Dug this photo out of my scanned image archives and couldn’t help but smile.  Here’s my sister Susan (with the hood on) and Sally (with the hood off) on the Cave of the Winds tour at Niagara Falls, a memory from road-tripping across Ontario with them in the early 90s.

On that journey, we discovered the Three Sisters Islands on the American side of the falls.  Exploration ensued, as it would for the rest of our immersion into the outdoors of Ontario, all the way north to the Bruce Peninsula, with stops to hike the Elora Gorge and along the Mad River Gorge in Collingwood on what turned out to be a national holiday for hiking. Everywhere we turned, fall color painted the Niagara Escarpment as we followed it from the Niagara River to Lake Huron.  It was the first I’d heard or learned of the Bruce Trail, a long distance trail I long to do someday.

Three Sisters is a book, a memoir, I’ve had in my heart for more than a decade, since we lost our dear sister Sue to cancer.  I’m finally ready to write it now.

“Six years ago, I started sharing my knowledge of Florida’s outdoors online,” said Friend, “creating a blog that documented places I was hiking for guidebook research. Since then, finding, exploring, and sharing new hiking trails has become an integral part of my life.”

Friend launched the new FloridaHikes.com on November 30. Visual and map-based navigation make it easy to find trails that fit your personal interest. Extensive details – including step-by-step narratives, special instructions for hikers, maps, and mileage charts – are a key part of the website.

“The Florida Hikes website keeps getting better and better!,” said Kevin Mims, VISIT FLORIDA Outdoors & Nature Insider. “You won’t find a more comprehensive place for Florida hiking information, and I love how easy it is to find trails of every type.”

Visitors to the website can subscribe to the Hike-A-Week, a weekly column providing a detailed hike writeup via email, and the Florida Hikes eNews, a Friday recap of content additions to the site and trail-related events around Florida.

“I want to give everyone in Florida the tools to live a healthier life by just stepping outdoors and taking a hike,” said Friend. “Especially in our current economy, hiking is the least expensive way to bond with your family, clear your head, and keep yourself heart-healthy.”

The award-winning author of 25 books – including ten books on hiking in Florida, with another one on the way from Menasha Ridge Press – Friend is the chair of the Society of American Travel Writers Freelance Council, a member of the Florida Outdoor Writers Association, and sits on the Board of Directors of Friends of Florida State Parks. She lives in Sanford.

For more information, visit www.floridahikes.com

I prefer to see – and write – more concrete statements, and a little humor is always fun. Say “Serving sailors since 1869,” or “When your grandfather got that gleam in his eye…”

Do you have any zombie-killing examples to share?

I never expected the blue.  Living in a land where ice comes in shades of white and off-gray, the brilliant blues and violets of Glacier Grey were startling, invigorating.  The lake itself a silver-gray mirror with a surface brushed roughly by the wind, dotted with chunks of glowing blue. Our journey, from Zodiac to tour boat and back again, was one of the roughest of my life, awash in giant waves and hurricane-force blasts off the ice field. But the blue, the blue, made it all worthwhile.  This corner of Torres Del Paine National Park in Chile will always occupy a corner of my soul, lit in blue.

Still squeamish about Facebook? Terrified of Twitter? Here’s how social media really works.

As the Internet evolves, the ways in which it is used as a communication medium keep expanding. Remember the excitement when websites first appeared, a new publication medium come to life? Then blogging became the topic of the day, built on tools providing individuals with a way to offer their own news, syndicating their content with little fuss and allowing their readers to comment back on it. Blogging was the first form of social media, where technology enabled the sharing of content as a conversation.

By connecting people to people, social networking takes that relationship a step further, refreshing the sense of community that too often has been lost in our busy lives.

Social networking invites you to hold ongoing conversations, often in real time, by using a variety of social media tools. It enables you to opt into a broad spectrum of relationships not just with your friends, family, and peers, but with groups rallying around causes, corporations looking for satisfied customers, and small businesses, authors and celebrities who’d like to know that you’re a fan. It enables you to build your own virtual communities around common interests and to connect to friends of friends, reducing those degrees of separation to potential business associates or clients.

Successful relationships in social networks rely on the same ground rules that you use – and probably don’t even think about – when interacting with people in everyday life. These elements form the fundamentals of social networking.

