Travel blogging with the iPad

August 16, 2012 3:31 PM

I'm about to embark on a 5 1/2 month gig playing on a cruise ship in Europe and The Caribbean, and I would love to regularly publish a blog for my friends and family to follow my journey. Level of difficulty: iPad only.

I will also have limited access to the internet, as it costs quite a lot of money to use while on board. However, I can easily get online while in port. Basically, I would like a way to write and compose posts while away from the internet and publish them when I have access. I would also like support (on the blog itself) for images and video, as well as text.

I've tried the Wordpress app, but it just isn't as dynamic as I would like of a client-side editor.

Any help with regards to hosts, apps, etc to make this happen is most appreciated!

posted by pedmands to technology (7 answers total)

Not sure of a good app (haven't found one yet either), but you might want to investigate getting a case that incorporates a Bluetooth keyboard. This makes it a LOT easier to write with the iPad, regardless of which app you use for formatting, versioning, etc. My research led me to the Zagg one - there's also versions for the iPad2, etc.
posted by noahv at 3:57 PM on August 16, 2012

I use an app called Blogsy that I like very much. It is easy to incorporate photos (haven't done any video). I use it with blogger but it supports Wordpress and other platforms as well. It is very easy to save multiple posts for later posting. It has a nice layout so you can see what your post is going to look like. I like it so much that it is now my preferred way to write blog posts even when I have other options. I haven't used any other blogging apps so can't compare, but I have been very happy with Blogsy.
posted by not that girl at 4:01 PM on August 16, 2012 [2 favorites]

I second the Blogsy recommendation - it's what I use when I want to blog on my ipad. I use it with a Blogger blog, but I believe it works just as well with Wordpress.

And yes - you definitely should get a keyboard to use with the ipad.
posted by insectosaurus at 4:53 PM on August 16, 2012

Thirding Blogsy. FWIW I also got a SIIG bluetooth keyboard (a recent deal had them for $25/ea) and love it - makes typing mammoth amounts of text a delight.
posted by tra at 4:59 PM on August 16, 2012

I occasionally blog using a service called Scriptogr.am.

It connects with Dropbox. Each post is a plain text file formatted in markdown, with a little standard header at the top.

For your purposes, you could write as many posts as you like ahead of time, then push them up to Dropbox once you have a connection. You can either insert placeholders for photos and then paste in the true links once you get them, or, if you have your own webspace you'll be uploading to, you can go ahead and put the images in, as long as you know the whole path that will be there eventually.

You can run it on scriptogr.am/[username], or you can set up your own domain name to display the blog.
posted by brentajones at 9:15 PM on August 16, 2012

If you have access to crew wifi onboard, it might not be that bad a rate (crew and passenger wifi cards may be charged at completely different rates). The easiest way around it is to connect to the wifi long enough to log in to whatever (open eleventyone tabs for all the things you want to read, etc), then disconnect from the wifi to write your post, then reconnect to actually post it. (Can you do tabs on an ipad browser? I hope so).
posted by Lebannen at 7:02 AM on August 17, 2012

Seems odd no one's mentioned these two alternatives (Late, maybe I missed something?)

tumblr - no brainer, great App, multiple tumblr-friendly

Zapd - even easier...

I just tested both in 'Airplane Mode' - Zapd squawks but both save and publish upon reconnection with prompting...

You could use Diptic to facilitate image use and presentation and also Instagram generally of course.
posted by DrtyBlvd at 3:48 PM on August 21, 2012