trail journals and electronics

[Mountain_Goat]

So i was wondering what sort of methods have people used or are planning to useto update online journals?

I am in the market and am unsure of what direction to go in.
was planning on an itouch.I know i might get some recommendations for an iphone and i would have one if i wasn't in a locked agreement with verizon.

any thoughts or recommendations will be appreicated.

see you on the trail

[kayak karl]

i used the moto Q and Curve w/verizon for trail journals. no problem. a friend used a touch screen, but had problems at low temps.

[kayak karl]

pictures. i e-mailed them and had them uploaded to TJ and attached as i posted. http://www.trailjournals.com/entry.cfm?id=261523

[Mountain_Goat]

curious if there was another method other than cell phone usage.Purchasing a new phone is not in my budget.
Anyone know of the Itouch and if it's decent on the trail?
It would definitly lessen one thing i have to carry,my ipod.

[couscous]

I'm guessing you mean the iPod Touch, which requires wifi for internet access. To my knowledge, wifi hotspots are few and far between.. unless you already have a MiFi 2200. An inexpensive option is keep a paper journal and only update your online journal when you get to a hostel, motel, library, etc. If those following your hike "need" frequent updates, have someone else update your online journal and give them a brief call ever few nights.

[Blissful]

I do it the old fashioned way. Handwritten in a personal journal, update when I get to town or have access to the Internet.

[ChinMusic]

So i was wondering what sort of methods have people used or are planning to useto update online journals?

I am in the market and am unsure of what direction to go in.
was planning on an itouch.I know i might get some recommendations for an iphone and i would have one if i wasn't in a locked agreement with verizon.

any thoughts or recommendations will be appreicated.

I like a smart phone, whether that be a Droid or iPhone. You will have more coverage with the Droid at present. I have an iPhone but would switch to a Droid if I were doing a thru in 2011.

On my section hikes I have also liked making status entries under Facebook, with pictures, while on the fly. While this is not the journal part you asked about. Having friends/family seeing in near real time what you enter, and commenting right back, is kinda fun.

[Don H]

I considered posting on Facebook instead of Trail Journals but was concerned with security. People knowing where I'm from and that I'm not home. Any thoughts on this?

[kayak karl]

I considered posting on Facebook instead of Trail Journals but was concerned with security. People knowing where I'm from and that I'm not home. Any thoughts on this?

i carried a SPOT and posted link. people knew to a 9' circle where i was at all times.
but then...... i don't care, have no home and nobody want to find ME

[Spokes]

I did it the old fashion way- had a transcriber back home. I did a paper journal and bought a bunch of memory cards cheap on eBay. I'd mail my paper copies and pictures on the memory card to him when I got to town. He'd update the online journal and post pics then mail me back the memory card at pre-determined mail delivery spots. It worked great.

Oh, and I also kept an audio journal on TrailPhone.net- a free service that you just call into (toll free) and record. Probably got more compliments from people on the audio stuff.

Cheers!

[QuarterPounder]

Here's what I did... I carried a PEEK emailer, typed my entry and emailed it to my daughter. She copy/pasted it into Trailjournals as I didn't have access to the internet. The PEEK is only for email so I also carried a cell phone. I would call in updates on my cell phone when the emailer lacked service. Unfortunately, this happened too often. PEEK uses T-mobile which had spotty coverage on the trail... my cell phone carrier is Verizon which has much better coverage.

So, I carried two devices, two chargers, and paid two services.
Weight matters so I wouldn't carry two devices, etc again... for a few more dollars I could have traded my cell phone for a Blackberry using Verizon coverage and carried one device that does it all.

If I were doing it again... I would carry a Blackberry or similar device. And, my opinion... Verizon has the most consistent service on the trail.

This is just one of several things I would do differently if I were thru-hiking again... Practice makes better, trust me, I'll never make perfect

[sbhikes]

I carried paper and pencil. I was glad I did. I had to swim across some swollen creeks on the PCT and all my stuff got wet. Anything written in pen was gone. Everything written in pencil was still there.

I re-typed my paper journal onto the computer in town, usually just typing free from memory, not transcribing, but looking at my journal for details I might have forgotten. Nobody needs to read every last detail of my every thought on the trail.

As for being concerned with people knowing where you are, that's the beauty of doing it the old fashioned way. You update your journal a few days later and by the time people read about you, you're a few days even further up the trail.

[BrianLe]

"I considered posting on Facebook instead of Trail Journals but was concerned with security. People knowing where I'm from and that I'm not home. Any thoughts on this?"

Don, I kept my trail journal in real-time as much as possible on two thru-hikes, posted cached journal entries anytime I had adequate cell coverage or wi-fi access. Like you, I'm a 50-something male, and sad to say, I've yet to have groupies waiting for me at trailheads ... :-)

In terms of knowing that you're "not home" --- if you put up any sort of trail journal about doing a multi-month trip, folks can figure that out. Hopefully they can't figure out who and how many other people might be home instead, however (my house is plenty busy whether I'm there or not).

Perhaps it could be a different thing on Facebook rather than a more trail-specific site like Trail Journals or Postholer, but I don't think it needs to be. Just make sure that your F.B. security/privacy settings are such that only friends can see you "wall". Or maybe also "friends of friends" if you're not the type to have a thousand "friends" (each of whom also has a thousand).

I personally prefer to have a separate site dedicated to a thru-hike blog, and then just reference that from my more generic F.B. page. If you're contemplating on-trail updating of your journal, I suggest that you check out http://www.postholer.com for this. FWIW, note that, if you wish, a postholer journal can be embedded in your own site.

Dang, I think I might be coming across as a shill or fanboy for Postholer --- I'm not, I just think it's a very credible and less well known alternative. I find that it just works better, particularly for those of us that like to maintain an online journal via a smartphone (or heck, iPad or netbook or whatever electronic form factor your inner geek prefers).