Confessions of a Non-Designer

Let’s be real: I’m not a natural designer. I can appreciate beautiful design, but creating something stunning myself? That’s an entirely different story. I honestly have the design skills of a potato, and this has followed me through various aspects of life, including the websites I’ve tried to build.

I’ve always admired beautifully designed websites, but as someone who doesn’t consider herself a natural designer, I’ve struggled to create visually stunning sites myself. It’s not that I can’t recognize good design when I see it; I simply don’t have the innate ability to craft something beautiful from scratch.

Curious? Use our code NOMAD10 for 10% off your annual subscription here.

Past Website Struggles

Charles and I have built dozens of websites over the years including ones for ourselves, a few for companies and a few for friends and family. Some of our most popular include this site TheBarefootNomad, our recipe bog TheParentSpot, plus a few websites dedicated to helping travelers choose the proper travel insurance (which we’ve since sold or shut down).

Despite our best efforts and countless hours invested, none of these websites turned out as beautifully as we had envisioned. Any design improvements we attempted to make were met with frustration and felt like an uphill battle. The problem has never been technical for us, more of vision.

Discovering Squarespace

After our past website struggles, I realized that having the right tools might just make a big difference. That’s why I decided to give Squarespace a try for my personal website, MickiKosman.com. I wanted a space to share my journey as a travel writer, entrepreneur, and storyteller, plus a place to connect with my audience in a creative and professional way.

What is Squarespace, Anyway?

So, you’ve likely heard of Squarespace, but what exactly is it?

In a nutshell, it’s an all-in-one platform for building websites. It comes with a bunch of features like professional templates, a drag-and-drop editor, a content management system, blogging tools, SEO stuff, e-commerce options, and site hosting. Basically, it’s has a lot of the things you need to create a gorgeous website, all in one place.

Getting Started with Blueprint AI

Signing up for Squarespace was straightforward. I started with the free 14-day trial and played around with the Blueprint AI design feature. It offered some helpful design suggestions based on my site goals.

What really impressed me was Squarespace’s library of customizable templates. There were plenty of attractive designs to choose from.

Customizing My Website

Customizing my website with Squarespace was a relatively smooth process. The drag-and-drop interface and various features made it easy to personalize the design without needing coding skills. I could add, remove, and rearrange elements on the page with just a few clicks.

Finding the Right Images

One thing that can be time-consuming when building a website is finding the perfect images.

Squarespace helped with that by offering a selection of stock images in addition to the ability to upload my own photos. I used my own photos, but having stock photos on hand could definitely save time and hassle!

The End Result

Within a couple of hours, I had a website that I was happy with. Squarespace allowed me, a non-designer, to create a site that was both visually appealing and functional. The built-in features like mobile optimization, SEO tools, and social media integration weren’t as apparent when designing it but as a website owner, are all extremely helpful.

Templates That Look Pretty Darn Good

One thing that stood out to me about Squarespace was the templates. I’ve got to admit, they’re pretty easy on the eyes. They’ve got this clean, professional vibe going on.

And the cool part is, you can just pick one of their templates, toss in your own photos and text, and your website will look pretty polished. No design skills needed!

Another nice thing about the templates is that they’re responsive. That means they automatically adjust to look good on different devices, like tablets and phones. It’s handy because more people browse the web on their mobile devices these days than laptops and desktops combined.

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I used this gorgeous Waverly template to create my site. You can see a demo of the Waverly template I used here at Squarespace. You can customize styles, add features of templates (and more) when you start a trial.

Customization Options

When it comes to styling your website, Squarespace has a decent number of options. You can play around with the fonts (which is great if you’re picky about typography like me), colors, sizes, button styles, and all sorts of other design elements. And you can do all of this without touching any code, which is a relief for those who aren’t exactly tech wizards.

But, if you do happen to know your way around code, Squarespace does have a Custom CSS section where you can add your own coding magic.

Want to browse some gorgeous designs? Get some inspiration from some of the best
designs on the web at their design showcase here.

Built-in Features

One thing to note about Squarespace is that everything is baked right into the platform. You don’t have to go hunting for plugins or extensions. It’s convenient, however it also means you’re limited to the features they offer.

That being said, Squarespace does have a pretty good selection of features, especially for bloggers and small businesses. You can easily add things like a blog, contact form, email signup, photo galleries, event calendar, social media buttons, and even a shopping cart for selling products or digital downloads.

Let’s Talk Money

Now, let’s talk about pricing. Squarespace offers a free 14-day trial, so you can test the waters and see if it’s the right fit for you. After that, you can choose from four different plans: Basic, Core, Plus, or Advanced.

If you’re in Canada like me, you might see these plans labeled as Personal, Business, Commerce Basic, and Commerce Advanced, which I believe is simply the old branding for the same packages offered in the USA.

The Basic plan starts at just $16 USD per month if you opt for annual billing, or $23 USD per month if you prefer to pay monthly. As your business grows, you can upgrade to higher-tier plans that offer even more features and tools to help you succeed online.

Use our code NOMAD10 for 10% off your annual subscription here.

