Best travel hashtags for Instagram

Every quarter I go back to my last 3 months checking what’s happened in my Social environments.

Have I been using the best travel hashtags for Instagram? How can I improve my work and my reach this year?

In the last quarter, I have been quite happy with the increased number of followers, follow-up and views. I fact I was honestly extremely surprised by the results.

What is the best of this step-by-step approach?

It actually works

On Instagram I had less than 100,000 followers 12 months ago. There are now over 130,000 people following my work. Moreover, the engagement has gone up quite considerably with lots of likes and comments.

I think I was able to engage with new people on Instagram thanks to better use of the top travel hashtags.

In fact, I sometimes noticed that the people commenting and reposting my work were not actually following me directly but they arrived at my feed thanks to my choice of travel hashtags.

Which strategy works best for Instagram hashtags? 

The one that gives me more follow-up, I like to think.

More interaction (likes and comments). Receiving likes and/or comments help me to grow in my travel and photography work. Comments do not need to be only good, constructive critics help to improve too!

Do you need great photos?

I would say so. Great content attracts followers. You can read and download my FREE (no need to pass your email, no worries) ultimate guide for travel photography. Over 70 pages that may change your way to make (not just take) photos when travelling.

FREE (no email required) Reference Guide to Travel Photography

The best travel hashtags I usually add to a photo come from a result of this easy 3 step-by-step process

1. Popular travel hashtags
2. Hashtags related to the content
3. Media and Instagram contests (magazines, competitions, newspapers, websites….basically media that can re-post or re-tweet my work)

STEP 1 – Popular Travel Hashtags

Basic Instagram Hashtags for travel

The easy winner is, as expected, travel, and by a large margin. An interesting note to add to the list below is that travelling is both reported with double and single L.

What do I usually do? 

I usually select #travelphotography and #travelling.

I originally used them only when physically travelling, however, I have started using them in almost all of my posts, also when I am in my hometown, St.Kilda/Melbourne.

The main reason is that I use the hashtags for people to reach me, and my photography work, and not for describing my status.

These are all very generic hashtags and I would personally suggest using just 2 or 3 of them. Except for #travelphotography, which gives more information about a type of photography, all of the others are almost the same.

Try to change from time to time. Instagram has not confirmed however it seems that it penalizes sequence of posts with the same hashtags (important, read my suggestions at the end of the post for my strategy). 

If I am in the middle of a travel campaign I sometimes post the recurrent hashtag (tourism board etc) in the first comment, as soon as I post the photo. This may be another way to avoid any possible penalty if existing

Should I use the very popular travel hashtags?

This is a great question mark.

Sometimes it is better to explain with an example.

Let’s build a scenario with the popular hashtag above, #travel. You tag your photo and it will stay in the first search page for just one or two seconds because many other people have been using the same popular travel hashtag for their photos too. Have a test, go on Instagram and search for #travel, refresh the page straight away and you will see brand new photos.

Is it worthy?

Personally, I do not think so

What do I usually do? 

I prefer to use less popular ones, at least you have more seconds in the first page, although fewer people looking for that hashtag too :D

I have done few tests and, for these generic tags, selecting the ones with a popularity of 1M to 10M works well.

How many travel hashtags should I use?

You may argue that you can use all of them and even more. To my eyes just does not look nice to see a post with 40 hashtags, it looks confusing.

What do I usually do?

I use around 10-15 travel hashtags (sometimes 20, but rarely). I may use the hashtags even in the description of the photo. I like to write a bit about the image, not just hashtags. The description may contain the hashtag itself. This is an example of a photo I posted a while ago:

Navigating the Yarra River, Melbourne (I usually start with a short title and the place)
Another awesome way to visit #melbourne is by #boat following the #yarra #river . Do it at sunset and it becomes #magic (I have already added 5 hashtags in the photo description)

Here below the photo

STEP 2 – Hashtags related to the content

Photo related hashtags

When I tag the photos I usually use my personal W&G process 

• Where (where am I)

I use 2 hashtags, one for the city/town/village (the place where the photo was made) and one for the country

• What (what am I doing)

The activity I am doing, usually just one hashtag as #walking, #trekking, #cycling, etc

• When (which special day, if any)

I add one hashtag however only if it is a memorable day like #nye or #australiaday or #independenceday or #chinesenewyear or any other day that the photo is about

• Why

Why am I adding the photo? I describe the image with few hashtags (4-5) as:

#market #building #street #tram #river #sunset etc

#awesome #lovely #amazing etc

The fantastic thing about Instagram is that meanwhile you write the hashtag you get a suggestion and the volume; stay below a 10M volume, if you have a choice

• Get global

I add the two popular travel hashtags as discussed above (#travelphotography and #travelling)

• Get local

I add two travel hashtags used by the local tourism boards (usually city/area and country). This is the most important step. You may have a great outcome if they love your photo and re-post it, which usually gives wide visibility of your work. You may wake up the day after and have suddenly hundreds more of followers, just thanks to a re-post.

