Essential forums to visit before you travel

Are you ready for adventure? Do you have questions about the country that you want to travel to?

Did you arrive at the holiday destination of your dreams but now you don't know what to do or where to go?

Do you want to share your personal travel experiences and awesome discoveries with other travellers?

These days there are many different travel forums and online communities to engage with. How do you know which to choose? Which online resource is most useful for you? Our Hiking New Zealand staff have put their heads together and chosen the 6 best travel forums based on how recent and how useful the information is.

1. TripAdvisor
TripAdvisor is a travel website where people review hotels, accommodation and locations. It has interactive travel forums, where real people give real opinions, which is better than just reading a review. There are more than 500,000 travellers who visit TripAdvisor every day... many of who might know the answer to your question!

2. Thorn Tree
Thorn Tree is a message board which is run by Lonely Planet. It currently has 1,050,000 members who share travel information, give advice and tips. The Thorn Tree travel forum has been designed by travellers, for travellers, and covers every place on the planet (even destinations that don’t have guide books).

3. Fodor's Travel
There are many advantages to joining the Fodor's community, most enjoyably, the chance to connect with travellers around the world who share your passion for travel. Membership is free and it is very quick to join. As a member, you can write reviews and share your travel questions and experiences.

4. Virtual Tourist
At Virtual Tourist you will get instant answers to your travel questions from around 1.3 million members. Most questions are answered within one hour and 90% of the questions in 24 hours. Virtual Tourist has advice on 63,000 destinations.

5. Gogobot
Gogobot offers an alternative to the traditional forum where you post a question to a message board and thousands of people might answer. When you post a question to Gogobot, it directs your query to people within your social networks who have mentioned that destination on their social network profiles and photo albums.

6. TravBuddy
If you want to find travel buddies, record travel experiences in a blog, or share travel tips and reviews, then use this forum. TravBuddy is a site for people who love to explore the world around them. Thousands of people have met in real life and travelled together as a result of using TravBuddy. No matter where you are exploring, this site will make it easy and fun for you to chronicle your experiences, both past and present. It can also be a resource for keeping in contact with family and friends, and for making new friends from all around the world.