The Bottom Line

So, is Squarespace the be-all, end-all of website builders? It has its strengths, like the attractive templates and built-in features, but it might not be the perfect fit for everyone if you want extreme flexibility or demand very out-of-the-box designs.

If you’re looking for a platform that’s easy to use and gives you a professional-looking website without a ton of hassle, Squarespace is definitely worth checking out.

But hey, that’s just my two cents based on my own experience. Your mileage may vary!

Use our code NOMAD10 for 10% off your annual subscription here.

Whether you’re a daily digital nomad, or a poor schmuck who got stuck finishing the annual report while on vacation, almost everyone needs to get work done on the road at some point.

Over the years we’ve had the fortune/misfortune of working online nearly everywhere. From the beach to cyber cafes to hotel lobbies we’ve learned that each place has its pros and cons.

Here are our 12 best office work space alternatives while traveling. Trust us, after this, you won’t look at telecommuting the same way ever again.

Internet cafe

Sometimes you’ll find a small coffee or snack counter in an Internet cafe, but most of the time internet cafes are just row upon row of huge monitors, powerful PCs, and lightning fast internet. You usually pay by the hour to use one of the cyber cafe’s computers. They’re pretty rare in North America these days, but you can still find plenty throughout Asia and Europe. We even found a great one on the island of Kos, Greece. If you’re looking to get some serious work done, then this is the place to go.

• Pro: Fast internet, big monitors, printers available (for a price) and decent tech help.
• Con: Rooms full of 14 year old kids playing Call of Duty at max volume and grandmothers using Skype beside you.

Looking for a  job to do on the road? Check out these work abroad programs for Brits. For Americans, Canadians and everyone else, these 45 jobs you can do on the road should do the trick!

Coffee house or café

You’ll find digital nomads and remote workers in coffee houses around the world. Cafes are also a great place to get caffeinated and get some work done at the same time.

Some cafes have really embraced the remote worker culture, with meetups for virtual workers and great WiFi. Some cafes aren’t so accommodating, with no (or poor) WiFi, uncomfortable chairs, and a culture that really doesn’t want to see someone hang around on their laptop all day. You just need to find the right one to get some work done.

• Pro: Decent coffee and free WiFi
• Con: Loud conversations, overpriced baked goods and occasionally spilling coffee on your laptop

Park

The park may not be the first place you think of for remote working, but we’ve found a surprising number of parks and public places with WiFi access. In cities where public WiFi is available, it’s usually only offered within parks in the city limits, as well as city facilities and subway stations. Of course, you can always work offline for a while if there’s no Wifi and upload when you get back to your room.

• Pro: Sunshine, fresh air, and a lot of room to stretch out.
• Con: Ants. Ducks. Random homeless guys snuggling up to you. Those damn squirrels.

Pub

OK, so a pub may not be the best choice for a productive work environment on the road. However, you’d be surprised how many pubs offer free WiFi to customers and everyone knows pubs offer the best food anywhere.

• Pro: Beer and great pub food. Oh yeah, have we mentioned beer?
• Con: Laptop gets in the way of drinking beer, and exsheshive spealling mishtakes after a few beerz…

Tip: Write drunk. Edit sober. – often attributed to Ernest Hemingway

Library

Oddly enough, most people don’t think of the library as a good work space when they’re traveling, but a library can be a fantastic place to get some work done on the road. Libraries are usually centrally located, and many offer free public WiFi. Check ahead, as some libraries limit WiFi access to library cardholders (though many will give visitors a guest pass).

• Pro: Quiet
• Con: No coffee or beer

Beach

Ah, this is the dream, isn’t it? Sitting back, drinking a margarita and working while you’re watching the waves and wiggling your toes in the sand. Unfortunately, the reality of working on the beach doesn’t really live up to the dream. There’s blinding sun glare on the screen, and WiFi can be hard to find. Plus, sand, water and delicate electronics are a horrible combination.

• Pro: Making your office-dwelling friends insanely jealous by posting beach office selfies every hour on the hour.
• Con: Rogue beach balls. Sand everywhere. Trust us, laptops and sand don’t mix.

Hotel lobby

I can’t even begin to tell you how many of our posts were written in a hotel lobby. While Wi-Fi inside rooms can often be spotty, a wireless signal is almost always good down in the hotel lobby. Hotel lobbys are one of our absolute standbys for working on the road.

Don’t forget to check if your hotel has a dedicated business center, too, as these are often free for guests.

• Pro: Best WiFi in the place.
• Con: You either need to rent a room there or be incredibly brazen or sneaky.

Restaurant

In many parts of the world, it’s expected that you’ll linger after you eat. We spent a good many hours lounging at comfy restaurants in Spain, Portugal and Greece long after our meals were done. Many restaurants have WiFi, and are happy to share the connection if you ask.

You won’t find such a welcome attitude to lingering after dinner in the USA or Canada, where you often get the check before you’re done eating and they’re quick to usher you out the door once you’re done your meal.

• Pro: Extensive food selection and drinks. Sometimes unlimited coffee.
• Con: Fire. Plus, food and drink can get expensive very quickly. Also, having someone come by every few minutes asking if you want something else can get annoying really fast.

