I’ve found myself to have a “purpose” over travel once I started trip reporting last January. For example, when meal rows were skipped on my flight from Hong Kong to Shanghai, I thought, “at least I can write about it on the blog”.
It’s not always serene at the Singapore SilverKris Lounge Hong Kong…
I guess people get it, because I’ve been asked recently how I write trip reports.
I’ve been heavily based off One Mile At A Time in terms of how to write trip reports (thank you so much Lucky), and right now I’m starting to have some principles of my own in which what content I should put in my trip reports.
I’ve flown some amazing flights and some amazing hotels over the years, and I believe some of you have/are about to as well, so I might as well share some tips on how I write trip reports on this blog.
Sheraton Macao Family Suite Kids’ Room
So what are my procedures for writing a trip report?
1. Take notes on anything you want to say in the report
I tend to forget a lot. Whenever I come across something interesting at a hotel or on a flight, I tend to say “hey, let me put this on my blog”, and end up forgetting about it as if the thought never came across my head.
These days, as a result, I tend to take a little notepad, hidden out of sight of anyone else except myself. I can then take notes on the notepad of things I think about and say, “hey, this fits well into the trip report”.
Air New Zealand Boeing 777-200 Economy Class
2. Write down a list of essentials on what I need to take a picture of in the trip report
There are things I have put on the list to take a picture of in every flight report. There’s the plane:
THAI Airbus A330-300 Phuket Airport
The seat itself and its features:
Dragonair Airbus A330-300 Business Class
Dragonair Airbus A330-300 Economy Class Entertainment Box
Any service procedures:
THAI Airbus A330-300 Business Class Hot Towel
Tarmac pictures (especially that of interesting traffic):
Air Seychelles Airbus A330-200
Our takeoff roll and takeoff views:
THAI Airbus A330-300 Business Class View of Hong Kong Airport
Multiple cabin shots:
Cathay Pacific Airbus A340-300 Economy Class Cabin from Seat 74K
Each course of the meal:
Dragonair Airbus A330-300 Business Class Dinner Starter
Air New Zealand Boeing 777-200 Economy Class Breakfast Main Course
British Airways Airbus A319 Economy Class Breakfast…uhhh, breakfast
Landing views (and views of the tarmac there):
Cathay Pacific Airbus A340-300 Economy Class View upon AKL Descent
I have a similarly sized list for hotels, but I’ve decided that that’s a bit too much to add to this index. 😉
3. Act like a normal passenger
DYKWIA moments are fun, but in some cases I’ve heardthat flight attendants start giving you special treatment (and this could go the good way or the bad way).
(courtesy funny junk)
4. Just write your heart out: don’t format too much
I tend to have specific formats for my captions and my flight logs, though when it comes to content I tend to write rather “freely”. I want to show my opinion, not the part of my opinion I can extract through a few subheadings.
For this reason I’m thinking of botching the ratings, though that makes overall points slightly harder, I guess.
What are your tips for trip reporting?