"In 2024, How to Innovate  Transforming Raw Footage Into YouTube Thumbnails via Smartphones"

"In 2024, How to Innovate Transforming Raw Footage Into YouTube Thumbnails via Smartphones"

Joseph Lv13

How to Innovate: Transforming Raw Footage Into YouTube Thumbnails via Smartphones

As a content creator, you know the importance of a visually appealing thumbnail for YouTube videos. It gives your viewers a sneak peek of what they can expect from your video and helps it stand out in the crowded world of YouTube.

When creating your thumbnail, it’s important to remember that the recommended size is 1280 x 720 pixels and a minimum width of 640 pixels. With these dimensions in mind, let’s dive into how you can easily create stunning thumbnails for your YouTube videos using your mobile phone.

make thumbnails or youtube with mobile phones

Method 1. Make a YouTube Thumbnail on iPhone With the iPhone Photos App

One way to create a thumbnail for your YouTube video on your iPhone is to use the built-in Photos app. The Photos app comes pre-installed on all iPhones and offers a range of editing tools you can use to create a thumbnail.

The Photos app on your iPhone offers a range of features that you can use to create a custom thumbnail for your YouTube video. Here are some of the features you can use:

  • Crop: The crop tool allows you to resize and reposition your thumbnail image by trimming away any unnecessary parts of the image.
  • Rotate: The rotate tool lets you adjust the orientation of your thumbnail image. You can rotate the image clockwise or counterclockwise to achieve the desired angle.
  • Adjust lighting and color: The lighting and color tools allow you to adjust the brightness, contrast, saturation, and other aspects of the thumbnail image to enhance its overall appearance.
  • Add text: You can use the text tool to add words or phrases to your thumbnail image. This can be a great way to include a call-to-action or to highlight a key feature of your video.
  • Add filters and stickers: The Photos app includes a range of filters and stickers that you can use to give your thumbnail image a unique look. You can experiment with filters and stickers to find the perfect one for your thumbnail.

To create a thumbnail using the Photos app on your iPhone, follow these steps:

Step1 Open the Photos app and find the image you want to use as your thumbnail. Tap on the image to open it.

ios photo app

Step2 Tap the Edit button in the top right corner of the screen. Use the crop and rotate tools to adjust the perspective and the aspect ratio of 16:9.

ios photo edit

Step3 Tap the Filters button to access the filter effects. Scroll through the available filters and tap on one to apply it to your thumbnail image.

ios photo filter

Step4 To write or draw on the image, tap the Markup button. This will open a toolbar with a variety of drawing and text tools. Use these tools to add your personal touch to the thumbnail.

ios photo markup

Step5 When you’re satisfied with your thumbnail, tap Done in the top right corner of the screen.

ios photo save

Pros

  • Convenient
  • Easy to use
  • Versatile

Cons

  • Limited customization option
  • Lower image quality

This method is best for users looking for a quick and easy way to create a thumbnail on the go and doesn’t need many customization options. It’s also a good option for users needing computer or graphic design software access. If you’re looking for more advanced customization options or higher image quality, consider using other methods or software.

Method 2. Make YouTube Thumbnails on Android/iPhone With Third-Party Apps

In addition to using the built-in Photos app on your iPhone or Android device, there are also many third-party apps that you can use to create YouTube thumbnails. Some popular options include Canva, Adobe Spark, and FotoJet. These apps offer a wider range of customization options and design templates, making it easy to create professional-looking thumbnails even if you have yet to gain graphic design experience.

One popular third-party app for creating YouTube thumbnails on both iPhone and Android devices is PixelLab. PixelLab is a powerful graphic design app with many features and tools for creating custom thumbnails. With PixelLab, you can add text, shapes, and stickers to your thumbnail image and adjust the image’s color, lighting, and other aspects to get the perfect look. You can also import your images or graphics for your thumbnail design.

Here are the steps to create a thumbnail using PixelLab on your Android or iOS device:

Step1 Open the Play Store and search for PixelLab. Install the app.

pixellab install

Step2 Tap the “+” icon to add an image from your gallery.

pixellab add image

Step3 Edit the image using the available tools, such as cropping, rotating, and adjusting the color and lighting.

pixellab editing options

Step4 Add text to the image and customize it to your liking.

pixellab add text

Step5 Change the resolution of the image to 1280 x 720 pixels.

pixellab change resolution

Step6 Save the image to your gallery by exporting it.

pixellab export image

Pros

  • More customization options
  • Advanced editing tools
  • High image quality

Cons

  • Requires a separate app download
  • It may require a learning curve

This method is best for users looking for more advanced customization options and higher image quality for their YouTube thumbnails. It’s also a good option for users with experience with graphic design software and who are comfortable using advanced editing tools. If you’re looking for a quick and easy way to create a thumbnail and only need a few customization options, consider using the built-in Photos app or other simpler methods.

How To Add Thumbnails to YouTube Videos on Mobile

Once you’ve created your thumbnail image, it’s time to add it to your YouTube video. Adding a thumbnail to your YouTube video on your mobile device is a simple process that only requires a few steps.

Here’s how to do it on your mobile device:

Step1 Open the YouTube app on your mobile device and sign in to your account.

youtube install

Step2 Tap on the My Videos tab to view a list of your uploaded videos.

youtube select video

Step3 Tap on the video and tap the “Edit“ button in the top right corner of the screen.

youtube edit video

Step4 Tap the Custom thumbnail button and upload the image you want to use from your photo library.

youtube upload thumbnail

Step5 Tap Save in the top right corner to upload the thumbnail to your video.

youtube save thumbnail

That’s it! Your new thumbnail will now be displayed on your YouTube video, helping it stand out and attract more views. You can repeat this process for other videos if you want to add a custom thumbnail.

It May Interest You – Make YouTube Thumbnails on Windows/Mac

While it’s convenient to create YouTube thumbnails on your mobile device, there may be times when you need to create a thumbnail on your Windows or Mac computer.

For example, if you need to create a thumbnail with a higher resolution or more advanced customization options, you may find it easier to do so on a computer. Additionally, a computer may be more efficient if you’re working on a larger thumbnail project and need to create multiple thumbnails simultaneously.

One popular tool for creating YouTube thumbnails on a Windows or Mac computer is Filmora. Wondershare Filmora is a powerful video editing software that allows you to easily edit and enhance your YouTube videos and create custom thumbnails for your videos.

Free Download For Win 7 or later(64-bit)

Free Download For macOS 10.14 or later

With Filmora, you can add text, graphics, and special effects to your thumbnail image and import and edit multiple images. Filmora is a great tool for creating professional-looking YouTube thumbnails on your Windows or Mac computer.

To create a thumbnail using Filmora on your Windows or Mac computer, follow these steps:

Step1 Launch Filmora, add the picture to the timeline and select the AI Portrait option in the Effects panel to cut out the subject from the background.

filmora interface

Step2 Scale up and reposition the photo.

filmora import image

Step3 Add a new background to the track below the picture. Use the other editing tools in Filmora to customize the image as desired, such as adding text, graphics, and special effects.

filmora editing options

Step4 When you are done editing the thumbnail, take a snapshot by clicking the camera icon.

filmora take a snapshot

Step5 Locate the thumbnail in your local drive.

filmora export thumbnail

For more detailed instructions and a visual guide, you can watch the following video tutorial:

Add a video

This video will show you how to use Filmora to create a custom thumbnail for your YouTube video, step by step.

People Also Ask

Here are some common questions that people have when it comes to creating YouTube thumbnails on mobile.

Q1. What App Do Youtubers Use To Make Thumbnails?

There are many different apps and tools that YouTubers use to create thumbnails for their videos. The best app for creating YouTube thumbnails will depend on your needs and skill level.

If you’re looking for a quick and easy way to create a thumbnail on your mobile device, start with the built-in Photos app or a third-party app like Canva. If you need more advanced customization options or are comfortable with graphic design software, consider using Adobe Photoshop or another tool.

Q2. What Is YouTube Thumbnail Size?

The recommended size for YouTube thumbnails is 1280 x 720 pixels. This size balances quality and file size, ensuring that your thumbnail looks sharp and loads quickly. It’s also important to note that YouTube thumbnails are displayed at different sizes depending on the device and context in which they are viewed.

For example, a thumbnail may be displayed at a larger size when it’s shown as the main thumbnail for a video but smaller when it’s shown in a list of related videos.

Q3. What Thumbnail Gets the Most Clicks?

There is no one-size-fits-all answer to this question, as the thumbnail that gets the most clicks can vary depending on the topic of your video, your target audience, and other factors.

However, the key to getting clicks on your thumbnail is to make it visually appealing and relevant to your video. Experiment with different thumbnail designs and track which ones get the most clicks to help you identify what works best for your channel.

