A one-year VA relationship for overland travelers going from Colorado to Cape Town in a Land Rover proved to have challenges. Traveling has become "connected virtually" with our [VA's] best friends: the Internet, email, online banking and the addition of a satellite phone. Here is the story from the traveler's point of view:

"Having the help of a virtual assistant while on an extended traveling holiday was invaluable to us. Kathy Sparks, our VA, was able to help us with a variety of details that would have been very difficult from overseas, especially from locations with poor and spotty telephone service."

"We were able to forward our post mail to her address, which meant that we knew we wouldn't miss anything important. Our home was rented out while on travel, and Kathy dealt with the property management company for us. She made sure our bills such as the mortgage, storage locker, and credit cards were paid on time using an online banking service. She researched and purchased airline tickets when we couldn't reach a travel agent. She even registered our car and mailed us the stickers when our registration expired!"

"We communicated with her primarily through the Internet. Even in what seems to be the most under-developed countries, the capital city will almost always have an Internet cafe. In our yearlong trip, we never went more than two weeks without finding one. Sometimes the connection can be frustratingly slow, but we were usually at least able to read our email."

"The most useful service she provided was the maintenance of our online journal website. Our trip involved driving a car from London to Cape Town through the entire African continent. Naturally, we wanted a way to share our adventure with friends and family who were understandably concerned for our safety (and for our sanity). Many fellow travelers we met also had websites, but typically they maintained them through an on-line website maintenance system. Maintaining a site this way can be time consuming (internet cafes charge by the hour) and with a slow connection is sometimes nearly impossible. In addition, some of the maintenance programs require a specific version of the operating system or browser, which can be a problem in some places. Our website was updated every 1-2 weeks, which was the most frequent of anyone we traveled with."

"I created a Word document containing the text of our journal entries and photos (scaled down for the web) and emailed that document to Kathy, who would translate it into HTML and upload it to the site. I was able to compose the updates offline on our laptop, and then transfer them via floppy disk or USB flash disk to a PC at an Internet cafe. I could send two week's worth of updates including photos in a half-hour or less depending on the connection speed."

"Having a VA helped us tremendously. We were able to travel with peace of mind knowing that all the little details of life were being handled." - Witt Sparks, PeakOneTech.com