Posts Tagged ‘travel blog’

Taking the Show on the Road

// July 14th, 2009 // 2 Comments » // General, Projects

In a few days time I will leaving Ireland, making my way through Europe and ending up in Australia 6 weeks later. All up my girlfriend and I will be spending 40 days travelling through Europe, visiting about 15 countries.

As most of you know, we run a travel website called “Explore With Me“. For those of you who don’t know, “Explore With Me” is a travel blog, social community and gives other travellers the chance to create their own travel blog.

Leading by example, we are planning on blogging about our travels while on the road. We will be travelling with a few cameras, video cameras, laptops and hopefully will be able to find an internet connection to provide daily updates, posting photos, videos, reviews and reports. Along with that, our Twitter followers will also get updates every few hours.

Keeping our promise of daily updates is going to be a fairly big task. Due to the large amount of countries we are going to be visiting, we will be either travelling, sleeping or sightseeing. Finding the time to write post, edit and upload photos and record video blogs will take at least 2 hours a day. However I think finding an internet connection is going to be a task in itself. I am thinking of using a mobile broadband device just in case there are no wifi hotspots around, however the roaming costs are going to be huge!

The reason behind our little challenge is to promote “Explore With Me”. I am hoping that we receive some exposure and encourage new members to join and kick start our social network. Aside from that we will be able to look back on our blog in years ahead and remember the times we spent in Europe. Most people take a bunch of photos and unedited video which sits in a box for the next 50 years. Our trip will live a long life on the internet!

If you would like to follow our trip, check out the “Explore With Me – Europe in 40 Days” blog!

Explore With Me v2 Launched

// April 9th, 2009 // No Comments » // Projects

Today we went live with the new version of Explore With Me. The site has been redesigned in order to give it more of a social feeling rather than it being a blog with a few members. While the site’s own blog is still a key part of Explore With Me, we are trying to encourage people to join, create their own blog and socialise with other members.

The changes from the previous version of the site aren’t that major, keeping the original template and just modifying the content areas. It still looks similar – just better!

The new site is being hosted on my new VPS, running WordPress MU 2.7 and BuddyPress. Hopefully within the next week or so WPMU 2.7.1 will be released and then BuddyPress v1 should follow shortly after that, which will require another small upgrade – and hopefully the last for the next few months!

The next area we are going to focus on developing are member features. As BuddyPress becomes more popular, the community will start to create plugins and other components that we will be able to implement and offer to our members.

Now the site is the way we want it, we are going to have to put a bit more effort in to keep it growing. We are aiming to blog a few times a week to keep the content fresh, and try to spread the word among young travellers, letting them know that we exist and are open for business.

Take a look at the new site – feedback is welcomed!

Working with WordPress MU

// November 9th, 2008 // 4 Comments » // Projects

I have been spending a lot of time this weekend on the backend of Explore With Me trying to find the best plugins and widgets possible for my soon to be users.

Hosting other peoples blogs is going to be a massive task, not only will I have to provide support, I will also have to make sure that users have access to the best themes, plugins and widgets.

As the hosting will be aimed at travellers wanting to create their own blog, I have to find themes and plugins that appeal to that niche.

A few weeks ago I found and implemented 30 travel themes that I found at a website called WordPress Travel Themes. This was a great find as all I had to do was upload the themes and then activate them all. Anyone who signs up for a blog at Explore With Me can now choose any of the 30 travel themes.

Once I found the themes the next step was to find plugins that would be suitable for a travel site. I have only implemented a few of them at the moment, however below is a list that I would like to offer travel bloggers.

  • Flickr Sidebar Widget: This is a sidebar widget to allow bloggers to show their latest Flickr photos from their recent travels.
  • Twitter for WordPress: This widget allows you to display your latest tweets on your WordPress blog. This is great for travellers as you can keep everyone up to date with your travels.
  • YouTube Widget: Allows your users to show their latest YouTube videos on their sidebar. Great for all that travel footage!
  • Travel Map: I have yet to find a Travel Map plugin that I can use for WordPress MU. I’d like to find something that would allow the blogger to plot their travels – something similar to “Where I’ve Been“
  • Current Location: Another plugin I have yet to find, though I think it would be good for the bloggers to be able to show their current location on a map.