Conclusion

Many tools are available for creating YouTube thumbnails, including the built-in Photos app on mobile devices and third-party apps like Pixelab. One particularly powerful option is Filmora, a video editing software with features for creating custom thumbnails, such as adding text, graphics, and special effects.

Whether you create your thumbnails on your mobile device or your computer, use a high-quality image and make the thumbnail relevant to your video to increase the chances of it getting clicked.

This method is best for users looking for a quick and easy way to create a thumbnail on the go and doesn’t need many customization options. It’s also a good option for users needing computer or graphic design software access. If you’re looking for more advanced customization options or higher image quality, consider using other methods or software.

Method 2. Make YouTube Thumbnails on Android/iPhone With Third-Party Apps

In addition to using the built-in Photos app on your iPhone or Android device, there are also many third-party apps that you can use to create YouTube thumbnails. Some popular options include Canva, Adobe Spark, and FotoJet. These apps offer a wider range of customization options and design templates, making it easy to create professional-looking thumbnails even if you have yet to gain graphic design experience.

One popular third-party app for creating YouTube thumbnails on both iPhone and Android devices is PixelLab. PixelLab is a powerful graphic design app with many features and tools for creating custom thumbnails. With PixelLab, you can add text, shapes, and stickers to your thumbnail image and adjust the image’s color, lighting, and other aspects to get the perfect look. You can also import your images or graphics for your thumbnail design.

Here are the steps to create a thumbnail using PixelLab on your Android or iOS device:

Step1 Open the Play Store and search for PixelLab. Install the app.

pixellab install

Step2 Tap the “+” icon to add an image from your gallery.

pixellab add image

Step3 Edit the image using the available tools, such as cropping, rotating, and adjusting the color and lighting.

pixellab editing options

Step4 Add text to the image and customize it to your liking.

pixellab add text

Step5 Change the resolution of the image to 1280 x 720 pixels.

pixellab change resolution

Step6 Save the image to your gallery by exporting it.

pixellab export image

Pros

  • More customization options
  • Advanced editing tools
  • High image quality

Cons

  • Requires a separate app download
  • It may require a learning curve

This method is best for users looking for more advanced customization options and higher image quality for their YouTube thumbnails. It’s also a good option for users with experience with graphic design software and who are comfortable using advanced editing tools. If you’re looking for a quick and easy way to create a thumbnail and only need a few customization options, consider using the built-in Photos app or other simpler methods.

How To Add Thumbnails to YouTube Videos on Mobile

Once you’ve created your thumbnail image, it’s time to add it to your YouTube video. Adding a thumbnail to your YouTube video on your mobile device is a simple process that only requires a few steps.

Here’s how to do it on your mobile device:

Step1 Open the YouTube app on your mobile device and sign in to your account.

youtube install

Step2 Tap on the My Videos tab to view a list of your uploaded videos.

youtube select video

Step3 Tap on the video and tap the “Edit“ button in the top right corner of the screen.

youtube edit video

Step4 Tap the Custom thumbnail button and upload the image you want to use from your photo library.

youtube upload thumbnail

Step5 Tap Save in the top right corner to upload the thumbnail to your video.

youtube save thumbnail

That’s it! Your new thumbnail will now be displayed on your YouTube video, helping it stand out and attract more views. You can repeat this process for other videos if you want to add a custom thumbnail.

It May Interest You – Make YouTube Thumbnails on Windows/Mac

While it’s convenient to create YouTube thumbnails on your mobile device, there may be times when you need to create a thumbnail on your Windows or Mac computer.

For example, if you need to create a thumbnail with a higher resolution or more advanced customization options, you may find it easier to do so on a computer. Additionally, a computer may be more efficient if you’re working on a larger thumbnail project and need to create multiple thumbnails simultaneously.

One popular tool for creating YouTube thumbnails on a Windows or Mac computer is Filmora. Wondershare Filmora is a powerful video editing software that allows you to easily edit and enhance your YouTube videos and create custom thumbnails for your videos.

Free Download For Win 7 or later(64-bit)

Free Download For macOS 10.14 or later

With Filmora, you can add text, graphics, and special effects to your thumbnail image and import and edit multiple images. Filmora is a great tool for creating professional-looking YouTube thumbnails on your Windows or Mac computer.

To create a thumbnail using Filmora on your Windows or Mac computer, follow these steps:

Step1 Launch Filmora, add the picture to the timeline and select the AI Portrait option in the Effects panel to cut out the subject from the background.

filmora interface

Step2 Scale up and reposition the photo.

filmora import image

Step3 Add a new background to the track below the picture. Use the other editing tools in Filmora to customize the image as desired, such as adding text, graphics, and special effects.

filmora editing options

Step4 When you are done editing the thumbnail, take a snapshot by clicking the camera icon.

filmora take a snapshot

Step5 Locate the thumbnail in your local drive.

filmora export thumbnail

For more detailed instructions and a visual guide, you can watch the following video tutorial:

Add a video

This video will show you how to use Filmora to create a custom thumbnail for your YouTube video, step by step.

People Also Ask

Here are some common questions that people have when it comes to creating YouTube thumbnails on mobile.

Q1. What App Do Youtubers Use To Make Thumbnails?

There are many different apps and tools that YouTubers use to create thumbnails for their videos. The best app for creating YouTube thumbnails will depend on your needs and skill level.

If you’re looking for a quick and easy way to create a thumbnail on your mobile device, start with the built-in Photos app or a third-party app like Canva. If you need more advanced customization options or are comfortable with graphic design software, consider using Adobe Photoshop or another tool.

Q2. What Is YouTube Thumbnail Size?

The recommended size for YouTube thumbnails is 1280 x 720 pixels. This size balances quality and file size, ensuring that your thumbnail looks sharp and loads quickly. It’s also important to note that YouTube thumbnails are displayed at different sizes depending on the device and context in which they are viewed.

For example, a thumbnail may be displayed at a larger size when it’s shown as the main thumbnail for a video but smaller when it’s shown in a list of related videos.

Q3. What Thumbnail Gets the Most Clicks?

There is no one-size-fits-all answer to this question, as the thumbnail that gets the most clicks can vary depending on the topic of your video, your target audience, and other factors.

However, the key to getting clicks on your thumbnail is to make it visually appealing and relevant to your video. Experiment with different thumbnail designs and track which ones get the most clicks to help you identify what works best for your channel.

Conclusion

Many tools are available for creating YouTube thumbnails, including the built-in Photos app on mobile devices and third-party apps like Pixelab. One particularly powerful option is Filmora, a video editing software with features for creating custom thumbnails, such as adding text, graphics, and special effects.

Whether you create your thumbnails on your mobile device or your computer, use a high-quality image and make the thumbnail relevant to your video to increase the chances of it getting clicked.

Snapshots of Adventure: Mastering the Craft of Professional Travel Blogging

How To Become A Travel Vlogger | The Ultimate Guide of Travel Vlogging

Richard Bennett

Oct 26, 2023• Proven solutions

0

Want to become a travel vlogger?

Traveling around the world is one of life’s most exciting experiences – just ask anyone who has caught the travel bug. It is no wonder that travel videos are a big hit on YouTube. Any viewer can be instantly transported to another part of the world, all from the comfort of their seat.

With all the high-quality cameras and video editing software that are much more accessible to the general public now than even a few years ago, it has never been a better time to make a travel vlog.

Below, I have prepared a comprehensive guide on how to become a travel vlogger.

Table of Contents PART 1: TRAVEL VLOGGING EQUIPMENT 1.1 Travel Vlogging Cameras How To Choose A Travel Vlogging CameraCameras That Are Good For Travel VloggingLenses That Are Good For Travel Vlogging 1.2 Travel Vlogging Accessories Camera Accessories That Are Good For Travel VloggingSmartphone Accessories That Are Good For Travel VloggingCamera Mounted Shotgun Microphone For Travel VloggingOther Useful Travel Vlogging Accessories PART 2: TRAVEL VIDEO IDEAS PART 3: TRAVEL VIDEO EDITING Video Editing SoftwareTravel-Themed Video EffectsMusic LibrariesSound Effects PART 4: TRAVEL VLOGGING TIPS

Create Your Travel Vlog with Wondershare FilmoraX

Wondershare FilmoraX is a video editing application that offers a lot of editing features that can be used both by a beginner and professionals alike. You can easily cut, split and trim your video, and apply transitions, filters, and texts, etc. to your travel vlog. What’s more, its advanced color grading settings and audio keyframing will add a unique flavor to your travel vlog. Just get started and make your video go viral!

Download Filmora9 Win Version Download Filmora9 Mac Version

PART 1: TRAVEL VLOGGING EQUIPMENT

In order to make travel videos, you’re going to need camera equipment. Below, I’ve prepared a comprehensive list of cameras and accessories that would be good for travel vlogging.