Hammock

If you can find a WiFi and hammock combo, this is one of our favorite ways to work. Hammocks have a huge advantage that they’re up off the ground, keeping sand and bugs away from electronics. If you have kids, make sure they have their own hammock, or they won’t be able to resist climbing up on you and squishing your laptop.

A pillow for your head and one for your laptop can really help productivity.

• Pro: Comfy
• Con: Easy to fall asleep

Deck

If you have WiFi in your hotel or rental accommodation, then chances are that the signal reaches out onto the deck as well. The deck is a great makeshift office, as it gives us a little quiet away from the hubbub of kids, and the views are often great.

• Pro: Great views 10 feet from your bed.
• Con: Rain, uncomfortable chairs, possibly lots of distractions like nudists or time share salesmen if you’re on the ground floor or close to the beach.

Airport

Working in the airport is probably the mainstay of most of us who work while traveling. You can see this simply by counting how many travelers are in your row with laptops perched precariously on their knees while comically trying to guard their carry-on.

• Pro: A great way to pass time during a long layover.
• Con: WiFi can be hard to find, no desks, and limited electrical plugs.

Working on the go

One of the major drawbacks of working in an airport or a park is the lack of desk space, which made it awfully hard to sit comfortably with our larger laptop.

Since we’ve downsized to our Intel 2in1 Lenovo Yoga 2, working on the go has gotten a lot easier. It’s so nice to have a lighter, smaller laptop in airports, cafes and other spaces with limited table space.

We even took the plunge and updated to Windows 10 (why, hello again Start menu!), and it’s been a pretty seamless transition.

If I’m watching a video, I pop the Yoga 2 from laptop to tent mode, making it really easy to keep my lap and hands free.

There’s also a Lenovo Yoga 3 out on the market now – it has a little more processing power thanks to the new Intel Core M processor and a higher resolution than the Yoga 2.

Most of that is pretty fun. Contrary to what you might think, for us, not so much fun is social media. It’s something, quite honestly, that I’m always looking to improve.

Later this month (May 31- June 02, 2015) we’ll have a chance to broaden our social media skills at the ROAM Social Media conference in Kelowna, BC, Canada.

Not a social media maven? Check out 45 jobs you can do while traveling and how to get them, our hot air balloon ride above the cave houses of Cappadocia Turkey, or (one of my favorite posts from Charles) Leaving the Past Behind: Why You Should Let Go While You Travel.

Instead of spending all our time inside a dry conference center, we’ll be spending our time roaming (get it?) the streets of Kelowna, putting our new knowledge into play in real life. As someone who’s spent years in classrooms, I love the idea of getting outside for some hands on experience.

There’s no denying that there’s going to be a lot of fun socializing and kicking back, too, which I’m really looking forward to.

We even have a 20% off discount for our community if you sign up using this link, or type TheBarefootNomad in the promotional code box.

There’ll be topics from Twitter Parties to creating YouTube videos. There’ll also be topics about running successful Pinterest boards and maximizing Facebook trends.

As someone with a love/hate (mostly hate, honestly) relationship with Facebook, I’m especially interested to check out the Facebook sessions with Sherri-Lee Woycik (Twitter: @socialmediamndr).

We’re constantly working on improving our Facebook page, and I’m really looking forward to getting some expert tips from Sherri-Lee!

Get 20% off ROAM social media conference experience in #Kelowna https://t.co/g0IQYZclXU @ROAMevent #SocialMedia #ylw pic.twitter.com/7Rwlv9UcIa

— Micki & Charles (@BarefootNomads) May 12, 2015

Oh, and if you’re wondering about Kelowna, honestly, the views aren’t that hard to take around here.

There are clear, cool mountain lakes that seem to go on forever.

When you get thirsty, check out the many wineries perched on the mountainsides.

Plus, you can pick up some kick a** craft liqueurs and spirits.

The conference is at the gorgeous Delta Grand Okanagan Resort – here’s a sneak peak at the Delta from Waterfront Park.

Want to find out more? Check out the ROAM conference details website.

Don’t forget – we have a special 20% off discount for our community using this link, or type TheBarefootNomad in the promotional code box.

Hope to see you there!

Exactly 10,731,924 people (give or take a few) have started a travel blog. Of those, maybe (just my best guess here), a couple thousand are professional travel blogs. Admittedly, I may be a little off on the numbers, but the point is this: there’s a whack-load of travel blogs out there, both professional and not.

We started The Barefoot Nomad back in 2008 (which is roughly equivalent to the mid-Jurassic Period in Internet years). For a few years we chugged along, writing occasional updates on our travels for the handful of people who read them (Hi Mom!)

Somewhere along the way, more and more people started reading our stuff, and we decided to make a business out of it, and today we’re more of a digital magazine.

Straight up, it’s been a rocky road at times, and I think we’ve survived largely due to our love of what we do, sheer stubbornness and working hard to be seen as professionals. There’s a world of competition out there (remember those 10,731,924 travel blogs?), and you really need to have a solid, professional image to make you stand out.

