Are you a travel enthusiast?
Maybe you are looking for itinerary ideas?
Perhaps just finding ways how to use Pinterest for travel inspiration to cure your wanderlust?
Pinterest, when looking for travel information, is a great alternative to Google, Facebook, or a guidebook. Often even better or more user-friendly.
Similar to Google, Pinterest is a search engine. It is designed to help us find things but in a visual way.
Most images on Pinterest are linked back to a blog or website where they were saved from. As a result, those pinned photographs might provide access to a wealth of useful travel information. With Pinterest, travel planning is fun and visual. You organize boards into subjects and then pin photographs and blog content to those boards. Like creating a vision board. But online, with endless options and possibilities.
Read along to see how easy it is to plan your holiday with Pinterest.
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Why use Pinterest to plan your next trip
We all know the saying, “a picture is worth a thousand words.”
And there is no better way to inspire a journey and evoke emotion than via (travel) images. Just look what Instagram is doing for the travel industry!
As mentioned before Pinterest is a visual social search engine.
So why not inspire, provide information and get ideas from visuals?
According to science, more than 65 people are visual learners. Myself included. And this is exactly what Pinterest does! Pinterest search results are a collection of images, infographics, and photographs, called ‘pins‘. You can then save them to your ‘boards’ for a later date. You can even add or ‘pin’ photographs to boards from other websites, blogs, or upload them from your computer.
If you are short on time, you don’t even have to create them. The easiest thing is to just follow other people’s boards and peruse their images.
“Pinterest is a visual social sharing search engine. Like Google but with results displayed as a collection of images.”
Ok, but what does that have to do with travel planning?
Travel planning is one of the four stages of ‘travel’. The other three are dreaming, planning, experiencing and sharing.
Pinterest is ideal for not just the dreaming phase, but also the planning, and sharing stages. Photos are fantastic for motivating, but it is the information that is connected to them that will help you plan. The links attached to the images are what you are actually looking for.
they are taking you to the real travelers. To the influencers and solo travelers who already adventured through the place, you are planning to visit. Or maybe to a local tourism board sharing useful tips about their hometown. This is why Pinterest is a fantastic tool.
Let’s find ways to utilize Pinterest for planning your vacation.
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7 ways to use Pinterest for Travel Planning
1. Photo Inspiration
Get inspired one travel photo at a time. Pinterest is a visual platform. And if you are lacking ideas on where to go on your next vacation, there are plenty of stunning Travel Photography full of travel photos that will inspire your wanderlust.
2. Get itinerary ideas
This is an easy way to find many Travel Itineraries that will help you create your own. You can copy it, combine a couple of them or get a rough idea and create your own. It can be how to spend a day in Paris, 5 days in Dubai or one month in USA.
3. Find things to do
There are more than pretty pictures on Pinterest. You can find pins leading to useful articles on just about anything – travel and non-travel related. It can be from walking tour around Ljubljana, visiting a Zoo or have a dinner in the sky.
4. Travel tips and advice
Pinterest if full of Travel Tips and Tricks all collected from other travelers around the world. What are the best ways to travel more sustainable, scams to avoid in Rome, get over jet lag, booking flights and safest countries to visit.
5. Best areas and hotels to stay
Another great aspect of using Pinterest is also deciding where to stay in a new destination. Discover the best areas to stay at if you want a relaxing holiday or have a bit of fun and party. You will find boards with Hotel Reviews with pins leading to articles like Reasons to stay in rove hotel in Dubai.
6. Local dishes to try with recipes
Just like with hotels, you can find restaurants to check out and local dishes to try. An addition, Pinterest is full of recipe ideas, which means you can prepare dishes you tried on your travels, vacations or holiday when you get back home.
7. Packing lists
One more vote for planning with Pinterest is for finding out on what to pack for your trip. There are many Packing tips and tricks that come in handy, when you are searching for ideas on How to fold a T-shirt, what to wear on a safari or What the essentials to pack in your Carry-on.
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How to make the most of Pinterest for travel planning
Now you have an idea of what type of travel information can be found on Pinterest.
To make the most of this platform for travel planning, like everywhere else, you have to start with the basics. But don’t worry, it is easy and fun.
This process will be following four stages connected to travel, already mentioned above. You should really only pay attention to the first two. Third one is the best one and the fourth one is an optional bonus.
Are you curious what they are?
THE DREAM PHASE
1. Create Pinterest account & Travel boards
To start you will first need an account on Pinterest. It is super easy to make and you only need an email address. Follow the instructions on Pinterest and you will be ready and set in no time.
When you have an account, it is time to start creating boards. Think about those as boxes, or buckets or folders, holding the same type of information. You can have as many as you want. And you can organize them in your own specific way. Later on we will even see, that you can pin the same pin inside multiple boards.
Your Pinterest boards can be super specific or more generic.
