staying in contact

Gday
Dont worry about it Warren, just leave it to your wife.

Not a face book person, as you end up telling the world where you are, your house is empty, and you're not going to be back for, what ever the period is.
Some travelers do set up web pages, and others get enjoyment in reading them.
We use mobile phone, and photos via email or the phone.
baz

We normally don't bother. We are not into "look at me - look at me" photos and those that need to know are just happy enough to wait until we meet again and share a cuppa, dinner with the oldies and chat.

And especially -- Facebook is OUT!!! Why tell everyone that the house is empty or not fully occupied etc.

The satellite phone gets turned on each evening for incoming messages and that's it. Don't normally take a mobile as they won't work in the deserts or high country and remote bush locations.

As you can gather "we go away to get away".

Phil

Why not make your first travel post on facebook about the housesitters you are so grateful to have there to look after your house, gardens and pets. either true or false - its social media - its true.

While im not big a facebook fan, I think its the best way to brag about your trip and I think most people would rather see you bragging about climbing down into kermits pool in karijini np than some little darling losing her fourth tooth on a tuesday night.

web pages and blogs are a bit more work than facebook. IMO.

enjoy.

beauty, just the answers I wanted. Not on facebook etc so will stick to emails. trying to figure out what sat phone to get. will ask next weekend at the show. amazing how easy it was when we were just talking about it, lot harder now we are going to walk the walk.

Thanks

Search" Iridium satfones" on here or "Telstra sim with Iridium phones"

Get a large packet of popcorn and read for a week.

Its all there, same question gets asked about every month for the last 7years at least.

Facebook works great for us. Majority of our facebook friends are family and good friends. Lets us know what's going on as well.

Warren, some friends of our's have been doing the lap for 5 months now and put out a monthly news letter with photo's and a quick update it is usually 2 x pages on a word doc and sent to the same email list. I think it is a great way to keep people informed who are close to you and appreciate the updates.
Regards Will

I send out periodic email newsletters to selected friends; these are fairly brief as a summary of where we have been with just a few photos. Just occasionally I send postcards to the grandchildren. Family are emailed regularly, and in the past I used msn messenger for instant chat. Facebook can be used for instant chat. The full travelogues wait until after I get home then they go onto my website with selected photos for all the world to enjoy.

Hi Warren,
Now you have made that big decision, the fun really begins - all the planning, packing etc. Good luck with it all and may your travels go well.

Keeping in touch is very much a personal choice and how you do it will depend to a large extent on where and how you travel and who you want to keep in touch with and why. eg if you are going for 3 weeks into a remote area you may need to keep in touch for safety reasons but if you are going on the road fulltime but not remote then keeping family and friends updated may be more important.

Dont overlook Facebook, especially if family and friends already use it. Just learn how to use it (pretty easy) both for posts and for messaging , and set your security settings to private so you are not telling the whole world that you are away. After using FB with its interactive capacity you may find the more one-way email option a bit restrictive, but its a matter of choice.

When we started travelling we tried to do blogs while on the road, but unless you are travelling at a very leisurely pace there is seldom enough time to do a good job that does the trip justice. Now we keep in touch as best we can using whatever technology works best at the time (remembering that in many places there may be no phone signal) and do more extensive blogs when we get home. We do keep a daily diary and take lots of photos and we go back to these to write our blogs. We use the blog writing process to re-live the trip and increase the enjoyment by sorting through the photos that we want to use. A well written blog posted on this site will also be of value to many others, not just family and friends, whereas something hastily cobbled together may not be enjoyable to read.

Cheers,

Val.

You can join here and use the blog function.

FB for friends only or a blog are useful ways of avoiding sending a bunch of people emails. The advantage of a blog is that it becomes a kind of digital diary for you to refer back to either to relive good times or for details useful in planning another trip.

For satphone choices here's a run-down: http://www.satphonesales.com.au/Which-Satellite-Network-and-Plan

I use an Isatphone Pro with Inmarsat, on 1-2 remote trips a year loading the unit up with prepaid airtime that I can activate when I need it.

But a Spot Messenger may be enough for you.

Warren there is an app called 'Day One'
It is a travel diary and is great for keeping selected persons updated.
It allows photos with text etc and will send the diary page as an email and the pages of the diary are retained for you to view at a later time.

I used travelpod. After your trip you can get it printed as a book. Have a look at it. Its also free. Producing the book isn't free.

WOW thanks you guys, a lot of food for thought and ideas. as I said easy to do when we were only " dreaming " more complicated and harder in real life. got to look into sat phones more, and going to change couplings, Mchitch ???? also batteries etc.
one thing the big lap has taught us is we will do a 3-4 month trial first. went to cape York this year with our off road camper now want to go back with the van while our health ( reason for biteing the bullet. ) permits.
thanks again for responding. Cheers warren

Hey Warren…

There are a number of options available, and don’t overlook Facebook as mentioned by others as you can set security settings in such a way to restrict who gets to view, a simple and easy way to communicate and stay in touch.

Importantly, don’t overlook using the Blog site on EO which provides you with the ability to restrict viewing, should you choose to do so, to those people you provide the security key to. You can easily update via your smart phone and if out of range it can store the updates and then update when you come into network range. Have a read on the site about it, or touch base with the EO team.

And on the point of home security – true, you don’t want to make it easier for “Billy Burglar” to rob your house. But in this day and age it seems to matter little whether you are home or not, if they are going to burgle your place it will happen anyway – you might be just down the road at the shops or up in the backyard. Most break and enter crimes tend to be opportunistic, not necessarily planned to any great extent. Just make it as hard as possible for them to choose your place by taking some simple precautions, and good neighbours always help!

In years of travelling we’ve never had a problem (touch wood – my head now) and I’ve used EO tracking on most trips.

Enjoy your trip and let us know how it goes!

Cheer’s Baz – The Landy

Friends of ours went on the road. Usually once a weekend, she typed up a newsletter of where they had been, say like Wave Rock, few details and relevant picture. Then a bit of news, then another item of interest, photo etc. Keep it to about 2 pages. Set yourself in Outlook or your email program a group and attach your newsletter and bulk mail out.
Beauty of it is that you are also creating a diary. You can do whilst out of mobile range and send when you can. I looked forward to the next exciting installment. Of course, you could do two - one for family and one for friends.
Enjoy..