This post is written for travel bloggers who are looking for advice on how to become a professional travel blogger. In it we’re going to talk about:

• how to take the next step to become a professional travel blogger (and how to up your game if you already consider yourself a professional travel blogger)
• how to make money as a travel blogger

First, though, what makes a travel blogger professional?

We could spend a lot of time arguing the fine points of this, but a professional in any field is someone who gets paid, while someone doing the same thing as a hobbyist does not.

So, at least for our purpose today, a professional travel blogger gets paid for his or her work.

Making money as a travel blogger

There are a lot of different ways to make money as a blogger. Some of the more common ways are placing ads on your site, using affiliate links (where you get paid a percentage of any products you sell) and working with tourism boards, hotels and travel companies to promote their destination or product.

In this post, we’re going to focus on working with sponsors, travel brands and tourism boards.

As of a few years ago, there were really no companies that worked specifically to connect travel bloggers to travel brands and tourism organizations. Most companies that connect bloggers to brands focus on mommy blogs or technology. They occasionally have travel-related campaigns, but they’re few and far between.

Many bloggers contact tourism boards (often called DMOs or Destination Marketing Organizations) and travel brands directly. We’ve done this in the past, and have forged some great relationships, but it’s also a time consuming process.

Personally, we like to do a mixture of working with influencer networks, and working with brands and tourism organizations directly.

Whether you’re working with a company or contacting tourism boards and brands directly, you’ll need to show that you’re serious about what you do, and set yourself apart from other bloggers. Here are some tips and skills that we think are essential for a professional travel blogger.

Tips and skills for professional travel bloggers

Media Kit

A media kit is like a resume for your blog. It’s a great way to introduce your blog to potential sponsors and advertisers. You can create a pretty digital media kit using something like Canva.

You can also buy some beautiful media kit templates on Etsy.

Check out these excellent sample media kits from travel bloggers at Travel with Bender, Velvet Escape, Travels of Adam and TravelDudes.

Tip: Make sure that you include your media kit (or at least mention that advertisers can contact you to see your media kit) in your Advertising/Work with Us page on your blog.

Join Organizations

Joining an organization can be a way of giving yourself some credibility as a professional. While there are others, the Society of American Travel Writers (SATW) is well known in the industry.

Go to Conferences

Conferences are a fantastic way to get your name known as a professional travel blogger, connect with sponsors and advertisers, and also to get hands on education on many blogging topics.

TBEX is the biggest travel blogging conference out there right now, and usually holds both a North American and a European conference every year.

Learn to Write a Pitch Letter

Well, these days, it’s almost always a pitch email, and not a letter, but the idea’s the same. You’re probably going to be contacting a potential advertiser or tourism board at some point, so it’s a great idea to have your pitch well honed. You’ll likely even use a version of your pitch letter when you’re working with a company that connects you to travel brands and tourism boards.

There are literally dozens of books about writing pitches out there, so I’m not going to go into details, except for one crucial tip: always make your pitch about what you can do for the advertiser. No one cares if you want a sponsored trip or free stay; they care how working with you and publishing on your blog can help their business.

Here are a few good resources to get you started:

• How do I go about pitching? in How to Work with Tourism Boards by Dangerous Business
• How to Pitch a Travel Magazine by Brendan van Son
• 5 Reasons Your Sponsorship Pitch Failed by Katie Hammel of Viator

Get your name out there

I am not a natural marketer, so this one’s always been tough for me. Here are a couple of ways I’ve found to help you get your name out there as a professional travel blogger.

Submit your name to travel blogging lists. These can be lists of travel bloggers in your country, top 100 blogs or for your specific niche (e.g. food or over 50 travel). You’ll have to do a bit of Googling on this one, and keep your eyes open, but when an opportunity arises, throw your hat in the ring. You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take, right? (Many thanks to my fellow Canuck Wayne Gretzky for that one).

Sign up for HARO (Help a Reporter Out). Reporters (and brands) use HARO to find expert sources for their stories. Keep an eye on the requests, and you just might find yourself quoted in a news story or magazine. The basic membership is free, and you’ll get emails in your inbox at a dizzying frequency.

Give sponsors a way to contact you

Make sure that you have a way for potential partners to contact you on your blog, whether that’s a contact form or masked email address (e.g., admin at thebarefootnomad dot com). (You mask the email address to prevent spammer bots from finding your email and putting you on spam lists).

Conduct yourself with professionalism

If it walks like a duck, and talks like a duck, chances are it’s a duck. If you act like a professional, word will get out, and people will want to work with you. Return emails and phone calls on time. Deliver (actually, over deliver) on any promises you make. Do all the things you expect a professional would do, and then do a little bit more.

Have we missed anything? Let us know in the comments below. We’d love to hear your take on what it takes to be a professional travel blogger.

This time, we asked them to share their best tips for having a great vacation once you’ve left on your trip. We’ve been traveling regularly for over 10 years together, and some of these tips were even new to us. Check them out.

