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If you’ve spent any time at all on Pinterest, you’ve undoubtedly come across stunning pictures of beautiful scenery with vistas you’d love to visit. The good news is that Pinterest is helping you come closer to turning your travel dreams into a reality.
Pinterest, one of my Top 10 Tech Tools, just became even more useful with Place Pins, a new feature to help you plan your next trip. With Place Pins you can see where on a map a photo was taken, perhaps inspiring your next vacation.
Hey, we can dream, right?
If you’ve often looked at amazing images on Pinterest and wondered where in the world they were taken, you’ll be a big fan of Pinterest Place Pins.
What Are Place Pins
Place Pins are pins and pinboards with maps included. Usually these boards are in the Travel category and include an interactive map showing where the photos were taken.
An example of a board with Place Pins is UNESCO World Heritage Sites in the UK, displaying 32 Place Pins of sites with corresponding markers on a map. Here is the pin for one of my favorite places, Maritime Greenwich:
You may not have to travel far to discover new places. You can also use Place Pins to get ideas of treasures to visit near you, including:
Perhaps your wanderlust involves a theme:
— If you’re a Beatles fan, be sure to check out the Travel for Beatlemaniacs board by Lonely Planet.
— Want to travel like a king? Check out the Conde Nast Traveler’s Board Top 100 Hotels in the World.
— If you want to add to your list of places to see before you die, be sure to check out Bucket List Happy Hour Spots Around The World.
— If your fantasies include a trip around the world, you can live vicariously through Jeremy and Angie’s RTW 2013-2014 board, seeing their pictures and following their travels on the map as they live the dream and circumnavigate the globe.
Making It Happen
Pinterest doesn’t just lure you with Place Pins, it helps you get there. Some Place Pins have useful information such as addresses and phone numbers. Place Pin maps can even give you directions to help you find out how to get to your destination.
Place Pins can be used on your mobile device, transforming your Pinterest app into a travel guide and GPS tool.
Creating Your Own Place Pins
With Place Pins you can share your favorite destinations with others by adding a map to your pins. You can include maps on new pinboards or edit your existing boards to include maps.
How to Edit Your Pinboards to Include Place Pins
To edit your boards, click on your user name in the upper right corner of your Pinterest screen. Click on Your Boards in the drop down menu. Choose the board you want to add maps to and then click on Edit Board and toggle the Add a Map? button on.
After you have edited your board to include maps, a map will appear on the right side of your board with your pins stacked on the left side. You can now edit individual pins on your board to place them on the map. Click on “Map this pin” to enter the location of the photo. You can search by the name of the location to find the spot on the map where the photo was taken.
I edited my Philadelphia pinboard to enable maps, then I added maps to pins on that board.
Your Thoughts
Do you enjoy discovering new destinations on Pinterest? Have you ever seen a beautiful picture and wondered where it was taken? Have you ever dreamed of visiting a place you saw on Pinterest? Tell us about it in the Comments section below!
Hi Carolyn,
Awesone news! 🙂
Trust you to come up with the latest! I never really knew about this new additional feature on Pinterest. Yes, I DO get lost in the wonderful pictures and might enlarge to see them, or sometimes stop by and wonder where they are actually located, though most of them do have the location mentioned under them, but you tend to be more lost in seeing than reading, isn’t it?
I think the idea of having a map is wonderful for those who would really like to see the exact location. I guess I’d have to create a separate board for these because I already have 2 boards with loads of pictures, and if I have to sit and locate their position on the map, it might take ages. But wonderful news indeed 🙂
Thanks for sharing.Have a nice weekend 🙂
Hi Harleena, Yes, this is brand new, just launched Wednesday night so not many people know about it. But when I learned of Place Pins, I knew people would want to find out about them.
Often I am looking at a pin and wondering where it was taken. Beaches, mountains, resorts all look amazing and I’m often curious where they might be. We may discover new destinations close to us or a place for our next vacation!
Yes, some people will want to start new boards but some people will want to go back and edit their existing boards. I edited my Philadelphia pinboard to include maps. It doesn’t have many photos so editing it was very easy to do.
Thanks for your comment and for sharing, Harleena. You have a lovely weekend too! 🙂
You are rock Carolyn, again a great post for us.
I have already followed some persons on Pinterest who pined about their favorite places. I just got Maps feature on my Pinterest profile and really amazing. I did not understand how to use this new feature but your post gave me some idea about it. I will surely try it for my favorite destination pins.
Hi Himanshu, I’m so glad you are enjoying and using Pinterest Place Pins! This is a very recent development from Pinterest so you’re on top of your tech. :-bd
Feel free to stop back by and leave the link to your Pinterest board with maps so other readers can follow you, Himanshu.
Hello Carolyn,
As per your tips, I have tried it on Pinterest profile and here is the link to Travel destination board. Hope you like it.
http://www.pinterest.com/himanshu05/travel-destination/
Thanks for leaving your link, Himanshu. I have followed your board and look forward to watching it grow! 🙂
Hi Carolyn
I’ve not logged into Pinterest in weeks.
This update sounds good though, I must make sure I take some time to go back to Pinterest once in a while.
It’s great that there’s a map feature. I like that. Particularly if I see some images of mountains and wonder where on earth they are. I love mountains!
Hello Tim, Yes, you will find plenty of mountains on Pinterest and now you may be able to know where they are so you can visit them!
I’m a big fan of Pinterest, they’re my third biggest source of traffic in the past 30 days. But even if they didn’t send me readers I would still be a big fan of the site. I spent quite a bit of time there yesterday researching this article. I got a bit lost on the site as I was finding pins with maps. 🙂
Hi Carolyn,
You’ve added a new dimension on the use of Pinterest. I have never thought of this at all. I’ve buried my head deep in the blogging and traffic building strategies on the site.
