Artwork courtesy of Bub 2.

Have you heard of Periscope yet? It’s the newest social media platform connecting people around the world and it is actually pretty neat. Using just a smart phone Periscope users are able to live stream audio visual content to their followers in real time. What this means is that you can see and hear what people you are following are doing, exactly as they are doing it. Not only that but Periscope allows people viewing a feed to interact with the Periscoper via real time comments, as well as affirm the person Periscoping by sending little love hearts – the Periscope equivalent of a Facebook like.

Launched in March of this year I decided Periscope was my opportunity to redeem myself in the world of social media. I am you see a notoriously slow adopter of social media – I had been blogging for two years before I realised how important it was for engaging with my readers. Being a slow adopter has meant that less of my agonised over content is reaching readers. It has also limited my ability to engage with and develop relationships with my readers.

With this in mind I took the leap and bounded into the world of Periscope. My efforts to date have been perhaps not as I’d hope. They include:

• My son interrupting a Periscope at Scienceworks to show me he had written a rude word on his arm using invisible ink (which he kindly illuminated with his special science light for everyone watching my scope to see).
• Going on a walk to find kangaroos at a location famous for its kangaroos only for said kangaroos to hide for the duration of the Periscope.
• Periscoping my kids sand boarding down dunes and capturing one of them deliberately trip the other into the most magnificently spectacular stack.

Instead of being put off by these early experiences I have decided to be encouraged by them. Periscope gives me as a family travel blogger the opportunity to be real with my readers/followers. It allows me to show a sneak peak into our travel experiences and that includes the good the bad and the ugly. Let’s be honest, traveling with kids isn’t all happy memories at the beach (although some of it is).  Family life is multilayered and multi-textured, and so is family travel.  There is no sugar coating with live streaming. I cannot chose the best photo of our family to insert in the post. It is simply us, experiencing the world.

There are also so many family experiences that never makes it to the blog, or even Instagram.   I have my fingers in different pies – work, kids, and blog – I just don’t have the time to package everything nicely as complete articles or pretty pictures. What I hope Periscope will do is allow me, if I see something amazing, or we are experiencing something that I think my readers would benefit from, to share it spontaneously.

If you join up to Periscope (which is a free app) it will also give me an opportunity to stickybeak back into your lives, which, as a little bit of a voyeur I am really looking forward to doing.

As I get more confident with Periscope I hope to do some Q and As, and chats, as well as to use Periscope to introduce ya’ll to some interesting people and fellow travellers I know. Will there be more fails? I guarantee it! Will it be fun? I hope so.

For those of you that are brave enough to give Periscope a try have a read of this Periscope how to article.

There are also generous people already on Periscope that are happy to share what they have learnt. One Periscoper, Jen Leo who writes the nationally syndicated Web Buzz column for the Los Angeles Times set up a scope just to teach me the basics. If you want to follow someone on Periscope that really knows what they are doing then follow her at @jenleo.

If you do sign up to Periscope, or, if you are, despite my efforts to be an early adopter ahead of me and are already on Periscope feel free to follow me at @BubsontheMove . I promise lots of honest family travel Periscope successes, happy travel moments, and I’m sure the odd, honest fail too.  It is after all about keeping it real.

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