4 Easy Ways to Use Instagram for Travel Planning + Inspiration

1. Follow Travel Hashtags

The first step to use Instagram for travel planning and inspiration is to follow targeted hashtags. This is a cool and still relatively new feature of Instagram. The top posts from hashtags you follow will pop up in your feed just like accounts you follow. Adding hashtags to your feed will definitely provide inspiration but also introduce you to new accounts to follow.

Avoid general hashtags like #Travel or #Beach. The best travel hashtags to follow are specific but easy to spell and have a good amount of people using it correctly. I give you fair warning – exploring hashtags will lead you down a rabbit hole!

Here are a few general travel hashtags for Instagram that I like to follow:

This list by Elite Daily has some great suggestions, as well.

2. Follow Destination + Travel Accounts

This is my second go-to trick to use Instagram for travel planning and inspiration. Go straight to the source and follow the accounts that will share exactly what you’re looking for. Here are the different kinds of accounts to find and follow.

Tourism Boards

If you already have a destination in mind, find the tourism board for that city, region, state, or country (or all of them!) and give them a follow. It is their job to highlight the best things to do, places to stay, and Insta-worthy restaurants in their area to entice people to visit.

To find them, Google “(Destination) + Tourism Board” or “Visit (Destination)” or even “(Destination) + chamber of commerce” to find the website, which should have a link to their socials.

I’ve been aching to visit New Mexico lately, so I followed @newmexicotrue – the state tourism board, as well as the accounts for Santa Fe (@cityofsantafe), Taos (@visittaos), and Albuquerque (@visitabq).

Niche Accounts

Niche accounts highlight your interests in different destinations. Say you enjoy vineyards, amusement parks, architecture, or food/restaurants – search for accounts that share content aligned with those interests.

For instance, when I travel, I like to explore nature, historic places, and enjoy getting off the beaten path. So, @atlasobscura often leads me to sites I wouldn’t find otherwise. These types of accounts share places all over the world that satisfy very specific interests.

I also follow accounts for national and state parks and public lands, which often share photos of different trails to hike, things to do, and inspiration for the best places to snap photos. Some of my favorites are @usinterior, @mtstateparks, and @mypubliclands.

Additionally, accounts that share content for specific places are a goldmine of travel inspiration. Examples of these types of accounts that I follow are @bucketlistboston, @igersmass, and @scenesofnewengland. These types of accounts exist for all kinds of destinations around the country and the world.

Travel Experts

Travel experts are those out “in the field” actively sharing destinations they’re in or have been. They are content creators (bloggers, writers, photographers, etc), travel communities, and tour companies, and they are super active on Instagram.

Look for accounts that have a similar travel style to your own, whether it’s solo travel, adventure travel, luxury travel, or something else. Or accounts that cover a specific country, region, or city that you want to visit. No matter the travel experts you follow, it helps if the accounts share the location of their photos either in their captions or geotags (more on this below).

There are too many content creators and travel bloggers that I follow to list here without feeling like I’ve left someone out. However, a few of my favorite travel communities are @purposefulnomad (I will go on a trip with them one day!), @sheswanderful, and @realtravelwomen.

Read More: Wanderful | The Travel Community You’ve Been Looking For

Travel Media | Magazines, Newspapers, Etc.

Lastly, the high def photos on glossy pages of travel magazines and travel sections of newspapers have made the move to Instagram. Some of my favorite accounts to follow are @here.ma, @afarmedia, and @nytimestravel.

Following travel media can lead to the personal or professional accounts of the contributing writers and photographers. For instance, I closely followed the year-long journeys of New York Times 52 Places Traveler writers Sebastian Modak (@sebmodak) and Jada Yuan (@alphajada).

3. Explore Geotagged Locations

Another way to use Instagram for travel planning and inspiration is to explore geotagged locations. The useful thing about geotags is if you click on a city geotag, all posts tagged with specific businesses and places in that area will populate.

Say you’re looking for inspiration for things to do in X-city. So, you scroll through the city geotag and see photos for cute shops you can visit and pictures of drool-worthy food that you know you need to try once you’re there.

Let’s use Salem, Massachusetts as an example since it’s the first geotag that came up in my feed just now. I see some businesses and places that pique my interest in the top posts. To look closer, I just click on those photos and I see that the business is called Hauswitch and the place is Pioneer Village. Fun fact: In the movie Hocus Pocus, scenes set in the 1600s were filmed in Pioneer Village.

Geotags can also be used in Instagram Stories, so check there, too!

Read More: Salem for Halloween | How to Get There, What to Do, and Costume Tips!

4. Save Your Favorites to Collections

Finally, once you find a photo of an awesome pizza place or the perfect place to watch the sunset in your desired location, save it to a collection. To do that, click and hold the flag icon below the photo to the right then select a collection or create a new one by clicking the plus sign.

Add to collections and create new ones as often as you like. I have lots of collections for places that I have been and want to visit “someday.”

Final Tip: Remember to Engage and Interact

Ok, one more bonus tip to use Instagram for travel planning and inspiration! Get that algorithm to work for you and keep the inspiration coming! The more you double-tap, share, save, and send posts from accounts and hashtags that you follow the more those and similar accounts will pop up in your feed and Explore page.