How do you find these local travel hashtags?

You need to google the travel tourism board website and see their Instagram account. As an example, #visitmelbourne is the official hashtag used by the city of Melbourne, #tourismthailand is another one if you are visiting Thailand and so on

TripAdvisor has a list of the Tourism Boards, you can also look into Wikipedia, they have usually a link to the city/country website and from there to the tourism office. Do not be disappointed if you cant’s find it. Sometimes it happens that they have still not started using Instagram :o

I ultimately just google “<place/city/region> tourism board Instagram” and usually I get the IG account on top of the ranking

• Get technical

Describe the type of photo from a technical perspective if you wish. Popular hashtags are #landscape #portrait #closeup etc

I use them only if I run out of hashtags :D

• Colours

If there is a predominant colour I tag it, otherwise nothing

STEP 3 – Media and Instagram contests

Travel blogger hashtags: Tourism Board

As a travel blogger, I consider the hashtags related to the tourism board probably the most important of all. The visibility that they do provide, if they repost, is immense.

Two of the main reasons. They have usually a huge follow-up and, even more important, these followers are all interested in the subject and they want to see more photos. There is a great possibility that some of them will come to your account to see your work.

And it’s not all about repost here. These so-called “travel blogger hashtags” are actually great for much more than Instagram visibility. They are fantastic to create a job opportunity.

Let’s be honest here. It’s always hard to cold-call a tourism board to see if there is a collaboration possibility, even if you have a good Instagram follow-up, a great FB page or 50K page views per month, if not even more.

But, if they re-post your photo, you have the perfect opportunity to email/call them starting with “Many thanks for reposting my xyz photo, so glad you liked it. I am in the area for another 2 weeks and I bla bla bla”

I use this trick even when I plan to re-visit a country. I just post old photos. Things may happen and you may end up with a collaboration.

Sometimes the Tourism board does not provide a hashtag. The workaround is to include the IG account. For example, the Indonesia Tourism Board does not have a hashtag, I just include in the description the IG account instead (@indtravel). They will get a notification.

Actually, Indonesia introduced a new travel hashtag lately, called #WonderfulIndonesia :D

Remember that the tourism boards are always searching for great content around the Instagram feeds.

TIP: if you see your photo re-posted by a tourism board then you may try to contact them and see if you can start a collaboration. I personally do it. It’s already clear they like your work, they shared your image.

They may be looking for Instagrammers. You may get an invitation for an influencer trip, and from there, your Instagram CV will grow with something more substantial than only great photos

Creative travel hashtags

In the next heading, we will write a list of hashtags with a strong relationship to publications, magazines, websites. They are all busy rooms and if you get featured then you will certainly see your engagement increasing.

Before that, let’s go more into the niche of creative travel hashtags that help to describe the moment you are living when you take the photo:

• #sunsetporn : over 2M posts here for the amazing, slightly over-saturated warm sunset photo
• #morningslikethese : over 1M photos tagged in this room with some amazing shot describing the first hours of the day, including extraordinary sunrise
• #amazingfood : if you love to take photos of food when travelling
• #travelblogger : competition is pretty tough on this hashtag dedicated to travel bloggers now counting over 6M posts
• #travelwithkids : perfect if you are a family travelling with children (almost half a million photos)
• #viewfromthetop and #amazingview: for helicopter, aeroplane, tall buildings and other unique viewpoints
• #amazingday : for something extraordinary
• #NeverStopExploring : it’s a bit of a generic one but with possible great potential (over 11M posts with this creative travel hashtag)
• #nightphotography : mostly for star photography

Every day new ones come out. From time to time I use one or more of the above. I suggest to build your own list and use it when needed

Most of these tags are not managed by anyone and this means that your photos will not be re-posted. I use these tags only for visibility.

