Is Social Media the new-age travel planner?

Laurel....Okay, I have noi social media presence, never joined Facebook and rarely refer to You Tube videos....so, a troglodyte in the 21st century!
I keep all my old guidebooks because of the notations I made in them, my old maps on which I have marked my routes, and files of newspaper articles about someplace I may decide to visit someday. The newspaper files haven't been added to for a few years, the maps are souvenirs, and guidebooks are referenced for ideas of places to go and sights to see. (e.g. In planning a 2017 northern France road trip, I looked through my old 1998 Frommer's France book, and came across a paragraph about the Route Des Abbayes. I was intrigued, and we drove it in 2017, stopping at Jumieges Abbey, and it was a highlight of the trip! The RS guidebooks never mentioned it.) All of these sources, plus the forum here, go into my hopes and dreams and plans for travel. I am sure some of the online videos, etc could help as well, but sometimes too much info, or too many opinions, spoil the planning process for me.

Yes, you could plan a trip without a guidebook, but I often read them just for the enjoyment and learn something new even years later. Maybe being 81 is why I often prefer the written word to the video.

(P.S. If you are of the same persuasion as I am, you probably follow the New York Times columnist Frank Bruni's "For the Love of Sentences" sections in his columns. Always fun to read!)

I've been watching a lot of YouTube videos lately as I plan a trip to 2 places I've already been. I first started with the historically accurate archeology based YT videos and then just kind of went down a rabbit hole, lol. I did find some RS clips of Orkney I had not seen before. I also found some videos that made me realize ANYone can post a YT video and some of them were so awful I could not bring myself to "like" them. Ugh.

I have also been using FB - NOT as place to ask questions, but to follow some specific guides and restaurants. I've arranged for a one day birding tour with a birding photographer on Orkney. I'd followed his page and seen his posts on other Orkney related FB pages for several months. From the comments I felt he was a known and respected figure so I felt comfortable booking him. I'm looking forward to a day looking for birds and other wildlife in a few weeks! Plus I picked a non-cruise ship day so there might be fewer people AND so he would still have the availability of booking cruise ship passengers on their port day.

On the flip side, as many here know I'm on the Trip Advisor Wyoming/Yellowstone forum daily. There are about half a dozen FB groups for the area and all have trip planning questions. I just really gave up on answering them because there are so many responses and there are SO MANY stupid and just plain inaccurate answers. I'll stick to TA but I can tell you we are getting maybe 1/8-1/4 of the questions we used to get. This time of year before Covid the daily posts would go off the front page which has 20 threads. This year we have maybe 1 or 2 new posts a day and a few replies to existing threads so people are NOT using this platform the way they used to.

Ditto some of the FB pages for Paris - Les Frenchies for one. I only rarely peek in there any more. Way too many posts about shopping for high end goods which does not interest me a bit. And not as much erroneous information as on some of the Yellowstone-related FB pages but still enough that I can't tolerate it.

As for IG and TikTok....I do watch IG for watercolor related short tutorials but I have a very low tolerance for most of the travel ones and as someone who has seen the silliness of people posing for photo after photo after photo for the perfect IG shot....just no.

As to a guide book....well, some local women have written a guidebook for Shetland which I am using but seriously there is not much written decent guide book material on either island so you have to depend on internet. I am going on multi-day tours to both islands so just have a few days on my own but want to maximize my alone time!

I think it depends on the person. Some people are happy following suggestions from others. I'm not. I sure love input(especially from the RS forum), but in the end, I construct my itinerary with info from guidebooks, friends, the forum, and internet searches. What I consider to be the top sites to see may well not be what others suggest. I absolutely love using RS episodes and YouTube videos to look for inspiration or scope out an area, often incredibly helpful.

I'm actually shocked when I read something like, "I'm going to Prague tomorrow, what should I see?" I just think about how expensive a trip can be and some folks are completely willing to let others tell them what to do?

