmother when I was but a little girl and a trip, once again, from the low country of South Carolina to the mountains of North Carolina for my honeymoon, then truly this trip to China was my first trip of any major significance. Yes, the honeymoon trip was life changing, but in an entirely different and earth shaking way!
Twenty years later, I still have the 3x5” blue with very small white polka dot cloth-covered journal with the lined pages. Curiously enough, this journal was made in Shanghai, China, which I did not discover until many months after I returned. This journal begins, in my handwriting, Day 1, 3/10/89. It is entirely handwritten and very much time-worn and often read. Each time I read it, memories are pulled from some darkened depth of my brain’s storage space, dusted off, and recalled with continued vividness and clarity.
I have kept travel journals since that trip. In recent years, these journals have become disjointed text files stored on the computer in numerous places, waiting to become printed evidence of the many extremely long and wordy emails I sent to family, friends, coworkers and assorted other individuals whom I assumed were interested in a play by play account of my daily travel adventures. My pictures are stored in the ‘my pictures’ folder on my desktop with their original inscrutable dated and sequential numbering system in place waiting for me to rename, select, and organize. I have miles and miles of video stored in several different movie editing program files also waiting to be edited and burned to a CD to be shared with friends and family.
Travel diaries and travel journals have come a long way since the invention of paper and pen journals. The small printed book I carried on my first trip waiting to be filled with my handwritten notes and stuffed with many kinds of portable memorabilia pressed into it is now a multifaceted, interactive, online personalized travel experience. Internet-based software programs allow you, the traveler, to capture the thrill of recording EVERY thought and EVERY image of your trip. You can share this information minute by minute, hour by hour, day by day, or in any other time frame you desire as long as you have internet access. You can send notices to your family, friends, and the 100s of other assorted travel voyeurs in your life each time you update your online travel journal. Finally, friends, family and assorted other interested persons can chat with you and leave comments about your travels while you travel. These websites also allow you to share every minute detail of your travels with the total population of the internet connected world, should you want to.
These online travel journal websites allow the you the local or world traveler to write about and upload pictures into its website, to find interesting facts about specific destinations, to plan every detail of your trip including roads, hotels, air, rental cars, admission to sites of local interests, and restaurants, etc. and to publish a detailed itinerary for all to see. The traveler’s family, friends, coworkers and any one of the millions of internet-connected world citizens can follow the exact route of your trip on an interactive map.
Which of these online travel journal websites is best for you? How do you choose the travel journal website that will best meet your needs? Part II reviews 5 online travel journal websites!
Tuesday, January 01, 2008
Wednesday, May 16, 2007
Post 9-11 and Travel Safety
It was Thanksgiving 2003. I was returning home from a week in Helsinki, Finland.
The trip back was slightly eventful, but safe, with a bit of a delay. There was fog in Europe, very low and very thick. It kept me from leaving Helsinki on time on Thursday (Thanksgiving Day to us) and when the plane arrived at Schiphol, we circled Amsterdam for about 1 hour. I originally only had an hour layover which turned out not to be a problem as my plane to the States was circling overhead also. My plane to the U.S. got low on fuel after circling for more than 1.5 hours in the air and it was diverted to London and my planned flight to the U.S. was canceled. I spent the night in a suburb of Amsterdam, waiting to find out if I was going to get a flight out on Friday on one of only two direct flights from Amsterdam to Minneapolis. I did get the morning flight out on Friday.
BUT, before we left the airport, security personnel was all over the airplane looking for a passenger with, of course, a middle eastern name, checking seat assignments of about 1 dozen people. No one was found matching the name and description of this missing passenger. Then, as the doors locked on the plane, one of the flight attendants found a package that belonged (I was sitting next to the kitchen, I heard their conversation) 'TO NO ONE ON THE PLANE', I repeat, 'NO ONE!' I kept waiting for them to get IT, THE PACKAGE, OFF THE PLANE which to my utter amazement DID NOT happen.
On a personal note: I never have dreams that I remember. However, the week before I flew I had the most vivid dream of a Northwest airplane crashing with me on it, a very unusual experience for me. Needless to say, my anxiety was quite high. I can be one of the most trusting people in the world, but my trust level was low at this point. I wondered throughout the flight just when the bomb was going to go off and asI was sitting in the back of the plane, I was even more concerned about my safety. Imagine my imagination!
Suffice it to say, I made it home safely. Soundly is always questionable.
debra:)
It was Thanksgiving 2003. I was returning home from a week in Helsinki, Finland.
The trip back was slightly eventful, but safe, with a bit of a delay. There was fog in Europe, very low and very thick. It kept me from leaving Helsinki on time on Thursday (Thanksgiving Day to us) and when the plane arrived at Schiphol, we circled Amsterdam for about 1 hour. I originally only had an hour layover which turned out not to be a problem as my plane to the States was circling overhead also. My plane to the U.S. got low on fuel after circling for more than 1.5 hours in the air and it was diverted to London and my planned flight to the U.S. was canceled. I spent the night in a suburb of Amsterdam, waiting to find out if I was going to get a flight out on Friday on one of only two direct flights from Amsterdam to Minneapolis. I did get the morning flight out on Friday.
BUT, before we left the airport, security personnel was all over the airplane looking for a passenger with, of course, a middle eastern name, checking seat assignments of about 1 dozen people. No one was found matching the name and description of this missing passenger. Then, as the doors locked on the plane, one of the flight attendants found a package that belonged (I was sitting next to the kitchen, I heard their conversation) 'TO NO ONE ON THE PLANE', I repeat, 'NO ONE!' I kept waiting for them to get IT, THE PACKAGE, OFF THE PLANE which to my utter amazement DID NOT happen.
On a personal note: I never have dreams that I remember. However, the week before I flew I had the most vivid dream of a Northwest airplane crashing with me on it, a very unusual experience for me. Needless to say, my anxiety was quite high. I can be one of the most trusting people in the world, but my trust level was low at this point. I wondered throughout the flight just when the bomb was going to go off and asI was sitting in the back of the plane, I was even more concerned about my safety. Imagine my imagination!
Suffice it to say, I made it home safely. Soundly is always questionable.
debra:)
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