Flying

Sail through security. It’s never fun, but clearing airport security can be a smooth experience. Do your research to know what items are forbidden – water bottles are still blacklisted! Arrive early and have your papers organized. Wear a simple outfit and keep your belt in your suitcase for now. Be prepared to take off your shoes & put all loose belongings in bins – wallets, coins, keys, toys, coats should all be corralled in advance. Your 3-1-1 kit and electronics go near the top for easy inspection. Never complain about government policies or make security ‘jokes’ – be polite, be professional, be pleasant and you’ll be just fine.

Vanessa Chiasson from TurnipSeedTravel. Twitter: @Turnipseeds

Carrying a computer? Don’t send it through x-ray security check until you’re ready to go through yourself. Scam artists work in teams. The man in front of you holds the line up by deliberately leaving change in his pocket and setting off the metal detector. While you’re waiting to go through, his partner is picking “your” computer off the conveyor belt.

Evelyn Hannon from Journeywoman.com. Twitter: @Journeywoman

Don’t drink the water. When you fly, don’t use the airplane bathroom water for anything other than washing your hands. My husband once tried to rinse our daughter’s sippy cup in the sink, and the flight attendant frantically corrected him and offered him bottles of water to use instead. She said that the water is “purified” with chemicals, and it would make a grown man sick if he were to drink it. When I emailed the airline for clarification, I received this cryptic reply: “[Aircraft] water is not intended for drinking. Bottled water is available for consumption on our flights.”

Rachel from Nothing if Not Intentional. Twitter: @Nateandrachael

Have a Better Trip

Walk the Talk. Try to learn at least some basic phrases in the local language. Even just a smattering can go a long way to helping break down barriers with the locals. Key phrases to learn include hello, goodbye, thank you, please, yes and no. Once you’ve grasped those, move on to I would like… and other useful phrases and, with a little effort on your part, you may surprise yourself at how well you can get by.

Paul Johnson of A Luxury Travel Blog Twitter: @luxury_travel

Do it like a local. When I travel I always try to Do it like a Local at the markets and grocery stores. I go partially out of curiosity, as I love to see what the locals use, and partially to stretch my travel dollar as far as it will go. The grocery stores are a great place to get drinks and snacks plus all the fixings for a great meal. Last time I was in Mexico I bought two soft drinks, two large buns, a complete roast chicken and treated myself to ice cream at the grocery store for just $130 MX pesos. At the current exchange to the US dollar that’s about $10 for a complete (and delicious) meal for two. Pretty hard to beat that price at a restaurant and I bet that the presentation of the ice cream wouldn’t even be half as tempting!

Bev MacDonald at Staying Native.  Twitter: @stayingnative

Make friends. Here’s a little secret: Couchsurfing.org isn’t really about finding a place to crash. It’s a true community of travelers sharing their insights and meeting each other along the road. The information you’ll find in the forums alone are worth the visit. Also, consider going to a CS meet up during your travels – it’s a great way to meet locals and other travelers.

Travis Ball from FlashPackerHQ. Twitter: @flashpackerhq

Chill out. It sounds cliché, but our biggest tip for travel is to be flexible. Enjoy moments in 5 star hotels with swimming pools and kids clubs, but don’t ever be above trying new things like hostels. We have had amazing times in each. In one you get the pool and the food and the relaxation. In another you meet new people and have the opportunity to find places no one knows about. Both have a place in travel and both can lead to a whole new set of experiences.

Erin from Travel With Bender. Twitter: @TravelwitBender

Be adventurous. Try things at least once. If you don’t like it then at least you know that. Get out of your comfort zone and try new foods, experiences and meet new people. Your life will be richer for this. A friend I met in college introduced me to this way of living and it has been a fun part of my travels since then. It has made for some interesting stories too!

David Thompson from Dave’s Travel Corner. Twitter: @DaveDTC

Get on the bus, Gus. Don’t be afraid of local transport. Taxis are fine when you absolutely need to be somewhere at a certain time, but when traveling, it’s nice to take your time and there’s no better way to do that than a city bus or a shared pickup or a commuter train. Sure, it might take a while to get to your destination and you could get lost, but that’s half the fun. And who says you even need a destination? Just seeing how the locals go about their daily lives is a great experience in itself.

Daniel McBane from DanielMcBane.com. Twitter: @DanielMcBane

Hunt for food. We suggest getting out and exploring the neighborhood you’re staying in. And what better way than with a food tour?! Whether you book a tour, or just make your own – get out and explore the little neighborhood food shops, the local restaurants and try to find the street food. You’ll find you can learn so much about a city (or even a whole culture!) that way.

Adam from Eating London Food Tours. Twitter: @EatingLondon

Keep an open mind. Never judge a country based on pre-conceived notions or stereotypes built up before actually visiting that country. When you visit a country and spend some in depth time exploring, you discover the realities of the location and get to know people and often find your perceptions will change.