I don't use a travel agent, I like to find my own hotels and make my own flight arrangements. No way is a travel agent going to "tinker' like I do to find good flights. I encountered a travel agent online that was using Viator and Get a guide to book tours. Wow, now the consumer is paying two levels of mark ups. I can imagine that there are certain trips that are more unique in nature in which a travel agent with expertise with a certain activity or geographic region might be helpful.

There are some facebook groups I've used for trip planning. New Zealand Travel Tips is excellent. There are a couple for Maui and the Big Island and a pretty good one for Portugal. Other travel facebook groups annoyed me so I stopped following them.

I'm 80. I use none of the three social media you mentioned. I do religiously read guidebooks, which I believe are basically trustworthy. I'm sure some travel information acquired from social media would be trustworthy, but what percentage? For lesser-known destinations not in my guidebooks I have, on occasion, googled "tourist information [town]" and found a local blogger's post. The two or three times I've used that information I've been happy with it.

"I encountered a travel agent online that was using Viator and Get a guide to book tours."

Holy cow! Definitely caveat emptor!

Young people do. Many establishments that attract a younger audience don’t even have websites. It’s more Instagram and similar.

I just saw on the news about a young 20 something “influencer” from another country who was this past week driving from LA to Vegas and stopped in the middle of nowhere at this trending diner that attracts all the social media kids; the influencer was horrified that her car got broken into while she was busy inside influencing people with her known whereabouts posted all over social media.

I've been told by my students that one must have an "influencer" nowadays. Looks like I'm missing out. Again.

I've never been on TikTok and I'm rarely a YouTube viewer. I have an Instagram account that I've never posted on, but use it to follow a niece who posts pics of her 3 adorable little one's. I will sometimes look at someone's IG account when it has been referenced elsewhere in my research. And I've never created a Facebook account. But, again, I might peruse an account for pertinent information. When planning our 2023 Norway trip, the Hurtigruten Insiders FB page was quite helpful.

I prefer guide books and a few trusted travel forums. In fact , I currently have a stack of guide books on Panama and Costa Rica from my library sitting across the room from me as I research a potential trip.

That said, I believe many of today's travelers are relying mainly on IG, FB, TikTok and internet bloggers and influencers without doing any research.

Looking at some of the posts we see here lately with practically minute by minute itineraries listing cocktail bars and some patisserie of the month, it's obvious that they're source is social media.

I rue the day printed guide books are obsolete. And don't get me started on the demise of local tourist information offices with their printed maps and a real local giving you the real story.

I don't do Facebook, Instagram, or TikTok, but then I do YouTube and accept the premise that forums are social media.

When it comes to trip planning I've never used a guidebook. I don't care for their curated nature or filtering of information, and I've always had a strong preference to go right to the primary sources. If I ever used a guidebook they wouldn't receive any level of trustworthiness and would be treated with the same skepticism as any other source of information. But then I don't find "influencers" objectionable and count Rick Steves as one of them.

@VAP, how do you decide what sites to see? Not a criticism, just curious.

Re. TikTok and similar, as a way of managing the Venice crowds during our September visit, we were up and out sightseeing by 7am. As were the "influencers", they seemed to have a list of certain spots to pose. It was fine, they were polite, always offering to take our photo, it was just a bit surprising how many folks were out all going to the same spots.

Fairly frequently, folks will post looking for "off the beaten path". I don't think people that plan their trips via social media will get anything "off the beaten path".

VAP,

I'm guessing you're younger than I am. When I started traveling, the was no Internet. The only travel sources were guide books, the travel section of the Sunday newspapers, and, just maybe, word of mouth from a friend or family member who had traveled. If I wanted information from the primary source I had to send a letter and enclose a postal coupon to ensure I would get a response.

I quickly learned which books and travel writers shared my ideas of a good travel experience. I've learned who to trust and who to ignore. Back in the early days, I learned that Rick Steves' and I had very different opinions on dining, for example. The Rough Guides had great info on hikes and exploring off the beaten path areas. But, I never would have stayed in most of the lodging they recommended.

Today I use guide books as a jumping off point for my own Internet research. And yes, I verify everything with the primary source.

Gosh, explaining how travel research used to be makes me sound ancient.

