Tag: travel

Print your travel blog

Posted on by Team Blookup

When you go on a trip, you always want to keep in touch with your relatives and keep a track of those beautiful moments… And the best way to do that is very simple: make a blog and write all about your adventures!

BlookUp allows you to easily import your digital contents to make them into a beautiful book to remember every moment of your journey! In order to do that, you have to prepare your blog: insert legends under your photos, check misspellings and the order of your posts, add categories.

All you have to do then is to select the posts you want to be printed in your blook (contraction of the words “blog” and “book”): and that’s it! You’re free to create several books from one blog, one per year or one per country.

BlookUp allows you to print the book of your blog from one copy, with a price according to the number of pages, that you receive directly at home. You keep all the copyrights, and you can also decide to make your blook public and sell it in our BlookSpace!

That’s it: you’re ready for your big adventure and become a great blogger (and blooker)!

Tony made the blook of his adventures around the world!

Posted on by Team Blookup

Tell us a little bit about yourself : Your passions, your hobbies, your projects…

My name is Tony D’Aliesio and live in Montreal Quebec Canada.  I have been married for over 25 years with Anna and have 3 daughters.  Vanessa, Alessia and Milena. I enjoy playing many sports from hockey to scuba diving, but one true passion is traveling.  Traveling has been a great passion of mine and thanks to Delta Air Lines, I have been blessed in traveling the world.  Although a retired Delta employee, I continue to take full advantage of traveling to different areas of the world.

A man on a boat in nice, France
Having a good time on a boat in Nice, France!

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What is your blog about and why did you want to address this subject when starting it?

My blog is a summary of every destination that I have  visited.  Whether it may have been for business or leisure, looking back and reliving the moment through words gives me a sense of time, memory and inner fulfillment.  Although every blog consists of very similar contents, there are distinctive differences between them in which I add my thoughts and personal experience.  I want to leave this book with my children for them to read in the future.  It will paint both a visual and descriptive journey of my passion to travel.

What do you like the most about blogging and traveling?

My passion has been traveling the world to experience different cultures, to witness great natural wonders of the world, and a way to tie in all of history’s events with my physical presence.  From standing where the last supper had taken place on Mount Zion in Jerusalem to walking the eerie grounds of Dachau’s concentration camp in Germany, they all add to my character and give me foresight of what is truly important in this life.  

Of all the places you visited, which one is your favorite? 

Many locations I have visited are exceptionally beautiful.  From Australia to Dubai, from Brazil to Shanghai; from the riches of Monaco to the dangers of Jordan……all have their own allure.  Europe in general possess the most elaborate architectural perfection while other locations flourish in natural beauty.  If I had to select from several categories, I would say the Amalfi coast in Italy, Prague in the Czech Republic, and the wonderful Pyramids of Egypt.  Again, there are so many other locations with similar beauty and selecting one is completely impossible.

What countries/places are next on your list?

My next destinations are to visit the cliffs of Moher in Dublin, the glaciers in Anchorage and a safari in Africa.

What part of your  adventures blog are you the most proud of?

I am very proud of the entire blog and with the many destinations involving my children, friends and family, it also acts as a memory scrap book that sparks conversation every time it is flipped opened. In my eyes, a truly piece of art!

a blook a passport and a boarding pass on a bed
Passport, check. Boarding pass, check. Blook, check. We’re good to go!

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Why did you want to turn your adventures  blog into a book?

I decided to turn my blog into a book for occasional reading of my past adventures.  When reading the book, it allows me to relive the past and actually feel the excitement as when it actually happened.  The physical book is also a form of legacy or diary that will be left behind for my children to read.  It will basically be a narrative copulation of all my adventures.

How did you find out about BlookUp?

After blogging the journeys online, I researched for a service that would turn online blogs to a physical book.  I came across several companies but after trying BlookUp, I knew it would offer what I was looking for.  

What did you think about the making process of your blook? Did you encounter any difficulties or issues?

