Twitter as a Traveler's Tool

Twitter is generally intended to be an interactive source of sharing information, but for my purposes, I tweet very seldom and instead rely on it as a another source of great travel tips. With twitter, I'm able to monitor a number of resources in one place, which is especially useful when I'm traveling somewhere. Often, I'll use internet cafes and have a limited amount of time to do any research about my next plans.

There are a few follows I find especially useful. First among them is the US State Department's #travelgov which provides updates about world events and how they can affect travel plans. This is also used heavily by my mom whenever I'm traveling; she remains convinced that I'll be kidnapped somewhere. I was in southern Bulgaria in January of 2011, right around when Greece was having another round of dangerous protests. As the two countries border each other, we both kept a close eye on the developments and I decided to postpone a two-day trip down to Athens for another time.

I also follow any airline I'm planning on flying with, which is helpful when weather or other issues cause widespread delays. Although there is still room for a lot of improvement, it's nice to see a concerted effort to get as much info as possible out to customers. Twitter has more than once served as my primary source of info while overseas.