WHAT?: TRAVEL WITH SNAPCHAT

If you have me on Snapchat (by the way, add me @indruten), you probably know how much I like geotagging while traveling.  It's a really nice way to show your Snapchat friends where are you at the moment, also, I love how they make your photo look like a postcard!

So, back in March, when I was in New York for the first time, I randomly came up with an idea to go on a Snapchat geotag hunt. I figured out that there is almost one geotag per bigger neighbourhood, and NYC has many of them..

I found a map (you can find it here) that showed  location of most of them (it doesn't show all of them, because Snapchat is still adding new geotags in bigger cities and it's hard to update) and then created an offline route, so I wouldn't get lost while wandering around New York.  It took me three long days to find probably half of my list, but you know what? I went to places I never knew even existed and I can definitely say that this was so much better than any paid tour I have ever had.

You might think what is so special about that? But you see, New York is not like any city you have ever been before. You might think that it's a city that has Empire State Building, Times Square, Central Park and few other iconic landmarks, but I'm always interested in "local experience", because true gems are hidden in the less touristy parts. 

These absolutely parallel streets, unique architecture on every corner, stairs across the buildings, taxi cabs beeping everywhere, parks every few blocks, independent coffee places, unknown rappers chasing their dreams trying to sell their demo CD...there's so much of everything!

However, I was zig-zaging from one side of New York to another with a big smile tryna' find wi-fi wherever possible so I could capture my findings...Well, bless American Starbucks and that wi-fi that is accessible across the street haha. 

I even took a free Staten Island Ferry just out of curiosity and the views of Manhattan were amazing on my way there! To be honest, now I feel like a local while I'm there, because everything seems so familiar! I did continued exploring when I was there in November, however, I didn't even care about the geotags, I just wanted to see as much as possible and I am not even close to being done, so I will have to continue when I'm back.

I think that I wouldn't have thought about going to some places if not for these silly geotags, but I did and this was an amazing decision. I look at that one photo and I could probably tell you a long story related to that geotag.. You can definitely do the same thing next time you are looking forward to make your trip more interesting, because I promise (if there's a lot of geotags, of course..) you will have so much fun!

Good luck geotagging!

Dre x