This is an old picture from Helsinki, from one of my trips to Finland in 2011. It’s hard to believe that I have been on Instagram for over three years, I joined on the end of 2010. Back then the frames and filters were really in, I guess many still like them. I took the photo during one of my media visits to Finland, I visited the headquarters of Rovio, the makers of Angry Birds. The highlight was meeting Jaakko Iisalo, the inventor of the game and hearing the insights, and then fly to Singapore with Angry Birds (the actual bird) on Finnair’s first flight to Singapore. Next week I am again heading to Finland, but this time not to meet with Angry Birds, or not to fly outside of the country. Instead I will be flying with Finnair to Rovaniemi in Finnish Lapland to meet with Santa Claus. No joke! I can’t believe this wonderful thing called life and how I get myself into these amazing experiences. Read up the weekly Instagram Travel News and hope you join us by blogging some of your most memorable travels that you have recorded with Instagram. 
IGTT Weekly Top 5
1. Featured Instagram Quote
Ever wonder how Instagram was named Instagram?A long week of searching for something that combined the ‘right here right now’ aspect of what we were trying to accomplish with the idea of recording something in your life (hence the suffix -gram). We also wanted something relatively unique. We had a bunch of other names that were in the running, but there were lots of other apps with names that were too similar. Another characteristic was whether or not you could tell someone the name and they could spell it easily.Said Kevin Systrom, CEO, co-founder of Instagram on Quora.
2. Featured Instagrammer (from Finland)
I know, I know, I featured a great Finnish Instagrammer last week too, but I am excited about my upcoming trip to my homeland Finland, and hope you want to see how it looks in the land of the lakes and midnight sun. One of my (many) favorite Finns on Instagram is RistoRisto, he shares comfortable every day images, mainly from Helsinki, that give the vibe of Finland fairly honestly. Some even poetic simple images of architecture, his daily discoveries in the city and the colors of the nature just whisper “Finland” to me.
3. Featured Instagram tool
This makes me so very happy – I will get to write a new version of my book soon or it will hopefully become completely irrelevant in two years or so. Meaning that I wrote an entire book helping people to search photos on Instagram, and there are new apps popping up to help people to do so – to find travel photos from Instagram. The latest brilliant new app is called Pic a Moment, and you can literally pick a moment, a specific day, or just today and type in either a location where you are, or any location in the world to see Instagram photos taken in that location on a specific time. It’s so simple and brilliant, but it took me a while to get it. I was like, hm, how do I add my photos here? Well, you don’t using the Pic a Moment app, and that’s the entire point: Pic a Moment pulls the images from Instagram from the public geo-tagged photos. So if you have been using geo-tags in your Instagram photos, they are now poppin up in more places than you think and people are able to view them even if they are not even Instagram users!
So the next time you are looking for travel inspiration or pictures from a specific place, check out Pic a Moment. Of course, your true and tested tips how to search on Instagram are still going to be handy, because you will realize that when you find great photos, you will also want to connect with the people behind the photos. (Ps. excuse me – the date on my phone and the screenshot is in Finnish – for some reason if I want to have Finnish alphabets and autocorrect on my phone, it will automatically put the date data in Finnish, although my phone’s main language is set in English. Anyone know how to fix it?) 4. Featured IGTT blog post from last week
Happy Memories and new adventures, welcome 2014 by my favorite adventure traveler Satu Vänskä-Westgarth is a must see for her perfect landscape Instagram pictures of the last year. I have to admit – much nicer to hand pick the best photos… than just do the free statigram-video that all of the rest of us posted last week ;)5. Featured travel hashtag
Start keeping an eye out for the hashtag #nbeFinland this weekend for pictures from Finland by travel bloggers from around the world. Travel bloggers and travel industry people are heading to Finland for Finland’s Travel Trade Show Matkamessut. Later next week you can also see more images with #matkamessut hashtag. There are several blogger trips happening next week in different locations of Finland. I personally will be heading to Lapland to visit Santa Claus – I kid you not! Get the full image of Finland through the eyes of some of your favorite travel bloggers!IGTT Traveling Linky
Read more Instagram Travel posts from these new blog posts this week and add your own blog post.
Not a blogger? Not a problem. Join us at Instagram by using hashtag #igtravelthursday and share your travel photos. Bloggers! Join the Instagram Travel Thursday and Host the Linky!
Bloggers, join us! Add your blog post to the Linky above, and you can also take the Linky code and add the Linky widget in your blog! Get email sent to you when the Instagram Travel Thursday linky post is up (subscribe it here). get the InLinkz code Copy and paste the following rules and the banner image when you host the Linky widget: Join us for Instagram Travel Thursday! Instagram Travel Thursday is a weekly blog post collection with a purpose to promote the great travel experts on Instagram and Instagram as a source for travel inspiration. Add your Instagram Travel-related post to the Linky. Here are the Linky rules: Link to a new Instagram travel post and use the permalink of your post, not the homepage URL. Only new posts from the week of the linky and no giveaways, other linkys or sales pitches. No links to your Instagram profile, only links to your blog. Link back to one of the Instagram Travel Thursday Linky hosts. Visit a few other posts in the linky and show them some love (comment, tweet, Pin etc.). Links that do not follow the guidelines will be removed. More information at Skimbaco Lifestyle's Instagram Travel Thursday page.
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Kea
See you next week Katja! Tell Santa I said hi! ;)
Elena
That app does look very cool. Must find time to play with it a bit!
Kate @ The Shopping Mama
The Pic a Moment app looks really cool – thanks for sharing! Look forward to following you on your next trip.
Alison Chino
I’m with Ann! Love getting the IG news!
And so excited for you about Lapland! I’ll be following along for sures!! Great start to the new year!
Ann
Pretty cool that 1. You’ve been using IG for so long and 2. You got to meet the Angry Birds people and 3. Congrats to Satu!
Thanks for all the IG updates. It really helps me stay in the know!
Enjoy Life Oils
Thanks! Yes – Angry Birds HQ visit was pretty cool :)
Satu VW
Thanks Katja! My favourite editor-in-chief :) And I love Risto too, it’s great to get a dose of “home” daily through his images.
Leigh Powell Hines
She’s my favorite editor, too. :) I love this segment each week because I would be clueless otherwise. Tell Santa that your luxury travel editor wants to go St. Thomas on Spring Break 2015. :)
Have fun.