Our epic #travelgrams are taking a toll on the environment ✈️🌻 📸
Here’s why it happens and what we can do about it.
Instagram has become the museum of our lives in grid form, it’s the place where we showcase our best moments, our proudest achievements, the beautiful places we visit, and the friends who love and celebrate us. We feverishly curate La Crème de la crème of our lives and put it on display for all to see. Interestingly (or perhaps unsurprisingly), posts about epic travels and jaw-dropping nature are some of the most well-received by our followers. So we go to great lengths to collect those insta-worthy moments.
After some rough calculations I found out that as of July 2021, the top 20 travel related hashtags have been used a combined total of 1.27 billion times and the top 20 nature related hashtags have been used a combined total of 1.06 billion times 😱. That’s a grand total of 2,330,000,000 times combined.
Here’s the top 20 hashtags related to travel ✈️:
#TRAVEL → 572M POSTS
#TRAVELPHOTOGRAPHY → 155M POSTS
#TRAVELGRAM → 144M POSTS
#TRAVELING → 81.2M POSTS
#TRAVELBLOGGER → 67M POSTS
#TRAVELER → 46M POSTS
#TRAVELTHEWORLD → 34.9M POSTS
#TRAVELINGGRAM → 27.9M POSTS
#TRAVELBLOG → 25.5M POSTS
#TRAVELADDICT → 20.3M POSTS
#TRAVELDIARIES → 14.5M POSTS
#TRAVELLIFE → 14.3M POSTS
#TRAVELAWESOME → 12.7M POSTS
#TRAVELPICS → 12.6M
#TRAVELBUG → 10.4M POSTS
#TRAVELSTOKE → 8.9M POSTS
#TRAVELDEEPER → 8.6M POSTS
#TRAVELPIC → 7.1M POSTS
#TRAVELMORE → 6.6M POSTS
#TRAVELERSNOTEBOOK → 4.2M POSTS
And here’s the top 20 hashtags related to nature 🌾:
#NATURE → 643M POSTS
#NATUREPHOTOGRAPHY → 162M POSTS
#NATURELOVERS → 89.2M POSTS
#NATURELOVER → 37M POSTS
#NATUREZA → 32.8M POSTS
#NATURE_PERFECTION → 22.4M POSTS
#NATUREGRAM → 9.8M POSTS
#NATURE_BRILLIANCE → 9.8M POSTS
#NATUREPHOTO → 9.4M POSTS
#NATUREADDICT → 8.6M POSTS)
#NATURELOVE → 8M POSTS
#NATURESHOTS → 7.1 M POSTS
#NATUREONLY → 3.8M POSTS
#NATUREPHOTOGRAPHER → 3.2M POSTS
#NATUREBEAUTY → 3.4M POSTS
#NATURESHOT → 3M POSTS
#NATUREPIC → 2.6M POSTS
#NATUREPICS → 2.6M POSTS
#NATUREGEOGRAPHY → 2.3M POSTS
#NATUREPHOTOS → 2.3M POSTS
These numbers are huge! and they can have unexpected consequences. Some places are not prepared to handle the sudden spikes of people visiting after a place goes viral. Big crowds can leave litter behind, destroy private property, and disturb the local wildlife; all while putting themselves at risk just to get a picture.
So why does this happen? And how come travel and nature go viral so easily on Instagram?
1. Hashtags, Geotagging, and Filters
Instagram’s tools have made it extremely easy to discover, find, and capture the world’s most beautiful attractions and not-so-hidden-anymore gems and showcase them in the best possible way.
We don’t look at tourism brochures anymore because Instagram has become the ultimate travel guide. And while this can be good news for the hospitality industry, the environment takes a beating when all of a sudden everyone decides to head to the same place to take the exact same iconic pics everyone else already has on their feed.
Not every place that goes viral has the necessary infrastructure to handle a large influx of tourists. Some places, perhaps most famously Maya bay in Thailand, have been forced to ban tourism outright in order to recover, while others are staring to limit the number of tourists allowed per day.
2. Instagram’s algorithm
Certain types of pictures such as beautiful landscapes, breathtaking sunsets and famous attractions capture our attention and generate more likes, comments, shares, and reactions (a.k.a. the business metric know as engagement). Naturally, IG pushes them to the top of our feeds, which gives us a healthy amount of FOMO (fear-of-missing-out) and gets us to visit the exact same place, post a picture of it, and get rewarded with likes, thus manipulating us into repeating the cycle.
Facebook (who owns Instagram) is completely aware of this issue. I wonder what they are doing to protect nature, when clearly this is getting out of hand. Or is keeping us scrolling on the app for longer more important than taking responsibility for driving people to trash the world we live in? Turns out an engagement-based algorithm is not only bad for our mental health, it’s also bad for planet Earth 😪.
3. The new meaning of travel
Social media, especially instagram, has changed the way we travel and the way we interact with nature. Nowadays, we go on trips with the specific purpose of getting THAT pic — even if it comes at the risk of damaging nature or risking our own lives. And when we’re done we just leave. Because it was never about the place, it was about us being seen in that place.
Instagram has conditioned us to do this because it will get us the most approval from our peers and increase our social(media) status, so it’s easy to lose sight of things and make everything about ourselves.
How can use social media without harming nature?
Here’s a few tips from The Nature Conservancy and some I added myself:
📍Try to remove locations and hashtags
If you still wish to use them, try to keep them general, there’s no need to be hyper-specific about where you took a picture. Some local authorities issue guidelines about geo-tagging and sharing on social media, please be mindful of them and respect the wishes of the local populations.
🏞 Go outside the instagram travel guide
Who says the instagram spots are the only beautiful spots? Get curious, ask the locals, and take real interest in the places you visit. Remember to stay mindful; and if you find a hidden spot, consider keeping it to yourself.
👀 Be aware of your surroundings
Follow the tourism guidelines. Leave no trace, stay on the designated trails and give wildlife space even if it means you won’t get the perfect shot. Instead, see it as an opportunity to get creative and practice your photography skills.
🥸 Don’t mislead your followers
Be truthful when you post a picture. Don’t use exaggerated filters. Make sure your post reflects the environment accurately.
🤳Don’t always post
Rethink what traveling means to you, and consider not posting to social media every time you go on an adventure. Take pictures some pictures to spark your memory, enjoy the experience, be present and breathe.
