The Daily Juice

Social Media and Travel: Wherever You Go Take your Friends with You.

The use of Social Media tools such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Flickr have not only radically changed the way we communicate in our daily lives it has also changed the way we travel. Out are the days of waiting 24 hours for vacation photos in print and slideshows in a dimly lit living room (I can still hear the feint click-a-click of my dad’s projector), In are real-time status updates, instant photo sharing and couchsurfing requests. In fact it's almost an expectation that you will keep your friends and family informed via the web. I’d like to share my experience using these tools and how it helped me during my trip around the world.

Background

Why take a trip around the world? I suppose the simple answer is: because it’s there. For the complete answer we would have to explore the deep recesses of my mind—fortunately for you I’ve decided not to go there (it’s a scary place). Instead we’ll discuss how I used the aforementioned tools that really enhanced the traveling experience for me and my family and friends.

Planning

Prior to embarking on your trip it’s a good idea to craft a message that you can send out describing your agenda and where you’re publishing your content:

Please follow along with me on my wonderful journey:

Plugging into networking sites such as couchsurfing.com (CS) is a must: “CouchSurfing is a worldwide network for making connections between travelers and the local communities they visit.” The members are lovingly known as CSers and it resembles most popular social networking sites in that you can see your friend’s friends along with testimonials. And my obligatory statement is that you tread carefully when connecting with anyone on the internet until you`ve established a reasonable level of trust.

Hostelworld.com “provides on-line confirmed bookings for hostels, budget accommodation centres and package tours, as well as comprehensive content such as city and country guides. All bookings are made securely, in real-time and are guaranteed for you.” I used this site extensively, the great part about it are the reviews from fellow travelers – however it is also good to do a crossreference with the CSers that you have connected with about the dwelling’s reputation.

Not only do you make connections with wonderful people it can also greatly reduce your accomodation costs. When used in conjunction with Facebook your ability to meet people and socialize in your traveling region increases exponentially – there is nothing better than having local people to hang out with and show you a side of the territory that you won’t find in travel guides or paid tours. Meeting local friends will also give you an edge when bargaining for guided tours and market wares—not to mention being spared from local scams. Without meeting CSers I would have missed out on the best Dim Sum in Hong Kong, paid way to much for a boat ride to the Elephant Caves in India and missed out on great live performer at an awesome pizza joint in Christchurch New Zealand.

Media

While short messages and photos are a great way to share your vacation, video is even better. Today's cameras, smartphones and HD recorders are so powerful and compact it's a shame not to take advantage of it. Nearly all devices come with software that enables you to edit and upload your videos to popular sites such as YouTube with a click of button allowing you to share your exciting Roy Orbison medley at Oktoberfest or the time you mistook water buffalo for cows Agra, India.

Social Media Weapons of Choice

Initially I had this romantic idea of blogging my way through Germany, India, Hong Kong and New Zealand – I would write epic stories that resembled the Bourne Identity, Slumdog Millionaire or Indiana Jones (not #4).  While there are those who are able to do that I found that Twitter and Facebook far more practical and allowed me to concentrate on soaking in the experience. I could then reflect on the experiences later when reviewing my posts.  At the end of each day I dumped my thoughts on paper in a journal which I could later use to write passages on my blog. Twitter was exceptionally good at supplementing the stories with a timeline and up to the minute facts. Those who followed me really enjoyed the bite sized updates and felt closer to me during the trip.

The Tech

One of the main things that has changed around the world is connectivity, it was nearly impossible for me not to have access to a computer with a high speed connection. Even on the edge of the desert in Northwest India I stayed at a solar powered eco resort (Apahni Dahni) that has DSL connectivity.  In India if I wasn’t near a computer I could use SMS to Tweet my updates.  I highly recommend buying a GSM quad band phone that accepts prepaid SIM cards – the cards are extremely cheap to buy in Asia. Also SMS is one of the preferred methods of communication and it really helps when trying to meet up with people in a foreign land.

Express Yourself

Don’t get hung up on grammar or literary excellence, just log what you can when you feel like it. If people don’t like your content it will always provide you with information that you can finesse later. Memories fade fast and you’ll have plenty of them to try to remember. The Favorite feature in Twitter allows you to place your best Tweets in a list for future reference.Some of my favorite moments seemed less significant at the time but after much reflection they are my dearest memories.

Fear Factor

At one point during while traveling India`s Golden Triangle I had been brought to a place located in a dark maze of downtown Jaipur only to have my tourguide “friend” try to get me involved with a bogus jewel scam. Which brings me to my next point—safety. One of the merits of having real-time updates is to let people know where you are and what’s happening in case anything goes wrong. I`m thinking in particular of  how James Karl Buck helped free himself from an Egyptian jail with a one-word blog post from his cell phone. Fortunately I was able to intimidate this ambitious group of misguided entrepreneurs and made it safely back to my hostel without incident. The lesson learned here—leave virtual bread crumbs via Twitter or SMS.

Fun Factor

Although I traveled by myself for 45,000 Kms around the world, I never felt alone. Social Media has really made the world smaller and friendlier. Without these tools I`m sure one could have a great time traveling the world, however I believe that these technologies are enhancing our ability to socialize and bridge cultural gaps. Finally for those of you dreaming of taking that trip to a villa in Italy, Scuba Diving at the Great Barrier Reef or taking that cooking class in Thailand—just do it; there are thousands of people around the world that want to meet you and make it an experience of a lifetime.

Derek Jensen is a world traveler and Social Media Junkie, he has several years experience directing performance improvement initiatives in the Technology Sector. He currently resides on the east coast of Canada and is interested in collaborating with progressive organizations and people.