Most creators think about the algorithm. Fewer think about search — and for travel, search is where the highest-intent audience comes from.

Someone scrolling might like your post. Someone who searched "where to stay in Oaxaca with a toddler" and found your video is already planning a trip. Those are very different visitors, and the second is worth far more to you.

TikTok is used as a search engine, not just a feed, and Instagram works the same way. People type questions into them the way they'd type them into Google — and travel questions are among the most searched of all, because nobody books a trip on impulse.

A post that trends does well for a few days. A post that ranks for a search keeps being found for months, which for you means your collection link is still sitting there earning long after the post left anyone's feed.

Say what it actually is. Creators write clever; searchers type plain. "This changed everything" tells the search index nothing. "Cabins two hours from Denver that allow dogs" tells it exactly who the video is for. Keep the hook — just put the plain description right behind it.

Put your keywords in all three places. On TikTok, spoken audio, on-screen text and your caption are read separately, so saying the place out loud, showing it on screen, and writing it in the caption gives you three chances to match a search instead of one.

Use your name field. On Instagram the Name field under your handle is searchable — "Jenna | Slow Travel" gets found in ways "Jenna" never will. Your bio is searchable too.

Hashtags aren't discovery anymore. Keywords replaced them. A few relevant ones are fine; thirty of them do nothing.

Reels, carousels and Stories are good at three different things, and using the wrong one is the most common reason a great place gets almost no bookings.

Reels get you found. They reach people who don't follow you yet. Lead with the strongest visual you have — the door opening, the view, the walk down to the water — not with your face explaining what's coming. The first three seconds decide everything, and a 14-second Reel watched twice usually beats a 60-second one watched once.

Carousels get you saved. They're the highest-engagement format, and for travel they're unbeatable: a whole trip in order, one place per slide, or one stay from ten angles. Six to ten slides, best image first.

Stories carry your link. The only placement where a tappable link lives natively in the content. Save the good ones to a Highlight so they keep working past 24 hours.

Not all engagement counts the same. Roughly in order of what it's worth: sends and shares, then saves, then comments, then watch time, and last of all likes.

The top two are private, so a post can be working hard and look quiet. For travel, a save is the clearest signal you'll get for free: someone bookmarking a trip they intend to take but can't take yet. They're holding it for a season, a payday, a school holiday — and when they come back, your collection link is what they come back to.

So track saves per post rather than likes. The posts that get saved are telling you what your audience actually wants to book.

Posts where the creator replies to comments see measurably higher engagement than posts where comments go unanswered — same post, same audience, the only difference being whether you showed up.

The first hour matters most, which means posting time and your availability are the same decision. And reply like a person: questions about whether somewhere is worth it, how it compares, whether it works with kids deserve a real answer. Those are the questions most likely to end in a booking.