BlookUp was extremely easy to use.  It offered great menu choices as well as allowing the user flexibility to either fully customize the book or simply use their incorporated templates. All of which assures the end result is exactly to your taste and style.

Do you enjoy the final result? What does your family and friends think about your blook?

The final result is a true representation of what I was seeking.  Clean, concise, and visually pleasing.  My family loves it and will surely remain a piece of history that is nostalgic with more sentimental value as the years pass.  I am currently working on my second book and will surely use BlookUp again.  In fact, I would recommend BlookUp to anyone that would want to convert their online blogs to a physical book.  

The cover of Tony's adventure blook

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Huge thank you to Tony for answering our questions, impressive list of destinations we have here. If you are looking for places to add to your travel bucket-list then have a look at Tony’s blog!

Seeing and hearing Iceland with HVISL!

Posted on by Team Blookup

A book you can smell already exists ! Now check out the book that you can listen to?

Hear for yourselves!

Audiobooks, those kind of books one person will read aloud and record so that others can listen to them, are a growing part of books sales nowadays. They mainly prove their practicality for visualy impaired people.

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For those who can afford it, there are some book concepts that combine vision and hearing to enjoy together as a global experience: This is the concept of Hvisl – Whispers of Iceland, both a photo album and sound guide taking you on a trip around Iceland!

The project was created by Chloé Curé and Bertrand Lanthiez, based on their shared experience of Iceland during a 2-weeks trip. Sounds effects were brought by Johannes Mandorfer.

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Their collaboration allows you to appreciate breathtaking pictures of beautiful landscapes and warm interiors, accompanied, as you flip the pages, by the sound of the wind and the waves, a conversation in Icelandic, the cracking of the ice or the bubbling of the geysers…

While you enjoy the atmosphere through your headphones, you will also learn everything you need to know about landscapes formation, local language, climate, mythology… Truly an immersive experience!

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Source | Images: Bertrand Lanthiez 

Bookcrossing: Let your old books go and make them travel the world!

Posted on by Team Blookup

We all love our good old books, however, it comes a time when you don’t want to read them anymore, so you put them on your bookshelf and never touch them again, which is pretty sad. Luckily for you, we at BlookUp are going to tell you about a nice way of getting rid of your dusty pile of books!

The name is BookCrossing, it is website that allows you to let go of your old books and make them travel! The process is pretty simple: You first need to label the book you want to “set free” and register it on the website using the BookCrossingID written on the said label. Afterwards, all you have to do is leaving it somewhere you know it will be picked up, it could be at your local café, a table or a bench outside at a park….be creative! Once you get back home, saddened by the loss of your old book, you can keep an eye on it by entering the book’s BCID.

What a lovely BookCrossing house! Photo by Leisha Camden on Pinterest.

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If you don’t feel like releasing your book into the wild you can join on of the BookCrossing’s forums, tweet using #bookcrossing or directly  @BookCrossing to let the fellow bookcrossers know about your book!

The person who will pick up your book can type this code on the website and mark your book as officially “picked up”. Your book’s journey starts here! If one day you stumble upon a book that shouldn’t be here for any reason whatsoever, keep it mind that it is probably traveling the world just like your old book is so watch out for the BookCrossing labels!

 

Don’t forget to join the BookCrossing community:

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Source and credits

Book lovers, discover Dublin’s ancient Library!

Posted on by Team Blookup

Next on our Libraries world tour. Dublin!

If you are fond of old, beautiful books and picturesque places, the city has something you should absolutely see.  The Old Library of Trinity College!

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“Yeah, hi, I’d like to borrow them all, please.” 

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An ancient library

This outstanding and ancient library, the largest in Ireland, contains nearly 4.5 million books, with nearly 250,000 of them hosted only in its famous 65 metres-wide well-named Long Room.

This architectural Georgian work of art took the place, in the 18th century, of the original Elizabethan building that was founded with the rest of the College in 1592 on a former monastery’s site. Some extensions were built circa 1850 in order to accommodate more books!

trinity-college-long-room-dublin-ladderAnd the result was worth it!

