By Thomas Herman
I am very grateful for what steno has provided me. About half the time, I’m home in my favorite, softest cotton Star Trek t-shirts providing CART captions from my cozy home office. The rest of the time I’m traveling, supporting language access, reasonable accommodations, and inclusive events with CART captions. I am not unique in being a traveling stenographer. I know several stenographers who travel. I’ll share some about where I have traveled, the reasons travel happens, and the tools I have on hand while traveling.
Where have I traveled?
In 2025 I supported events in more than a dozen states. I captioned at sea, supporting a cruise that went from the Pacific Northwest to Alaska. I also captioned excursions on land as well, including captioning on a moving train that is also a historic tour in Skagway.
I captioned several local on-site jobs, including a moving river boat tour, museum galas, universities, and colleges. Traveling captions can, and have, also included walking tours for large tech expo halls, and museum tours.
I have several work trips planned for 2026 and started out the year by captioning a two-week cruise with several days at sea and had the pleasure of visiting several Caribbean countries.
Why do clients request travel and/or on-site captioners?
Some industries revolve around travel. Traveling event planners with new products or niche clientele travel the world sharing their events with different markets.
From large tech summits to disability vendors, concept cars tours, musical concerts, or traveling theater, sometimes traveling events will ask a captioner to travel the whole tour (or most of the tour) for consistency, just like they do with other vendors.
Some clients have tried remote captions — either automated or human — that did not produce the desired results due to infrastructure or acoustic issues and now budget for on-site captioners. Some venues don’t have reliable Internet. Sometimes markets have a shortage of CART captioners and bring in captioners to support local events or local academic institutions. There are lots of potential reasons to validate travel.
What should a CART captioner take?
The short answer: Everything. When traveling for work, I take Bond, my tuxedo-colored steno machine, as well as a backup writer.
I take my own HDMI cords, backup cords for my writers, charger for laptops, etc. Speaking of laptops, I take two of those as well. I also travel with specialized software for deploying captions and scripted materials that is totally self-contained and doesn’t require internet at all. This can be used for both one-on-one captions and projected and/or open or displayed CART captions. And sunscreen. Lots of sunscreen.
I’m also currently traveling with open-source steno keyboards because they’re light and affordable, and I can take them to high-risk environments like water parks or zoos.
In closing, I hope the next time you’re in a public space or event like a theme park, cruise ship, summit, expo, professional convention, comedy club, pop concert, or at a famous nightclub with a featured DJ spinning, you ask yourself: Could I caption this, or could I receive captions here?
The answer just might inspire you.
P.S. Don’t forget your passport.
Thomas Herman is a CART captioner from Portland, Ore. He is also a member of NCRA’s Membership, Marketing and Outreach Committee. Thomas can be reached at thomashermansteno@hotmail.com.
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