Thanks for sharing the news and breaking out your research.
Hello Dare, You’re right, this is a very exciting development from Pinterest. Adding maps to pins brings a new dimension and gives us information we need to visit these spectacular places we’re seeing. Even if we can’t ever get to a place, we can learn more about geography knowing where a place is on a map.
I hope you do get a chance to visit Pinterest and discover new places, Dare!
You do share the most unusual stuff, Carolyn – I’d never heard of this before. If I do ever create boards where these pins would be useful, I’ll certainly have a go at this – I’m not doing a huge amount on Pinterest at the moment because I just don’t have time (I know I’m always saying that – apologies for the stuck record!) but it’s very useful info – and nice to know that if you come across a picture of a place that looks interesting, you might be able to find out where it is – but presumably only if the person who pinned it has enabled this on their board?
Thanks for another fascinating share 🙂
Hi Sue, Yes, you are extremely busy so I can understand how you don’t have a lot of spare time to spend on Pinterest. But these maps may actually save you time. You can use Pinterest to research places and learn exactly where they are with these maps.
You’re right, maps must be enabled on a board. People can either create new boards with maps enabled or edit existing boards to enable maps and then add maps to the pins on those boards.
So glad you enjoyed this, Sue. Happy weekend! 🙂
The only time I go on Pinterest Carolyn is when you pin one of my posts. I know, I’m bad but as you know that site isn’t for everyone and it’s definitely not for me.
This sounds a lot like Google Places so I’m assuming they are both along the same lines but of course this is for the images. I think that’s actually kind of cool for advertising businesses and their products.
Thanks for keeping us in the know. You’re always on top of things young lady so thank you so much for that.
Enjoy your weekend Carolyn.
~Adrienne
Hi Adrienne, Yes, Pinterest is now my #3 referrer, the traffic from there has really increased since I signed up for Rich Pins through Share Juice Pro. I enjoy the site immensely, even without the traffic, but it’s quite the bonus to get traffic from Pinterest too!
You’re doing great without Pinterest but if you’re ever looking for a new, fertile source of traffic, Pinterest may be your answer.
You could also check out Place Pins to discover new restaurants and shops in your area, Adrienne!
Great post, Carolyn! I am also very enthusiastic about Place Pins and I believe Pinterest is taking an even bigger role now in the travel ecosystem, in particular for travel marketers, destinations, hoteliers and attractions alike.
Cheers,
Hi Frederic, Welcome to The Wonder of Tech! I love hearing from a fellow fan of Pinterest Place Pins! You’re right, travel destinations could help spread the word about their locations using Pinterest. They could create pinboards with beautiful pictures of their setting and then include a map. This helps businesses as well as travelers. :-bd
Hi Carolyn,
I saw the notice about Place Pins from Pinterest since I have it set for them to send updates and info. I was hoping a pinner could get the map and pin automatically from GPS info in the photo. I have a big collection of my husband at Starbucks locations all over the world, and I’ve been trying to decide how best to display them. It doesn’t sound like pins using GPS location is a feature yet?
Ann
Hi Ann, That’s a great idea for the next expansion for Pinterest. But some people might not want that information shared. Perhaps there could be an opt out for that information being accessed for photos.
Oh I so love the idea of Place Pins! I’ve been using Pinterest for a while to plan trips, and this will be so helpful. Especially for those photos I pinned a while ago and forgot where they were taken. Perfect timing as I have just begun putting together our family summer 2014 road trip plan, and will be creating a board for it shortly.
PS .. I also use Pinterest to dream of places too.
Hi Carol, Yes, Place Pins can definitely help you discover your next vacation destination! You can create a pinboard for Favorite Future Vacation Spots and pin ideas for your next holiday. You can make the board public or private if you want to keep your ideas to yourself.
So often I see amazing pins in places I’d love to visit if only I knew where it was taken. With Place Pins our dream destinations can become closer to reality!
Hello Carolyn,
Wonderful post, well to be honest here I’m not using pinterest lately as i haven’t cared about it. It seems like pinterest has evolved with awesome features. The own place pins are really great and know about other places.
Thanks for sharing
Hi Samir, Welcome to The Wonder of Tech! I can understand that Pinterest hasn’t held your interest before but the site keeps adding new features to make the information even more useful. I hope you do get a chance to check out Place Pins, Samir!
Great post ! I think these place pins are a real game changer for anyone in the travel of hospitality or even tourism industry.. I think cities, towns and states can really use these to help promote vacations and stay-cations not to mention giving us the opportunity to dream 🙂
Hi Ed, Welcome to The Wonder of Tech! Great ideas for brilliant ways to use Pinterest. You’re right, I could see a Chamber of Commerce using Pinterest to promote its town. Businesses can use Place Pins to generate interest in visiting them.
Thanks for sharing your great ideas here, Ed!
Carolyn, That’s really nice and would be really helpful though I am not widely using it.
Indeed, I still need to check for my blog to make use of it. I specifically like it doesn’t just trap you with that Place and helps to get over there. Cool one. Thanks for the nice scoop.
Hi Vijay, I hope you get to visit all the wonderful places you find on Pinterest!
Pinterest have a lot of images which inspire us to visit places and to that environment. It is really awesome feature by pinterest to enhance users with lovely experience of other users on a particular place. After reading this post I have started following “RTW 2013-2014” for looking lovely places to visit.
Hi Narenda, I’m so glad you’re following that board. It’s such a clever way to use Place Pins and may inspire us to embark on our own Around the World trip someday!