The following is a guest post by Kate Bruehler of JumpKick Travel and also a member of the HPL Pin Team.
How to Plan Your Travels using Pinterest
Some people are ready to pick up their lives on a moment’s notice and take off on their next adventure, while others prefer to have some time to plan, prep, and daydream. I’m in the latter group, and I’ll be the first to admit that sometimes I go a bit overboard with my research and organization pre-trip.
Is that a bad thing? I think not. But despite all my spreadsheets, Dropbox folders, Google Docs, and to do lists, there is one tool that has stood out far and beyond as the most useful AND FUN to use: Pinterest.
If you haven’t jumped on this bandwagon full of goodies, I suggest you sign up ASAP.* Here are some tips to effectively plan your travels using Pinterest.
- You can fully customize and organize an unlimited number of boards. I recommend thinking out your boards before you go on a pinning-spree. (You’ll thank me later.) What kind of trip are you going on? Brainstorm categories that make sense for you.
- You can pin pictures from any site on the web. Found a helpful article on your destination? Pin it. Found an inspirational travel photo? Pin it. Found some gear you need to pick up? Pin it.
- Use the comments section to take notes. Try to make comments that will be useful for you to remember why you wanted to pin something in the first place. Good descriptions will keep your board nice and easy to browse.
- Follow other travelers. Pinterest has grown into a huge community of awesome people with all kinds of interests and specialties. Take advantage of the recommended boards that pop up, as they will probably be super cool travel enthusiasts like yourself. Then before you know it, your home page will be filled with more travel inspiration than you can tear yourself away from.
Here are some board recommendations to get you started.
Create a board for:
- Each country you plan to visit. Example: Malaysia
- Different activities you are interested in. Example: SCUBA Diving
- Your Packing List – what you already own and will take with you. You could even divide into Clothes, Technology, Gear, etc.
- Shopping List – things that you are considering purchasing for your trip. (When you buy something, move the pin over to the appropriate Packing List board.)
- Travel Outfit Inspiration
- Helpful travel tips and articles.
- Collecting beautiful and breathtaking photos of places you’d love to see.
- Travel quotes you love.
Now you are well on your way to Pinterest travel heaven! If you want to see these ideas implemented, check out the boards for my blog here.
*Full Disclosure: Pinterest is totally addicting. Before you know it, in addition to super helpful travel boards, you’ll have 900 vegetarian recipes and 300 DIY projects that you’ll find time for at some point. Right? RIGHT?
About the Author: Kate Bruehler hails from the cornfields of the Midwest and is a trained copywriter with marketing experience. The corporate life just didn’t suit her, so Kate has lived in South Korea teaching English to adorable children for 2 nonconsecutive years. Since 2010, she’s visited 11 countries, lived in an eco-village, and got SCUBA certified. She is about to embark on a RTW adventure with no timeframe or itinerary. You can find her spankin’ new blog about a healthy life on the road at jumpkicktravel.com.
Love this idea, just to give you a heads up, there is a new website which is in Beta testing called Pinchit which is purely for travel. Hopefully it should go fully live soon.
Hi Kiri, Yes I’ve tested out Pinchit — not sure how I feel about it but would love to give it another go when more people get on it.
Great idea to use Pinterest for travel planning, especially when you want to share your trip plans with other people. I you don’t want anyone to know you’re heading somewhere, however…
I totally use Pinterest in planning. I save everything there. You are right about thinking out your boards. I have cities for some that should have been countries and started out too generalized. Still need to reorganize a little, but am starting to get it together!