Filmstock Stock Media Library ](https://filmstock.wondershare.com/creative-theme-tourism?spm=rs.filmora%5Fweb&source%5Fchannel=seo%5Farticle )

1.1 Travel Vlogging Cameras

How To Choose A Vlogging Camera

When it comes to travel vlogging, you should look for a camera that ideally has the following eleven qualities:

  1. It has a fully articulated screen (flip screen)
  2. It has good continual autofocus while recording video
  3. It has good focus priority through face recognition
  4. It has touched to focus
  5. It has good low-light performance
  6. It has an external mic jack and a hot/cold shoe bracket
  7. It has optical image stabilization
  8. It is lightweight and portable
  9. It has a good battery life
  10. It is durable and weather-sealed
  11. It has hyper-lapse/timelapse/slow-motion shooting modes

For more information on why a lot of these features are ideal to have in a vlogging camera, check out my post on the Top 15 Best Cameras for Vlogging 2020 .

Cameras That Are Good For Travel Vlogging

Considering my list on what to look for in a travel vlogging camera, I’ve prepared a table below of thirteen cameras I’d recommend for travel vlogging:

Camera Release Date Camera Type Flip Screen Mic Port Price
CanonEOSM50 Canon M50 February2018 Mirrorless Fully Articulated Yes $-
PanasonicLumixDC-GH5S Panasonic GH5S January2018 Mirrorless Fully Articulated Yes $$$
GoProHero6 Black GoPro Hero6 September2017 Action Camera No Yes $-
CanonEOSM100 Canon M100 August2017 Mirrorless Flip-Up No $
CanonEOS6D Mark II Canon 6D Mark II June2017 Mid-size SLR Fully Articulated Yes $$
CanonEOS RebelSL2 Canon SL2 June2017 Compact SLR Fully Articulated Yes $
CanonEOS RebelT7i Canon T7i February2017 Mid-size SLR Fully Articulated Yes $-
CanonEOSM6 Canon M6 February2017 Mirrorless Flip-Up Yes $
SonyCyber-Shot DSCRX 100 V Sony RX100 V October2016 Compact Flip-Up No $-
PanasonicLumix DMCG85 Panasonic G85 September2016 Mirrorless Fully Articulated Yes $-
PanasonicLumix DMCLX10 Panasonic LX10 September2016 Compact Flip-Up No $
CanonEOS80D Canon 80D February2016 Mid-size SLR Fully Articulated Yes $$
CanonPowerShotG7 X Mark II Canon G7X mark II February2016 Compact Flip-Up No $

Lenses That Are Good For Travel Vlogging

Every travel vlogger should have a wide-angle lens. Wide-angle lenses fit much more of a scene into your camera frame, making it ideal for capturing establishing shots. You’ll also need a wide-angle lens if you plan on holding your camera out in front of yourself with an extended arm to get selfie footage.

As a travel vlogger, you’ll also want to show some close-up shots of the various subjects in your scene. If you don’t mind walking up to these subjects, the lens I recommend for this is a standard lens.

If, however, you want to be able to shoot these close-up shots from a farther distance, you’ll need a telephoto lens.

But you probably don’t want to carry and switch so many lenses as you travel, right? A convenient solution is to get a zoom lens that covers a wide range of focal lengths. For example, travel vlogger Sam Kolder shoots with a Canon EF 24-105mm f/4 lens – that’s a wide-angle lens, standard lens, and telephoto lens all in one lens!

If most of your travel video shooting will be done handheld, you should also definitely look for a lens equipped with optical image stabilization.

Check out my Best Camera Lens for YouTube to gain a more in-depth understanding of lenses and how they work.

1.2 Travel Vlogging Accessories

Camera Accessories That Are Good For Travel Vlogging

Travel Tripod 1. Tripod Record stabilized shots and timelapse footage with a tripod.
GorillaPod SLR-Zoom 2. GorillaPod SLR-Zoom with Ballhead Wrap your camera around structures that your regular tripod can’t stay on. You can also hold out your camera further away from you using the GorillaPod as a selfie stick to fit in more of your background into your selfie shot.
Stabilizing Gimbal 3. Stabilizing Gimbal Get super-smooth shots with a stabilizing gimbal.
Travel LED Light 4. On-Camera LED Light Is there not enough light? Add an LED light to your camera’s hot/cold shoe.
ND Filters 5. Neutral Density (ND) Filters Is it too bright outside to have your aperture wide open but you still want to get that cinematic look ? You can add ND filters to your lenses so that you can do just that in very bright conditions.
Camera Cleaning Kit 6. Camera Cleaning Kit While traveling, you can get all kinds of unwanted substances on your lens and in your camera like dust, dirt, fingerprints, raindrops, snow, and sand, to name a few. If you bring along a portable camera cleaning kit with you on your travels, you can remove those things immediately so that your shots won’t be affected.
Drone 7. Drone When it comes to travel vlogging, wide shots that establish the scene and setting are important. Drones are great for taking these kinds of wide shots from high places that you would not be able to get to by foot.

Smartphone Accessories That Are Good For Travel Vlogging

Using your smartphone as a travel vlogging device is a great idea! Your smartphone is a light and portable piece of equipment that you likely have with you at all times. Upgrade your smartphone travel vlogging setup with any of these 9 Best Smartphone Camera Accessories For Vloggers:

  1. RAVPower Portable Charger
  2. Arkon Tripod Mount
  3. Mega Tiny Anti-Gravity Case
  4. FLII Selfie Ring Light
  5. Rode VideoMic Me
  6. Aukey Optic 3-in-1 Smartphone Lens Set
  7. iOgrapher Go for Android and iPhone
  8. Manfrotto TwistGrip System
  9. Zhiyun Smooth-Q 3-Axis Handheld Gimbal Stabilizer for Smartphones

Read more about each one of these items in my post The 9 Best Smartphone Camera Accessories For Vloggers .

Camera Mounted Shotgun Microphones for Travel Vlogging

RODE VideoMic Go Shure VP83 RODE VideoMic Pro+ Sennheiser MKE 440

These four shotgun microphones can mount directly onto your camera’s hot/cold shoe:

  1. Rode VideoMic Go
  2. Shure VP83
  3. Rode VideoMic Pro+
  4. Sennheiser MKE 440

Read more about each one of them in our post about The 19 Best YouTube Microphones 2020 – Options for Music, Voiceovers, Vlogging, and more!

Other Useful Travel Vlogging Accessories

  1. Camera backpack
  2. Extra batteries
  3. Memory cards
  4. External hard drive
  5. Power plugs and cables
  6. USB card reader
  7. Universal plug
  8. D-ring clips (to prevent your equipment from slipping out of your grasp)
  9. Smartphone SD card tray key (if you’re storing your recorded footage in your SD card)

PART 2: TRAVEL VLOGGING IDEAS

If you’re needing some travel video ideas either to get you started or to bring some fresh content into your channel, here are ten travel video ideas that you can try.

1. Travel Vlog

Travel vlogging, the kind where you film yourself just going about your day in a different part of the world, is a great way to not only document your travel moments and memories for yourself, but also a great way to share your experience with others.

Rather than being too picky with your video shots and possibly ending up with a lack of footage to work with, shoot as much as you can.

Try to capture your thoughts and feelings around the things you taste, smell, see and hear. Sharing these details can help your viewers feel more like they’re with you on your travels.

2. Tips or Tricks for Traveling

Although learning from mistakes during your travels can be a rewarding experience, most people want to avoid them and, rather, enjoy their trip as much as they possibly can. After all, travel, for most people, happens in intervals that seem too short. You can help this sizable group by offering travel tips and tricks.

Prepare a list of tips and tricks, a shot list of all the footage you’ll need to go along with those tips, and then capture all your footage. As you go through your list, you can then cut away to your associated travel shots.

3. Video Tour of a Location

Many people are curious about different parts of the world and would love to join a tour without the high cost of flights, hotels, meals, and admission tickets. Give them that experience by making a video tour.

4. Review An Attraction or Experience

A lot of travelers having a limited amount of time and money to enjoy their chosen travel destinations want to know which attractions and experiences to prioritize and which ones to skip. Help them make their decision by making a video review.

5. Timelapse Videos

All you need in addition to your camera is a tripod to get started with making timelapse videos. Your tripod stabilizes your shot as your camera captures all the changes that take place in a given location.

When your footage is sped up, your viewers can appreciate all the changes that take place that they may not have had the patience to sit through in real-time. It’s also interesting to observe the passage of time in a different way.

6. Average Daily Cost

Before going on a trip, many people try to make a budget and figure out how much money to exchange into foreign currency. Making a good budget and getting just enough foreign cash, though, requires you to know how much, on average, things cost.

Make a helpful video on the average cost of daily expenses including meals and transportation like Paolo did in the above video “Average Daily Cost in Tokyo Japan | Is it Expensive?.” His video actually helped me a lot when I was trying to come up with a budget for my recent trip to Japan.