Some Pinterest board ideas related to travel;
• you can arrange them by continents; America, Asia, Australia and Oceania, …
• by country or state; Slovenia, UAE, Utah, Arizona, …
•by destination; Paris, Ljubljana, Dubai, …
You can also make more generic boards;
• Travel tips, Photography Tips, Packing Tips, Travel Itineraries, Packing tips, Bucket list, …
• based on the number of travelers; Solo travel, Family travel, Couple travel, …
• based on type of travel; Airplane travel, Campervan, Road trip, Train routes, Cruises, …
Another way could also be to create boards related to a destination you are planning to visit;
• Where to eat in Las Vegas,
• Best hotels in Las Vegas,
• Las Vegas day trips,
• Best nightclubs in Las Vegas …
There is no right or wrong way of setting up and creating boards.
The only thing you should keep in mind is to organize it based on your taste. That way you will always know where to look for specific info.
Boards can be Public or Private. You can share them with the world or keep them to yourself.
When your boards are all set up, it is time to start pinning ideas to them.
2. Start pinning to your travel boards
This is where the fun starts. It can be overwhelming at first but once you set up your preferences the platform will narrow down the searches that will appear on your Pinterest home feed.
Then you can start searching for pins on your home feed. Pinterest search bar at the top works like Google. Type in your query or keyword. Photos and pins attached to that search will show up. Super simple and easy. Like I said, Google but with a lot of images.
Under the search bar, Pinterest will also show you the line full of related keywords to what you were just searching for. If you click on any of those a new collection of images will appear.
When you find an image/pin you like and would like to have a closer look to it, you can save it to one of your boards. To do that simply hover on an image. On top left you will get a list of your created boards. Choose the one you would like to save that pin to. Then simply click Save button on top right.
Voila! Repeat that with as many keywords and queries as you like.
If finding and pinning and searching for stuff seems to time consuming, you can take the shortcut. Like with Facebook, here you can also follow creators and companies. Or simply follow boards that already have a collection of pins you are interested in. If you are going to Tanzania, follow accounts, boards and creators posting about Tanzania.
Pinning is winning!
PLANNING PHASE
3. Create your perfect travel plan
Now that your boards are full of pins that inspired you, it is time for you to start travel planning. Go through all the itineraries, hotel reviews, must-do things, and Instagram photo spots. Your job now is to create your perfect travel plan.
It can be overwhelming. But it will be worth it in the end! I usually plan my itineraries with pen and paper by using my travel planning spreadsheets. But since we are in the 21. century and we are trying to travel more sustainably and I am creating my itineraries also online in Google docs. That way, I can have access to them even when offline.
I have found out that online spreadsheets are great because you can simply copy and paste information, hotel address, booking confirmation numbers, opening hours, entrance fees etc. It is also much easier (and faster) to copy and paste instructions than write them down.
Another important note. I try to make travel planning as simple as possible. I have a blank calendar and sketch my travel. Then on a spreadsheet, I write a basic daily itinerary with flight details. Next, I write down my accommodation and where I will stay. On another spreadsheet, I write activities I would wish to do that day and the cost of them. The last page is for any additional info, like guides and useful info + I have my health insurance number, KIN, and embassy numbers.
Pinterest is a great tool to help with travel planning. Each image or pin is linked back to a website or a blog that contains a wealth of travel information you are searching for.
EXPERIENCE PHASE
This will most certainly be your favorite phase. It does not involve anything related to Pinterest. This is the time when you are actually enjoying, relaxing and exploring on destination. Having a stress-free holiday or sipping a cocktail in a wonderful resort on a vacation. Maybe camping and hiking or exploring wildlife. All of this will lead us to the next stage.
EXPERIENCE PHASE
This is not really the mandatory one. As you found out Pinterest is great for inspiring and planning. But it is also great for organizing and sharing your memories. Line an online scrapbook or photo album. You can share photos or Idea pins from your holiday with some useful tips. From best moments to things you wish you knew before. Add your own tips and advice. Because we know that destinations change.
By doing this you will help other travelers to plan their trip to a destination where you have just been.
All of the above in a nutshell
So, if you are not yet using Pinterest when planning for your next trip, you should consider it. Besides Lonely planet (because I just love an actual book + it looks good on my travel bookshelf) Pinterest is now one of my favorite and most fun ways to plan my travel.
Not only it is easy to use, but it is also fun to search through all the amazing travel photos. Aside from them, if I want it or not, I always end up with new and fresh ideas about destinations. From things to see, local food to try, and experiences there are to do.
Are you using Pinterest?
Where are you planning to travel next?
I would love to know how you use Pinterest.
Pinning is winning and sharing is caring! What are you choosing?
Skipped to the good part? Here is the gist
Pinterest is a visual search engine. It works like Google but searched results are mostly beautifully designed pins and photographs. Those inspiring photos are linked back to a blog or website, where you can find even more wealth of useful travel information. You can save those pins to your boards and return to them whenever you want. From those pins, you can get itinerary ideas, find things to do, the best activity providers, learn basics about a country, their do’s and common scams. Get hotels and restaurant recommendations or simply admire photos from dreamy destinations.
I hope this article will encourage you to try and use Pinterest next time you will be planning your holiday.
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Do you use Pinterest for travel planning?
Let me know in the comments.