@VAP, how do you decide what sites to see? Not a criticism, just curious.

Well I've never asked, "What are the must see sites?" and I certainly wouldn't decide to see a site because a guidebook writer said that's a site to see. I choose to visit places and sites because they intersect with my own interests or field of work. The sites I often select probably are not in many guidebooks.

I'm a blacksmith working in museum education and covering 16th, 17th & 18th century US and UK history. Ya end up being familiar with musums and the artifacts they hold. Hello Wallace Collection or V&A. The V&A has had a rather amazing display of iron work and I have a bad habit of taking detailed photos of artifacts and then making a reproduction when I get home. Mary Rose Museum and the archaeology of that ship is pretty important on the 17th century maritime history front. The Weald of Sussex and Kent was a significant pre-industrial center of iron making and the Weald and Downland Museum fits into that and in the summer they even build a collier's clamp and make charcoal. The added benefit is that museum has an amazing collection of 16th and 17th century houses form the southeast of England. Oh and I could never forget Ironbridge and its place in iron and industrial history. Then down in Blackwall, near East India Docks and across from the O2 is Virginia Quay and the monument there to the settlers that departed Blackwall in December 1606. This year getting to Prague and I want to get to Prague Castle just to see where the 1618 Defenestration of Prague took place and then back to London and a side trip to Ramsgate to visit the grave site of Virginia's last Royal Governor, Lord Dunmore.

I'm guessing you're younger than I am.

Careful with assumptions. One of my responsibilities in my first museum job was responding to those inquiries and stuffing envelopes with brochures.

@VAP, I should have been more clear. How do you know what is available in a particular city without a guidebook, or looking at Tripadvisor, etc.? I'm sure that most who go to Paris, know there is the Notre Dame and the Eiffel Tower and. . . But what if you are going to Tallin or someplace you haven't heard about for your entire life? I didn't mean to suggest that a person should tick off a list of "recommended sites", I sure don't.

VAP, your absolutely right. I shouldn't assume.

But how do you know what you don't know? How do start?

Why does a place pique one's interest and why do we choose to travel to and vist that place? I'm not choosing a place cold. It's often been central to work, a project, something I'm researching or a museum I really want to visit is located there. Start my research at the local history and the local museums, cultural and historic sites that fit my focus. I'll go straight to their websites, which becomes their own rabbit holes. If Tallinn were our example I would probably be approaching it from it's connection to the Hanseatic League. I'm also more of a visual learner and I find YouTube useful. I glean more from anq old Rick Steves PBS show than a guidebook.

It's similar to people using AI to plan a trip....can you really trust it?

I find I look at a few sources to learn about my destinations. The internet offers a plethora of information but you have to learn how to weed out the ridiculousness.

Remember, many influencers are getting paid to promote whatever it is they're promoting. I normally ignore them. That doesn't mean some videos aren't well done and can offer a lot. You need to look at the source.

I use a combination of electronic guidebooks, legitimate newspaper and magazine articles, and websites for places I want to visit. The rest is all fluff that I use to actually see what it is I plan to visit.

I remember one "influencer" who suggested that no one should go to Rome because there isn't much to see and it's full of tourists. You'd trust this person?

Can you really plan a trip — especially foreign travel — without at least a guidebook?

Without casting it as a “good or bad” or “should or shouldn’t”, obviously the answer is yes, you can. Lots of people do. I am pretty sure you can research and plan a trip from internet research, whether it is social media, websites, blogs, or Wikipedia - all without a guidebook. I don’t take one person’s selfies or trip plan as gospel without researching further - whether they are an influencer or a Rick Steves forum poster who has only been somewhere once. But I HAVE come across some interesting (to me) places, restaurants, etc. through social media.

This article is already outdated. Everyone is using ChatGPT now.

I watch TikTok to know what to avoid.

I always like to talk to people when I’m on holiday. A LOT of people are using TikTok as their primary research tool when deciding which places to visit on a trip.

I have only used it to research one trip. Last year we wanted to go to an all inclusive resort in Greece. I was able to find lots of videos of the various hotels I was considering and it did help me to choose one that had the features we were looking for.

