Pinterest for Travel

If you have been paying attention to the interwebs the last few months, you’ve probably heard that this Pinterest thing is all the rage with the kids. Pinterest is fundamentally an image sharing social media site. You “pin” images to any number of virtual boards that you or your friends have and then you can share them by re-pinning them to other boards.

I was told to check it out by my assistant Amy, which is not surprising as I’ve heard stats that say 90% of the users of Pinterest are women (I’ve heard numbers as high as 97%). Much of the early popularity of Pinterest came from sharing images of food, crafts and products, but by no means, it is limited to that.

I am a big believer in the idea that travel is primarily a visual thing. We want to visit a place, usually because of a photo, TV show or movie which we’ve seen. Pinterest lets you share this images which inspire people.

Everything Everywhere On Pinterest

My main motivation for writing this was two-fold: First I wanted to let everyone know that I am in fact on Pinterest and that you can follow me there:

Follow Me on Pinterest
Second, there has been a lot of controversy about Pinterest and the copyright issues surrounding it. Many photographers are concerned about the use of their images on Pinterest without their consent. I wanted to explicitly tell everyone:

I give full authority for anyone to use my images on Pinterest.

You don’t have to worry about the legal ramifications of pinning my photos. This is a 100% Pinterest safe zone. You can pin any of the 15,664 (and growing) images I have on my site with impunity. In fact, I encourage you to do so.

You will notice that I have a “pin it” button on every page of my site. Just click it and you can share the images on the page on Pinterest.

I WANT people to share my photos and hopefully, some of those will inspire people to travel to some of the places I’ve been. If someone actually gets off their butt and visits a place because of my photography, I consider that the greatest compliment you can give.

37 thoughts on “Pinterest for Travel”

  1. Great list Gary. I have been using pinterest to plan my upcoming holidays making boards for each destination and pinning articles and blog posts rather than just images for images sake.
    It’s a much better way of saving blog posts than standard bookmarks
    http://pinterest.com/sydneyexpert/

  2. Thanks for including me in the Pinners list Gary! :)
    One of my boards that I have started is also “Travel Videos From Around the World” and I encourage everyone to add their favorite travel videos to it and I allow everyone who wants to to share my images and videos on Pinterest too :)

  3. Cheers Gary, awesome collection of links! There’s more to be found here if anyone’s interested: http://pinterest.com/maptia/top-50-travel-bloggers/

    I’m surprised that its taken travel so long to catch up… the potential for collecting inspiring and fragmented resources from all corners of the internet is phenomenal in the sector. I guess thats the reason why startups like Trippy have suddenly pivoted in the Pinterest direction.

    There’s an overwhelming amount of quality content to be found these days, the trend seems to be heading towards curating it as opposed to purely publishing. Interesting article on the topic here from travel blather if anyone’s interested: http://bit.ly/zSvNhj

  4. Thanks for the post, Gary. I’ve got a big guide to using Pinterest coming up on my blog tomorrow and will make sure to include you on the list of travel bloggers.

  5. Gary,

    Im glad im helping contribute to the 3% of male users on the site.

    Im surprised at the sudden interest in it, although it does feel like a visual ‘twitter’. A scrapbook of sorts for the millions of pictures around the web. :-)

    I will be sure to follow you next time i log into pinterest.

    Cheers

    Duncan

  6. Ha, 97% percent women? Wow. I guess you’ve helped to even up the demographic a little.

    Sounds to me like a more photo orientated FaceBook.

  7. I’m really enjoying Pinterest! I like your approach to your photos being used on there. I’m at http://pinterest.com/rjpatt/ working on making the ‘places-to-travel’ and ‘food-to-eat’ lists I’ve been keeping into visual lists.

  8. Hi Gary, I looked at your boards and realized you have a UNESCO board.

    I’ve already added some of your photos to my comprehensive list of every UNESCO site around the world:

    http://pinterest.com/trekity/unesco-world-heritage-sites/

    And here are three others I feel are worth following:

    http://pinterest.com/elitetravelgal/
    http://pinterest.com/miralowe/ (especially the Big Apple)
    http://pinterest.com/ahler1dl/travel-travel-travel/

    All totally worth it :)

    And Gary, keep the photos coming!

    • Adam, I don’t mean to be too harsh, but your UNESCO board is terrible – there are loads and loads of pictures that are completely mislabelled (apparently you think the Pyramids are in Iraq, and that Cologne Cathedral is a factory). I spotted loads of errors just looking at the places I’ve been to – there must be loads more that I didn’t spot

      • THe board is open, so anyone can post anything. Having been to the pyramids, I can assure you they are not in Iraq.

        • I’m not referring to your board Gary, but to Adam’s own one that he links to above – the labelling is truly atrocious, he’s pinning things at random with no idea of where they are which is just weird, I don’t understand why you would do that – he’s still pinning away and still mislabelling things even though I’ve pointed mistakes out to him via comments

  9. Nice list! I’m very interested in seeing how travel bloggers and brands use Pinterest. One of the first boards that drew my attention, and made me want to be on Pinterest, is your collaborative UNESCO World Heritage Sites board.

    My boards can be found at:http://pinterest.com/sandrafoyt/

    And I also wrote about how to use Pinterest for travel planning (and more) at http://albanykid.com/2012/02/17/travel-on-pinterest/

    And thank you for making this is Pinterest Safe Zone!

  10. Totally agree Gary. I’m also a pinterest friendly travel blogger. My feeling is, if you want to protect an image, don’t upload it *anywhere* on the internet. I do make money from photography, by working directly with clients. I also respect copyright, but really, it’s a losing battle to save your images from use beyond your control if you place them somewhere available to the entire planet.

    http://pinterest.com/yomadic/

  11. Thanks for including me in the travel pinners list. Loving Pinterest not just as a source of travel inspiration, but also a place to pull together the variety of fascinating and visually arresting things on the web.

    Like you, I encourage people to pin my work. Happy pinning! :)

  12. Thanks for the great list, Gary. I’ve been following some of these accounts but not all… now I’ll be even more addicted!

    My account is: http://pinterest.com/traveljunkette.

    Warning: In addition to travel, I also pin food, house stuff… and a LOT of baby animals.

  13. Hey Gary, thanks for including us! We’re big fans of Pinterest, and are having a lot of fun adding to our boards there. Like you, we love when people pin our stuff!

  14. I guess its time to get on Pinterest! My wife will be happy ;)

    Love your ‘Our Natural World’ pictures.. beautiful!

  15. Great post, loved the “I give full authority for anyone to use my images on Pinterest” part. Pine Ridge is on Pinterest showcasing our individual units and the Breckenridge lifestyle. Happy pinning!

  16. Thanks for the post, Gary. I wrote a short post about the same topic on my own blog, but you have a bigger list (and more expertise). I look forward to checking them out! A few I like are Chris Gray Faust and Jetpac. And Johnny Jet is great. My account is: http://pinterest.com/hilarycantor/

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