I'm just starting out in the blogging world. I've trialled some half a dozen and otherwise good sites always seem to have something I don't like! For example Travel Diaries, the first I tried, I liked - BUT formatting was way too limiting.
Anyway, it seems as if Travellerspoint might be the answer for me, but (call me dumb) I can't quite figure the ins and outs of integrating all its features. How do maps fit in with text and photos? What's the difference (from the writer's point of view) in presenting a day's trip, with a start and end points, and a whole journey (from first day to last)?
No doubt if I persevered solutions would present themselves, but I was wondering if there is any such thing as a comprehensive guide to take a beginner through all the steps of creating a blog, incorporating all the features that Travellerspoint has to offer. (Suggestion to those in charge: I'm sure such a guide would be useful for any beginner). I've seen the YouTube 'demos', but those are more 'See what Travellerspoint can do' rather than step-by-step How-To's.
Can anyone point me to such a guide, if it exists? Or even write a quick outline for me--and others like me?
I think the main issue with trying to write something like that is that - at least from Travellerspoint's perspective - there is not one way to do things. The blog in particular is very configurable, because different travellers have a lot of different blogging styles and wishes, and Travellerspoint tries to be a good solution for them all.
For example, some people use the blogs to present a full "after the fact" nicely formatted tripreport of their travels (which they then create a PDF from), and want all their entries to show up in chronological order, others are blogging while on the move, and want the more classic blog with frequent short entries, newest entry first.
Some people create a new blog for every trip, and use custom styling and images to create a blog theme specific for that one trip, others just run a single blog on which they document all their travelling, and also write about the periods in between trips. Some are very photo heavy, others are almost exclusively text.
And the blogs aren't even the main focus point of the site; just one of them. Some people start with a blog, upload photos through the blog interface, later find out about tagging and positioning those photos on the map to organize them in galleries or to make them integrate with a travel map; others start with just using the photo gallery and/or travel map / planner feature, and only much later use a blog to bring those together.
So from my point of view, it'd be much "easier" to answer a question like "I'd like to set up a blog like this and this; how can I do that on Travellerspoint?", than to write a guide "this is how you should use the site".
To answer "How do maps fit in with text and photos?" - I'm actually not completely clear on the current mechanism, but photos and map destinations can both have dates associated with them. If those dates match (that is, if a photo is geographically close to a destination on a travel map, with a date set between the arrival and departure date for that destination), then the photo gets associated with that "trip", and presented on the travel map at the same time as that trip is.
Blog entries also can have a date set ("Describes Travel From"), which will automatically create a link to the travel map, zoomed in on the trip section for that date. (And at least in the old implementation, this would also link from the information bubble on a destination on the map back to the relevant blog entry. Not 100% that still works like that.)
Some people find it too much work to enter dates for everything, and don't use the photos, so it's also possible to within a blog entry embed a map, and force this to display a particular trip, and be zoomed in at specific coordinates, to in that way illustrate the blog entry.
I hope that helps a bit? If you have more specific questions, either "what does this do?" or "is it possible to do this thing I'd like to do", please feel free to ask! Oh, and maybe the might help a bit as well.
Thanks for your full and helpful reply ☺
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