In the winter of Dec 2015, I and my wife decided to go to Puerto Rico to celebrate our anniversary. Puerto Rico is a small enchanting island in the Caribbean. We were glad to escape the cold weather and had an amazing holiday. Puerto Rico is quite different from the rest of the United States and we had a memorable time.
I was eager to share this experience with family and friends. I shared our pictures. But I was not able to get anyone excited. There was no context to the photos and I could not describe my experience. Also I figured that no one could take advantage of our experience to plan his or her trip. I then realized that only sharing photos was not an effective way to narrate our story. So I started building HopBucket app as a medium to share travel experiences effortlessly and effectively.
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HopBucket
HopBucket helps you turn your collection of travel photos into travel stories. These stories are easy to customize and share. Here is an example of a story shared on HopBucket — Puerto Rico. Creating a Photo Story on HopBucket is fast and fun!
Engagement and Effectiveness
Our travel experiences are not merely checklist items. These experiences define us and make us who we are. They are our stories. Based on our experience and that of travelers using HopBucket we have come up with the following pointers that you can use to make your travel stories effective and engaging.
1. Narrate your story through photos
Though only sharing photos does not make a story, photos are one of the most important components of an engaging story. Photos bring your words to life.
You can add a slideshow of your travel photos to your blog or website using HopBucket Slides. Readers of your site can click on your photos and leverage your experience to plan their own trips. They can aspire to a holiday like yours. They will thank you!
Puerto Rico – history, nature and people at its best
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Puerto Rico — Dec 2015 (Made with HopBucket Slides)
2. Geotag your photos
Geotagging means adding location information to your photos. Almost all smartphone cameras and even some DSLRs support geotagging. Geotags allow photo managers to identify and sort photos by location. You can then pick and choose the correct photos to add to your stories.
HopBucket automatically figures out the location information attached to your photos. As a result, readers of your story can visualize your trip on a map too! This is another example of engaging content that will keep your readers hooked.
3. Take short videos
Videos are a great way to engage your readers. Take short videos of your journey and places that you visit. When you are back stitch them together and upload it to YouTube. Embed the video on your site to capture readers’ attention.
HopBucket supports embedding YouTube videos into your stories. Here is an example of how a YouTube vlogger is using HopBucket to widen his audience. — The Ruins Of Hampi, Karnataka
4. Keep it real and useful
People love reading about real experiences. If you establish yourself as a source of authentic information about places amongst your family and friends, you win! Readers will come back to you for more if they can use information from your stories. Also sharing your raw experiences means no one can copy you or your style. That helps you stand out from the crowd.
5. Travel Smart
There is no great story without great experiences. As a traveler you must focus on creating great experiences instead of worrying about logistical details. This is where trip managers come into the picture. Trip manager apps help you organize your travel plans in one place.
The HopBucket Trip Manager helps you manage your itinerary as you travel. It optimizes your route so that you cover the minimum distance. Also, you can take notes as you travel the world without worrying about losing them ever.
When you are on the road, the trip manager gives you directions, websites, phone numbers, open hours, and even reviews — without you having to search for it. The trip manager also shows nearby attractions and even suggests where you should go next. You can always quickly visualize your entire trip on a map.
Where can I get HopBucket?
You can use HopBucket for free by visiting our website or by downloading our mobile app.
HopBucket is largely influenced by the recommendations we have been receiving from the HopBucket community of travelers. We would love to hear your ideas and your feedback. You can reach out to us at [email protected] or [email protected]
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We’d love if you’d comment and share this post.
I have been wondering about this for quite some time now. I have seen this on other blogs but I had no idea how the owners put this on their blogs. I did not even know the name but I know now. It looks efficient, easy, and interactive. I would be using this soon.
I need to get this app! I LOVE reading about other people’s travel stories and experiences!!
That’s great! You will really like HopBucket then!
I have never heard of Hopbucket, but it looks really cool! I love that you can easily geotag your photos – great feature!
Thanks! Looking forward to seeing you on HopBucket. 🙂
I had not heard of HopBucket so I’m glad to know about it now. This is a really cool app which my children and I would enjoy sharing our travel experiences with. Good to know.
I have never heard of Hopbucket, but I will check it out. It sounds like something I’d have fun with. I love your photos!
