Tuesday’s Travel Essentials: The Internet
What, now come on – the internet is NOT a travel essential surely…OK bear with me and I’ll go through the process of why actually it IS! My first trip away from my family was in 1991 – I went to the Netherlands with the school – nobody had even heard of the internet. In the 1990s I never had an e-mail address though I had used the internet for the first time before the decade was out. But I didn’t really like it.
Internetless: My school trip to the Netherlands in 1991.
Enter the new millennium. I suddenly opened 2 e-mail accounts by 2003 and was now online. However you can travel without it, of course you can. Or of course you could…
Backpacking in Valencia, Spain in 2003 – beer please! No sign of a laptop or even an e-mail address!
I remember travelling round Spain in 2003 and I didn’t check the internet or carry a phone on the entire trip. Utter bliss! Loved it!
Backpacking in Germany in 2005 – still no internet or laptop – to the bar!!
Then in 2005 when I travelled to Eastern Europe – I was in Poland and Germany and no – still no internet needed and still I didn’t travel with a phone. 2007 is where it all changed for me and I saw the benefits of using the internet as a traveller. As I started a world tour in Toronto and met 4 travel bloggers in the space of a few weeks, I had decided to start my travel blog. And that was that.
2013 in Hangzhou, China – using my laptop and travel blogging – the internet is now one of my travel essentials!
I was now on Facebook, I owned a laptop, I ran a travel blog and my internetless life would never be the same again. I certainly couldn’t travel the world the way I do without the internet and if you know that I was once on the brink of suicide, I’d say that my travel blog and the internet actually played a major part in saving my life. I was able to Facebook my mate in Taiwan, book my flight and organise my next few visas all online, all thanks to the internet. That was 2009 of course and I’ve been blogging a lot since, recently doing my 1,000th blog post!!
Ooops – more internet problems while updating Don’t Stop Living.
SO today’s Tuesday’s Travel Essential is most definitely the internet. If it wasn’t for the internet you would not be able to read this, I would not be able to tell my stories to the masses via computer and I would have lost thousands of my travel photos and videos. Here are 18 quick reasons and personal uses for the internet on my travels these days:
1. To update one of the best travel blogs there is 😉
2. To book flights
3. To research destinations
4. To organise visas
5. To Skype my family
6. To upload my photos
7. To upload my videos
8. To check the football scores
10. To send e-mails
11. To stumble upon random websites
12. To interact with Northern Ireland football fans
13. To book hostels
14. To book hikes up Mount Kinabalu
15. To buy football tickets
16. To check online bank accounts
17. To get a job in Hong Kong
18. To buy e-Books
Updating my travel blog on a high speed train – oh ok then you can survive without the internet…
Right I’m off to book a hostel for next week’s trip to Yunnan Province of China, upload some photos and tweet and facebook my recent stuff! Happy Tuesdays blogging and travelling guys and don’t you just hate it when the internet doesn’t work?! Maybe we were happier 20 years ago…but then again you wouldn’t be able to read my stories otherwise…
As you can probably tell I am LOVING this lifestyle of travel and hoping to inspire you all to get out and see the world! Check my advertising page if you have an idea for a product for my Tuesday’s Travel Essentials.