Trust
By entering into a social relationship, you trust that person to be honest in their interactions with you, and they expect the same from you.

Disclosure
Most social networking websites encourage you to share information about yourself in a user profile, including a photo of yourself; some notes about who you are and what you do; and more personal information like your hobbies, favorites books and movies, and the like. Disclosure of personal information helps build those bonds of trust, especially when you replace the network’s default icon with your own smiling face.

Respect
Social networking interactions should be carried out with respect. Just because an editor of a major magazine agreed to be part of your social network doesn’t mean you should then instant message her with queries. Continue to use the same decorum you would for everyday interactions; save the virtual snowball fights and e-cards for your close friends and family.

Sharing
Networking is about sharing. It’s not about tooting your own horn 24/7. People enter into social networking to share their observations on life, be it about the babysitter or a great blog post they just read on the elements of web design. Comment on your friend’s articles, respond to their requests for help, and share your good news and personal observations too. What you share builds trust, discloses more about yourself as a well-rounded person, and adds to your colleague’s respect for you.
Just like in real life, first impressions matter when you join a new social network or invite people to connect to your existing network. If you ask someone to join your network, include a short note to say hi and why. If someone opts in to your network and you value that relationship, welcome them. In both cases, these simple gestures help break the ice for the start of your new relationship. No need to do so in public, either—to say “thank you,” use the tools that let you communicate with them privately, which cultivates trust and a sense of intimate conversation.

To make a good first impression, put your best face forward on your profile photo and in the content you share. If you’re on a social network where you can share photos, set up a few galleries pertinent to how you want people to think about you. Guidebook authors can showcase their book covers and some images from the road. Convention and Visitor Bureaus should share destination photos. Not only does it help build your brand, but it builds interest for newcomers in what you do.

With how easy it is to sign up for social networks these days, most people plunge in without considering the impact of that crucial first impression or interactions make and break relationships. Know how and why you want to use social networking before you Join Now!

First published in the SATW Traveler,  Spring 2009

Wordpress for iPhone

One of the most delightful – and scary – realities of social media is that the distance between journalist and reader has narrowed to zero. No matter whether you work for a newspaper – where your boss now expects you to blog daily – or syndicate your own column to a paying subscriber base, there is no longer a wall between creator and consumer. Your readers will provide feedback, like it or not. Why not strengthen that bond by keeping your biggest fans coming back to you for more?

When you’re on the road, you’re in an ideal position to share your experiences – live, raw, and exotic – with your readers. These are the free apps I’ve found most effective in keeping a dialogue going with my own audience, and how I’ve used them while traveling.

Facebook: Instant Karma

Nothing gets your Facebook friends buzzing like a few choice images uploaded from a locale they’ll never visit, or a funny find – misspelled signs, weird sculpture, and other roadside kitsch – as you travel. Use the Camera app to seize the moment and the free Facebook app to share it with your peeps.

I find the Facebook app easier to use than Facebook itself. Notifications pop up at the bottom of your Live Feed, so you can see who’s left a comment and follow up on your own comments throughout this social universe.

Do you manage a business or group page on Facebook? Favorite the pages you maintain and they’ll show up on a separate screen where you can get to them quickly and share content on them as well when you travel.

Twitter and TwitPic: Sense of immediacy

Twitter is NOW. How more now can you be when roaming around with an iPhone in hand? This works especially well when you’re in a position to report about a destination while you’re reseaching it for your own purposes. Whether it’s a pre-trip or day trip during an SATW function or just a day when you’re out and about collecting information for your next article, shoot a few bits of travel savvy back to your audience as you’re on the go. See that a restaurant changed hands? Give your followers a heads-up!  Have to do an end-run around a major traffic jam? Fling that out to Twitter, and you’d be surprised how quickly, and virally, tiny bursts of information that are important to enough people keep being passed on.

TwitPic is the visual counterpart to Twitter. Like Facebook, it’s there to let you snap a photo and post it immediately. Unlike Facebook (unless you’ve left your privacy settings wide open), the entire world can see your TwitPic – and your related tweet will drive them to it. Use wisely.

