In case you missed it, there was this tweet on #TTOT Travel Talk on Twitter chat that took place on Tuesday 27 May 2025. “TTOT moderators will be traveling (SLOW TRAVEL, of course) and we will be planning the Future of Travel! Many thanks to all of our participants, some of whom have been with us for more than a decade! We wish you a most enjoyable summer. Keep travelling and do keep in touch.”, written by Sonja Holverson, fellow co-host of TTOT chat. Yes, #TTOT Travel Talk on Twitter is taking a SLOW TRAVEL break.
Amazing and Invaluable Experiences on my #TTOT Travel Talk on Twitter Journey
As for my #TTOT Travel Talk on Twitter journey, I can’t recall when I first started joining #TTOT chat. Those golden years on Twitter, knowing more like-minded travellers on Twitter, making travel and tourism related industry friends, getting more local travel knowledge, they were so priceless and invaluable.
Thanks to an invitation from Melvin Bocher (founder of #TTOT Travel Talk on Twitter), I took on the mantle to be a co-host for #TTOT chat in November 2020. You can read more about how I became a #TTOT co-host (here is my story https://blog.photojournalist-tgh.tv/travel/join-ttot-travel-talk-on-twitter). As a co-host, I have also created a page on my TGH Photography and Travel website (#TTOT Travel Talk on Twitter Page – https://blog.photojournalist-tgh.tv/ttot-travel-talk-on-twitter), helping out with the #TTOT topics schedule and TTOT questions for the topic of the week.
From November 2020 to May 2025, a total of 54 months (4 years 6 months), it was a very fruitful and enriching #TTOT co-hosting journey with fellow co-hosts Melvin and Sonja, together with like-minded fellow travellers in the #TTOT community.
From Twitter to X – Changes, Challenges and Difficulties
While the travel community was thriving on Twitter, this social media platform took many different twist and turns, their journey started spiralling and diverging somewhere else, when it was sold away, rebranding to X as most of us know by its name today, yet we older tweeps still call it Twitter affectionally.
The change in Twitter ownership caused immense changes and drove many people off the platform and some of them away from social media. All those damages and demise weren’t just affecting the travel community on Twitter, other genres such as photographers, artists, creatives, writers, all slowly started to migrate away from X to other social media platforms.
#TTOT Travel Talk on Twitter community chat was also affected, over the years since the change in ownership, it just got so much more difficult to get the travellers and travel chats back on track, it also got very tiring with all those changes on X platform, and people are leaving/left, tweeps are also much less engaging as compared to previous years, maybe due to social media fatigue or disappointments with the Twitter platform.
On a personal note, there had been many times where I felt very tired and discouraged, the difficulties in getting people back to/interested in #TTOT chat, whether I was doing a good enough job as a co-host.
Eventually, it got to a point where we decided that it is inevitable that #TTOT has to make a decision to pause, plan for changes and potential strategic directions in the near future, due to the demise of the platform, loss of a travel community network that many of us painstakingly built up over the years.
That’s why #TTOT is going for a SLOW TRAVEL break, we are taking a break, reorganise and plan for the future, hopefully a revamped #TTOT or a new travel related community/chat in the near future.
I also need a break too, strategise/work on my photography business, content creation/social media marketing work, as well as my travel related segments, in this current difficult world economy, a world facing angsty, fighting, quarrelling and narcissistic people showing off on social media, just too much noise.
Thank you #TTOT Travel Talk on Twitter community!
Yes, #TTOT Travel Talk on Twitter is going for a SLOW TRAVEL break, we would keep you updated of new updates and developments down the road on #TTOT chat or #TTOT related, planning the Future of Travel!
I am grateful and thankful for the travel friendships and networks built from the #TTOT Travel Chat on Twitter community, the local travel knowledge sharing, travel tips, travel trends and updates, they are so invaluable.
Like Twitter in the early days, the golden era of social media networking, I hope we can take our online presence/chats to IRL (in real life). I would then get to meet fellow #TTOT travellers in real life, whether I am travelling to their country or #TTOT folks travelling to my home country Singapore.
Keep travelling and keep in touch! Thank you #TTOT Travel Talk on Twitter community of travellers with your passion, travel sharing and adventure spirit!