Documenting Your Experience: Starting a Volunteer Abroad Blog

Blogging isn’t the only way to document your experiences abroad, but it’s the best option for sharing stories with loved ones back home, marketing your experiences, and including multimedia. Not only is blogging easy to do, but it’s also fun and interactive. Most young international volunteers know their way around social media sites and may even already have a blog set up. For those who don’t, here are some tips and steps to take to prepare for blogging abroad.

Remember take lots of photos to add photos to your blog

Starting a blog and choosing a website:

For new bloggers, it’s a good idea to keep everything as simple as possible. Choose a website that you like and can navigate through easily. Most sites have templates and themes you can choose from to change the appearance of your site. Themes vary in design layout, colors, background and placement of items like menus, widgets, columns, images, and more.

Popular free blog platform choices: Wordpress, Tumblr, and Blogger.

What and when to blog:

Starting a blog before you go abroad will not only save you time on setting up the blog but will also allow you to write pre-departure posts about packing, where you’re going, why you’re going, what your expectations are, and more. Once you are abroad, you can post about daily activities and life as an international volunteer.

The more you blog, the easier it will get. Get in the habit of blogging by doing it often and regularly. Even if some posts are short and simple, it will be better than having a neglected blog. Volunteer trips usually lend themselves to plenty of topics, but even so, everyone gets stuck sometimes. By creating recurring topics to write about-- quotes from locals, what you learned today, something new you tried this week, the best photo of the week, using the five senses to describe a new area-- you will never run out of ideas.

Write or blog regularly to preserve memories

It can be difficult to blog while abroad; therefore, keeping a journal can complement blogging well if time permits. Unlike a computer, a journal can be kept with you at all times to take notes when a great post idea presents itself, to write down an insightful quote, or to remember a new phrase or word. Using your journal notes to write blog posts will result in more detailed and engaging posts.

Different types of media:

The most interesting and popular blogs do well by varying the types of posts they share. Posts can include quotes, short or long stories, and anecdotes with accompanying pictures, audio and video. The best pictures also tell a story by showing its subjects in action. Audio and video are common features in cameras today and are great ways to capture interviews, the sounds of a city, and more. With the right inspiration, anyone can be a storyteller through words, photos, audio, and video.

Follow other travel blogs:

Checking out other blogs will give you inspiration to post. It might even give you ideas and tips for things to do while abroad. Understanding what to expect through past volunteers’ experiences can be a valuable source of insight. Reading other blogs can also improve your blog by giving you a feel for blogging techniques you like and don’t like. Following and commenting on other blogs is a great way to gain followers of your own. For wonderful examples, check out Volunteer Blogs We Love!