Foursquare: Peek-A-Boo

A growing contingent of smart phone users have gotten into the Foursquare game. Facebook even recently added a Foursquare-like map marker so you can instantly let your followers know exactly where you are. It’s the easiest way to push a virtual pin in an online map and say “Hey, I’m here! Now follow me around!” In their own words, Foursquare is a “social city guide.” Most importantly to travel journalists, it’s quickly becoming a viable source of insider tips for best restaurants, hotels, and more, delivered instantly.

Crowdsourced competition? Yes. But you can use it to your advantage, too, by connecting it to your other social media accounts. When you sign up for Foursquare, you’re automatically prompted to connect it with your Facebook and Twitter accounts. Now let’s say you’re talking a walking tour of Leipzig. Use Foursquare to check in at various landmarks, and a map of where you are pops up on Facebook. You can then snap a photo and upload it to Facebook along with a brief comment about the location.

For public relations professionals, Foursquare is a creative way to engage visitors who come to your property or destination. Since the program tracks who visits where, and awards points (and the title of “Mayor”) to people who actively show up at one location over and over again, you can reward loyal customers by offering time-limited specials. Foursquare will provide you with free analytics so you can track how many of their enthusiasts are popping up around your town. Learn more at http://foursquare.com/businesses/

WordPress: The Wrap-Up

One of my favorite uses of my iPhone while on the road is to add posts to my blogs. It beats firing up the laptop just to log in and write a post, since I can sit while I’m waiting for a bus (or on a bus), dig through my photo gallery, and write a short piece around something I saw recently.

If you’re using WordPress as a website, great! You can write new content pages right from your phone, or edit existing pages. The WordPress app enables you to manually approve or deny incoming blog comments, as well.

The downside: no scheduled posts. You can write your blog and keep it on your iPhone until you decide to publish it later, but you must manually publish the post. And it doesn’t carry the bells and whistles of your plug-ins – what you can write and embed is pretty basic, but good enough for bouncing down a dirt road in the back of a van on the way home from Patagonia. It takes practice to master typing on a tiny surface, but once you do, you’ll be hooked. No more waiting to get home (or to the hotel) to file today’s story!

Note: If you’re traveling internationally, be aware that you need to opt into a temporary international data roaming plan with your phone provider before you leave home, lest you accidently run up enormous data charges by blogging and tweeting from the streets of Leipzig. iPhone users, see http://www.wireless.att.com/learn/international/roaming/iphone-travel-tips.jsp for details.

First published in the SATW Traveler,  Summer 2010

Screenshot of VehiCal mileage log

When my desktop computer crashed with an unrecoverable hard drive error, it was the first time in my life I wasn’t in a total panic over the situation. Since purchasing an iPhone, I’d shifted so much of my day-to-day business to it that one of the few painful parts was losing my iPhone backup … and all of my desktop email. My crucial business operations, however, are snugly fit on the iPhone. Here’s how you can turn yours into a workhorse for your on-the-go life. Don’t have an iPhone? Versions of some of these apps are available for Droid as well.

Contacts (free)
Loaded into every iPhone operating system, this app is the core of your business operations. Contacts can be pulled into most other applications. If you haven’t copied your contacts from your desktop mail software, do it now! Outlook is the default mail manager that the iPhone plays nice with, but you can load up your Thunderbird contacts into an empty Outlook installation just to move them to the iPhone.

Calendar (free)
Another app that comes installed on your iPhone, Calendar is essential to keeping track of your appointments and deadlines. Calendar entries can repeat, and each comes with two alerts, ranging from 2 days before to 5 minutes before the event. Use it to keep yourself on task with projects.

Camera (free)
Why take extensive notes when you’re looking at an interpretive sign or historic exhibit? Capture it visually so you can zoom into the details later. Think of the built-in camera not just as a handy point-and-shoot but as your own pocket copier (snaps of checks before you deposit them), scanner (linked to business card software, it can be effective), and window on your world to your social media accounts. You can also take screenshots with it of activity inside your other apps, and mail those to yourself for blog posts like these.

