Traveling with Twitter or Facebook this Thanksgiving?

Most of the time, I travel in my own little bubble – following my (or my family’s) own itinerary and schedule. There are a few times during the year however – like Thanksgiving – when that individual bubble gets popped and I feel a true connection with my fellow travelers.

Airports are dizzying; flights are delayed; airplanes are packed; weather is unpredictable; roads are jammed; people are irritable (to put it nicely). But for some reason during the waning days of November, I find that I can breathe deeply, look around at the madness and think “hey, we’re all in this together.”

In those times of concentrated, time-constrained travel, it doesn’t surprise me that we’re beginning to see more and more social media updates from people offering travel tips, voicing commiseration and sympathy, or seeking info on the reason for delays and alternative routes.

Last Thanksgiving, I noticed a few Facebook friends offering alerts on traffic jams from the road – very useful for anyone who happened to be driving through eastern Tennessee that day. (I wasn’t, but would have been very appreciative of the heads up if I had been.)  

The social networking sites themselves are also becoming great places to be if you’re looking for travel deals, as airlines, hotels and others in the industry have begun offering specials on Twitter and Facebook for their customers’ benefit.  Travel bargains may be reason enough to be an active member of the Twitter and Facebook communities, but I’m really wowed by everyday users’ potential to offer (and receive) up-to-the-minute assistance from other travelers or travel companies.  

Here are some examples:

• Sitting on the tarmac for any reason is upsetting, but sitting without any idea of the cause or potential length of the delay is downright maddening. People have begun tweeting (and re-tweeting) pleas for information on flight departures and delays, and getting quick responses from the airlines themselves as a result. 
• Heaven forbid you’re in a travel-related crash, but Twitterers and Facebookers have the ability to give airlines, first-responders and families instant, first-hand information about the accident or crash site – as well as to vent about the way things are being handled in the aftermath. 
• Visiting a place far, far away this holiday and need something to do after the feasting’s over? Twaller.com gathers up-to-the-minute tweets on places to eat, things to see/do, where to stay for locations throughout the world.  Tweets like these can not only give you ideas for where to go, but can tell you if the weather is bad, the crowds are too large, the lines are too long, etc. so you can make the decision to join in or steer clear.

Do you use social networking sites for travel – to find deals on airfares, hotels, etc.? Have you ever offered real-time, travel-related tweets to your Twitter peeps (or Facebook folks)? If you were stuck in a strange city, would you turn to Twitter or Facebook to find info on where to stay/eat/visit?  Have you ever connected with a fellow social networking traveler in person?  Have you ever sought info from travel industry and received quick responses via social media sites?