I was talking with a friend the other day about something that completely changed the traveling game for me: Facebook Groups!

She’s in the process of planning a trip throughout Southeast Asia and wanted recommendations on places to visit, stay, etc. While I do my best to provide you guys with travel tips and information on places I’ve personally visited, I haven’t traveled to every country. (But it’s on my list!)

When she told me which countries she was planning to visit, I shared with her my secret: Facebook groups! And her response was, “I don’t frequent Facebook much, but I’ll definitely check out whatever you send me.”

After she said that it made me realize that a lot of you don’t know how amazing and super helpful Facebook groups are. I feel like when you talk about Facebook, it seems like such a thing in the past. But Facebook is the bomb.com and it’s a great tool to use to connect with other travel communities around the world. It has helped me tremendously throughout my travels. And because it’s helped me out so much, I now recommend it to other people as well.

Who here still uses Facebook? (inserts looking eyes) Honestly, I use Instagram WAY more than Facebook. But when it comes to connecting with other travelers or wanting to get information about a particular country, Facebook Groups are definitely the move.

When I visited Chiang Mai, Thailand with my friends a couple of years ago we had just come off this high of being in one of the most beautiful places in the world (obviously I’m talking about Bali), surrounded by the most amazing people.

While Chiang Mia is a great city, we didn’t immediately fall in love with it as we did with Bali UNTIL we connected with a group of amazing people we met online through a Facebook group. To this day, the three of us always say how that connection completely changed the trajectory of our trip and made it such an amazing experience. Because of that connection, Chiang Mai is definitely up there, along with a few other places, as being one of my favorite cities in the world.

I still use Facebook groups to connect with other travelers and because I’ve done a lot of traveling myself, I always try to give advice and tips on places I’ve been to as well.

If you’re wanting to join an online travel community, here’s a list of my favorite Facebook Travel groups:

• The Nomadness Travel Tribe
• BlackPackers Connect in Southeast Asia
• Sister’s Traveling Solo
• Black Expats in Colombia
• Female Digital Nomads
• Girls Love Travel
• Female Solo Travel

Are you in any travel groups on Facebook? If so, which ones are you in? Let me know in the comments below!