7. Interview Locals

People don’t travel only to see popular attractions. A lot of people travel to connect with and understand people from different parts of the world.

Interviewing locals and sharing their thoughts can help to provide that kind of connection.

8. What’s in My Backpack?

Packing for a trip can say a lot about who you are as a person because it involves prioritizing items based on your personal values.

For your next trip, share a little part of yourself with your audience through a video about the things you’ve packed in your bag.

9. Talk About Your Own Home City

When you’ve lived in your own home city for so long, you might forget that people all over the world may marvel at the things you take for granted because all those things just happen to be at your doorstep.

Take advantage of the expert that you already are in your own home city and make an informative video for others who are taking a trip there.

10. How To Become a Travel Vlogger

After you’ve done a lot of travel vlogging and learned so much along the way, you can make a video about how to be a travel vlogger.

In the above video, Andrew Santos teaches how to make a travel video, all while hilariously poking fun at many of the cliché trends in the travel genre.

PART 3: TRAVEL VIDEO EDITING

Video Editing Software

When it comes to editing your travel video together, there are different kinds of software you can do that with.

FREE VIDEO EDITING SOFTWARE PAID VIDEO EDITING SOFTWARE
OpenShot Video Editor (Windows, Mac, Linux) ShotCut (Windows, Mac, Linux) Hitfilm Express (Windows, Mac) VideoPad Video Editor (Windows) Lightworks (Windows, Mac, Linux) VSDC Video Editor (Windows) Machete Video Editor Lite (Windows) Avidemux (Windows, Mac, Linux, BSD) Read more about each software in our post about The Best Free Video Editing Software for YouTube – Top 8 Reviews . Wondershare Filmora X (Windows, Mac) - start at $49.99 for one year license and Free trial Final Cut Pro (Mac) - $299.99, Free trial Vegas Movie Studio (Windows) - $49.99

Travel-Themed Video Effects

If you use Filmora Video Editor, you can also take advantage of a variety of travel-themed video effects packs, like the one shown in the above video, filled with titles, transitions, filters, overlays, and other visual elements.

For my recent trip to Japan, I actually used Filmora Effects’ Japanese set.

At the 2:10 mark of the above video, I used an overlay of falling cherry blossom leaves. At the 3:03 mark of the same video, I used an anime-themed overlay.

At the 2:48 mark of the above video, I used a shoji door transition.

Music Libraries

Music is an important component of a lot of travel videos. Here’s where you can get them:

ROYALTY-FREE MUSIC LIBRARIES PAID MUSIC LIBRARIES PAID SUBSCRIPTION MUSIC LIBRARIES
Audionautix Bensound dig.ccMixter Free Music Archive Free Stock Music Incompetech Josh Woodward Moby Gratis Musopen Purple Planet Music TeknoAXE YouTube Audio Library Premium Beat Audio Jungle Audio Network Audio Blocks Epidemic Sound

Sound Effects

Free Sound Effect Sites

  1. Filmora Sound Effects
  2. Freesound
  3. PacDV
  4. Sound Bible
  5. Sound Gator
  6. Sounds Crate
  7. Zapsplat

PART 4: TRAVEL VLOGGING TIPS

Vlog/Life Balance

  • Give yourself more time at each location if you want to have a good balance between getting the shots you need and enjoying your present moment.

Theft Prevention

  • Carry a backpack that doesn’t have zippers on the outside that thieves can easily get to.
  • If you’re shooting with a flashy smartphone, make it look less appealing to thieves with a grotesque smartphone case, like an Otterbox.
  • In locations with high crime, pre-plan the shots you want to capture and take your SLR camera out of your bag only to take those shots. Otherwise, keep your SLR camera concealed.
  • Never leave your equipment unattended in a visible area, not even in a locked car.

Pre-Production and Planning

  • Before shooting, make a shot list of all the footage you need.
  • Have all your filming equipment that needs to be calibrated all calibrated and ready to use.

Onscreen Performance

  • Look into your lens, not the projected image of yourself on your camera’s flip screen.
  • Show a lot of energy as you film yourself.
  • If you’re nervous about talking to the camera in public, keep your talking head clips short and gradually build your way up to longer clips. You can break up longer sentences by saying a few words from one scene, saying a few more in another, and finishing off your last words, again, in another scene. Later, in editing, you can stitch all of those clips together to make one fluid sentence.
  • If you’re nervous about talking to the camera in public, you can capture your talking headshots later when you find a more secluded space.

Audio Recording

  • Silence everything you don’t want your mic to record.
  • Put your mobile phone in airplane mode.
  • Block wind from reaching your mic with windscreens and dead cats.
  • Upgrade your mic.
  • Adjust your levels.
  • Get close to the sound you are wanting to record.

Check out 10 Recording Tips to Get The Best Sound From Your Microphone for more audio recording tips.

Filming

  • To avoid crowds, wake up early and grab your footage early while everyone else is still sleeping or getting ready.
  • Capture wide shots, medium shots, and close-up shots for better coverage.
  • Use the Sun Seeker app to set up your sunrise/sunset shots better.
  • If your camera can record 4K footage, record in 4K all the scenes that you want to zoom in closer later in editing without losing quality (your video project in editing has to be at 1920p x 1080p for this to work).

Stabilization

  • If you’re trying to get shots with movement by walking, rather than walking as you normally would walk with your knees bent for steadier shots.
  • If you’re shooting something in front of your handheld, lean your arm against your own body for steadier shots.
  • Use a stabilizing gimbal with your camera.

Timelapse/Hyperlapse

  • Select scenes where you can see a lot of change over time (not a still building in front of a cloudless smoggy sky).
  • Set longer intervals for scenes that change very slowly over time.
  • Pre-set your focus. Turn autofocus off.
  • Shoot time-lapses/hyper-lapses in manual mode to prevent the flickering that occurs with changing light conditions in automatic settings.
  • If your camera is set on a tripod in a fixed position, turn your optical image stabilization off.
  • If you aren’t holding onto your camera as it’s in the middle of making a timelapse video, at least keep your camera and tripod attached by some kind of leash mechanism.
  • For moving time-lapses or hyper-lapses, try to keep one point of reference in the same position within your camera frame.

Slow Motion

  • Shoot slow-motion videos when there is plenty of light.
  • For actions that are as slow as walking, slowing down your footage to 50% of the original speed looks good enough. If your video editing project is in 30 fps, shooting your video in 60 fps will give you a 50% slow-motion video. If your video editing project is in 60 fps, shooting your video in 120 fps will give you a 50% slow-motion video. Any slower is overkill for slowing down the speed of walking.
  • For actions that are as fast as water splashing, slowing down your footage as little as 15% of the original speed can look good. For a video editing project in 30 fps, you would need a camera that can shoot at up to 240 fps to slow your footage down this much.

Storage and Back-Up

  • If you’re using a phone that can store images and videos on a separate SD card, take advantage of that and record your travel footage onto your SD card. Later, you can easily get to your travel media as it will all be in one place.
  • If you have your laptop on you, regularly transfer your media files from your cameras to your external hard drives.
  • If you don’t want to bring your laptop on your trip and plan to video edit once you’re back home, use a USB memory card reader that connects with an app on your phone to transfer your files into your external hard drive.
  • If you have access to a reliable internet connection and you leave your laptop at your place of accommodation, have your computer upload your files onto cloud storage while you are out to travel vlogging.
  • Take advantage of Google Photos’ free, unlimited cloud storage for video files up to 1080p.

Video Editing

  • If you’re editing a video project with videos from multiple different cameras, make sure to set the correct time and date on all of them before you start filming. Later, in editing, you can import all your image and video files and sort them in the exact order that they were taken.
  • If your video editing software can work with proxies, transcode all your video files into proxy files for much faster editing.

Posting On YouTube

  • Choose a title that people will search for. Keep your target keywords at the beginning of your title. “S01E01: My Summer Backpacking Trip” is not an effective title. Instead, a title like “Going Up The Eiffel Tower… Beautiful View of Paris!” would be better.

Ready to Become a Travel Vlogger?

Here in this article, I shared travel vlogging cameras &accessories, travel video ideas& resources, and travel vlogging tips. Did you get more hints to become a travel vlogger? Stay tuned and start your own travel vlog! Leave your comments below if you have any suggestions about this travel vlogger guide.

This past year has been a challenge, so if you want to make a #travelanywhere video without traveling, you can try Wondershare Filmora X video editor.

Download Filmora X Win Version Download Filmora X Mac Version

author avatar

Richard Bennett

Richard Bennett is a writer and a lover of all things video.

Follow @Richard Bennett

Richard Bennett

Oct 26, 2023• Proven solutions

0

Want to become a travel vlogger?

Traveling around the world is one of life’s most exciting experiences – just ask anyone who has caught the travel bug. It is no wonder that travel videos are a big hit on YouTube. Any viewer can be instantly transported to another part of the world, all from the comfort of their seat.

