Lists of Twitterers to follow
If you want a list of people to follow on Twitter, then you’ll not struggle to find them. There are hundreds of such lists out there on the web. Alas, most aren’t very helpful.
These Twitterer lists generally fit into one of two categories. Either they’ve got so many names that they’re just overwhelming – a little selectivity wouldn’t go amiss – or they just list the names with no other details. This latter approach is fairly useless – I want to know why I should be following someone.
Travel Twitterers who AREN’T worth following
With this in mind, I have created a list of fifteen travel Twitterers worth following. I follow all for different reasons, but first a few words on who I have stopped following. These generally fall into the following categories:
- Publications – such as the Daily Telegraph and the Guardian – who only use Twitter to publicise their stories via an automated feed.
- PR companies who continuously spam Twitter with blather about their clients. I get enough of that via e-mail, thank you very much.
- Twitterers whose interests and fields are vastly different to mine. Nothing wrong with foodie travel, family travel or cycling, but I can’t really engage with it and it ends up becoming irritating background noise.
- Excessively noisy Twitterers who feel the need to update the world on absolutely everything.
- Deathly earnest (and usually American) Twitterers who end up boring me about subjects I’m not interested in. There is a high crossover between numbers four and five here…
Travel Twitterers who ARE worth following
But now for the good people. The following fifteen are people in the travel field that I find interesting, funny or both. Try them – you might like them.
For inside knowledge and good links
Den Schaal (aka @denschaal): This freelance travel industry expert is probably the most knowledgeable I’ve come across. He digs out stories, offers great analysis of travel industry machinations and does so with remarkable frequency. He has an irritating habit of retweeting his own blog posts a few too many times, but it’s forgivable in this instance because they’re usually worth reading.
Guillaume Thevenot (aka @hotelblogs): Good, no punches pulled information and opinion on the hotel industry.
Alastair McKenzie (aka @alastairmck): Classic example of making what you do say count. Alastair uses Twitter only when he’s found something interesting, or has something genuinely useful to add.
The Global Traveller (aka @globtrav): Digs out plenty of interesting info and links, often with an Antipodean slant, but without the parochiality that can often come from that part of the world.
Alex Bainbridge (aka @alexbainbridge): Opinionated and highly knowledgeable, particularly in the fields of online travel and industry developments.
Sam Daams (aka @samdaams): Dutchman living in Oslo with a strong insight into the world of online travel and web technology.
Darren Cronian (aka @travelrants): Rather noisy (possibly too noisy for some), but if anyone’s going to get a debate going, Darren will.
Travel writers on Twitter
Terry Carter (aka @terencecarter): Part of husband and wife duo with @laradunston. I love Lara’s blog but find Terry more interesting on Twitter – not quite sure why – but he’s honest and humorous most of the time.
Charlie Connelly (aka @charlieconnelly): Ireland-based travel writer and author who, while a little detached from the travel industry discussion, is consistently funny.
Nathan Midgley (aka @twblog): Online editor and blogger for UK trade publication Travel Weekly. Nathan joins in the debate (even the silly ones) and is usually quite humorous. He usually chips in with good links, opinions and insider knowledge.
Benji Lanyado (aka @benjilanyado): Budget travel and social media expert for The Guardian (and occasionally the New York Times). Happy to experiment with Twitter-based trips; knowledgeable and pretty entertaining to boot.
Will Hide (aka @willhide): Starts debates, is generally amusing and forthright, and digs out the occasional gem from elsewhere on the web.
PR/ media people who get Twitter right
Jemima from Cheapflights.co.uk* (aka @cheapflightsuk): Joins in the discussion, makes helpful suggestions, judiciously points out good travel deals without going overboard.
Steve Keenan (aka @timestravel): Instead of just pumping out headlines from The Times of London’s travel section and site, Steve Keenan interacts, retweets and points out interesting snippets that aren’t necessarily on Timesonline.co.uk.
Travel PR Company (aka @travel_PR): Richard and Ian rarely use Twitter as an excuse to bellow about their own clients – praise the heavens. What they do manage to do is provide thoughtful links, chip into discussions where appropriate and retweet the best of the people they follow. Exactly how PR people should be using Twitter.
Got any favourite travel Twitterers of your own? Why not share the love and suggest them below by leaving a comment – preferably one that explains why you think it’s worth following that person.
Tags: online travel, Travel Industry, Travel Writing, Twitter
I follow you and Keith Kellett (nomadkeith) among others because I enjoy your tweets.
Thanks David, excellent list, have unfollowed a few people lately and it’s good to have some tips on new people to add.
Tim Richards (aka @Aerohaveno)
[...] to use Twitter effectively: Travel PR companies My little list of Top 15 Travel Twitterers seems to have got itself a fair bit of attention. Interestingly, a lot of comments have centred [...]
Thanks for the list and especially for the statements. @Travelwriticus
Thanks for this, very useful. Lucy
Hey David, thanks kindly for the mention. I think sometimes I let my past career as a photographer seep into my Cheapflights tweets! I love that I get to browse flickr for the weekly background photo as part of my 9-5 job – clearly this rocks
You’re not a photographer are you? If u have any hiding away post them up to the flickr group: http://www.flickr.com/groups/t.....otography/ they may end up on our background for a week.
p.s u should add tweet this button to your posts.
Thanks for the tip Jemima. Have added one.
As for photography, let’s just say it’s not exactly my forte… But give a monkey enough time on a typewriter and you’ll get the Complete Works of Shakespeare…
David: Thanks for the great words about me above. I will heed your advice and reform, I promise, about re-tweeting. Sometimes I feel that people who don’t have a Twitter search set up and don’t use a third-party app will miss a post if they didn’t happen to be on Twitter at the moment.
