Playing with Microsoft Live Writer

So, one of the important points of my trip in South America is that I won’t have internet access all the time, but hopefully in a lot of places I’ll still have power to run my laptop. I’m hoping to pre-stage my blog posts / etc. so that I can just upload them when appropriate.

In the process of looking for good easy to use utilities for panorama shots I stumbled across Microsoft Live Writer, which lets you write blog posts in a format compatible with your blog and prep them with all the same formatting, text, picture inserts, etc. How cool is that? Using this I can write my blog posts when I get a chance, then just one-click publish them when I have data connectivity. So, this is the first test of that.

To also test Microsoft Image Composite Editor, I stood up on my table and took a few pictures of all the gear that I have laid out so far for the trip (I never use the dining room table unless I have people over, so it’s perfect for staging my gear). Check it out, this is a composite image made from about 7 source images:

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Patagonia Beckons

Today I begin what may become one of the most difficult tests of long term mental and physical endurance and strength I have ever undertaken: for most of its remaining 2500km through Patagonia, Ruta 40 is considered one of the most desolate highways in the world. Over half of the remaining road is gravel, sand, and dirt. The number of towns listed on a map once I pass Perito Moreno can be counted on one hand, and there are many stretches of hundreds of miles without provisions, fuel, or places to stay.

5 Things that Suck about Traveling Solo

I find it telling that it seems a majority of the interesting travel blogs I run across are written by solo travelers, most often women. I think there’s a reason why we write more than people who travel with friends or in groups and that it’s pretty self evident: it’s an outlet for our loneliness. In the last year and a half, the vast majority of my time has been spent away from home, alone. As I write this, it’s been over a month since I’ve conversed with anyone in my native language, and I can remember every single conversation in English for the month before that. The truth is, I don’t think I could have done this without the internet – without a blog to share my thoughts, without Facebook to see what my friends are up to, without the occasional e-mail to provide a façade of normalcy… without these things I’d likely have driven myself insane with my internal dialogue. Now, I grant, there’s a reason I travel alone and I do love it, but lately it seems all I run across in the blogosp

Gear Review: Sea to Summit Big River Dry Sacks

In the past couple months on the road I think I’ve spent more time riding my scooter through rain than I have in the dry – this is clearly reflected in the fact that as time has gone by I’ve invested more and more money in things to keep my stuff dry, since wet gear sucks. One of my favorite purchases for this trip is the pair of Sea to Summit Big River Dry Sacks I picked up just before leaving, in 13L and 20L sizes. They cost me around $20 each and are one of the best pieces of gear I’ve purchased in years – extremely durable, effective, and simple to use.

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