MANILA, Philippines – Whenever we have a friend who goes out of town, our social media feeds would get filled with daily posts and stories tagged as #travelgoals. From an obligatory photo of their boarding pass and touchdown announcement to a photo of a picturesque view from their “home for the next few days”.

And as if that’s not enough, that one friend would also send over more photos to designated group chats or if you really have a tight-knit friendship – would slide into your DMs.

Laugh reax if you’ve already received any of these following chats from a traveling friend:

#ootd before the actual #ootd

Before an #ootd (or outfit of the day for those who have been sleeping for the past decade) post makes it to your traveling friend’s Facebook or Instagram stories (or more importantly: their feeds) it first finds it way to your inbox. 

First, to get the approval of the outfit itself. Second, to identify which of the 23 photos they took is worthy of posting as an Instagram story and another one or two for a permanent spot on their Facebook or Instagram feeds.

Touristy photos that are vying for the next profile picture

Every day that your traveling friend is visiting famous tourist destinations is a search for their next profile picture. Is it too early to change on day one or is it too late to wait until day 5? Should they use the bikini photo or the one where they’ve successfully replicated a vlogger pose? That’s where you, the ever-reliable friend, come in.

You do not only help pick the most impactful photo that would rack up a minimum of 100 likes but you also need to help in identifying the optimum date and time of day to upload it. And needless to say, be the first person to react (love) AND comment once it’s up.  

Food photos that will never make it to Instagram

These are photos of your traveling friend’s food that they genuinely want to share with you because they found it delicious and would recommend that you try it yourself in the future. Sometimes it’s one of the delicacies you yourself have tried and loved while you were traveling in the same destination and just want you to drool. 

It is not a flat lay photo, the background could just be anything, sometimes it’s even blurry or lacks proper lighting and was probably taken using the Facebook Messenger camera. It won’t make it to Instagram but it’s good enough for a beloved friend like you.

Cute dog (or cat) photos

We have become the dog spotting generation. But since this famous Facebook group made dog spotting a sport with serious rules that come with too much pressure to be unique and witty to share a photo of a cute dog, now we’d rather send it straight to our friends who would really appreciate a photo of a pug in a sweater.

That’s also usually you. And to be honest, this is the only type of chat you’re looking forward to receiving from your traveling friend (Just kidding! You love your friend!

Potential memes that first need validation

You would get this chat every time your friend thought they just spotted a potential meme that could help them rise to viral fame. But they’re sending it to you first just to check if they would get a haha or a HAHAHHAHA.

If it’s the second, then the hilarious market sign or punny local store name makes it to Facebook or Twitter. Better yet, Facebook and Twitter. Now, you also need to deliver the same reaction to the post and help monitor if your friend is still in the running to become the next viral sensation (they’re not).

Luckily, we’re now past the medieval age of coming home to a sky-high phone bill for using data while out of the country. Your traveling friends can now use services like Smart’s Data Roaming Manager to make sure that their internet is all set up when you travel and that they avoid any shocking fees when they get back. It even comes with Roam Chat and other data roaming packages to make sure that all these chats make their way to you.

And when it’s your turn to go on a trip, don’t forget to equip yourself with reliable and affordable data services so you can then be the traveling friend that would do all these, too, because it’s payback time (and that’s what friends are for). – Rappler.com