Going on an amazing road trip used to mean that you couldn’t update your stay-at-home friends about the stupid things you’ve done on your adventures until you return. I am going on the BABE Rally with an old, ‘71 VW Van. My friends at home will all remain updated throughout the trip since with current technologies it is now possible to blog about long tales, twitter about quick stories, and keep friends updated on your location with GPS and Google Maps.

Bloging From the Road

There are many blog services that allow you to text message or e-mail in updates. With the advancement of smart phones, e-mailing posts in is getting even easier; you don’t need to stop and find a wifi spot for your laptop.

Mobile Twitter

You can create one account and name it after your trip, then have each of the members of the rally send messages @that_account (@ ricketyvan for us). Have the new account follow only the people on the trip so it won’t show updates from other people.

Since some of us have iPhones we will be using an app called Twinkle which includes your location (and optionally a photo) in your post.

GPS and Google Maps

If you have a GPS unit that can create xml .gpx files, there are some scripts that will use Google Maps API and let you display waypoints based on those files. We will be using this to keep people up to date on our location.

There are also a bunch of services that weren’t mentioned that we will probably take advantage of, like Flickr or Facebook Fan Pages. We’ve already started adding pictures of our preparation repairs to our group. Also, we created a page on the Facebook so that people can become fans.

I use webfaction to host a lot of my django projects. It has an easy setup that will get you developing quickly and a great community of talented programmers. There is also a quick setup for rails, wordpress, and a lot more.

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