With all the high-quality cameras and video editing software that are much more accessible to the general public now than even a few years ago, it has never been a better time to make a travel vlog.

Below, I have prepared a comprehensive guide on how to become a travel vlogger.

Table of Contents PART 1: TRAVEL VLOGGING EQUIPMENT 1.1 Travel Vlogging Cameras How To Choose A Travel Vlogging CameraCameras That Are Good For Travel VloggingLenses That Are Good For Travel Vlogging 1.2 Travel Vlogging Accessories Camera Accessories That Are Good For Travel VloggingSmartphone Accessories That Are Good For Travel VloggingCamera Mounted Shotgun Microphone For Travel VloggingOther Useful Travel Vlogging Accessories PART 2: TRAVEL VIDEO IDEAS PART 3: TRAVEL VIDEO EDITING Video Editing SoftwareTravel-Themed Video EffectsMusic LibrariesSound Effects PART 4: TRAVEL VLOGGING TIPS

Create Your Travel Vlog with Wondershare FilmoraX

Wondershare FilmoraX is a video editing application that offers a lot of editing features that can be used both by a beginner and professionals alike. You can easily cut, split and trim your video, and apply transitions, filters, and texts, etc. to your travel vlog. What’s more, its advanced color grading settings and audio keyframing will add a unique flavor to your travel vlog. Just get started and make your video go viral!

Download Filmora9 Win Version Download Filmora9 Mac Version

PART 1: TRAVEL VLOGGING EQUIPMENT

In order to make travel videos, you’re going to need camera equipment. Below, I’ve prepared a comprehensive list of cameras and accessories that would be good for travel vlogging.

Filmstock Stock Media Library ](https://filmstock.wondershare.com/creative-theme-tourism?spm=rs.filmora%5Fweb&source%5Fchannel=seo%5Farticle )

1.1 Travel Vlogging Cameras

How To Choose A Vlogging Camera

When it comes to travel vlogging, you should look for a camera that ideally has the following eleven qualities:

  1. It has a fully articulated screen (flip screen)
  2. It has good continual autofocus while recording video
  3. It has good focus priority through face recognition
  4. It has touched to focus
  5. It has good low-light performance
  6. It has an external mic jack and a hot/cold shoe bracket
  7. It has optical image stabilization
  8. It is lightweight and portable
  9. It has a good battery life
  10. It is durable and weather-sealed
  11. It has hyper-lapse/timelapse/slow-motion shooting modes

For more information on why a lot of these features are ideal to have in a vlogging camera, check out my post on the Top 15 Best Cameras for Vlogging 2020 .

Cameras That Are Good For Travel Vlogging

Considering my list on what to look for in a travel vlogging camera, I’ve prepared a table below of thirteen cameras I’d recommend for travel vlogging:

Camera Release Date Camera Type Flip Screen Mic Port Price
CanonEOSM50 Canon M50 February2018 Mirrorless Fully Articulated Yes $-
PanasonicLumixDC-GH5S Panasonic GH5S January2018 Mirrorless Fully Articulated Yes $$$
GoProHero6 Black GoPro Hero6 September2017 Action Camera No Yes $-
CanonEOSM100 Canon M100 August2017 Mirrorless Flip-Up No $
CanonEOS6D Mark II Canon 6D Mark II June2017 Mid-size SLR Fully Articulated Yes $$
CanonEOS RebelSL2 Canon SL2 June2017 Compact SLR Fully Articulated Yes $
CanonEOS RebelT7i Canon T7i February2017 Mid-size SLR Fully Articulated Yes $-
CanonEOSM6 Canon M6 February2017 Mirrorless Flip-Up Yes $
SonyCyber-Shot DSCRX 100 V Sony RX100 V October2016 Compact Flip-Up No $-
PanasonicLumix DMCG85 Panasonic G85 September2016 Mirrorless Fully Articulated Yes $-
PanasonicLumix DMCLX10 Panasonic LX10 September2016 Compact Flip-Up No $
CanonEOS80D Canon 80D February2016 Mid-size SLR Fully Articulated Yes $$
CanonPowerShotG7 X Mark II Canon G7X mark II February2016 Compact Flip-Up No $

Lenses That Are Good For Travel Vlogging

Every travel vlogger should have a wide-angle lens. Wide-angle lenses fit much more of a scene into your camera frame, making it ideal for capturing establishing shots. You’ll also need a wide-angle lens if you plan on holding your camera out in front of yourself with an extended arm to get selfie footage.

As a travel vlogger, you’ll also want to show some close-up shots of the various subjects in your scene. If you don’t mind walking up to these subjects, the lens I recommend for this is a standard lens.

If, however, you want to be able to shoot these close-up shots from a farther distance, you’ll need a telephoto lens.

But you probably don’t want to carry and switch so many lenses as you travel, right? A convenient solution is to get a zoom lens that covers a wide range of focal lengths. For example, travel vlogger Sam Kolder shoots with a Canon EF 24-105mm f/4 lens – that’s a wide-angle lens, standard lens, and telephoto lens all in one lens!

If most of your travel video shooting will be done handheld, you should also definitely look for a lens equipped with optical image stabilization.

Check out my Best Camera Lens for YouTube to gain a more in-depth understanding of lenses and how they work.

1.2 Travel Vlogging Accessories

Camera Accessories That Are Good For Travel Vlogging

Travel Tripod 1. Tripod Record stabilized shots and timelapse footage with a tripod.
GorillaPod SLR-Zoom 2. GorillaPod SLR-Zoom with Ballhead Wrap your camera around structures that your regular tripod can’t stay on. You can also hold out your camera further away from you using the GorillaPod as a selfie stick to fit in more of your background into your selfie shot.
Stabilizing Gimbal 3. Stabilizing Gimbal Get super-smooth shots with a stabilizing gimbal.
Travel LED Light 4. On-Camera LED Light Is there not enough light? Add an LED light to your camera’s hot/cold shoe.
ND Filters 5. Neutral Density (ND) Filters Is it too bright outside to have your aperture wide open but you still want to get that cinematic look ? You can add ND filters to your lenses so that you can do just that in very bright conditions.
Camera Cleaning Kit 6. Camera Cleaning Kit While traveling, you can get all kinds of unwanted substances on your lens and in your camera like dust, dirt, fingerprints, raindrops, snow, and sand, to name a few. If you bring along a portable camera cleaning kit with you on your travels, you can remove those things immediately so that your shots won’t be affected.
Drone 7. Drone When it comes to travel vlogging, wide shots that establish the scene and setting are important. Drones are great for taking these kinds of wide shots from high places that you would not be able to get to by foot.

Smartphone Accessories That Are Good For Travel Vlogging

Using your smartphone as a travel vlogging device is a great idea! Your smartphone is a light and portable piece of equipment that you likely have with you at all times. Upgrade your smartphone travel vlogging setup with any of these 9 Best Smartphone Camera Accessories For Vloggers:

  1. RAVPower Portable Charger
  2. Arkon Tripod Mount
  3. Mega Tiny Anti-Gravity Case
  4. FLII Selfie Ring Light
  5. Rode VideoMic Me
  6. Aukey Optic 3-in-1 Smartphone Lens Set
  7. iOgrapher Go for Android and iPhone
  8. Manfrotto TwistGrip System
  9. Zhiyun Smooth-Q 3-Axis Handheld Gimbal Stabilizer for Smartphones

Read more about each one of these items in my post The 9 Best Smartphone Camera Accessories For Vloggers .

Camera Mounted Shotgun Microphones for Travel Vlogging

RODE VideoMic Go Shure VP83 RODE VideoMic Pro+ Sennheiser MKE 440

These four shotgun microphones can mount directly onto your camera’s hot/cold shoe:

  1. Rode VideoMic Go
  2. Shure VP83
  3. Rode VideoMic Pro+
  4. Sennheiser MKE 440

Read more about each one of them in our post about The 19 Best YouTube Microphones 2020 – Options for Music, Voiceovers, Vlogging, and more!

Other Useful Travel Vlogging Accessories

  1. Camera backpack
  2. Extra batteries
  3. Memory cards
  4. External hard drive
  5. Power plugs and cables
  6. USB card reader
  7. Universal plug
  8. D-ring clips (to prevent your equipment from slipping out of your grasp)
  9. Smartphone SD card tray key (if you’re storing your recorded footage in your SD card)

PART 2: TRAVEL VLOGGING IDEAS

If you’re needing some travel video ideas either to get you started or to bring some fresh content into your channel, here are ten travel video ideas that you can try.

1. Travel Vlog

Travel vlogging, the kind where you film yourself just going about your day in a different part of the world, is a great way to not only document your travel moments and memories for yourself, but also a great way to share your experience with others.

Rather than being too picky with your video shots and possibly ending up with a lack of footage to work with, shoot as much as you can.