Thanks Amber!
these are some pro tips and different too. I would change few things in my blog and style of putting my work and trip in a totally different and amazing manner. Thanks for sharing these.
Glad it helped you!
This can really help people getting to appreciate the different places. It can also help you relive those travel adventures.
Exactly! I find myself looking at my past trips quite often using HopBucket! 🙂
What a great sounding app I love that it makes a great way to share your adventures with friends and family.
I’ve never heard of Hot Bucket. I love fun photo stories so I’ll be creating one soon!
Hey Nikka, looking forward to reading one of your stories on HopBucket!
The geotag ability seems like a really cool feature. I know of Facebook you can tag your photos to places and then see a map of everywhere you’ve been.
Glad you think so too! It is really helpful for other travelers who are planning a trip too!
I also heard the Puerto Rico is a wonderful place to stay. I’m sure you had a great time there.
You have heard right! Puerto Rico is fantastic! We loved it there.
What an interesting app for travel writers! I may have to look into this and use it as I blog about my adventures this summer!
Glad you think so! I look forward to reading your amazing stories on HopBucket this summer. 🙂
I have never heard of HopBucket before. It has a lot of really cool features for travelers.
Hey Pam, hope you find it useful!
This is my first time hearing about Hopbucket! Seems like an interesting site for bloggers! Thanks for the share!
This is my first time hearing about Hopbucket! It seeems like a good site for bloggers! Thanks for the share!
This is my first time hearing about Hopbucket! It seems like a good site for bloggers! Thanks for the share!
Interesting. I will have to check this out.
Omg! This is totally awesome! I have been looking for something like this, glad I’ve come across your post! Thanks xx
Hey Marijanna, glad you found us! Would love to hear your thoughts! Thanks!
HopBucket sounds like a great way to share travel memories with others. I will have to check it out.
Wow! This sounds like an amazing app! My husband and I are currently planning a trip to Europe with our daughters for 2021 (so far away, I know) but it seems like this app will really come in handy!
Hi Tessa, you can use HopBucket to collect all your ideas in one place. It makes it really easy to visualize your trip. Plus you can share easily share information with your family too! Hope you find it useful!
I already encounter similar application and websites like this. I will try about this as well.
Wow that looks so cool for travel! I love how it actually maps out your itinerary
I have not heard of this product…what an interesting concept…I will check it out!! Thanks for sharing
What a cool app! I think this is every traveler’s dream. I will get this ASAP because we will be going on a trip this weekend. Thanks for letting me know.
I have never heard of this. What a cool idea to share travel stories. I will check it out for sure!
What a fun app! I love that it helps you make slideshows of your travel photos. It sounds easy to use, too!
This is awesome!! It’s actually why I wanted to start a blog. Taking pictures wasn’t enough. I wanted a place to store my stories.
Sounds pretty cool! Think I will give it a shot, thanks for sharing!
Wow, this looks great. I would also like to use Hopbucket and build up this community of travellers.
This is a really cool way to share some of your adventures with friends. Looking back at all of the places you’ve been would be fun too.
Never heard of this before but it looks great. I’m a traveler myself so this would be the perfect app to organize my photos into stories. Will give it a try. Thanks!
I’ve never heard of this app before! Maybe I should check it out sometime!
That application looks super handy and I love the slideshows made with it. Never heard of this before so thank you for letting me know that it excists and also telling what bloggers can do with it. 🙂
Photos are a big part of my blogging. I am not satisfied writing an article without a photo to supplement it.
Hi Rose, I agree completely! Photos really add color to our stories.
I love HopBucket’s concept! I could use this app for when I explore, photograph, and write about events in my city for my blog. Photographs really enhance a blog post so I think HotBucket app would be a perfect fit!
Glad you think so!
That looks like a neat way to share a photo collection with family. Much better than sending one at a time.
Exactly! It is convenient for us and for the family! 🙂
I have never heard of Hop Bucket but it definitely sounds very interesting! I will check it out for my future travels and adventure.
I had never heard of Hopbucket till now. This seems to be very helpful and easy to use. I love photos and am looking forward to trying this out. Thanks for all the info!
