A few reflections on blogging daily while on vacation

This year I will be celebrating my 12-year blogging anniversary. When I started this blog I never thought I’d be blogging every day more than a decade later, but I am, and my blog has become a core part of my daily life.

Currently I am in Nara, Japan on a two week adventure with my Dad. Whether I’m at home, in the office, on the road, in the hospital, or on vacation, writing a blog post every day is incredibly important to me.

My Dad and I were having breakfast this morning and he was saying how interesting it is for him to see me putting a post together every day. We had a good conversation about it this morning and he said that in some ways he thinks it has become a way for me to meditate in a way during the day. I never thought about it that way, and I’m not really sure if I will ever think about it that way, more than anything for me this is a part of my life, part of who I am.

I told my Dad what I truly feel about blogging. Blogging isn’t something that I do for myself. I blog for you, my reader, without you there would be no reason to write. That being said, I did have some reflections on what it’s like to go from blogging on a normal day like I do most of the year vs. blogging on vacation since it is a bit of a different experience.

Here’s a few of my reflections:

  • Blogging on vacation (at least for me) is always fun and something I really look forward to. There is something about being in a different environment that gets the creative juices flowing. I wake up in the morning, walk around whatever city we’re in, find a peaceful place to sit, and just start writing…in many ways blogging is more meditative when I’m on vacation than it is when I’m at home.
  • You can blog from just about anywhere in the world, and thanks to International plans, I don’t even need to look for Wifi. Two days ago I wrote my blog post in a small coffee shop in Nara, they didn’t have Wifi so I just fired up my personal hotspot. This definitely wasn’t possible when I started blogging so I feel very fortunate. You really can travel all over the world and blog in a more seamless way than ever before.
  • There’s something about being in a different country that always makes me think a bit differently. I find my blog posts change a bit when I’m on vacation, I can’t put my finger on it but I write a little differently, you can tell me whether it gets better or worse!
  • Working with the time difference is important. In Japan, I need to write in the morning, if I write towards the end of the day like I sometimes do in the US, my post will publish at 2AM for people on the West Coast which, uh, isn’t when you’re going to be awake and looking for my latest post.
  • Last but not least, I can’t imagine being anywhere in the world without writing every day. As I’ve said many times before, I plan to blog well into my hundreds and since I also plan to live all over the world, I can’t wait to see how my blogging style changes with my environment.

So thanks to all my readers around the world for reading, now it’s time for me to get packed up and ready for the next stop in our adventure. We’re leaving Nara today and heading to a small village called Asuka that has a population of less than 6,000 people.

While I love living in big cities (although SF is actually a pretty small city – maybe too small for me) I do love getting off the beaten trail when I go on vacation. Once we get to Asuka we’re going to be renting bikes and going on what I think is going to be a pretty incredible adventure.

Yesterday we went hiking on the Kasugaya Mountain Trail which is without a doubt one of the most amazing hiking experiences of my life. Along the trail we found an old monastery and actually walked up and meditated there – definitely an experience I’ll always remember. Here’s a picture of me and my Dad at the trailhead.

After Asuka we’ll be heading to Kyoto so if any of you have suggestions of what to do in Kyoto definitely feel free to share them in the comment section below. Thanks again for reading, like I said above, I do this for all of you, so as long as you keep reading, I’ll keep writing.

See you tomorrow!

Morgan Linton

Morgan Linton