Try to capture your thoughts and feelings around the things you taste, smell, see and hear. Sharing these details can help your viewers feel more like they’re with you on your travels.

2. Tips or Tricks for Traveling

Although learning from mistakes during your travels can be a rewarding experience, most people want to avoid them and, rather, enjoy their trip as much as they possibly can. After all, travel, for most people, happens in intervals that seem too short. You can help this sizable group by offering travel tips and tricks.

Prepare a list of tips and tricks, a shot list of all the footage you’ll need to go along with those tips, and then capture all your footage. As you go through your list, you can then cut away to your associated travel shots.

3. Video Tour of a Location

Many people are curious about different parts of the world and would love to join a tour without the high cost of flights, hotels, meals, and admission tickets. Give them that experience by making a video tour.

4. Review An Attraction or Experience

A lot of travelers having a limited amount of time and money to enjoy their chosen travel destinations want to know which attractions and experiences to prioritize and which ones to skip. Help them make their decision by making a video review.

5. Timelapse Videos

All you need in addition to your camera is a tripod to get started with making timelapse videos. Your tripod stabilizes your shot as your camera captures all the changes that take place in a given location.

When your footage is sped up, your viewers can appreciate all the changes that take place that they may not have had the patience to sit through in real-time. It’s also interesting to observe the passage of time in a different way.

6. Average Daily Cost

Before going on a trip, many people try to make a budget and figure out how much money to exchange into foreign currency. Making a good budget and getting just enough foreign cash, though, requires you to know how much, on average, things cost.

Make a helpful video on the average cost of daily expenses including meals and transportation like Paolo did in the above video “Average Daily Cost in Tokyo Japan | Is it Expensive?.” His video actually helped me a lot when I was trying to come up with a budget for my recent trip to Japan.

7. Interview Locals

People don’t travel only to see popular attractions. A lot of people travel to connect with and understand people from different parts of the world.

Interviewing locals and sharing their thoughts can help to provide that kind of connection.

8. What’s in My Backpack?

Packing for a trip can say a lot about who you are as a person because it involves prioritizing items based on your personal values.

For your next trip, share a little part of yourself with your audience through a video about the things you’ve packed in your bag.

9. Talk About Your Own Home City

When you’ve lived in your own home city for so long, you might forget that people all over the world may marvel at the things you take for granted because all those things just happen to be at your doorstep.

Take advantage of the expert that you already are in your own home city and make an informative video for others who are taking a trip there.

10. How To Become a Travel Vlogger

After you’ve done a lot of travel vlogging and learned so much along the way, you can make a video about how to be a travel vlogger.

In the above video, Andrew Santos teaches how to make a travel video, all while hilariously poking fun at many of the cliché trends in the travel genre.

PART 3: TRAVEL VIDEO EDITING

Video Editing Software

When it comes to editing your travel video together, there are different kinds of software you can do that with.

FREE VIDEO EDITING SOFTWARE PAID VIDEO EDITING SOFTWARE
OpenShot Video Editor (Windows, Mac, Linux) ShotCut (Windows, Mac, Linux) Hitfilm Express (Windows, Mac) VideoPad Video Editor (Windows) Lightworks (Windows, Mac, Linux) VSDC Video Editor (Windows) Machete Video Editor Lite (Windows) Avidemux (Windows, Mac, Linux, BSD) Read more about each software in our post about The Best Free Video Editing Software for YouTube – Top 8 Reviews . Wondershare Filmora X (Windows, Mac) - start at $49.99 for one year license and Free trial Final Cut Pro (Mac) - $299.99, Free trial Vegas Movie Studio (Windows) - $49.99

Travel-Themed Video Effects

If you use Filmora Video Editor, you can also take advantage of a variety of travel-themed video effects packs, like the one shown in the above video, filled with titles, transitions, filters, overlays, and other visual elements.

For my recent trip to Japan, I actually used Filmora Effects’ Japanese set.

At the 2:10 mark of the above video, I used an overlay of falling cherry blossom leaves. At the 3:03 mark of the same video, I used an anime-themed overlay.

At the 2:48 mark of the above video, I used a shoji door transition.

Music Libraries

Music is an important component of a lot of travel videos. Here’s where you can get them:

ROYALTY-FREE MUSIC LIBRARIES PAID MUSIC LIBRARIES PAID SUBSCRIPTION MUSIC LIBRARIES
Audionautix Bensound dig.ccMixter Free Music Archive Free Stock Music Incompetech Josh Woodward Moby Gratis Musopen Purple Planet Music TeknoAXE YouTube Audio Library Premium Beat Audio Jungle Audio Network Audio Blocks Epidemic Sound

Sound Effects

Free Sound Effect Sites

  1. Filmora Sound Effects
  2. Freesound
  3. PacDV
  4. Sound Bible
  5. Sound Gator
  6. Sounds Crate
  7. Zapsplat

PART 4: TRAVEL VLOGGING TIPS

Vlog/Life Balance

  • Give yourself more time at each location if you want to have a good balance between getting the shots you need and enjoying your present moment.

Theft Prevention

  • Carry a backpack that doesn’t have zippers on the outside that thieves can easily get to.
  • If you’re shooting with a flashy smartphone, make it look less appealing to thieves with a grotesque smartphone case, like an Otterbox.
  • In locations with high crime, pre-plan the shots you want to capture and take your SLR camera out of your bag only to take those shots. Otherwise, keep your SLR camera concealed.
  • Never leave your equipment unattended in a visible area, not even in a locked car.

Pre-Production and Planning

  • Before shooting, make a shot list of all the footage you need.
  • Have all your filming equipment that needs to be calibrated all calibrated and ready to use.

Onscreen Performance

  • Look into your lens, not the projected image of yourself on your camera’s flip screen.
  • Show a lot of energy as you film yourself.
  • If you’re nervous about talking to the camera in public, keep your talking head clips short and gradually build your way up to longer clips. You can break up longer sentences by saying a few words from one scene, saying a few more in another, and finishing off your last words, again, in another scene. Later, in editing, you can stitch all of those clips together to make one fluid sentence.
  • If you’re nervous about talking to the camera in public, you can capture your talking headshots later when you find a more secluded space.

Audio Recording

  • Silence everything you don’t want your mic to record.
  • Put your mobile phone in airplane mode.
  • Block wind from reaching your mic with windscreens and dead cats.
  • Upgrade your mic.
  • Adjust your levels.
  • Get close to the sound you are wanting to record.

Check out 10 Recording Tips to Get The Best Sound From Your Microphone for more audio recording tips.

Filming

  • To avoid crowds, wake up early and grab your footage early while everyone else is still sleeping or getting ready.
  • Capture wide shots, medium shots, and close-up shots for better coverage.
  • Use the Sun Seeker app to set up your sunrise/sunset shots better.
  • If your camera can record 4K footage, record in 4K all the scenes that you want to zoom in closer later in editing without losing quality (your video project in editing has to be at 1920p x 1080p for this to work).

Stabilization

  • If you’re trying to get shots with movement by walking, rather than walking as you normally would walk with your knees bent for steadier shots.
  • If you’re shooting something in front of your handheld, lean your arm against your own body for steadier shots.
  • Use a stabilizing gimbal with your camera.

Timelapse/Hyperlapse

  • Select scenes where you can see a lot of change over time (not a still building in front of a cloudless smoggy sky).
  • Set longer intervals for scenes that change very slowly over time.
  • Pre-set your focus. Turn autofocus off.
  • Shoot time-lapses/hyper-lapses in manual mode to prevent the flickering that occurs with changing light conditions in automatic settings.
  • If your camera is set on a tripod in a fixed position, turn your optical image stabilization off.
  • If you aren’t holding onto your camera as it’s in the middle of making a timelapse video, at least keep your camera and tripod attached by some kind of leash mechanism.
  • For moving time-lapses or hyper-lapses, try to keep one point of reference in the same position within your camera frame.

Slow Motion

  • Shoot slow-motion videos when there is plenty of light.
  • For actions that are as slow as walking, slowing down your footage to 50% of the original speed looks good enough. If your video editing project is in 30 fps, shooting your video in 60 fps will give you a 50% slow-motion video. If your video editing project is in 60 fps, shooting your video in 120 fps will give you a 50% slow-motion video. Any slower is overkill for slowing down the speed of walking.
  • For actions that are as fast as water splashing, slowing down your footage as little as 15% of the original speed can look good. For a video editing project in 30 fps, you would need a camera that can shoot at up to 240 fps to slow your footage down this much.