What a great idea, I’m going to have to check this out. One question, if I want to take photos and Geotag, but not live post… meaning have few days delay, is that possible? Being a female & sometimes solo-traveling, I don’t live-post where I am. 🙂 Sadly, there are crazies. Does Geotagging work in delayed posting?
Hi Megan,
That is a valid point. Fortunately, what you are asking is totally possible. You don’t have to live post if you don’t want to.
Your phone embeds geotagging information in your photos when you click them. Just like it adds the date and time information to your photos. HopBucket simply leverages that information when you upload photos to make things easier for you.
Also, you can adjust the privacy settings for each story to make sure only people you want can access those.
Hope this answers your question. 🙂
I just recently heard of hopbucket, what a wonderful app for people who travel and want to showcase that. I love that there’s really is an app for everything, this is a beautiful idea!
Thanks so much! Hope to see you using HopBucket.
I need to download the Hopbucket! I am on a trip right now and it would really come in handy to have that app! Thanks for letting me know. Can’t wait to use it.
Thanks! Hope you find it useful.
I’ve never heard of this app before but I’m loving the concept! I like to scrapbook and this would be a fun digital way to remember trips and share them!
Glad you think so! I am already using HopBucket to store my own past trips. I find myself looking at old trips every so often! 🙂
I have never heard of this app but it sounds like something that I need and would love! I love the idea of creating photo stories and being able to add a geo tag!
I’d not heard of HopBucket until now, but as an aspiring travel blogger, I can see it being a really useful tool for me 🙂 thanks for sharing! x
Never tried hopbucket but I’m very interested to try it someday!!
I’ve never heard of it! Sounds like it’s worth checking out though!
I have heard of this but had not used it. It is a great idea, will need to check it out and sign up. Thanks for the tip
oh that’s such a cool site/app. what a great way to keep track of everywhere you’ve been
I have heard of this in the grapevine but never used it. Will look into this right now (before I forget). Great post.
I have never heard of Hopbucket before but it sounds like a great way to connect with fellow travelers. It’s also perfect for those who would like to travel to a specific place and would like to find out more about it before doing the jump.
That’s an awesome social site that’s worth checking out especially for people like me who loves to travel. I think it’s a great way to discover places and to share your experiences as well. So cool!
This looks like a great place to share your adventure with your family and friends. I love to travel so I will definitely have to check out this app.
Sounds like a great app. I will download it right now. I hope you had a nice anniversary in PR. The food looks so tasty.
Funniest thing: I was deciding which of the two posts in the FB group to comment on just by looking at the URL and picked this one because I thought it was going to be about hops, as in beer. I learned something new anyway!
I love that this app allows you to geotag everything so that you can create a map of all of the places you visited. I’ve definitely got to download this for my next trip–such a great way to share travel stories.
I’ve never heard of HopBucket before, thanks for putting it on my radar! This looks like a travel app that I can easily get addicted to. But it also seems like a fun way to remember your whole trip! I’ll definitely be downloading it.
There was a similar app called Showzee that allows you to do the same as well as integrate it into your blog. I found the same useful but I figured that I would have to stick to their restrictions on image size and videos. So, went back to my own blog. This one looks interesting too. Will check it out.
What a great visual way to share your travels with others. This gives people many more options on how to share their digital content on their websites too!
What a cool way to visually stimulate after a trip. I like the geo tagging because I’m a maps and logistical traveler. I like to see just how easy or difficult it would be to get from one thing to another. I’d definitely try this out.
Hopbucket looks like a great app to use, something I could spend hours on after travelling especially tagging of areas. I already stick pins on a map on my wall of places that I have been too. I am also glad that the app is influenced by the recommendations.
This is so cool! Hopbucket sounds like a great solution for travelers who want to do more than just share pictures on Instagram or Facebook. It also sounds like a good way for others to research upcoming trips, especially with the Geotag option.
I have never heard of this and it sounds like an awesome tool. I usually save and take down all my notes in Google docs, but this sounds like a way better alternative. Thanks!
I’ve never heard of HopBucket but it sounds really interesting! It sounds like a great place to organize a lot of your planning (with the maps) and your memories. It’s like Instagram but more specifically geared to travelers! Very cool!
I had never heard of it. Thanks for introducing me to such a useful tool. It solved most of the problems which I face.