How to find the best spots while travelling !!

So I’ve been travelling a lot, not only for pleasure but also for work and unless you are in between jobs or already retired, time is always a limitation. Being at a restaurant that was a complete disappointment or going to some spot that is not what we were expecting is an experience that has happenned to almost every traveller. That feeling of a night out spent on a not so frequented club or missing out on a event/party is something we don’t want to experience.

Morning at Kruger National Park

Fighting this fear of missing out apps were created and pages were written so we could master new places even before stepping foot on them. There’s plenty of information out there for everyone to see but I found myself reading generic websites with comments and evaluations posted usually by other travellers. Websites like TimeOut not only don’t cover all places on earth but also are limited to this popular choices. Discovering unknown spots are reserved for those that know some locals or that are lucky enough to stumble uppon something special at the right time.

Late last year I travelled to South Africa to do a road trip along the coast. Since most of the stop locations were small villages or towns it was hard to find information available online so I wouldn’t miss any cool spot along the way. I had to improvise.

Balinghai beach, Philippines

What I’m going to tell you is a simple way of finding all the cool and secret spots that usually only locals know about. It can be a coffee shop, a restaurant, a club, a view spot or even a secret beach. It uses technology that is usually on your pocket and its called INSTAGRAM.

This is how it goes:

1 – Open Instagram
2 – Go to the search menu
3 – Writte down the hashtag of the place you want (it can be a city name, or area)
4 – Open the photos that called your attention or open the instastory
5 – Go through profile albums to see other places
6 – Use location from photos to know new spots
7 – Clicking on new spots you can even see the latest photos and other people that are or where there.

Searching Lisbon on Instagram

You can jump from one profile to another just by photo identification and place location. This way you are able to know really quickly what people around you are doing and where. You can use this method to find the crowdest party or the most secluded beach. Anyway you can forget about website searching and start getting this information straight from people’s photos.

Let me know what you think and what other methods you use.