David Thompson from Dave’s Travel Corner. Twitter: @DaveDTC

Slow down and breathe. We found that when we move too fast, we spend way too much money, and though we have tons of pictures, we’re not really there, not really, really there. In our third year on the road, it is precisely those unplanned moments when we are chilling with the locals that we have those pzazz-moments where we become in love, we laugh, we cry, and we are true travelers. Not tourists, but travelers who feel what the frequency and energy of the place is and become a part of that white noise. Slow down, stop planning, and breathe. It’s better, in our opinion to spend two months on this one island in the Philippines, than two months hopping every few days. We lived from one month to five months at a time in the same spot on the globe, and because of that, that ranch in Costa Rica, the indigenous village in the Ecuadorian jungle, that shack off the pier on that island have become deeply ingrained into the fibers that make us who we are today. That would never happen if we skirted in and skipped out.

Gabi from The Nomadic Family. Twitter: @NomadFamTravels

What floats your boat? Think about whether you have any special interests that might help you get off the beaten path during your trip. For example, I’m vegan and because of that I often trek to non-touristy neighborhoods to try out vegan bakeries or restaurants that I’ve read about online. It can be a pain (especially for non-vegan traveling companions) but it can also be a fun “excuse” that leads to seeing parts of cities I wouldn’t otherwise see. Another example of ways your personal interests can take you off the beaten path is taking classes while traveling that are related to one of your interests e.g., I took bike mechanic classes in NYC last summer. Look for classes aimed at locals. You can also look for groups and activities connected to your interests e.g., If you’re a hiker, why not go hiking with a local hiking group etc.

Kate Voyage from 30 Traveler. Twitter: @30Traveler

Eat like the locals. Eating great food is one of my ultimate travel pleasures, and nothing taints the experience more than being served up overpriced, bland fare aimed at helpless tourists. I’m often able to avoid this kind of food by skipping past the restaurants that have menus in several different languages posted outside (you know what I’m talking about!). Look for restaurants with menus written in the local language only — and therefore aimed at local customers. Don’t worry, there’s almost always an English menu kept behind the counter.

Reena Ganga from Wanderplex. Twitter: @wanderplex

Money and Safety on the Road

Be coy – carry a local store’s shopping bag. One of the first things Journeywoman does when she arrives in a new city is to find the local grocery store. I make a small purchase just so that I get a shopping bag with the store’s logo on it. To avoid looking like a tourist and to fit in, I leave my backpack at the hotel and carry my camera and maps in this grocery bag. One added benefit — thieves are far less prone to steal my shopping bag than to grab my backpack.

Evelyn Hannon from Journeywoman.com. Twitter: @Journeywoman

Use a decoy. Have a throwaway wallet you use when out and about. Stock it with just enough money for a day or two and an old, expired credit card. Keep your main wallet back in your secure room or hotel safe. If you get robbed, your loss will be minimized.

Jeff Blum from Lengthy Travel. Twitter: @lengthytravel

If you’re short on cash, consider working while you’re on the road. There are many jobs you can do while traveling, including working on a cruise ship, bartending and starting a website.

Micki from TheBarefootNomad Twitter: @barefootnomads

It’s all about the Benjamins. Always carry some emergency US dollars, regardless of your nationality. In a pinch, you can always convert dollars to local currency, and some places (especially some visa applications) require US dollars. Make sure your bills are in good condition since some people/places won’t accept worn out bills.

Jeff Blum from Lengthy Travel. Twitter: @lengthytravel

Kids and Family

Split up the snacks. No matter where we travel or what means of transportation we take, we always have travel snack foods at the ready. With two kids, without fail each kid wants to eat what the other has. This is fine as long as there are 2 of those items available and they aren’t accusing the other of “eating more”. My top tip for solving this dilemma you ask? Individual snack bags! I get a zip lock bag and label each one for every family member and place the same exact items in each. This way when the food is gone, it is because they ate it and all is calm.

Heidi from Wagoner’s Abroad. Twitter: @WagonersAbroad

Share the work. When road tripping with children, give every family member a job that is age and ability appropriate. One family member might be responsible for fueling up the car, one for filling water bottles, one for clearing the car of trash and so on. On longer trips and when children are older, allow kids to switch jobs at each stop or on different days of the trip.

Katy Mann from Indy with Kids. Twitter: @indywithkids

Plan for chores. Often we travel for a few weeks at a time. With three small children and two adults, our laundry really piles up. In order to save room in our luggage, we plan at least one laundrymat stop or book one night here and there at a hotel with laundry facilities. Money saving tip: take laundry detergent samples or pack laundry pods.

Katy Mann from Indy with Kids. Twitter: @indywithkids

Miss our last post with 25 Great Tips for Planning Your Trip featuring another great group of travel bloggers? If so, you can find it here.

Do you have any great travel tips we haven’t already seen? Share them in the comments below. We’d love to hear from you.

Travel can be a nightmare if you manage social media accounts. Not only are you away from your desk, but you never know if you’ll be able to find reliable internet access.

Luckily, there are great tools that can help you automate your social media presence. We tested every tool in this review to find which is the best for scheduling tweets and Facebook posts on the road.

Posting tip!  Be careful using automated social media tools to post to Facebook, as Facebook may penalize you by decreasing how often your scheduled post is seen. This means fewer people could see, like and share your scheduled post. 

Because everyone’s likely heard of Buffer and Hootsuite at this point, we’ve started out our review with a couple of the lesser known social media posting tools.

