Blogging Sites/Software/Hosting Recommendations

Hello, I’m not resurrecting my Xojo blog (that ship has long sailed) but after 10 months on the road, living full time in an RV, I feel like enough people are asking questions and saying, “Hey Bob, you should write about this,” that I’m getting the writing bug again.

So, looking for free or inexpensive placed to blog about my travels. I’ve used WordPress in the past so I’m not afraid of it but something simpler/easier is good too. In the ideal world there’d be a utility where I have a desktop tool and then hit send/save and it ‘just works’.

Suggestions?

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Substack might be an option. No desktop component, though.

You’re well known here on the Xojo Forum and that’s probably where a significant amount of interests is. Why can’t you use the off topic section of the forum for that, unless of course Xojo objects as it IS their playground.

Do tell us… How’s it going? Are going to convince us all to sell everything and hit the open road, or do you have a cautionary tale such as the movie RV illustrates? Inquiring minds want to know!

We’ve used Wix.com and have been pretty happy with it. The best desktop option is MS Word with proof editing and then once your happy, just cut and paste into a blog post on the web when your connected.

My suggestion for the Desktop component would be RapidWeaver. You can set-and-forget the SFTP details and it becomes as easy as “hit publish.”

Of course, you could always host your static blog with Lifeboat, but there’s also probably a bit of bias there too :wink:

Edit: Removed some unhelpful commentary

Hm…Substack might be a good choice.

Well, I don’t have any desire to write about Xojo any more so my posts would be way too off topic even for the off topic forum.

It’s going well! 10 months of living in a 411 sq foot vehicle is going well. Carol and I are doing well and not killing each other. Honestly it’s not much different than when we had a house. We get up, do our respective work (in different rooms), maybe eat lunch together, go back to work, and then start thinking about what to do for dinner after work.

We’ve been RV’ing for 10 years so not many cautionary tales. Internet connectivity was hard at first but got that straightened out with a (very) big cell data plan and now we have StarLink (no data caps). No major incidents or accidents (funny tale about our Dodge Ram getting hit in a campground by a car and we were barely scratched and they have, I’d guess, $2000 worth of damage). Parking a 37 foot RV can be challenging at times but if you take your time and don’t rush and have compassion and empathy with/for your partner it’s not so bad.

The plus side is we’re chasing good weather. Florida in January and February and we’ve slowly made our way north and currently in Michigan. We were in Austin in May for a company meeting and it was awfully hot and dry so we cut our visit short there and high tailed it North. Along the way we’ve seen much family, friends, old classmates.

More when I start blogging again.

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I like Publii Bob. Desktop and publish via sftp. Free

Steve

I’m going to try out Substack for a while. You can fied it at https://bkeeneybriefs.substack.com. Haven’t posted anything yet but I hope to get a post up this weekend.

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Hi Bob,

Registered yesterday to your substack blog. Looking forward to seeing your literary expressions.

In November I immigrate to Botswana after more than 10 years of moving between Belgium and Botswana. I am intending the same as you, share my experiences before, during and after immigration.

I really wish you all the happiness, success and health I can wish you. Let your journey be an inspiration for other people, to guide them to the life they really want!

Chris

Thanks, Chris. I’m not really trying to inspire anyone to do anything but enough people have asked about the journey and choices we made and what we’ve learned so far that it seemed appropriate to start writing about some of it. We’ll see how motivated to write in a few months.

Good luck on your own journey!

The first blog entry had me totally confused. It was full of RV lingo of which I have no knowledge at all.

Thank you Bob,

Your first blog post about your RV history, is very interesting and nicely done!

Keep up the good work!

Chris

Great blog entry Bob. Oops, I spelled your name backwards. :wink:

Let me know what was confusing and maybe I’ll do another blog post to fill in details. I’ve been RV’ing for over 10 years so, much like Xojo, there are lingo I just know and assume everyone knows them too.

  • 5th wheel
  • Class A diesel pusher
  • Class C

The 5th wheel is some sort of trailer - I think.

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I didn’t know either, however, I searched Google and found out that a fifth-wheel RV is just one which is like a truck being pulled by a vehicle. In this case, it is important that the pulling car is strong enough to pull and stop the weight of the trailer.

A diesel pusher is an RV with a motor in the rear section. Class A, Class B, and Class C as the name express, a classification. Class A is the highest and if I understand correctly measures the comfort and luxury status.

Don’t worry, before Bob’s journey and sharing his experiences, I knew as much as you do, probably less. I also got this from Google, so it is not my own knowledge.

Chris

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A fifth wheel uses a hitch that is mounted in the bed of a Pickup truck and the hitch resembles what the tractor hitch looks like on an 18 wheeler tractor-trailer.

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Well, there went a couple of blog posts up in smoke. J/K. :slight_smile:

I’ve been adding posts regularly so feel free to drop by. Mostly blogging about our travels and what we’ve been up to.