But, I am reformed:) Hello, my name is Dennis and I won’t re-tweet my own stuff. Hello, my name is Dennis…..
Thanks again.
Great list that enables me to connect some loose ends! Thank you!
@Dennis
Keep retweeting. Like Guy Kawasaki (sometimes coined “Kawastalki”) says: “CNN rotates as well, everybody knows and will have a better chance of “getting what they are looking for”"
David, wow, I’m honoured to be included. Like I just posted on Twitter (sorry, few days late to finding out I’m even listed!), I like this kind of list that is short and personalized. Not everyone is going to like following everyone, but you’ve explained what you like (and don’t like) when you follow folks. There were 3 or 4 on the list that I wasn’t following so great to get some fresh names. The others are mostly favourites of mine too, so that bodes well
And by the way, I very much agree re. @denschaal being one of the most knowledgeable. I only found his blog a few weeks ago, but he hasn’t ceased to impress!
Good list – I’m adding a few.
I’m fascinated that they are nearly all men. Why do you think this is? Perhaps the old adage about women talking more holds true on Twitter – we might tweet more and to you that’s excessive noise. I don’t know. I am the reverse – I follow far more women than men on Twitter, though not intentionally.
I used to find excessive tweeting annoying but now that I follow nearly 1000 people, the stream is usually pretty nicely mixed even if someone does tweet a lot. I don’t try to read everything on Twitter – it would be impossible. I dip in and out, use groups in TweetDeck and check @mentions and DMs.
I am doing Follow Friday on my blog – just two people a week (one food, one travel) and context about why I think they are worth following. I think this is more useful to my readers/followers and also helps the person I’m recommending because I usually include outbound links to their site. http://www.roamingtales.com/fo.....n-twitter/
I should have given my own Twitter handle too: @niltiac.
I’m not 100% travel 100% of the time, however. I also tweet about food, journalism, politics and life, but mainly travel.
I like to have conversations with people – but fortunately you won’t see that unless you are following those people.
@samdaams – thanks. That was what I was trying to do. I get sick of meaningless long lists and follow fridays. People need to know why to follow someone, not just who to follow.
@denschaal – glad you could drop by. I wouldn’t worry too much about the RTing. You’ve such an impressive level of inside knowledge that it becomes an irrelevent bugbear. What you have to say is almost always worth reading – I probably shouldn’t have even brought the RTing tendency up.
@nitliac/ @caitlin – Thanks for your comments. I largely agree with your thoughts – especially on follow friday.
Very interesting point about the list being almost all male. I’d honestly not noticed that (I don’t even know if @globtrav is male or female, for instance).
But looking at it (and at the risk of unleashing a whole host of sweeping generalisations), I probably do follow more males than females. I also know that a high percentage of the people I have stop following are female; many for the noisiness reason you suggest. One, for example, is recommended on nearly all best twitterer lists, but I found the barrage unbearable.
I guess a lot comes down to personal taste – traditional ‘women’s travel’ areas (luxury, cruising, food, spas, family) are ones I generally try and avoid as I don’t have a real interest in them.
Other battle of the sexes stuff that may hold true as well (not necessarily my opinion, but possibly good for discussion):
- Men tend to use humour more in Tweets, women are more serious.
- Women will send a stream of Tweets on the same subject.
- Women buy into the whole networking thing more, men treat Twitter more like hanging out at the bar.
- Women are better at coping with more ‘noise’ and are happier to follow more people.
3, 2, 1, Go. Preferably with claws out.
David: Thanks again. I really appreciate it. And Happy Hotelier, thanks for the advice, too.
Signed,
totally confused about RTing in NJ.:)
It’s all good. Thanks, guys.
David
Looking forward to a followup post – top 15 female travel tweeters!
I also don’t have much interest in luxury, cruising or spas but I can’t say many of the women travel tweeters I’m following really talk much on these topics.
I don’t have a family myself but I do follow some family travel tweeters, largely because they are people I have another connection with through blogging. I could argue that family travel is equally as relevant for fathers as for mothers.
I follow a lot of foodies because my blog is about travel and food. It’s interesting that you class this as a traditional women’s topic, as I follow a lot of male foodie tweeters. It’s almost equally split for me in food, whereas I follow mainly women in travel.
As for volume, I find it’s down to the individual tweeter how ‘noisy’ they are. I’m not sure I could really generalise along gender lines at least based on the people I follow. Statistically I’ve heard more women than men use social media in general and that might be true.
The humour thing is rubbish – I follow a lot of wonderfully funny and witty women on Twitter, both in the travel sphere and more widely.
I just asked @globtrav and he says that he does not give the list any more gender balance. So I guess Jemima at @cheapflightsuk is your lone female!
@caitlin Sounds like I should be searching out a few more people to follow – any suggestions are more than welcome. I don’t tend to follow people automatically – I usually only choose to follow people that have been retweeted and look interesting. But always open to suggestions.
I think it’s difficult to split by gender too. The ‘reasons’ I suggested were more than a little tongue in cheek. My prime concern isn’t what gender someone is – it’s whether someone’s interesting. And that’s why I won’t be doing a list of top 15 female twitterers – it’s almost like saying “this lot are alright – for girls”. I may do a revised top twitterers list in a few months’, however.
Hi David, thanks for the mention.
Here are just a few of the many fantastic female travel twitterers I follow.
@wendyperrin and @perrinpost – avid traveller who looks out for consumers and tweets some great deals & advice
@nerdseyeview – a great snark and amazing travel photos
@heather_poole – for useful (& funny) insight as a flight attendant