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Health & Fitness

How The New-Kid-On-The-Social-Media-Block Is Changing The Way We Research Our Travel

What the Grand Canyon, A Honeymoons, and Pinterest have in common, and how it can help you save time in your travel and vacation planning.

In the “good old days”, if you were planning a trip, you’d do a few things.  You’d write away to the area Tourism Boards and request brochures.  If you were getting married, you tear pages and pages out of magazines, saving ideas for locations, honeymoons, and décor.  You might even check out books from the Library or buy a Frommer’s Guide. 

Thankfully the internet has streamlined that whole process.  Tourism guides are offered in PDF format on websites.  Search on honeymoon locations and you’ll get a bazillion places to look.  Most of us “bookmark” our favorite websites to go back to for future reference. 

Now there’s something even BETTER to help you with your travel plans and research.  Move over Facebook and Twitter – the hot new kid on the social media block is PINTEREST. 

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What is Pinterest?  Pinterest is essentially a digital bulletin board that allows you to “pin” images of favorite places, funny pictures, and craft ideas onto your “boards”, making them easily available for reference and for sharing with others.  You can create multiple boards (envision hanging multiple corkboards on a wall at home), and then pin relevant images to each of those boards.

Pinterest is especially useful for Travel.  Let’s use someone planning a wedding as an example...

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A Bride-to-be needs ideas for bridesmaid’s dresses, favors, and honeymoon destinations.  On Pinterest, she starts out by creating three boards:  one called “Bridemaids”, one called “Favors”, and one called “Honeymoon.”

Under the “Honeymoon” board, she pins images of resorts that she likes, including screen shots of package prices, images of various activities, room options, and more.  If she visits the Dreams Resorts website, and finds images of resorts that she likes, she can pin those.  Under the “Bridesmaids” board, she pins pictures and images of various dress styles and colors that she likes. Under the “Favors” tab, she pins images of crafts, items for sale, and other ideas.

Another example would be planning a family vacation.  After creating a Board called “National Parks”, you could pin images of the lodging options available at the National Parks.  You could also can create a Board called “Cruises” and pin images of different cruise ships.

Instead of having a paper folder or an actual cork board, you can research your options online and save them onto one convenient and easy to use digital bulletin board.  You can share your board with other friends or family members, and even allow others to pin their favorites to your boards.  Imagine how great this would be for a reunion or family gathering where the travelers are located all across the country?

The best way to understand Pinterest and to see its value is to try it yourself. Go to www.Pinterest.com, and join.  It’s free, it’s fun, and it could make the search for the perfect vacation a little easier!

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