OnlyPult

Onlypult is a platform for working with social media that may help you save hundreds of hours a year, by offering the tools to help you interact with your audience, boost sales, and track your social performance efficiency.

It lets you with content and schedule your posts to the 14 most popular social media platforms: Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, Telegram, Twitter, YouTube, WordPress, Tumbler, LinkedIn, and more.

You can manage multiple accounts, post photos and videos instantly, and schedule posting to the day and at the time you wan

Onlypult offers:

• A 7 day free trial
• Plans start from $15/month
• A free landing page builder is included in all the plans

Hypefury

Hypefury is the new scheduler on the block. It’s making a big impression, with tons of features, and a really competitive pricing plan.

One of Hypefury’s interesting features is that it can automate your tweets to repost on Instagram. It does this by creating an image of your Tweet, which they call a Tweetshot.

You can create an evergreen list that will let you post you best performing tweets automatically.

It also supports schedule threads for when your story cn’t fit within 280 characters.

Hypefury also lets you schedule retweets, based on a filter based on retweets and likes.

One of the nicest features is the composer feature. It keeps track of your content, and lets you compose and send your tweets from one interface.

There’s also an insights feature, which lets you see which tweets have higher engagement.

How much does Hypefury cost?

Hypefury offers a free trial period for both their Standard and Premium plans.

The Standard plan is $9 a month for under 300 followers, and $14 a month above 300 followers.

If you pay yearly, you get 12 months for the price of 10. The Premium Hypefury plan is $39 per month, and you can get 12 months for the price of 10.

Both plans let you schedule unlimited tweets and threads, schedule your own retweets, share your tweet on Instagram and more. The Premium plan also lets you see statistics (your likes and retweet counts), do a daily import of our tweets, and run a Gumroad sales on autopilot.

Want to try out Hypefury? Check out Hypefury here.

HootSuite

Back in the day, HootSuite was our favorite scheduler. A few years ago, they increased their prices to the point that we just weren’t seeing a great return on our investment, so we stopped using them in favor of other tools like Hypefury.

Bottom Line:  HootSuite lets you schedule tweets and Facebook posts, and allows 10 accounts from a long list of social media networks that include Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Foursquare, Tumblr, Flickr and Myspace. HootSuite lets you send the same tweet from multiple accounts. HootSuite uses a single dashboard to let you manage all of your social media accounts.

The free plan’s tweet scheduling feature is a bit clunky, with awkward and time-consuming drop downs that you need to select for each individual tweet you schedule. Bulk scheduling is only available in the Pro plan. However, you can use the new Hootlet web browser extension Autoschedule feature to automate your tweets in the free HootSuite.

Automate your tweet schedule with the Hootlet web browser:  The Hootlet Autoschedule feature automatically chooses an optimal time to share your messages. You can reschedule the autoscheduled messages by changing the time in the HootSuite Publisher. The Hootlet is available as a Chrome Extension or a Firefox Add-on.

There’s a slick feature on HootSuite’s Hootlet Chrome extension that lets you highlight custom text or images on websites, then right click to share content. The Hootlet automatically grabs the webpage’s URL for you.

Other useful features:  HootSuite is chock full of great features, including monitoring hashtags, filtering your streams, and managing lists and analytics. HootSuite’s analytics let you track the impact of the tweets or Facebook posts you send out with HootSuite using the owl.y shortener. Unfortunately, HootSuite doesn’t track analytics on tweets or posts sent outside of HootSuite. HootSuite also lets you create custom search streams, which can be used many ways, including tracking keywords, people, hashtags.

Tech Ninja Tip! Want to find tweets that mention your URL, but where people have forgotten to add your twitter handle? Add a stream (which will add a new column where you can see all tweets in the stream), select search and type the URL that you would like to search for -@yourtwittername, e.g., thebarefootnomad.com -@barefootnomads (it doesn’t seem to work if you add the www or http).

Plans and pricing

HootSuite is significantly more expensive than our top pick, Hypefury.

HootSuite Professional costs $29.99 per month, and gives unlimited social networks, Google Analytics and Facebook Insights integration. The Pro plan allows bulk scheduling. Sign up for a Free 30 Day Trial of HootSuite Pro.

Options:  HootSuite comes as a web app (which I use and like a lot) and an iPhone, iPad, Android, Blackberry and Keitai app.

TweetDeck

Bottom line:  Reliable, but with extremely limited features. The best thing about TweetDeck (which is owned by Twitter) is that it’s free. That said, you get pretty non-intuitive scheduling and a clunky interface.

There’s also no app version of TweetDeck, so you’ll need to use it exclusively on your desktop.

TweetDeck will let you schedule tweets and view activity. No analytics are available.

The layout has an inefficient use of screen space, especially when managing multiple accounts, and there are almost no settings available to customize.

Setup and installation is a hassle. To set up multiple Twitter accounts, I had to go to Twitter, logout as one account, and log in as another, as TweetDeck wouldn’t prompt me for another Twitter login. To use TweetDeck’s Facebook service, you’ll need to authorize the app on Facebook. I tooled around for about half an hour trying to add our Facebook fan page, and couldn’t get it to work. From what I could find on Google, adding a Facebook fan page used to be possible, but new users aren’t having much luck. I give it a big thumbs down for managing Facebook fan pages.