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If the place can afford to contain so many books in its core, it is because it obtained in 1801 the right to acquire a free copy of each book published in Ireland and England.

The Long Room is decorated with 14 marble busts created by the sculptor Peter Scheemakers. It  represents  western thinkers like Isaac Newton and famous ancient philosophers such as Cicero, Aristotle and Plato. One can also find the busts of people related to the very history of Trinity College.

trinity-college-long-room-dublinView of the Long Room and its marble busts.

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AIn fact, among the many valuable works hosted in the Old Library, the most famous is the Book of Kells !  A magnificently ornamented manuscript containing the 4 Gospels of the New Testament, written by monks of Celtic culture nearly 1200 years ago.

book-of-kells
The Book of Kells, view of the opening text of the Gospel of Luke

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If you want to see more of it, the whole scanned document is available online for free on the College’s website ! So take a look at it  here!

This place filled with stories and history also contains one of the rare copies of the 1916’s official Declaration of the Republic of Ireland, as well as the impressive Brian Boru’s Harp, the model for Ireland’s official symbol, dated around the 15th century and made of oak, willow and brass ropes.

So don’t forget! Next time you go to Dublin, seek the library first and keep the bars for later!

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Source Article | Images credits: David Iliff & Nic McPhee on Wikimedia Commons (CC-BY-SA 3.0)

5 TIPS TO CREATE YOUR TRAVEL BLOG AND PRINT IT INTO A BOOK

Posted on by wsb

When you go on a trip, you always want to keep in touch with your relatives and keep a track of those beautiful moments… And the best way to do that is very simple: make a blog and write all about your adventures!

  1. Choose the platform

The first step is also one of the most important. To create your blog, you first have to think about the blog platform where you will write your posts. But luckily, there are plenty and you will have the choice! The most famous are WordPress, Tumblr or Blogger but there’s many more. Each platform will allow you to write and present your contents (texts, photos…) in a different way, and you have to choose the one that’s going to match with what you want to do.

  1. Write everyday

The next step is also very important : the writing. It’s essential that you force yourself to write a little everyday on your blog, so that you won’t forget the little stories. The consistency of your posts will also allow your relatives to feel close to you and your adventures, like they were with you the whole time! Once you’re back, you will enjoy the little details in your posts that you wouldn’t have been able to read if you hadn’t write about it every day. Of course, you mustn’t write 5 pages per day… But do it a little every night (or morning), you won’t regret it!

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  1. Make everyone a part of your blog

If you travel with your family, friends or with your lover, the blog can be a nice way for everyone to express their feelings and point of view about the trip. If everyone write on the blog, the final result will only be better and the memories more numerous and beautiful! You can also ask your relatives to comment your posts, so everyone is really a part of your journey.

  1. Be a part of a community

Once everything thing else is done, you can connect and talk with other travel bloggers so they can give you advices on how to make the best of your journey! It’s always useful to have the opinion of other people about a destination, activities to do, how to manage your blog… You can meet bloggers from the country you visit (so they can teach you about their culture) or bloggers that have already been to a city and can advise you on what to visit there.

  1. Import your blog on BlookUp

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What if someday everything disappeared? Don’t panic, we have a solution! BlookUp allows you to easily import your digital contents (travel blog, Instagram account with beautiful photos) to make them into a beautiful book to remember every moment of your journey! In order to do that, you have to prepare your blog: insert legends under your photos, check misspellings and the order of your posts, add categories… All you have to do then is to select the posts you want to be printed in your blook (contraction of the words “blog” and “book”): and that’s it! You’re free to create several books from one blog, one per year or one per country.

BlookUp allows you to print the book of your blog from one copy, with a price according to the number of pages, that you receive directly at home. You keep all the copyrights, and you can also decide to make your blook public and sell it in our Blookshop!

That’s it: you’re ready for your big adventure and become a great blogger (and blooker)!

Our favorite travel blog : “the children of the ocean” by Fany and her family !

