With the 4th of July holiday weekend upon us, AAA is forecasting that holiday travelers will increase over 17% this year in comparison to 2009. According to Glen MacDonell, Director of AAA Travel Services, “While financial markets continue to have volatility related to the European debt crisis, the landscape of the U.S. economy is in a much different place than it was one year ago. It is encouraging to see such growth this summer as Americans take to the road to visit family, friends and great vacation destinations.” To help aid in your summer vacation planning, below are four great travel social networks.
- TripAdvisor attracts 35 million monthly visitors and boasts 15 million registered members. It is one of the largest travel social networks in the world with over 35 million travels reviews from real travelers around the world. In addition, members have uploaded over 2,000,000 candid vacation photos from over 100,000 destinations.
- Dopplr is a great resource for assisting you in planning your next trip. Members can share their personal or business travel plans with their connections and receive notifications when your trips overlap. In addition, the site offers tips for enjoying your travels to cities around the world as well as travel advice from other travellers.
- Wikitravel is a free worldwide travel guide created and edited by its members similar to Wikipedia. Currently, the site contains nearly 24,000 destination guides and articles from “Wikitravellers” from around the world.
- TravBuddy is a free community for people who love to travel and explore destinations. This is perfect network to find other individuals to join you on your journeys. In addition, travellers can stay in touch with friends and family by chronicling their trip in a travel blog.
Please share your experiences using these or any other social media channels to plan your travels.
Great review! You should also have a look at twalaba (http://www.twalaba.com), one new and revolutionary facebook connect solution designed to make people’s journeys more “social”.
Use your facebook friends list to conduct hundreds of flight search at once and get results delivered quickly! Other features include “your friends on a map”, “Destination Advisor” (tell us what your ideal temperature is, and we will tell you which of your friends you should visit), travel guides & events, and much more!