Storage and Back-Up

  • If you’re using a phone that can store images and videos on a separate SD card, take advantage of that and record your travel footage onto your SD card. Later, you can easily get to your travel media as it will all be in one place.
  • If you have your laptop on you, regularly transfer your media files from your cameras to your external hard drives.
  • If you don’t want to bring your laptop on your trip and plan to video edit once you’re back home, use a USB memory card reader that connects with an app on your phone to transfer your files into your external hard drive.
  • If you have access to a reliable internet connection and you leave your laptop at your place of accommodation, have your computer upload your files onto cloud storage while you are out to travel vlogging.
  • Take advantage of Google Photos’ free, unlimited cloud storage for video files up to 1080p.

Video Editing

  • If you’re editing a video project with videos from multiple different cameras, make sure to set the correct time and date on all of them before you start filming. Later, in editing, you can import all your image and video files and sort them in the exact order that they were taken.
  • If your video editing software can work with proxies, transcode all your video files into proxy files for much faster editing.

Posting On YouTube

  • Choose a title that people will search for. Keep your target keywords at the beginning of your title. “S01E01: My Summer Backpacking Trip” is not an effective title. Instead, a title like “Going Up The Eiffel Tower… Beautiful View of Paris!” would be better.

Ready to Become a Travel Vlogger?

Here in this article, I shared travel vlogging cameras &accessories, travel video ideas& resources, and travel vlogging tips. Did you get more hints to become a travel vlogger? Stay tuned and start your own travel vlog! Leave your comments below if you have any suggestions about this travel vlogger guide.

This past year has been a challenge, so if you want to make a #travelanywhere video without traveling, you can try Wondershare Filmora X video editor.

Download Filmora X Win Version Download Filmora X Mac Version

author avatar

Richard Bennett

Richard Bennett is a writer and a lover of all things video.

Follow @Richard Bennett

Richard Bennett

Oct 26, 2023• Proven solutions

0

Want to become a travel vlogger?

Traveling around the world is one of life’s most exciting experiences – just ask anyone who has caught the travel bug. It is no wonder that travel videos are a big hit on YouTube. Any viewer can be instantly transported to another part of the world, all from the comfort of their seat.

With all the high-quality cameras and video editing software that are much more accessible to the general public now than even a few years ago, it has never been a better time to make a travel vlog.

Below, I have prepared a comprehensive guide on how to become a travel vlogger.

Table of Contents PART 1: TRAVEL VLOGGING EQUIPMENT 1.1 Travel Vlogging Cameras How To Choose A Travel Vlogging CameraCameras That Are Good For Travel VloggingLenses That Are Good For Travel Vlogging 1.2 Travel Vlogging Accessories Camera Accessories That Are Good For Travel VloggingSmartphone Accessories That Are Good For Travel VloggingCamera Mounted Shotgun Microphone For Travel VloggingOther Useful Travel Vlogging Accessories PART 2: TRAVEL VIDEO IDEAS PART 3: TRAVEL VIDEO EDITING Video Editing SoftwareTravel-Themed Video EffectsMusic LibrariesSound Effects PART 4: TRAVEL VLOGGING TIPS

Create Your Travel Vlog with Wondershare FilmoraX

Wondershare FilmoraX is a video editing application that offers a lot of editing features that can be used both by a beginner and professionals alike. You can easily cut, split and trim your video, and apply transitions, filters, and texts, etc. to your travel vlog. What’s more, its advanced color grading settings and audio keyframing will add a unique flavor to your travel vlog. Just get started and make your video go viral!

Download Filmora9 Win Version Download Filmora9 Mac Version

PART 1: TRAVEL VLOGGING EQUIPMENT

In order to make travel videos, you’re going to need camera equipment. Below, I’ve prepared a comprehensive list of cameras and accessories that would be good for travel vlogging.

Filmstock Stock Media Library ](https://filmstock.wondershare.com/creative-theme-tourism?spm=rs.filmora%5Fweb&source%5Fchannel=seo%5Farticle )

1.1 Travel Vlogging Cameras

How To Choose A Vlogging Camera

When it comes to travel vlogging, you should look for a camera that ideally has the following eleven qualities:

  1. It has a fully articulated screen (flip screen)
  2. It has good continual autofocus while recording video
  3. It has good focus priority through face recognition
  4. It has touched to focus
  5. It has good low-light performance
  6. It has an external mic jack and a hot/cold shoe bracket
  7. It has optical image stabilization
  8. It is lightweight and portable
  9. It has a good battery life
  10. It is durable and weather-sealed
  11. It has hyper-lapse/timelapse/slow-motion shooting modes

For more information on why a lot of these features are ideal to have in a vlogging camera, check out my post on the Top 15 Best Cameras for Vlogging 2020 .

Cameras That Are Good For Travel Vlogging

Considering my list on what to look for in a travel vlogging camera, I’ve prepared a table below of thirteen cameras I’d recommend for travel vlogging:

Camera Release Date Camera Type Flip Screen Mic Port Price
CanonEOSM50 Canon M50 February2018 Mirrorless Fully Articulated Yes $-
PanasonicLumixDC-GH5S Panasonic GH5S January2018 Mirrorless Fully Articulated Yes $$$
GoProHero6 Black GoPro Hero6 September2017 Action Camera No Yes $-
CanonEOSM100 Canon M100 August2017 Mirrorless Flip-Up No $
CanonEOS6D Mark II Canon 6D Mark II June2017 Mid-size SLR Fully Articulated Yes $$
CanonEOS RebelSL2 Canon SL2 June2017 Compact SLR Fully Articulated Yes $
CanonEOS RebelT7i Canon T7i February2017 Mid-size SLR Fully Articulated Yes $-
CanonEOSM6 Canon M6 February2017 Mirrorless Flip-Up Yes $
SonyCyber-Shot DSCRX 100 V Sony RX100 V October2016 Compact Flip-Up No $-
PanasonicLumix DMCG85 Panasonic G85 September2016 Mirrorless Fully Articulated Yes $-
PanasonicLumix DMCLX10 Panasonic LX10 September2016 Compact Flip-Up No $
CanonEOS80D Canon 80D February2016 Mid-size SLR Fully Articulated Yes $$
CanonPowerShotG7 X Mark II Canon G7X mark II February2016 Compact Flip-Up No $

Lenses That Are Good For Travel Vlogging

Every travel vlogger should have a wide-angle lens. Wide-angle lenses fit much more of a scene into your camera frame, making it ideal for capturing establishing shots. You’ll also need a wide-angle lens if you plan on holding your camera out in front of yourself with an extended arm to get selfie footage.

As a travel vlogger, you’ll also want to show some close-up shots of the various subjects in your scene. If you don’t mind walking up to these subjects, the lens I recommend for this is a standard lens.

If, however, you want to be able to shoot these close-up shots from a farther distance, you’ll need a telephoto lens.

But you probably don’t want to carry and switch so many lenses as you travel, right? A convenient solution is to get a zoom lens that covers a wide range of focal lengths. For example, travel vlogger Sam Kolder shoots with a Canon EF 24-105mm f/4 lens – that’s a wide-angle lens, standard lens, and telephoto lens all in one lens!

If most of your travel video shooting will be done handheld, you should also definitely look for a lens equipped with optical image stabilization.

Check out my Best Camera Lens for YouTube to gain a more in-depth understanding of lenses and how they work.

1.2 Travel Vlogging Accessories

Camera Accessories That Are Good For Travel Vlogging

Travel Tripod 1. Tripod Record stabilized shots and timelapse footage with a tripod.
GorillaPod SLR-Zoom 2. GorillaPod SLR-Zoom with Ballhead Wrap your camera around structures that your regular tripod can’t stay on. You can also hold out your camera further away from you using the GorillaPod as a selfie stick to fit in more of your background into your selfie shot.
Stabilizing Gimbal 3. Stabilizing Gimbal Get super-smooth shots with a stabilizing gimbal.
Travel LED Light 4. On-Camera LED Light Is there not enough light? Add an LED light to your camera’s hot/cold shoe.
ND Filters 5. Neutral Density (ND) Filters Is it too bright outside to have your aperture wide open but you still want to get that cinematic look ? You can add ND filters to your lenses so that you can do just that in very bright conditions.
Camera Cleaning Kit 6. Camera Cleaning Kit While traveling, you can get all kinds of unwanted substances on your lens and in your camera like dust, dirt, fingerprints, raindrops, snow, and sand, to name a few. If you bring along a portable camera cleaning kit with you on your travels, you can remove those things immediately so that your shots won’t be affected.
Drone 7. Drone When it comes to travel vlogging, wide shots that establish the scene and setting are important. Drones are great for taking these kinds of wide shots from high places that you would not be able to get to by foot.

