Travel Through Thailand, Posting to Facebook

Recently, our friends  Heidi and Al were on a one month trip to Hong Kong and Thailand.  As they were traveling, they would post almost daily their favorite photos and a few comments on Facebook.  This was enjoyable for us to see and be involved in their travels, while a great way for them to stay connected back home.

I had a chance to speak with her after the trip about the whole process and get some insight. Heidi said that they both used the cameras on their cellphones. She had an iPhone 5 and Al used his Android phone.

Every day on their sightseeing tours they took between 5 – 30 photos. Then later in the evening, photos were transferred to a large iPad to edit and post. Free Wi-Fi was easily found in hotels and restaurants. As they did not have a cable to transfer the photos to the tablet, they emailed them back to themselves. This also served as a good backup.

No video was shot on the trip. It became apparent that the first few video files used up all of Heidi’s phone memory and were deleted. Unfortunately, before she left home Heidi had not freed up extra memory on her phone. This kept her reviewing daily shots and deleting the poor ones on the go, when there was spare time.

They both enjoyed sharing their trip with friends back home on Facebook and emailing directly for those without FB. Heidi and Al found it easy to post pictures on Facebook.

They made the decision to post only a few suitable photos each time that showed interesting subjects and not just photos of themselves in all pictures.

Care was taken not to be seen as bragging, “Hey look at us we are having so much fun!” while sharing their trip with friends.

I remember seeing photo themes on certain days: temple photos, exotic
animals, and some funny, poorly spelled English signs.

Heidi did mention there were limitations in using the camera phone. Low light shoots, with the weak flash did suffer in quality, a telephoto lens and selfie stick could have been handy sometimes. Yet there are no regrets, as the portability of a smart phone was desired.

Plans are to print a medium-sized photobook as a trip souvenir. But first, she is looking for a photo management app for her iPad. Apparently, all photos were tagged with GPS info during her trip and she is excited to have them plotted on a map.