Tech help please!

[R2D2]

Over Christmas (sorry everyone, I know that word shouldn't be mentioned until 1 Dec), we're going over to America to spend the holiday with our family over there and doing a sort of mini road-trip at the same time, ending up in New York for New Year (seemed fitting). I've never been before and really want to keep some kind of blog as a record of our trip. We travel quite a lot, so I'd like to carry it on afterwards as well, even for days out in the UK. Has anyone here got a blog? Which host could you recommend using? I've been doing some digging and found this http://www.1and1.co.uk/web-hosting which offers hosting and seems fairly easy to use, but I'd really like to get some second opinions before I sign up to anything. Any tips would be great. Thank you!

[kfae8959]

"Blogger" seems popular. Have a look at https://www.blogger.com/home.

David

[bbllr87]

Have a look at wordpress.com

Once it's set up you just have to create the blog posts and they do all the hosting and create backups for you. It's a free service unless you want your own domain name.

The blog mentioned in my signature uses it.

[Horse]

http://the-ride-info.blogspot.co.uk/

Blogger is free (albeit Google, so there's a cost somewhere even if 'only' that they know about you). Set-up is incredibly simple.

Wordpress needs more work and, I think, needs a web site to hold the blog.

Really, start from the other way around: who will see it, do you need much control over appearance, will you want to hold documents for download, etc? If yes, then go web site.

Either way - and especially with Blogger - remember that it could be lost at a moments notice, so bavk-up important pictures etc.

Another option would be a Facebook page.

[R2D2]

This is really helpful, thanks everyone. It's mostly just going to be for me, and for friends and family who are interested (and who don't want to sit through endless photograph-sharing sessions...), so I'd like to personalise it as much as possible. I can't imagine I'd need to put documents for download on there. Either way, I'll definitely be checking out these suggestions - and thanks for linking me to your own, Horse and bbllr87, they're exactly the kind of thing I'm aiming for

[Mr Cholmondeley-Warner]

I use Wordpress, hosted by them, completely free. You don't get all the options you do with your own installation, but it's pretty simple to use, hundreds of themes to choose from, etc.

My (very poorly kept) blog

Our RoADAR site is also Wordpress, using our own hosting, so allows more freedom to install plugins, etc.

I don't know about Blogger, but Wordpress can certainly host items for download, very simple to do - select "Add media", upload a file, then insert a link into the post.

[Slink_Pink]

I participate in a closed blog via Blogger for our family to share updates on their lives. We (well, most of us) particularly wanted to keep it invite only and Blogger does permit this easily. I don't know if this is a consideration or requirement for yours.