Plans and pricing:  Free.

Honorable Mention:  Buffer

Bottom line:  The basic Buffer’s intuitive design makes it a pleasure to use, but scheduling limits and lack of bonus features keep it from the top of this list. Buffer just introduced analytics features way back in 2013, making it an even more useful tool.

As of 2020, Buffer no longer supports social sign on, so you can’t access it via your Twitter login.

Buffer has 3 plans: Pro, Premium and Business. There’s a free 14 day trial for all of them.

The Pro plan is $15 a month. It gives you 8 social profiles, but only 100 scheduled posts and one user. That’s just simply not enough in this day and age, when it’s competitor, Hypefury, allows unlimited social posts for around $9 a month.

The Premium plan is a whopping $65 a month. That gives you 8 social channels, 2,000 scheduled posts, and 2 users.

The Business plan costs $99 a month. At that price you get 25 social channels, and 6 users, but still only 2,000 scheduled posts.

The free Buffer version lets you add one each of Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn accounts (including a Facebook fan page). The free version limits you to schedule eight tweets, eight Facebook updates and eight LinkedIn updates. Buffer provides basic analytics (including the number of retweets, mentions, clicks, favorites and potential reach for tweets you send using Buffer).

Buffer is a great tool for scheduling posts:  You first set up a schedule (which you can set up different times for each day of the week), and then add tweets (or Facebook updates) that will be sent out at the times you scheduled. You don’t need to specify a time for each tweet, as the times are already set up in your schedule.

If you use SocialBro, you can automatically export SocialBro’s best time to tweet schedule to your Buffer schedule with a click of a button in SocialBro’s Best Time To Tweet tool.

I’ve been using the free Buffer for a few months, and love it, despite its limitations. The main drawback is that the free version will only let you schedule a maximum of eight tweets, which really isn’t enough. That said, Buffer’s simplicity makes it a breeze to use. You can add photos, edit posts with a click, and drag and drop tweets to reorder.

Options:  There are extensions for Chrome, Firefox, Opera and Safari, as well as Android and iPhone apps.

The Jury’s Still Out:  PostChron

Bottom Line:  PostChron lets you schedule Facebook posts and tweets with an easy to use design that mimics Facebook’s native status updates. PostChron has an unfinished feel, from the lack of documentation to the lack of iPhone or Android apps.

PostChron is basic web-based application that lets you schedule Facebook posts and tweets. The scheduling looks a lot like posting on Facebook, including Status, Links and Photo updates. PostChron lets you specify times to schedule tweets and Facebook posts.

PostChron lets you schedule Facebook posts from your Facebook personal profile, Facebook fan page, or both. Once your posts are scheduled, you can easily view, edit or delete your pending posts. You use your Facebook account to sign up and log in, and you’ll need to allow the PostChron App to manage your pages and posts on your behalf.

Plans and pricing:  PostChron has a 7 day free trial. PostChron’s free plan lets you schedule 10 posts per day. The Person plan, at 8/month allows 8 social media accounts, and 100 scheduled posts. The Entrepreneur plan, at $15 a month, allows only 500 scheduled posts.

Options:  PostChron is only available as a web application. You can’t get it as an iPhone or Android app, desktop application or browser extension.

What are your favorite social media or other tech tools when you’re on the road?

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A lot’s changed since we first wrote this post in 2012. Some of the schedulers we loved have closed up shop, some have increased their prices dramatically, and some have changed their names and features.

Rather than removing the old schedulers we no longer use, I’ve added them in below, just for reference. These include SocialBrow (SocialBro now goes by the name Audiense).

We used to Love:  SocialBro (now called Audiense)

SocialBro changed its name to Audiense a few years ago. We stopped using it then, as they seemed to really switch their focus to large companies and marketing agencies, and the price increased significantly.

The information below was based on SocialBro back in 2012, and we’ve just kept it here for your reverence.

SocialBro’s on the road capabilities like scheduling tweets are nonexistent. That said, I’m floored that they offer so much for free. I’d highly recommend SocialBro for when you’re settled down, and ready to do some serious research into your Twitter feed.

Social Bro is a powerful tool for analyzing your Twitter account. SocialBro will let you find your best time to tweet, monitor hashtags, analyze competitors, create filters, search users and keywords, and so much more. SocialBro is a data analysts (and marketers) dream.

SocialBro does not allow you to use Facebook or other social media accounts. You will have to create a SocialBro account (free) and then give the extension permission to access your Twitter data.

If you’re interested in finding the best time to tweet, SocialBro will find the best time for you, and then allow you export your schedule to either HootSuite (though it’s an awkward process for HootSuite, and requires HootSuite Pro) or to Buffer (this export is easier). Check out the tutorial on how to export your HootSuite schedule from SocialBro. Did I mention their user guide is excellent?

Plans and pricing:  Free.

Options: SocialBro is available as a desktop application and Google Chrome extension. It is not available as iOS or Android App.