Travel hashtags for media and Instagram contests

For the photos I like the most I use also hashtags of magazines, important websites/feeds, newspapers or ongoing competitions.

The competition here is quite high, so moderate the use to your best shots

The ones I use the most are:

• #travellerau (Aussie newspaper)
• #LP (Lonely Planet)
• #fodorsonthego (Fodors Travel)
• #RTWChat (BootsnAll’s hashtag)
• #TLPicks (Travel + Leisure magazine, with over 2M followers a repost is pure gold)
• #traveldeeper (AFAR media, voted the best travel magazine in USA)
• #BPMag or #TakeMeBackpacking (Backpacker Magazine, mostly on trekking)
• #surroundmewithwater (Islands Magazine)
• #vacationwolf (popular feed with over 300K followers that repost the best tagged photos)
• #theglobewanderer (you get reposted here and you will suddenly see you followers increasing in thousands – feed with over 2M followers)
• #passionpassport (another fantastic popular feed that reposts)
• #dametraveler (female travelling feed which repost as well)
• #roamtheplanet (popular travel community)
• #BDTeam (Beautiful Destinations feed with over 7M followers, hard to get reposted, however, if it happens…)

Look for locals publications and you may have greater success. Lonely Planet is great but how many photos are tagged with #LP, well, over 4 million till now, it can be difficult to get exposure in this busy room :D

Do not get upset if they do not report your photos. You can only try. The market is very competitive nowadays

OPTIONAL STEP  – Personalise with new ideas

Personalized travel hashtag

You can try to create your own personalized travel hashtag. This is a great way to expand your work and possibly branding it. 

It’s a common step in any marketing campaign, and if you are after more exposure to your feed then marketing is the magic word.

But what does it mean a personalized travel hashtag?

It means you create your own brand new tag which was never used in any feed before and it has a relationship with your work.

As an example, if you do travel photography and your name is Joe then you could create #TPwithJoe (avoid #TravelPhotographyWithJoe, way too long). Maybe even promise to feature someone else work in your feed if they use that tag in their photos.

Another example, if you travel mostly in one country, say Thailand, then create a personalised tag as #WonderingThailand. Again repost other people work if you can. It’s a way to increase your engagement.

People will start to know you because of your hashtag

Adding another one is not a big effort and you never know what could happen with it. Maybe nothing, maybe not and we are optimistic of course :)

Travel hashtag generator

Life could be awesome if a tool could generate hashtags for us. The great surprise is that there is a new website that does that.

A very simple one

And I can say that I looked for it almost on a weekly basis and I can not find anything really effective.

These are my favourites. If you are aware of any other, please, add them in the comment section below

The one I like, although still young, is called Dehaze Instagram hashtags generator (no affiliation, just what I like). They recently moved to an app version only and you may have to fork out a couple of dollars inside the app

Very simple to use.

On the left side, you select the photo style (in our case travel) and on the right side the city, or country.

As a result, Dehaze provides a list of 25 popular travel hashtags.

Interesting that a few of them overlap with mine. I guess we have used a similar process to build our databases. In fact, Dehaze is not a robot, it is a database built with human intelligence.

This project, at the moment, includes only 119 cities/countries, which is a great beginning.

Looking forward to seeing how it grows

Another nice hashtags generator I came across is Photerloo. It’s actually quite impressive. In this case, you do not need to go through a list or a menu, you just need to load the image and Photerloo will analyse the photo and it will propose the hashtags.

As easy as that. But there is more

You can also select your strategy when the hashtags are generated, from most to least popular (more people looking for it but higher competition, or less popular but lower competition too). I like to go for “very popular”, a sort of middle ground.

Of course, not all generated hashtags are correct, you need to filter them, it’s basically a good starting point.

Travel Photography hashtags

I have a list on my mobile called travel photography hashtags. Usually before posting anything I pick the tags that fit the best. Here below I share this list, organised by moment or type.

• To describe Travel Photography: #travelphotography #photography #drone (there are more for drones) #video #travelpics #travelphoto #travel_captures #travelpic #dslrphotography
• To describe any kind of exploration, mountains or islands: #explorer #explore #discover #wanderlust #traveladdict #exploremore
• To describe the wild nature, of any kind: #nature #outdoors #naturelover #naturelovers #naturephotography
• For the travel blogging community: #travelblog #travelblogger #travelguide

As with any list in this post, it is not exhaustive and it’s something you build and change with the time.

