It’s been over six months since my last blog post. This makes me sad. In fact, this makes me so sad that I’ve been talking to friends about how sad this makes me. Recently, one friend asked a strange question: why?

Why does it make you so sad that you’ve pretty much stopped blogging? Does blogging fulfill your compulsion to interact on social media?

So I thought about that. It didn’t take me long to come to a conclusion. Because no, blogging doesn’t fulfill my compulsion to interact on social media.

Blogging fulfills my compulsion to tell stories.

And I miss telling stories. But I want to tell them in a format in which people consume stories. And people don’t really read blogs anymore.

People watch videos.

Thus, despite my long-held stance that I will never, never, not for any reason EVER begin to create video content slash start vlogging–I’m going to begin creating video content slash start vlogging. Sorry, me of the past. And sorry, YouTube. There’s about to be a lot of really awful content being uploaded to you in the very near future. But then you’re used to that, aren’t you YouTube?

That being said: I haven no idea how to be a vlogger. I mean, I’ve watched travel vlogs. That’s where my vlogging experience begins and ends.

I decided to start right where one should–at the beginning. And at the beginning of every vlog there’s a fancy intro segment. So I figured my first step should be to create a bang-up intro segment. Here’s how that turned out:

#NailedIt

#pleasesensemysarcasm

The logical second step–you know, now that I have that AWESOME intro which is TOTALLY professionally done–is to figure out my vlogging point of view. After doing some brainstorming with my husband, I vetoed the following ideas:

-A travel vlog featuring my travels with my husband who wears various Star Wars masks at all times and all on-screen text is formatted as the opening Star Wars scroll.

-A travel vlog featuring my travels with a muppet who looks JUST LIKE my husband, beard and all. Also under the same veto umbrella was the same general idea, but with a sock-puppet-husband (this was a last-ditch effort after he found out how costly and time consuming it would be to have a muppet created in his image.)

Doodle credit: my husband Doug. This is how he imagines himself as a muppet.

Once we got that out of the way, I decided to just stick to what I know–creating travel content which is informative, instructional, and vaguely entertaining. It will be The Suitcase Scholar, just in vlog format.

I’m calling it Carry On with The Suitcase Scholar. First, because it’s punny. (Get it? Carry on? SUITCASE Scholar?) But second because carry-on travel is about more than just luggage. It’s a philosophy of independence, preparedness, and organization. It’s a way to make travel more accessible, easier, more hassle-free. And sometimes when things go awry, you just need to…carry on.

Ok, maybe I’m stretching it a bit. But you must admit that it’s better than the muppet idea. No?

My travel vlogging adventure will begin in a few weeks, during our next trip–which I will announce in an upcoming old-fashioned blog post because while I do intend to start vlogging, I do not intend to fully stop blogging. I like all of the -oggings.

So–what do you think, dear readers? Is this a deeply terrible idea, or just merely ill-advised? Will you watch my perfectly awful video content? Let me know in the comments so I can decide if I should ruin my husband’s summer vacation by incessantly capturing video of it. Thanks!