I'm sorry but amateurs with no monetary stake in the game are not reliable sources for much of anything. Mama used to say that you get what you pay for or less; but never more. I have seen so much well intentioned but just plain wrong information on every travel subject imaginable that other than looking for ideas to fact check social media has little value.

Looking back at my last response I didn't really answer the question. My "beef" I have with guidebooks is generally that the information is filtered, it is the information that the writer thinks to be important.

When I start planning a trip, where I plan to visit has been on my radar and there's a reason I'm going. Again work and my own interests. I tend to focus trip planning on transportation and accommodations. I find myself most often starting on Google Maps set to satellite view and CityMapper. I locate and get familiar with the hotels that will probably interest me and their location relative to transportation hubs, sites, attractions and markets. From Google Maps I can go through to the various official websites. I will search out the local event calendars and community newspapers. Back in 2022, It was how I found myself taking a break from museums and history and spending the day go-kart racing. I refresh myself on Seat61's website and get an understanding of the train operators and the local transit authorities.

On the other hand I would be willing to accept the proposition that Seat61 amounts to a guidebook, and I do glean information off forums and YouTube. I find trip reports and travel vlogs/videos useful.

Amateurs and professionals get the same level of skepticism. Amateurs may be ill-informed but professionals are not always honest about who bought and paid for them.

I encountered a travel agent online that was using Viator and Get a guide to book tours.

I have heard of some of them using Booking.com to make make hotel reservations for a tour. Talk about various levels to work through is their is an issue on your trip!

Personally I avoid most social media apps. I refuse to use facebook. I avoid TikTok. As a retired tech exec, I know SkyNet is coming and I am going to be that last old man screaming at the sky about the good old days when we used horses!

Now does anybody remember my Netflix password? I was like 12345blank maybe another number or letter or special symbol. I really have to write these things down….

Happy travels!

Amateurs may be ill-informed

Yes, that too, but reckless as well.

Gen Z seems to think so. We had several additional unexpected days in Paris last year (loooong story) and I asked my 17-yo to research things she wanted to do to fill the extra time. He first stop was TikTok and she came back with a whole lot of suggestions about “pop-ups” that as an adult, I could tell were going to suck the second we stepped foot in them. We did end up going to Disney and she got some good tips about the park from TikTok but as far as using TikTok to cultivate lists of things to do from the get-go, it was horrible.

Yes, that too, but reckless as well.

Is that somehow only unique to amateurs?
I seem to remember a professional travel expert filming themselves and holding a mobile device while driving in the UK.

In a nutshell, I don't trust social media -- Facebook, IG, TikTok --- to provide reliable information unless I know and trust the specific source. In other words, yes, I trust Rick Steves to provide reliable information on FB, but I don't trust random searches or "suggested" posts whatsoever.

My wakeup call came when I looked at my FB news feed one day about a year ago, and some random account was encouraging me to visit beautiful Sagalassos, one of my favorite places. The account said that Sagalassos was in Greece, and showed me an (AI generated) picture of a sunken city along a coastline. Well, Sagalassos is in Turkey, not Greece, and it's ~5000 feet above sea level and a two hour drive from the coast. Its only connection to water is that it has a pretty fountain. Since then, I have noticed dozens of times when FB has fed me totally made up stuff.

I do sometimes find useful information on YouTube.

By the way, @Emily nailed it when she said: "I watch TikTok to know what to avoid."

Everyone is using ChatGPT now.

Really? I tried it once for giggles. It was amusing in a grimace-worthy manner. Pity the people who believe itineraries set by apps.

I do think with good research skills and common sense from experience, one can gather a lot of reliable info from multiple sources. Key, to me, is filtering, assessing, judging: making decisions based on what one person or source has to recommend. Trouble is, so many people don’t want to take the time to plan. Too busy watching Tik Tok, perhaps.

I’ve found chatGPT useful as a starting point. I’m heading down to Devon later this week with no specific plans. By typing in ‘things to do near X’ I got a good selection of ideas.

