How Twitter can help you find things to do when you are planning your trip

11:36 PM

For some people the act of trip planning is as exciting and joyful as the trip itself, once you order your flight tickets and hotel room, the countdown starts and you can begin dreaming about all the great places, restaurants, experiences and people you are soon about to discover. In today's modern way of life, the few trips you are taking along the year are sometimes the highlight of your being! 
No wonder that travel has become one of the largest worldwide industries with so much related information online.

So, where do you start with your trip planning? How can we make this part of our trip enjoyable and exciting?
Most of us will start their online search with Google, searching for “things to do in @@@”, “best restaurants in @@@” which will probably take us to:
·         One of the largest crowdsourcing giants like “TripAdvisor” and “Yelp.
·          A major travel related content websites such as “Lonely Planet”, “National Geographic” and “fodors” .
·         The travel sections of a major publishers and online newspapers such as the “New York Times”, “The Guardian”, “HuffingtonPost” and so forth… All of which have great writers and amazing photographs.
But if you are looking for something a bit different and much more exciting, I would definitely recommend you to try planning your trip with twitter.

Allow me to explain:

Twitter is a huge network of people with tones of information where almost all of it is accessible for everyone, unlike Facebook in which I will have to be your friend in order to see what you have posted and the graph-search option which is still evolving. Twitter was actually designed especially for search (not to mention that my mom still doesn't have a twitter account … love you mom ;)
The ease of access for information and its openness nature enables you to experience a place from the locals’ point of view. So if you wish to absorb some local atmosphere when you are planning your trip from home, I can say, based on my experience, that this would be a great platform for you to achieve this.

So how can you plan your trip using Twitter?
You simply have to search for the same things you would have searched on Google, however, you will get a VERY different set of results, and the real cool thing is that you will find the latest tweets by bloggers and locals about the topic you were looking for. Then you can check on the personal profile of the dudes that posted the tweets and go through their timeline to see whether you relate to them or not. Assuming you like what you see, you can immediately connect, by posting a tweet, and that is exactly what makes twitter such an awesome platform for trip planning.

Sounds a little vague?
Checkout this nice example: Below is the first Twitter search result for the phrase: “coffe dallas”



Based on her bio, the number of followers she has, the number of people she is following and her latest tweets (see image below), I can take a decision whether she is someone I would like to get connected with for questions and answers regarding Dallas.  



The ease of search and the option to quickly get connected with like-minded locals and bloggers makes twitter a great tool for finding tips and information and makes the trip planning experience fun, exciting and much more personal.
Some may say this option is a bit spooky, but based on my own experience, it works and it’s a lot of fun!


Just make sure not be a nag and respect someone if they decides not to respond to your questions...

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