Posted on by wsb

Today we have decided to tell you about our little travel blog crush… It’s the story of Fany, her husband and their two children who sailed away from the Mediterranean to see what it was like across the world… In French Polynesia! 2 years of a beautiful trip, printed in very nice blooks. Books and adventures : that’s what dreams are made of!

  • Introduce yourself in a few words:

Time of departure : August 2013. We are a family, couple (45 abd 39 years old) with two little children. Manoa, a 6 years old boy and Louna our 3 and a half years old daughter. Purchase of the sailing boat summer 2011. Preparation of the two next years, as initially planned. We’ve left our jobs, 1 year before departure for Fany, and 3 months before for Guy.

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  • What’s your blog about?

A 2 years family trip, on a sailing boat. Destination : French Polynesia, from the mediterranean coasts. 2 years of  budget. A year to reach the Pacific ocean through the Panama Canal, and another year to enjoy the polynesian archipelago. The name “MOANA” means “ocean” in tahitian language. Our destination is directly linked to the name of the sailing boat.

Itinerary: Balearics and Spanish Coast, Strait of Gibraltar, Canary Islands, Cape Verde, transatlantic liner, Martinique, Saint Lucia, Grenadines, Grenade, Bonaire, San Blas, Panama, Galapagos, Polynesia : Marquesas Islands, Tuamotu archipelago, Society Islands.

Port of call only in islands, few visits to the land, the point being to discover unreachable places and meet with isolated populations. Report of the life on board, happiness and troubles. Mechanic problems, weather troubles. School for the kids. Discoveries and walks, encounters, snorkeling… Resale of the boat in Tahiti, flight back to France, as initially planned.

  • Why did you decide to go on this adventure? 

A dream for Fany for about 15 years. Follow the trade winds, look at the stars, sail at the rythme of the wind, be under the Tropics. Discover other worlds, other people, other ways of life everyday, with the sun and the essential. Explore the islands. Be in harmony with the nature, show the beauties of this planet to the kids, so they can admire and protect it, be sensitive to the animals and their natural environment. Step away from the consumption european society, be aware of the resources, to drinkable water, to the food… To the pollution.

  • Why print your blog?

The blog was a heavy work all through the journey, because of bad (or inexistant) internet connexions. Beside the fact to be a great communication and sharing tool, this blog represents our photo album. It would have been impossible to sort the photos and write our adventure once we get home. The printing of those books, step by step of the journey, allow the kids to keep a material track of it.

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  • How did you know BlookUp? 

Through a friend, who saw our blog and the work to keep it updated and advised me to print it when I’d be back. She gave me the name of BlookUp.

  • What are the positive sides of the platform? 

Very easy to use, nice presentation and clear explanations.

  • What are the downsides?

For a blog as big as ours, the problem is to import the blog every time we want to make a new book. The other downside is the size of the book. For us, 200 pages is not enough ! Lower the prices… But thankfully you make offers regularly and granted me discount as a “good customer”.

  • What do you think of the organization and making of your blook?

The tools are very easy to use, fast, and effective. I’ve chose the same design of each blog, but I would have appreciated a few more choices regarding the colors…

  • How do you find the final result?

Very good! But not excellent, because sometimes texts and photos are a little out of sync. I often have a comment on a page and the photo related on the other but I spend a lot of time modifying my posts on Blogspot.

  • What are the opinions of your family?

They think it’s a very good idea to print the book of your blog! They enjoy reading them although they followed our adventures from day to day thanks to the blog.

  • Would you recommend BlookUp? 

The printing quality is exceptional and I’m very pleased with the photo, even under water, the colors are perfect. Yes, I recommend BlookUp because I have seen other websites, more expensive and less beautiful regarding the quality of the photos. It’s a nice way for our kids to remembers those times because they’re still little and have already forgot some things!

Thank you a lot Fany for your testimony, and we leave you to dreams with a few pictures of paradise… It makes us want to go on a journey ourselves!

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