Also remember to follow some great travel photographers as @elialocardi, @treyratcliff, @chrisburkard or even me ;) and check beside the photos also the tags that are used. Sometimes new trends come out :)

You can check a more exhaustive list of photographers in my Travel Photography Ultimate Guide.

Vacation hashtags ideas

Finally, it’s vacation time, finally the waiting is over, finally the planned trip is coming. I love these moments.

What I usually do before starting any trip is to build a list of vacation hashtag ideas that I will use in the future, during the trip, to describe my travel moments.

I start with the country hashtags, I move to the places I will visit and the possible experience I will have.

Here is an example I am building for my next trip to Sri Lanka.

Country hashtags: #srilanka #hashtagsrilanka #amazingSL #srilankadaily #wonderlustsrilanka #srilankadaily

Places I will visit: #sigiriya #ahangama #pinnawala #kandy #gallefort #galle

Activities: #surfpics #wlinsta (surfing lifestyle) #surfphotography #teatime (tea plantations visit) #teaplantation #earthcapture #traintrip #trainride #hikinglife #peoplewhohike

These collections help me also to be inspired for my photography in Sri Lanka and this is really what’s all about Instagram I think.

City hashtags

When not travelling I spend my time in Melbourne and I can’t stop taking photos of it. I have built a set of city hashtags that I would like to share with you:

• About the city: #bigcity #city #citylife #megapolis #cityscape #cityscape #citylifestyle #cityview #city_explore #citypark #citylife #city_explore
• About the urban area: #urbanism #urban #urbanporn #urbanlandscape #urbanphotography #urbanandstreet #urbanaisle
• About architecture: #architecture #architectureporn #Design (add here more if you do architecture photography)
• About the “objects” in the city: #skycrapers #buildings #skyline #reflection #street #rooftop #viewfromthetop #downtown #realestate

This list can be so much longer and it depends on the type of photography you do.

The message here is to build your lists, add them in a text file on your mobile and copy and paste based on the photo. In this way, you will not forget any important city hashtag

@living_destinations tend to repost quite often city photos. They have over half a million followers which could give a nice push to your account. Use the hashtag #living_destinations in case

@discover_europe is another good account to tag if you post about European cities (#discover_europe_)

If you tend to include also street photography during your travel I suggest to include a few tags from the list below

• #rawurbanshots #street_focus_on #streetframe #urbanromantix #urbanstreetdreams #citylights #neonlights #urbanstyle #urbanwear
• #streetphotographer #streetart #streetlife #bw #LensCulture #streetphotography #street #lensculturestreets #decisivemoment #streetphotographyinternational #photography #life #human #citylife
• #streetcolor #streetbw #streetphoto_bw #streets_storytelling #storyofthestreet #dreaminstreets #life_is_street #lensonstreets #lensculturestreets #reportage #documentary #fromstreetswithlove

Travel hashtags for couples

When should we use travel hashtags for couples? Yes, I got asked that. My suggestion is to go for them when:

• the Instagram feed is shared (many bloggers do that)
• when the photo includes a couple (I personally did that when travelling with my partner)

The hashtags can be very personal here, as they should describe not only what you are doing but also how you feel and live the experience.

It’s another way to engage with your followers, expose part of your private life (with some limits though LOL).

Here below some of my favorites:

• #couplegoals : probably the most famous hashtag
• about love: #loveauthentic #lookslikefilm #loveintentionally #coupleshoot #thatsdarling #friendshipgoals #coupleselfie #instalove #loveyou #lovequotes #lovebirds
•  about feelings: #cute #love #motivation #sweet #happy #romance #romantic #kiss #hug #feeling
•  about the relationship: #relationshipgoals #relationship #relationshipquotes #proposal #engagementshoot #engaged #couples
•  in case you have a wedding: #destinationwedding #weddingdress #instawedding #weddinginspiration #bohowedding #hippiewedding #indiebride #indiewedding #weddinginspo #adventurouswedding #weddingphotography #intimatewedding

The @authenticlovemag magazine is also a great source of inspiration (they include mostly photos of people in love), use their #authenticlovemag tag and you could be reposted of course, which is great because they have over 175K followers.

If you are in Australia

Top Australia hashtags

Here below a table with the top travel hashtags for Australia (I travel a lot here)

They are mostly related to the tourism boards.

