That’s right, after a hiatus of way to many years (40+) I am heading back to school, albeit a virtual school, or more specifically Blogging University’s Blogging 101 course. The course starts today and our first assignment is covering a little about me and the W’s – who, why, what, where, etc. Read on to view my first assignment, as I provide a brief introduction and answer all the W’s. Please fell free to provide comments and suggestions for improvement. Andy’s Bio – Who Am I? I retired 2 years ago at the age of 55, having spent 37 years at sea, of which 25+ were in command. Started off as a Deck Officer (Navigator) with P&O/Princess Cruises, where I met a stunning young passenger, aboard the original Oriana, who was cruising from Vancouver to Sydney. Who said ship board romances don’t work, as we will be celebrating our 35th anniversary this year.

SS Oriana the P&O cruise ship that brought us together

We both love to travel, and while our adventures were somewhat curtailed during the child rearing years, we plan to make up for it in retirement. You may find us at any of the following:

• Cruising, we cruise extensively with Princess Cruises and are commencing a World Cruise on May 22nd 2015.
• RV’ing, we purchased a large Redwood RV 5th wheel and travel extensively around Canada & USA.
• Timeshare, we have owned Worldmark, The Club points for almost 25 years and can spend 6 to 10 weeks a year at any resort.

Why Did We Start Blogging?

Redwood at Mesa, AZ

The answer to this one is probably consistent with numerous other travel bloggers, namely to keep family and friends apprised of our extensive travels. When we travel it is normally for many months, sometimes with short 1 or 2 week breaks at home before heading back out on another adventure. Our next adventure is 9 months, with only a month at home before heading out again. Why Am I Participating In Blogging 101? I started about 6 months ago with zero knowledge of how to blog, the software available or how to develop/maintain a website; therefore, a steep learning curve and many hours of research preceded the inaugural post in June 2014. During our recent 15,000 mile RV excursion around Canada and USA I created many posts documenting our travels and noted it is not just family and friends who are interested in our travels, as we have many fellow bloggers following our ramblings. Having embraced the world of blogging, as the ultimate perfectionist, one of this year’s objectives is to improve the content for our upcoming World Cruise. Having found the Blogging 101 course online, I decided to give it a try.

World Map showing our world cruise itinerary

What Are The Goals/Objectives For 2015/2016?

1. A World Cruise is a huge investment in both time and money, so I have conducted hundreds of hours researching and planning, which included reading many travel blogs of previous World Cruisers. These were invaluable, as they provided a detailed account of people’s on board experiences. My goal is to publish a detailed blog with text and lots of photographs that future potential world cruisers can review to assist in making the determination if a world cruise is in their future.
2.  Although new to RV’ing, we quickly learned that North America has a huge community of like minded people living the RV lifestyle, both full timers and part timers like ourselves. This is especially true for the RV blogging community, so our objective is to continue blogging, becoming more familiar and comfortable with the software features and eventually meet some fellow bloggers on the road, around a campfire.
   

   Sunset at our site

3. Cruise ship internet is both expensive and slow, so I am currently researching options for creating posts in WordPress offline and then uploading when internet access is available.
4. Photo editing – last year I upgraded from a Canon 5D Mk II to the Canon 5D Mk III, but haven’t had the time to really learn the more advanced features of this brilliant camera. Therefore, I will be spending many hours over the next 2 months learning how to improve my photographs for the blog. I am also moving from Photoshop Elements to Lightroom 5.7, so this will require another learning curve.
   

   Canon 5D Mk III – rear