Week 304 - In the Beginning : The Travelogue - 06-10-2012

History of the Travelogue

We have been asked many times, how do we create these weekly epics. So, as we cannot travel for a least a few weeks, we thought we would share our insights. A little history: Our first tour in the Mothership began on August 15th 2006. Just days before we left, we had a Bon Voyage party.

Many of our friends commented, "waaaaaaha, boo hoo, we want to go with you". The best we could offer was to send an email or two about our journey. So, we put out a email sign up sheet and about a dozen folks signed on. But, by the end of the our first week, the list had grown to 35. Then: We had no intention of doing anything more than sending a few photos. Now: We strive each week to create an interesting, informative and accurate travelogue. We are driven by those who have responded so well. We love to entertain those who are traveling with us vicariously!

Our first travelogue took about 10 minutes. This was it:

Hello friends,

After months of preparation and weeks of around-the-clock work, we locked the doors to the house and headed off to San Diego with Melissa. We stopped over at the East Shore RV Park (recommended) at Bonelli Park next to Lake Puddingstone in San Dimas CA.

We enjoyed our day with Melissa and then arrived at Campland on the Bay (Mission Bay). We spent five days with Melissa, Emily and her boyfriend, Chad. Emily and Chad were good hosts, driving us around in Emily's car. We got Melissa checked in the Point Loma Nazarene University where she begins as a freshman and Emily continues as a Junior. PLNU is situated right on the ocean with beautiful views and sunsets. We spent time with various staff and professors learning about the school. We are delighted to have both girls at the same place.

We left Mission Bay on Sunday and camped high on a hill next to a business where Pete will work on Monday. Then we are off for another week.

Homeless and loving it, Pete and Ellen Mattson

The attached photo is our front window view at the campground. At night we watched the Sea World fireworks from our living room.

The second week we upped the ante. Five photos and a longer story. Then: Take photos when you feel like it. Week one, one photo. Week two, nine photos: Now: Take photos every hour of everyday when traveling. As many as 600 in a week.

As we continued, we realize our 1.8 megapixel 2001 Sony diskette-based camera needed an upgrade. So we stopped at Best Buy in Albuquerque, New Mexico and purchased the Sony DSC-H5. This 7 megapixel camera is fantastic. (Today's much more capable equivalent is the the DSC-HX200V ) This is a best camera you can purchase short of using a professional DSLR. The DSLR are large and require lens changes. Our camera fits in a coat pocket and has a 16 times optical zoom (The newer DSC-HX200V has 30 times optical zoom.) Note that we will discuss cameras in a couple of weeks. The Sony DSC-HX200V

Now with a great camera, we were ready to produce better travelogues. Now, what to write? Nobody, except your immediate family, wants to hear "First, we went here and then there and now we moving on to somewhere else". zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz! First, you need to set a theme. As in any good writing, you need a great introductory sentence, introductory paragraph and then fill out the story. Then: "We went here, we went there . . ." Now: Pick a topic for the week. Generally, it is where we are traveling, but at times it's a topic, like this travelogue "about travelogues".

Next, who is your audience. In order to write well, you must know who your audience is. Then: Family and friends who signed up on our email list. About two years into our tour, we created www.BigRigBible.com.

The site began as a collection of all of our research and experience. It is the complete guide for those wanting to live full time in their motorhome. The original site had only our research. As time went by we added photos of all the RV parks that we have stayed at. And, finally we added our 300+ weekly travelogues. Our audience Now: It's a combination of family, friends, relatives we have visited on the way, RV friends and some people we have never met. Several of our readers have forwarded our travelogues on to others. We appreciate this and take it as a compliment. Some of these, whom we did not know, have requested to be on our list. Our primary focus has changed from "what we did last summer" to "educate those who might want to travel full time." Then: A dozen readers. Now: Several hundred.

And finally, when writing your travelogue, be interesting! Your travelogues should be like a bikini, "long enough to cover the subject, but short enough to be interesting!". We generally introduce our weekly topic with a paragraph or two. Then, we pour in the photos with captions. And if you have have twenty different photos of a particular sunrise, pick one and let the rest go. Try to put yourself into the readers shoes and keep them excited about what you are presenting.

And lastly remember that you need to be passionate about what you are communicating. If you are not, you'll have few readers and lack the motivation to continue. Next week we'll discuss various ways to get your message out. The Internet offers a great variety here.

We hope this helps those who have made inquiries. We love our readers; you make it fun! Until next week, Pete, Ellen and sticker-filled Mandy.

By Pete . Ellen Mattson

Photos from 2006 and 2007