Walking around Osaka last November I found many restaurants and cafes perfect for writing.

This post could just as easily be entitled “Not Writing My Travel Blog” because sometimes life just conspires against you when you are a writer.

Writing a travel blog is the hardest when I am actually traveling. Because it’s always a choice of spending my time having experiences and taking photos or spending my time writing.  Generally I do try to build some down time into my trip so I don’t exhaust myself (rheumatoid arthritis and exhaustion do not go well together), so I’ll try to couple the down time at a café, hotel, or cruise cabin with writing. Sometime this works, sometimes your significant other or best friend has other ideas.  I generally travel with someone, be it my husband,  children, other family members or friends, and sometimes the downtime belongs to them; sometimes sitting in a café with your husband or friend talking and laughing beats writing.

Which brings up trying to write at home when there are other people around. After a break from writing for a few years after I left About.com, I am just now getting back into a writing routine.  This seems a bit hard for certain members of my family to comprehend.  This week was a bit of a writing wash out, since I had family members in town, a premiere of The Producers at my theater company, and backed up home chores after my recent cruise.  Did I mention the giant storm that blew in making my RA feel just terrible (honestly, I’m like a weather vane).  In any event, I woke up all ready to write this morning!  And them Mr. Travelholic bops into the bedroom all energy and excitement, and announces that we have 14 errands to do in town, plus he needs a trip to the bookstore.  I grumble that he has enough books and I planned to spend the day writing. He grumbles that I shouldn’t ignore him on a Saturday morning. Negotiations ensue; so here I am writing and bookstore and errands shall commence later today.

Then there is Instagram.  Instagram is the perfect thing to do when I want to work on my whole “travel blogging and travel photography Tiny Travelholic” thing, but just don’t have the time or the energy to write.  But the thing about Instagram is it is  a huge time suck, especially when you are trying to grow a new account.  Which I am. So, I’ll head into Instagram to post one of my 100,000 travel photos (yep, been taking travel photos since 1984) and before you know it, I’m liking other people’s images, adding followers, and sucked into Lightroom or my iPhone photos to find more photos to post.  Next thing you know it’s an hour (or two) later.  I’ll definitely do an article on Instagram and travel photography in the near future; if you haven’t yet checked out my Instagram it’s The Tiny Travelholic and it’s a great place to see my travel photography and micro blogging about places while I’m between posts here.  And of course, more actual blogging is on the way. I have a few upcoming articles on my recent Carnival Breeze cruise, a review of the DxO One camera, a look at different types of photo equipment for different types of trips, plus I’ll be in Maine shortly and then Japan again.  So stay tuned!