Many tourist businesses and travel influencers are finding success online through the use of social media content marketing campaigns. Clever use of travel hashtags is helping them to stay visible and relevant in an increasingly crowded market. The idea of indexing content with hashtags dates back to 2007. That’s when social technology expert Chris Messina conceived of the idea to group tweets on the micro-blogging site Twitter. Hashtags are an especially powerful tool on Instagram, where it’s possible to use up to 30 hashtags on each post. Consider using some of these travel hashtags with your high-quality content to discover success online.
10 Top Travel Hashtags For Engagement
#wanderlust
The best travel hashtags find a balance between the incredibly popular and those just popular enough. That way your content gets good impressions before it’s buried under an avalanche of new content. The #wanderlust tag is incredibly popular, with over 73 million uses on Instagram. That means tagged content is going to appear in a lot of feeds, equating to a spike in impressions. But each appearance is likely to be incredibly brief. That means there are fewer opportunities for engagement with an interested audience.
#adventure
Travel influencers and travel bloggers tend to focus on specific niche topics. These include reviewing hotels, the best vacations for families, or providing tips for specific destinations. A common theme is adventuring. Many people are interested in content from intrepid explorers backpacking across the country or living a nomadic life out of the back of an RV. Travel influencers with exciting stories to tell get good mileage out of #adventure (64 million uses on Instagram). The #adventureseeker tag has a similar audience but significantly fewer uses (just over 470,000). That makes it a good choice as it’s reasonably popular but still gives your content room to stand out.
#travelmore
Many travel bloggers and influencers use social media as a platform to inspire others to see the world. That makes #travelmore a popular tag. Similar tags include #goexplore and #roamtheplanet.
#lovetotravel
The #lovetotravel tag (over 1.8 million Instagram posts) is a good one. That’s because it’s immediately clear what kind of content you’re likely to get. Tags such as #igers (instagrammers) or #l4l (like for like) which require a degree of knowledge to understand. Another reason it’s a good choice is because it works both ways. You can use it to indicate that you love to travel. And users search for it because they love to travel.
#travelblog
If you’re a travel blogger, tags such as #blog and #blogger offer a high number of impressions. However, it’s usually a better idea to use tags that identify the subject you blog about, especially if you’re using Twitter where you have a very limited number of characters and only one or two hashtags to convey your message. The #travelblog tag has over 12 million posts on Instagram, indicating it’s still very strong, but your content is going to be much more visible than when you’re using #blog (over 30 million posts).
#travelblogging
There are many hashtags relating to blogging that offer a good balance between being popular while still ensuring you’re hitting the right demographic. The #travelblogging tag has over 270,000 Instagram posts, so the audience is relatively small, but there’s a good chance of engaging with some very interested readers.
#travelblogger
If you’re looking for a travel blogging tag with wide reach and a good chance of many impressions, #travelblogger is the one. It has over 22 million uses on Instagram. A less-popular option that still taps into the same audience is #tblogger (137,000 posts). The problem with #tblogger is that few people are likely to search for it as it’s an abbreviation of a more popular search phrase; however, it’s possible for users to find hashtag feeds by clicking on the tags that appear in posts, so this is one where it might be possible to build your audience organically, gradually encouraging an audience to migrate from the larger hashtag feeds.
#luxurytravel
While some travel influencers seek adventure, others seek a quiet life of luxury, relaxing on white beaches with cocktails and traveling first class. The #luxurytravel tag is the perfect option if you produce content that focuses more on relaxation than it does on seeking out pulse-pounding adventure.
#luxuryhotel
Within the topic of luxury travel, it’s possible to be even more specific with your use of hashtags. If you’re a hotel influencer, #luxuryhotel is a good option, with over 1.3 million posts on Instagram. If you focus on all aspects of going on vacation in the best resorts, then you may find #luxuryvacation more suitable.
#solotravel
Content marketing is all about providing answers. Every day, people are turning to the internet to find solutions. Your content needs to provide those solutions, and your hashtags need to reflect that. Traveling alone is a daunting prospect, and potentially dangerous, so it’s common for anybody thinking about going it alone to first seek some guidance online from experts. The #solotravel tag (2.8 million Instagram posts) is good for content providing hints, tips, practical solutions, shopping guides, and inspiration.
Final Thought: Everything in Moderation
Instagram may allow users to go to town with hashtags, with an allowance of up to 30 for each post, but research indicates that using around 10 per post is the sweet spot. After that, engagement starts to drop off. On Facebook and Twitter, engagement starts to drop significantly for posts using more than two tags, and it’s usually a good idea to stick to just one. Considering you only have a limited number of tags to promote your content and encourage engagement, it’s essential to pick the best travel hashtags possible. Aim to use the tags that clearly identify what you do. Remember, sometimes it’s better to start off small and develop engagement by using less-popular tags to avoid your content drowning in an ocean of competition.
