Some of our best days resulted from meeting people while finding ways to get online. Back on day one at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History, we told our story, and after a momentary pause, the receptionist at the information desk gave us her chair. We sat at her desk in that major museum and filed our dispatches while visitors walked up to ask for directions to the dinosaurs. We did our best to help.

It's true the technology changed and everything is fragmented now, but hasn't the same thing happened to relationships and trust? Could this even happen today, in a post 9/11 world, in which our brains are programmed to see people through the lens of threat assessment. Then I think about families of color for whom perhaps little has changed. Would this have even been possible for a Black family? I wish we still lived in online and in-person worlds where it was possible, and for more people. Loved this read, and where it took me, even if it was a kinda sad place.

Rose Marshack of the indie band Poster Children posted regular tour diaries online starting in 1995 and ending sometime in the 2000s.  She ended up with something like 1000 entries, some of them quite long and involved.  Sadly they haven't been available online for a decade or so -- partly because she complied many of them into a book, Play Like a Man.  The band also did several interactive multimedia experiments to accompany their mid-90s releases.

Hey, I did a blog-like thing in 1999 when I was traveling around the country on business.  I called it "Journeys of a Business Traveller" and sent it to my entire mailing list (which was only like 60 people ;-) ).

If anyone cares, I recently threw it up on a web site.
https://journeys.aminzade.com/

I seem to remember Justin Hall travelling around the country in like 95 or 96, teaching people how to make web pages. And of course writing about it on links.net. Ah, I found it: "may 20 to early july, 1996. greyhound busin' through 17 cities across the american south, stayin' in homes and teachin' net."

And re: Swati's comment above, it seems like Hall was aware of his privilege w/r/t to his ability to rise to prominence on the early web — snippet from a post from 1996):

I think I got famous because of my wonderful family and priviledged background, which gave me the resources, opportunity and confidence to persue my whims and dreams. I've been comfortable with and owned computers since I was seven. raised in upper-class chicago, I was well trained to carry myself in crowds and I've been educated by some of the best minds money can buy. having an ample parental safety net has allowed me to take unpaid internships and travel widely, as well as accumulate a tremendous collection of reading material and study a broad range of subjects without concern for their relevance to sustenance.

"Our story is a record of an internet that no longer exists: the one with human editors, not algorithms, discovering and surfacing content worth seeing. "

It's out there (it's right here at kottke!). I've been heartened by the initial success of several worker owned media collectives and hope they are sustainable, as well.

I know Mark and Betsy from Portugal! We used to live on the same street in Vila do Conde. They are still free-wheeling, creative, wonderful people.

Love this! I did the same thing in 1991, sleeping in the back of my pickup truck. It was pre-WWW, so I sent my updates via email and posted them on the WELL. No digital pictures, either!