How do you keep blogging when you are on holiday?

That means the roads will be less busy, the weather will get worse (always does!) and the airports will go on strike and there will delay after delay after delay, as thousands of families will be holidaying.

Are you holidaying this summer?

We are. My wife and I are off to somewhere real nice. My wife and I celebrate our 25 years of marriage this year and we are flying off to an exotic secret location!

We are leaving our ‘adult children' in charge. I just hope the house is still here when we get back!

So how do us bloggers keep our sites active while on holiday?

Well, I'm taking my laptop with me and I shall be blogging from the exotic location. Don't tell my wife - I have yet to tell her!

Only kidding. Of course I'm not going to take my laptop, I shall use the local internet cafes each day and keep everything nice and active. Save me lugging the laptop with me.

Yes, I am kidding again!

You don't have to take your laptop, you don't have to visit the local internet cafes...if you plan and prepare in advance.
Your blog posts

You do have to write them before you go on holiday. You cannot get away with that one. So a little extra effort up front and write the number of blog postings you want published while you are away.

Then when you enter the blog post, with the wordpress time stamp you can decide when you'd like it posted.

Just edit the date and WordPress does the rest. Simple.
Plugin Updates

While you are away, there will be updates to certain plugins. It doesn't matter. None of them will be urgent and you can simply update them on your return.

The same goes for any WordPress updates.
Twitter

By having the Twitter Tools plugin installed, when your pre-published posts are actually posted, you can have them automatically announced on Twitter.
Comments

Before a comment appears on my blog, the "comment author" must have a previously approved comment (WordPress settings in "Discussion"), so comments from ‘approved' individuals will continue to appear.

New "commentors" will have to wait for my return for me to approve.

I could just let Akismet do it's stuff but sometimes ‘spam' comments still get through and I'd rather wait until I return and approve any new "commentors".
Contact and Emails

I get quite a few emails either directly or via the ‘contact' section of my blog. Any that come through while I am on holiday will have to wait until I return. When I reply I shall explain why it has taken a while for me to respond.

So that's what I do while I am on holiday and no one needs to know that you are really away.

What do you do to keep your blog active while you are away?

What tips do you have?