Remember to use them if you are down under ;)

Another popular hashtag I tend to use is #discoveraustralia.

I usually build a similar table before I visit any country. At least I have a ready to pick bucket for my photos.

Top Melbourne hashtags

I usually travel a fair bit, however, once back in Melbourne, I can’t stop myself going out and do what I like the most, photography.

As a result, I have a considerable amount of photos about this beautiful city which I regularly post on Instagram.

Here is a list of Melbourne hashtags I often use with my posts.

• #VisitMelbourne (City Tourism board)
• #VisitStKilda (tourism board of StKilda, the beach area)
• @3182_stkilda (it’s not a hashtag however you can tag it and they may repost it)
• #melbournecity
• #melbournesights
• #reallymelbourne
• #melbournetodo
• #onlymelbourne
• #southgate (a popular area for photos)
• #melbournelife
• #melbournecbd
• #melbournenow
• #melbourneILoveYou
• #melbournegraffiti
• #melbourneblogger
• #igersmelbourne
• #Melbourne_insta
• #Melbonpix

These hashtags are mostly related to popular IG accounts that have re-posted my work in the past, and consequently made my account more popular in the city.

EXAMPLES to be inspired

Real examples of travel photos hashtags

• Where: #thailand
• What: #trekking
• When: not applicable
• Why: #temple #sunset #khmer
• Get Global:  #travelphotography #travelling
• Get Local: #tourismthailand #amazingthailand
• Get technical: none, I had already enough tags on this photo
• Colour: #red (the sunset colour)

• Where: #thenetherlands, #leiden, #amsterdam (Leiden is a beautiful town outside Amsterdam)
• What: #walking
• When: not applicable
• Why: #lane #church #cathedral #pub (on the right corner) #bluehour
• Get Global:  #travelphotography #travelling
• Get Local: #ontdekleiden #iamsterdam (in both cases the tourism boards do not have an Instagram account, I used the twitter hashtag)
• Get technical: #lightrail
• Colour: none that stands out, no hashtags

In the last example, I could not find an Instagram profile for the tourism board. I added instead the Twitter one. My Instagram account is connected to Twitter.

Important tip – Alternate hashtags, if you can

I used to post my photos using the hashtags as described above. Lots of them.

Lately, I have changed slightly my approach, mainly for two reasons:

• too many hashtags can be perceived as confusing, take the attention off from the photo. Sometimes can be even seen as spammy by followers
• Instagram is said that penalizes feeds using the same hashtags over and over. For example, I used to add always #travelphotography  and #travel in all my posts. Not anymore. Is this IG penalty a myth or a reality? Let’s say that there is no proof about it. My approach? I assume that IG does penalize (just in case LOL)

How is my new approach?

Before visiting a city, or a country, I build two sets of hashtags which I use every second day.

For example, on my Cuba trip I built these two sets:

• Odd days : #Cuba #cuban #cubano #cubalibre #ig_cuba #igerscuba #cuba2019 #cubanlife #igcuba #loves_cuba #igers_cuba #cubaphoto #loves_united_cuba #lovecuba #ilovecuba #cuba_vacations

• Even days : #travelcuba #cuba_gallery #visitcuba #discovercuba #instacuba #cubatrip #explorecuba #unlimitedcuba #Cuba2Day @unlimitedcuba

I have also organised two groups of creative travel hashtags (used on top of the location ones) that I again use every second day

• #travelblogger #amazingday #vacationwolf #theglobewanderer #BDTeam
• #NeverStopExploring #TLPicks #traveldeeper #passionpassport #roamtheplanet

I feel this approach has improved my visibility.

In a nutshell

Using the top travel hashtags help immensely to spread your workaround.

Build up your own process and optimise it based on the outcome.

What described above did not come overnight for me, it took a bit of time to refine it and it works well for me.

In true honesty, I find it very hard nowadays to grow in the 10K/month. Instagram is becoming more challenging. It’s more of slow and consistent growth.

Happy hashtag and remember to follow my Instagram feed ;)

About the Author

Stefano is a seasoned travel expert and the visionary founder of MEL365.com, a leading travel website with traffic across 6 continents. With a rich background in the travel industry, Stefano spent four pivotal years at Amadeus Travel Distribution System, gaining invaluable insights into travel technologies and distribution.