Who doesn’t love traveling? Even if it’s only to a nearby town, most people enjoy leaving their home to explore the world around them.
The time of those “I wish you were here…” postcards sent via snail mail has gone. Nowadays people use their smartphones to snap pictures and share them with their friends and family online. I do that a lot too. I used to be happy just posting my pics to Instagram, but at some point the list of features I wished Instagram had, which it didn’t, got so long that I set out on a quest to find the perfect app for sharing my travels.
Trying one app after another on my iPhone was like a rollercoaster ride – I’d get excited thinking I found the one, but then be in for a disappointment when it turned out not to have all the features I wanted. And then I found ShutterBee…
Made by an Australian company, ShutterBee is like a social network and a blogging platform in one. It lets you connect with other travelers, view and comment posts, send private messages (unlike Instagram) and share your posts to Twitter, Facebook, Foursquare or Tumblr.
For a traveler, ShutterBee is an invaluable trip planning resource. You select your destination from the list and get loads of first-hand information from photos and posts by other people who have been there or who live there (the app isn’t just used by travelers).
This is what I love about ShutterBee:
- I can take photos directly with the app or use any photo previously saved to camera roll or other apps. That includes panoramas, which spin in ShutterBee when viewed. You can have your photos automatically tagged with location and weather
- Instead of posting a photo, you could simply check in at a place or share a comment or story with no photos or with multiple photos attached to it. I love photographing sights from different angles, so this is my favorite ShutterBee feature, as it lets me share all shots of the same sight in one story post.
- I can use ShutterBee while offline! ShutterBee lets me take photos and create posts offline, then they get posted in the same order they were created as soon as my phone catches a signal.
- You can actually make new friends using this app! I have. While looking for feedback on a restaurant I found other American travelers who were there at the time and had more experience in the country I was in. Exploring the city with them was much more fun than going solo. You can also find travel companions for going to a country or city on your bucket list – just look at who else has the same destination on their bucket list and message them. Yes, the app actually has a Bucket List feature! 🙂
All in all, ShutterBee is a great app for travelers or non-travelers. A friend of mine doesn’t go on trips that often, but she posts pictures of her culinary creations on ShutterBee and has gathered quite a following by now. If you own an iPhone, you should definitely check out this cool app from Down Under.