Notes (free)
I’ve learned to leave the pen and paper behind and use Notes, another free app that comes with your iPhone, to grab snippets during an interview or to transcribe ideas when I’m on the run. While stuck waiting for the mechanic, I’ve written queries, blog posts, and short articles in Notes. Email them to yourself when you’re done so you don’t lose them.

iTalk (Lite, free; full version, $1.99)
While the iPhone comes with a free Voice Memos app, iTalk makes it possible to capture ambiant sound and interview subjects with the rich audio quality of an iPod (when in Best mode). I found the output clearer than using my digital recorder with an external microphone. You can append to audio files, rename them, and play them back from any point in the recording. A companion piece of software that sits on your desktop or laptop enables you to drag and drop the .aiff files to your home base for editing, or you can mail them to yourself.

iXpenseIt ($4.99)
For once, I won’t be filing an extension on my taxes, thanks to this handy app. It’s an expense and income recorder, which you can set up with your tax categories, vendors, and payment types. As you incur an expense (or open a check), take a minute to type in the details. It becomes second nature quickly. You can “scan” receipts and checks by photographing them, as well. In addition to one-touch cashflow per month, the app produces reports carving up the financial data any way you choose. Export them as CSV files to do your tax prep.

VehiCal (free)
Goodbye, handwritten logbook! This digital version of a vehicle log has three sections – gas, repairs, and mileage – which you can fill in as you’re on the road. See your MPG and total miles at a touch, and break those miles into tax categories as you go. All three logs can be exported as CSV files for spreadsheet use.

DueTime ($1.99)
It’s the simplest way to keep track of billable time, or time spent on any particular project – just start and stop the timer once you have your tasks and projects set up. The latest upgrade enables you to put in your hourly rate and see the dollars – as well as hours – pile up! Overall and by task or project hours can be exported as CSV.

PhotoGene ($1.99)
Tweak those snapshots into something worth sending your editor with this simple photo editing app, which includes the basics – crop, straighten, color adjustment – as well as a handful of filters and effects more appropriate for social media use. The app makes non-destructive changes to your snaps by saving your changes as a new image.

AppBox Pro ($0.99)
This is an app of apps – a grab bag of apps that are just plain helpful, and help you avoid installing a dozen one-off apps on your iPhone. The one I use the most is Battery Life, as we know how easily that gets drained, especially when you’re in the field. System Info is helpful, too, with a visual representation of how packed the iPhone hard drive is, and with what. But AppBox Pro also includes goodies like a currency converter, flashlight, ruler, tip calculator, a multi-language translator (tied to 3G access to Google Translate), and a digital wallet for your account information (be sure to password-protect this one!)

Time = Money!
I recently received an email from an SATW colleague asking about apps that saved me money. While I can’t point to any specific dollar savings by using my iPhone, it’s saved me an incredible amount of time by using these apps, and has kept me more organized than I’ve ever been before. It’s also lightened my load. Where I used to juggle a camera, digital recorder, and notebook and pen, plus a logbook in my car, I now just carry the iPhone.

First published in the SATW Traveler,  Summer 2010

Pull out your iPhone and take a peek. By downloading Florida State Parks from the iPhone store, you can use your phone to find summer fun. Using the built-in geolocation capabilities of your iPhone, you can sort through information on our award-winning state parks by both their proximity to you and a wide range of activities such as camping, surfing, and wildlife watching. Selections can also be narrowed by areas of interest, including accessibility, child-friendliness, and festivals.

“I’d been collecting information to write a guidebook on Florida State Parks,” said author Sandra Friend, whose award-winning “50 Hikes” and “Explorer’s Guide” series guidebooks cover outdoor recreation in Florida. “When Sutro Media suggested it become an iPhone app, I realized the outstanding potential of making guidebook information portable and easily updated.”

First launched on Earth Day 2010, this guidebook for the small screen has just been updated to include new features to make your trip planning even easier. In addition to details about each park and nearly 2,000 images providing virtual tours to the parks, entries now include:

• Offline locator maps – no 3G needed!
• Details on accessibility, such as free beach wheelchairs, accessible nature trails, and accessible park tours
• Links to online park maps and campsite reservations
• Live phone links to call outfitters and make tour or rental reservations
• Links to background information on each park, including websites managed by the “Friends of” Citizen Support Organizations that support Florida State Parks with volunteers and fundraising
• Links to hiking information provided by the author, who’s written hiking guides covering all of Florida
• Links to recommended eateries near the park
• Links to other outdoor recreation near the park

July is Florida Recreation and Parks Month—discover where to celebrate with the latest edition of Florida State Parks from Sutro Media. Learn more at http://www.floridahikes.com/apps/florida-state-parks