Sure, you used return home from you travels bearing postcards, a few good snapshots, lots of bad ones, and a few yarns about your journey, and, maybe, a humorous anticdote about your firsthand experiences with culture shock.

The internet changed all that. Now you can sit in an internet café in the middle of nowhere and relate each day's events to those back home. Sites like blogger.com and wordpress.com are simple enough to use for this purpose. Facebook, YouTube, and Flickr offer simple ways to share your videos, photos, and experiences.

For serious travelers, though, online travel communities offer the best place to relate experiences and get advice without all the extras that come with online social networking. Perusing through the blogs of other travelers on sites like Bootsnall and Matador is a great way to get firsthand advice. I find that most experiences and advice related on these blogs is more accurate and helpful than elsewhere. There is an added element of social networking, possibly even finding some new travel companions.

Travel communities are also great for those itching to hit the road again. There are oodles of vicarious experiences to be had by simply reading others' travel yarns.