Traveling Through Social Media
How Social Media Has Impacted the Way We Travel
Welcome back! Today we are going to tackle another one of my major interests, traveling, and how social media has impacted it. As you know, I have spent a little time traveling and I blogged about my travels as well as kept a journal. Over the years, as time and technology has developed, so has the way that we travel. Before technology, people would spend their time taking in the culture, enjoying the new surroundings, and keeping a journal to document special moments while traveling abroad. Now, we have so much amazing technology that allows us to document our travels in photographs, videos, and on our social media accounts for all of our friends to see and feel like they are there with us.
While I was traveling, I did a combination of old fashion travel and new technology travel. I kept a journal to document special moments, worked on a multimedia project about my time in Italy and the Alps, and I kept my Snapchat account updated regularly. This was important to me because I wanted my friends and family to be able to see what I was doing during my time abroad and I wanted then to be able to experience the Italian culture with me. Many travelers do the same and some are a little too active on their social media accounts while traveling. It is very very important to stay safe while you are traveling, especially on social media. Take a look at this blog by Security Intelligence for tips for staying safe on social media while traveling.
However, while there are many dangers to being extremely active on social media while traveling, there are many good things that can come from posting about your travels on social media. As I stated before I am a huge fan of travel blogs. I think that travel blogs are a way to express passion and culture through writing about travels. A travel blog that I think is really interesting is Adventurous Kate. She writes about her travels from places like New York and Boston and even Tokyo. I think that travel blogs are so cool because you are able to share your experiences with other people. I love to read travel blogs to get ideas on where to travel next.
With social media, comes hashtags. Hashtags and location tags have changed the way that we travel, especially on Instagram, because now we are able to see every public picture that has been posted in any city, state, or country that we visit. For example, the hashtag #travel has been used for 275,778,224 pictures on Instagram. Before social media, we would have to learn about people’s travels by word of mouth. Now, we can see pictures of anyone who posts about their travels by simply looking at the hashtag. By tagging the location, anyone who looks at the location tag can see the pictures that people have shared with that location. This feature is a little bit scary. People have the ability to see where you are and that is unsafe. (Refer to the blog post that I linked to earlier). To read more about how hashtags have affected the travel industry, look at this site, Global Traveler.
The best/worst thing about travel posts on social media, is that it makes others want to travel. Seeing that someone else is traveling and exploring beautiful cities gives other people the travel itch. This is a great thing for the travel industry because that means more people will be purchasing plane tickets, making hotel reservations, renting cars, and bringing in more business into those cities that they visit. This is a bad thing for some people’s bank account and the travel itch is the worst thing for the people who don’t have a lot of money in their bank account, like me. Since my last journey abroad, I have been itching to go to Europe again, but haven’t had the funds. A travel blog that I like to read sometimes, called Living With The Travel Bug, uploaded a blog post with budget friendly travel deals. With a low income, it is hard to plan travels but with travel deals it makes it easier to do so.
Lastly, because of social media, travel agents are able to reach a whole new audience in a different way. Instead of just reaching customers on their website or through business cards, they can promote their business on social media. I am not really one to use a travel agent. However, I also haven’t ever planned my own vacation. For people who do consult with travel agents this is a great way to see what kind of vacations they have planned and how happy their customers are. If you are a travel agent, look at this blog that has tips for travel agents by Travel Market.
Thanks for reading my blog! Let me know what you think about this post. Like and share with friends and leave a comment about your favorite vacation you have been on.
