Clay Doherty published daily Facebook photos as he drove across the country from San Francisco to his new home last month in Washington. The public relations executive not only shot the Mississippi River, but he also alerted his friends as he crossed it. His Facebook buddies also saw the Sierra mountains, windmills in Iowa and the Ohio Capitol in Columbus.
"It's like they were driving with me across the country," he said.
Few experiences inspire the urge to share like traveling. Who hasn't sat through a friend's vacation photo album? But as Facebook and Twitter go mainstream, more travelers are broadcasting real-time observations, sprinkled with what-I'm-doing-now updates -- leading in some cases to viewer fatigue, some users say.
Facebook is an enclosed community of friends and acquaintances. Twitter lets users push out 140-characters-or-less notes to large audiences. Things to consider before you post:
# Enjoy the moment. Some travelers are already conflicted about whether they lose out by spending too much vacation time online. Jed Sundwall, a San Diego-based social media consultant, avoided Twittering on his recent week long Hawaiian vacation. "Breaking out my phone in front of this beautiful island seemed wrong to me."
# Who cares? Nalini Lamba-Nieves, a federal employee in Washington said wooden updates from people on Facebook -- "I'm sitting here at airport X and Delta is charging me for bags" -- can be annoying. But she enjoyed "short and sweet" updates from a friend on an Italian vacation who had struggled for months to get a papal audience for her ailing Catholic mother. "They've been inspirational, because I know what it took for them to get there."
For Twitter users, such communal context can often be absent. Pam Mandel, a technical writer from Seattle, said many of her 1,600 followers are strangers, so she tries to use the limited space wisely. "I'd want it to be something that can stand alone. If a bald eagle flew by while I was standing in line, it's more evocative than just saying "I'm standing in line at so-and-so.' "
# Enriching the experience. Wendy Perrin, a consumer news editor at "Conde Nast Traveler," said social media sites can be a clearinghouse for exchanging useful information. "For example, if you're going to Uffizi on Saturday, (you can write to) remind people to get there early in the morning," she said, referring to a popular museum in Florence, Italy.
Not all are so inclined. Sundwall recently received Twitter feeds from a friend who wrote about the London subway. "When people travel, everything is exciting and new, so they have a tendency to tweet about mundane things that they otherwise wouldn't in the U.S."
Mandel, who realized she over shared when she chronicled a job she didn't like on Twitter, has another tip: "You shouldn't sound like a whiner."
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