I also used it to help plan a road trip. I typed in places I wanted to see and it put them in a logical order for me, with driving times.

Laurel,

Can you really plan a trip — especially foreign travel — without at least a guidebook?

The only destination I ever use a guidebook for is Oaxaca.

My #1 trip-planning tool is Google Maps. I look at a map of Europe and find a place I know the name of -- mostly from historical events -- and then look at the practicalities of getting there by train or plane. Once I have that, it's just a question of research on the web for hotels, restaurants, sights, etc.

As far as opinions go, I read Reddit and Google reviews. I rarely go to Trip Advisor or sites like that since you never know which post is a shill and which is legitimate.

I like YouTube vids, but mostly to look at the backgrounds more than listening to the presenters.

My only influencer is an affable, white-haired fellow from Edmunds. He seems to know what he's talking about.

-- Mike Beebe

Ok, I must be the weirdo here. I love using FB as a source and frankly, TA can be so helpful. I am not talking about the reviews, I am talking about the forums. If you want to know what bus to take, where the stop is, what transport website to use, etc. etc. TA is the place to find help. It is like this forum but about 1000 times larger.

Do I read TA reviews though? Of course I do. It isn't tough to filter out the fakes and so far, have been quite happy with places I have chosen based on reviews. All of my colleagues in other cities have their listings on TA and I know they don't write fake reviews and I know that I don't either.

YouTube can be great to look at places you might want to visit. There are good videos and bad videos, just like anything else.

How to use FB? Go to the pages from the city tourist office. Every museum and tourist attraction has a FB page. All of them. Makes it easy to see about special events, like festivals. Expat FB pages are great to find restaurants. It is fun to ask what is the best Indian restaurant in Frankfurt and within 5 min. you have 100 answers.

As to chat GPT, I can tell if they are writing descriptions for tours, etc. They are gaggy.

We did have fun this past winter, as I do volunteer work in a WW2 bunker that has really interesting exhibits in it, and we wanted a photo of a bunker covered in snow for the website and tried chat gpt. We got some hilarious results. Mine looked like some kind of Russian palace. Certainly not a bomb shelter.

I used to read guidebooks and maps just for fun. My travel choices were usually based on literature (story settings), military history, family history, and a cover-to-cover reading of guidebooks. But reading guidebooks is a skill that many people don't want to acquire.** Much easier to google or rely on dubious "experts". That's considered research by them. Even that reliance on social media is shifting to reliance on AI.Then, if they don't even want to do that much, they can pay someone to do the searching and booking for them.

**Reading in general is becoming an old-people's skill. Not just my curmudgeonly observation, but educators are lamenting the fact that young people are entering college without ever having to have read a complete book. See this interesting article in The Atlantic: The Elite College Students Who Can't Read Books I can't offer free link but you can get a free trial viewing.

To Stan....D'accord!!!!

Can you really plan a trip — especially foreign travel — without at least a guidebook?

Most definitely. However, If you are not an online person, then guidebooks might be necessary.

IMO a guidebook and its writer has to match the style and philosophy of the traveler. If not, there might be several disappointments during your trip. This could be hotel selections, restaurants, etc. Guidebooks also outdate themselves quickly. Whereas online you may find the latest information.

Everyone has their own planning and research style.

"Every museum and tourist attraction has a FB page. All of them. Makes it easy to see about special events, like festivals."

Jo mentioned another great point about FB. This is also where you may see an unexpected closure posted for a museum or other venue - maybe a water leak or in Paris, maybe an unexpected employee strike, lol. I do check FB for certain things before I set out in the AM when I am on vacation.

I am also drooling over daily food pics from a small cafe in Lerwick, Shetland. I hope they taste as good as they look.

Laurel, it's interesting you posted this and then we have the concurrent thread on using What's App on tours or just in general. Definitely adding new layers to how we research and travel.

It's all relative and is dependent on personal travel style, your comfort zone, depth of interest, etc. I don't use any of what social media offers. Social media media is not for me as the travel planner.

Stan, a lot of truth in what you said. Information is often consumed now in small bites due to very low attention spans.