It’s such a tough balance to strike, to try to record as much of your trip as possible, while still trying to actually experience the place you’ve travelled half way round the world to see. Whether the recordings take the form of photographs, journal entries, blog posts or sketches, the pursuit of capturing every moment can occasionally begin to take away from the trip itself. I’ve found the balance particularly hard to strike this trip. It doesn’t help that the writing of each post is not, for me, a speedy thing. The writing, adding the photos, entering the SEO information and scheduling the tweets will usually take a couple of hours – not a small amount of time when there’s a world to see.
Blogging spot in Patagonia
This last month has been unbelievably busy. We’ve travelled fast, squeezing in as much as possible on the way and using any spare moments to try and get some rest. In the last four weeks we’ve travelled across the border into Bolivia, ridden a mountain bike down ‘The World’s Most Dangerous Road’, seen Mars on Earth on the Bolivian salt flats, crossed into Chile, turned up at the airport and bought a flight in cash, cycled the streets of Santiago, celebrated Halloween with Pisco Sours and a Beer Pong tournament, taken a bus across the Andes to Argentina, taken a Vineyard tour in Mendoza, sampled copious amounts of red wine, drunk champagne and reclined to 180 degrees on a bus, resisted the urge to burn down the building of Aerolineas Argetinas, seen the Perito Merino glacier, camped in front of Cerro Torre, enjoyed the Patagonian countryside with my Dad, sailed on the Beagle channel, Canoed from a lake to the sea, stood at the ‘end of the world’, hung out with penguins and seen Tango dancers in Buenos Aires’s La Boca.
Perito Moreno Glacier
Looking back on that list, it’s hardly surprising I’ve not found the time to write up my experiences.
Despite the feelings of guilt which have been hanging over my head about my failure to keep my dedicated reader up to date with my travels, I’m glad that my trip has not suffered due to a rigid posting schedule. It’s not unusual to see travellers glued to their laptop or only viewing the world through their camera. I don’t want to be one of those travellers, the blogging is simply not that important to me.
The Tierra Del Fuego National Park
However, that doesn’t mean that over the next couple of days I won’t be trying to catch up on recording some of the stories. As our trip draws (incredibly rapidly) to a close, I’m beginning to feel that anxious panic. There’s a flutter in my chest that’s reminding me that this experience is coming to an end and urging me to cling to it. To try to commit the stories, images and people to memory.
Hiking towards Cerro Torre
Somehow, perhaps I’ll be able to bottle up the feel of the Argentinian sun on my shoulders. Maybe, I’ll be able to preserve the magic of watching a penguin waddle up the beach to it’s home. I’ll try to recreate the feeling of wrapping my tongue around unfamiliar Spanish syllables and the absolute joy of being able to make myself understood. And I hope to always be able to summon to mind the sensation of looking out over Machu Picchu after walking for four days along the Inca Trail.
El Chalten
But, despite my efforts, my trip through South America will pass into memory. And then, my blog posts and my photos will be all I have left. I should get writing…
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The penguin I have smuggled in my pack should help with the memories!
I’m looking forward to the retelling of the adventure when you get home. Especially, I think, because there is so much left to tell!
Don’t feel guilty about not posting – if you feel it would detract from your trip (which is what you’d be posting about anyway!) then what’s the point?! I’d rather read a well-thought out article that you want to write, than a rushed article that you feel that you HAD to write “just because”.
It sounds like you’ve been having an amazing time. I haven’t posted in a long time, but for exactly the opposite reason – nothing much has been going on here in Korea, so nothing really blogworthy haha!
Enjoy the rest of your time in South America. The pictures you’ve posted so far look incredible!
Oh, man. I’m having the SAME problems.
The way I see it though- you can’t force writing. Sometimes you will get this creative charge but simultaneously, you have this crazy new city or location or whatever outside that kind of begs you to explore it. And that new city or location or whatever inspires you with more creativity and it’s a vicious cycle I tell ya!
But like you said, gluing yourself to the world instead of gluing yourself to your laptop sounds like a FAR better experience!
I totally sympathise, it’s really hard to keep on top of the blog when travelling! Pisco Sours and a Beer Pong tournament in Santiago for Halloween sounds familiar – where were you?
Sounds like you had an awesome time! I know I set up a travel blog before my first RTW trip and I ended up never updating it. It’s weird how you can become so busy when in reality you have all 24 hours everyday to do whatever you want.
On another note, how much did you guys end up spending per day in South America?? I’m going to spend quite a bit of time down there starting beginning of 2014, and while I know prices will change I’d still be curious to know.
It’s always more important to see than write. On my last trip, I spent every moment soaking up the experience, and, two months later, I’m still trying to finish posts about the trip. But it’s totally worth it- I saw so much more than I would have had I spent two-three hours every night editing photos and writing posts.
I’ll be here to read them whenever you get to them!
I couldn’t agree more Erik
So many views ,experiences,people you have met friends you have made, food you have tasted, will all pass into fantastic memories and they will be priceless, you have all so much to tell.
,
I completely agree with you – I neither can dedicate all too much (if any) time to social media and blogging while I’m traveling. It feels wrong!
Anyway, I hope you’re having a great time and I can’t wait to read more about it (I’m going to Patagonia myself if about a month time)
Great post and something I think about a lot about in regards to travel bloggers. I think that it is incredibly important to take more time away from the computer simply because human beings weren’t meant to be glued to a computer screen for long periods of time. I understand that bloggers need to make a living but I also believe that their readers would understand if they’ve taken time off of for a few days or a few weeks to explore their surroundings. But then again, I am not a professional travel blogger so I’m not really one to talk or assume that it’s that easy to take time off from the blog in order to make a living.
A common trend that I have seen in the travel blog community is it that so many travel bloggers are in such a hurry and I can’t understand why. Aren’t most of them making a living in a location independent manner? I am a climber so knowing me I would have spent months in Patagonia rock-climbing and mountaineering; if I had to spend a week off the grid in the mountains I would expect my readers to be patient and understanding that I’m remote and having the time of my life.
Thank you so much for taking the time to read my comment, I greatly look forward to your response.
-Kevin Post
I was just tonight looking through photos from a trip two summers ago, and thinking about how I’d like to make time to share them. A month from tomorrow, we’ll be arriving in Peru! (And trying to balance between experiencing the physical world and sharing with the digital one…) Life does get so busy with the *living* — and that’s not a bad thing at all…just a trade off. So glad you’ve been enjoying the days in South America.