I think these are the main features I would like the bloggers to be able to use. Smaller plugins such as weather, timezones and travel itinerary would also be a nice touch.

What else do you think a travel blog should have?

Explore With Me & WordPress MU

// October 26th, 2008 // No Comments » // Projects

After getting Explore With Me up and running a few weeks back I pretty much had to start all over again when I decided I wanted to use WordPress MU instead of the standard version. WordPress MU has the ability to host endless numbers of blogs on the site – the way sites such as WordPress and Edublogs works.

We had the idea to allow our audience to create their own travel blog through Explore With Me. We thought it would be a good idea to host blogs created by other travellers and then later on we will setup a social community type environment so travellers will be able to connect with one another.

In our quest to be the “one stop shop” for everything travel related we thought it would be a good idea to setup a social community specifically for travellers. There are a few sites that do this already, however before Facebook there was MySpace and before MySpace there was Bebo – so if done properly we aim to be better than everyone else offering this type of service.

The configuration of WordPress MU meant that we had to export everything we had already done and then import it back into the WPMU database.Though if we started from a fresh install it would have been much easier to setup and configure. The setup is a little different to the standard WordPress, however anyone with basic knowledge of web hosting and web site configuration should be able to manage.

Not only do we now have to take care of our own blog we have to make sure that our members have the latest and greatest themes, plugins and other WordPress hacks that will enable them to create a professional looking travel blog.

We will also have to create a support forum and a few “How To” guides so our members can learn how to use WordPress and if they come across any problems they can share it in the forums.

The configuration of Explore With Me is nearly done, so now it is working the backend making sure members have themes, plugins and anything else that I can think of.

The social community plugin won’t be available until the end of the year so that will be the next big phase of the site. Though we will aim to launch in a few weeks and then add the social community when it becomes available.

If you would like to help us out and test the site – please sign up as a member and create your own blog. Any suggestions are welcome as I am new to this so I am bound to be missing a thing or two!

Sneak Peek!

// October 8th, 2008 // No Comments » // Projects

I don’t normally do this – but I will for those interested in websites, blogs and WordPress. I have started to work on my new project “Explore With Me” and have decided to leave the site open so you can go in and have a look at the progress made while I am building it and getting everything looking perfect.

I am normally one to hide the site away until it is exactly how I want it, however I have decided to leave the site open so you all can follow the development of the new blog and the configuration of the WordPress theme.

I have downloaded the Arthemia theme by Michael Jubel. I think it is a fantastic looking theme for what I want to do, however I am going to change a few things around just to get it how I want it. I am a bit of a perfectionist when it comes to my websites so I won’t be happy until I like what I see.

You can check out Explore With Me at http://www.explorewithme.com

My New Project

// September 30th, 2008 // No Comments » // Projects

I have been thinking for a while about starting another project in the wake of NameSeek. The success of my NameSeek project has inspired me to give it another go and hopefully something will become of it.

Me and my girlfriend Ruth have decided to start a travel blog. We are planning a 3 month trip next year and have already travelled a good bit of Europe over the past 2 years so we should have plenty to write about between now and when we start travelling in about a years time.

This will be more a personal diary of travel experiences in the hope to educate future travellers or those planning a big trip around the world. We have been in enough planes, buses, trains, hotels, hostels, taxi’s, pubs and clubs to have learnt a trick or two, so hopefully we can pass on this information to wanna be travellers.

We are still in the planning stages at the moment and are trying to think of a smart and witty name. I don’t want to call it something like “DanandRuthsTravelAdventures.com” – I want something smart, clever and funny.

There is no aim to make money off the site as yet, the goal for now will just to build some solid content and generate some traffic.

Hopefully we will have the blog up and running by the end of October so stay tuned!