I recently spent some time in Christchurch, New Zealand. We packed up the baby and flew over to visit friends and family and to relax a little from our busy lives. While we were gone this blog remained silent, with no new posts appearing at all. This was not my intention, I had planned to write some posts in advance to cover the gap, and to write more while over there, but it didn’t happen. Here are the reasons why, and here is what I learned from it all.

1. Prepare posts in advance

WordPress lets you schedule posts to appear at a time and date in the future. If you know you are going to be absent from your blog for a period of time it pays to have enough posts scheduled to cover your absence and keep readers happy.

2. Check your hotel’s internet access before you leave

I neglected to check this in advance so when we arrived I learned that internet access for guests at this hotel was not free. When you’re traveling on a budget this can sometimes be a serious problem. Fortunately in New Zealand internet access was only $5 per hour, which is not super cheap but is much better than the $1 per minute our Las Vegas hotel wanted to charge last year.

3. Take the right equipment with you, and check that it works before you leave

Another little quirk with internet access in this hotel was that wireless access was only available up to the second floor. On our higher floor you had to use an ethernet cable to connect to a router in your room. Normally I carry a 10m cable in my laptop bag, but when I packed the laptop into my carry-on backpack I neglected to pack that cable with it. This meant I had to put the laptop on the small dining table with the short hotel-supplied ethernet cable strung across a gap where everyone could trip over it.

That would have worked fine too if the network adapter in my laptop had the drivers installed! I always use wireless at home and had never noticed this problem. I figure we can drive over to our friend’s place, download the driver there, and copy it over to the laptop with my USB memory stick. Whoops! I didn’t pack my USB memory stick!

In the end I had to borrow a USB memory stick from the guy at hotel reception and use his computer to download the driver. An embarrassing episode for an IT professional.

4. Schedule some writing time

Our days were quite full visiting friends and family and taking walks with our son through the parks near our hotel. There was lots to see and do and in amongst all of that (after all the drama getting internet access) I didn’t leave myself any time to actually write anything. By the time we got back to the hotel and got our son settled down to sleep it was late and we were both tired enough to go straight to bed.

5. Use the experience to create useful content for your blog

Consider the events of our holiday. There was the flying with a 10 month old child, booking a car and hotel suitable for a baby, traveling with gadgets, opportunities to take photos, museums, art galleries, historical places, the weather, restaurants, all things that can inspire content for a blog. There was so many good ideas inspired by this trip that even though I didn’t get a chance to write any of them while over there I now have a long list to work through over the coming months.

One of the positive outcomes the holiday was that I got to read every page of the new Problogger Book. It arrived on my doorstep the day we flew out which was perfect timing. A fascinating read which has given me a lot to work with for this website and this won’t be the last time I mention it here.