Smartphone Accessories That Are Good For Travel Vlogging

Using your smartphone as a travel vlogging device is a great idea! Your smartphone is a light and portable piece of equipment that you likely have with you at all times. Upgrade your smartphone travel vlogging setup with any of these 9 Best Smartphone Camera Accessories For Vloggers:

  1. RAVPower Portable Charger
  2. Arkon Tripod Mount
  3. Mega Tiny Anti-Gravity Case
  4. FLII Selfie Ring Light
  5. Rode VideoMic Me
  6. Aukey Optic 3-in-1 Smartphone Lens Set
  7. iOgrapher Go for Android and iPhone
  8. Manfrotto TwistGrip System
  9. Zhiyun Smooth-Q 3-Axis Handheld Gimbal Stabilizer for Smartphones

Read more about each one of these items in my post The 9 Best Smartphone Camera Accessories For Vloggers .

Camera Mounted Shotgun Microphones for Travel Vlogging

RODE VideoMic Go Shure VP83 RODE VideoMic Pro+ Sennheiser MKE 440

These four shotgun microphones can mount directly onto your camera’s hot/cold shoe:

  1. Rode VideoMic Go
  2. Shure VP83
  3. Rode VideoMic Pro+
  4. Sennheiser MKE 440

Read more about each one of them in our post about The 19 Best YouTube Microphones 2020 – Options for Music, Voiceovers, Vlogging, and more!

Other Useful Travel Vlogging Accessories

  1. Camera backpack
  2. Extra batteries
  3. Memory cards
  4. External hard drive
  5. Power plugs and cables
  6. USB card reader
  7. Universal plug
  8. D-ring clips (to prevent your equipment from slipping out of your grasp)
  9. Smartphone SD card tray key (if you’re storing your recorded footage in your SD card)

PART 2: TRAVEL VLOGGING IDEAS

If you’re needing some travel video ideas either to get you started or to bring some fresh content into your channel, here are ten travel video ideas that you can try.

1. Travel Vlog

Travel vlogging, the kind where you film yourself just going about your day in a different part of the world, is a great way to not only document your travel moments and memories for yourself, but also a great way to share your experience with others.

Rather than being too picky with your video shots and possibly ending up with a lack of footage to work with, shoot as much as you can.

Try to capture your thoughts and feelings around the things you taste, smell, see and hear. Sharing these details can help your viewers feel more like they’re with you on your travels.

2. Tips or Tricks for Traveling

Although learning from mistakes during your travels can be a rewarding experience, most people want to avoid them and, rather, enjoy their trip as much as they possibly can. After all, travel, for most people, happens in intervals that seem too short. You can help this sizable group by offering travel tips and tricks.

Prepare a list of tips and tricks, a shot list of all the footage you’ll need to go along with those tips, and then capture all your footage. As you go through your list, you can then cut away to your associated travel shots.

3. Video Tour of a Location

Many people are curious about different parts of the world and would love to join a tour without the high cost of flights, hotels, meals, and admission tickets. Give them that experience by making a video tour.

4. Review An Attraction or Experience

A lot of travelers having a limited amount of time and money to enjoy their chosen travel destinations want to know which attractions and experiences to prioritize and which ones to skip. Help them make their decision by making a video review.

5. Timelapse Videos

All you need in addition to your camera is a tripod to get started with making timelapse videos. Your tripod stabilizes your shot as your camera captures all the changes that take place in a given location.

When your footage is sped up, your viewers can appreciate all the changes that take place that they may not have had the patience to sit through in real-time. It’s also interesting to observe the passage of time in a different way.

6. Average Daily Cost

Before going on a trip, many people try to make a budget and figure out how much money to exchange into foreign currency. Making a good budget and getting just enough foreign cash, though, requires you to know how much, on average, things cost.

Make a helpful video on the average cost of daily expenses including meals and transportation like Paolo did in the above video “Average Daily Cost in Tokyo Japan | Is it Expensive?.” His video actually helped me a lot when I was trying to come up with a budget for my recent trip to Japan.

7. Interview Locals

People don’t travel only to see popular attractions. A lot of people travel to connect with and understand people from different parts of the world.

Interviewing locals and sharing their thoughts can help to provide that kind of connection.

8. What’s in My Backpack?

Packing for a trip can say a lot about who you are as a person because it involves prioritizing items based on your personal values.

For your next trip, share a little part of yourself with your audience through a video about the things you’ve packed in your bag.

9. Talk About Your Own Home City

When you’ve lived in your own home city for so long, you might forget that people all over the world may marvel at the things you take for granted because all those things just happen to be at your doorstep.

Take advantage of the expert that you already are in your own home city and make an informative video for others who are taking a trip there.

10. How To Become a Travel Vlogger

After you’ve done a lot of travel vlogging and learned so much along the way, you can make a video about how to be a travel vlogger.

In the above video, Andrew Santos teaches how to make a travel video, all while hilariously poking fun at many of the cliché trends in the travel genre.

PART 3: TRAVEL VIDEO EDITING

Video Editing Software

When it comes to editing your travel video together, there are different kinds of software you can do that with.

FREE VIDEO EDITING SOFTWARE PAID VIDEO EDITING SOFTWARE
OpenShot Video Editor (Windows, Mac, Linux) ShotCut (Windows, Mac, Linux) Hitfilm Express (Windows, Mac) VideoPad Video Editor (Windows) Lightworks (Windows, Mac, Linux) VSDC Video Editor (Windows) Machete Video Editor Lite (Windows) Avidemux (Windows, Mac, Linux, BSD) Read more about each software in our post about The Best Free Video Editing Software for YouTube – Top 8 Reviews . Wondershare Filmora X (Windows, Mac) - start at $49.99 for one year license and Free trial Final Cut Pro (Mac) - $299.99, Free trial Vegas Movie Studio (Windows) - $49.99

Travel-Themed Video Effects

If you use Filmora Video Editor, you can also take advantage of a variety of travel-themed video effects packs, like the one shown in the above video, filled with titles, transitions, filters, overlays, and other visual elements.

For my recent trip to Japan, I actually used Filmora Effects’ Japanese set.

At the 2:10 mark of the above video, I used an overlay of falling cherry blossom leaves. At the 3:03 mark of the same video, I used an anime-themed overlay.

At the 2:48 mark of the above video, I used a shoji door transition.

Music Libraries

Music is an important component of a lot of travel videos. Here’s where you can get them:

ROYALTY-FREE MUSIC LIBRARIES PAID MUSIC LIBRARIES PAID SUBSCRIPTION MUSIC LIBRARIES
Audionautix Bensound dig.ccMixter Free Music Archive Free Stock Music Incompetech Josh Woodward Moby Gratis Musopen Purple Planet Music TeknoAXE YouTube Audio Library Premium Beat Audio Jungle Audio Network Audio Blocks Epidemic Sound

Sound Effects

Free Sound Effect Sites

  1. Filmora Sound Effects
  2. Freesound
  3. PacDV
  4. Sound Bible
  5. Sound Gator
  6. Sounds Crate
  7. Zapsplat

PART 4: TRAVEL VLOGGING TIPS

Vlog/Life Balance

  • Give yourself more time at each location if you want to have a good balance between getting the shots you need and enjoying your present moment.

Theft Prevention

  • Carry a backpack that doesn’t have zippers on the outside that thieves can easily get to.
  • If you’re shooting with a flashy smartphone, make it look less appealing to thieves with a grotesque smartphone case, like an Otterbox.
  • In locations with high crime, pre-plan the shots you want to capture and take your SLR camera out of your bag only to take those shots. Otherwise, keep your SLR camera concealed.
  • Never leave your equipment unattended in a visible area, not even in a locked car.

Pre-Production and Planning

  • Before shooting, make a shot list of all the footage you need.
  • Have all your filming equipment that needs to be calibrated all calibrated and ready to use.

Onscreen Performance

  • Look into your lens, not the projected image of yourself on your camera’s flip screen.
  • Show a lot of energy as you film yourself.
  • If you’re nervous about talking to the camera in public, keep your talking head clips short and gradually build your way up to longer clips. You can break up longer sentences by saying a few words from one scene, saying a few more in another, and finishing off your last words, again, in another scene. Later, in editing, you can stitch all of those clips together to make one fluid sentence.
  • If you’re nervous about talking to the camera in public, you can capture your talking headshots later when you find a more secluded space.

Audio Recording

  • Silence everything you don’t want your mic to record.
  • Put your mobile phone in airplane mode.
  • Block wind from reaching your mic with windscreens and dead cats.
  • Upgrade your mic.
  • Adjust your levels.
  • Get close to the sound you are wanting to record.

Check out 10 Recording Tips to Get The Best Sound From Your Microphone for more audio recording tips.

Filming

  • To avoid crowds, wake up early and grab your footage early while everyone else is still sleeping or getting ready.
  • Capture wide shots, medium shots, and close-up shots for better coverage.
  • Use the Sun Seeker app to set up your sunrise/sunset shots better.
  • If your camera can record 4K footage, record in 4K all the scenes that you want to zoom in closer later in editing without losing quality (your video project in editing has to be at 1920p x 1080p for this to work).

Stabilization

  • If you’re trying to get shots with movement by walking, rather than walking as you normally would walk with your knees bent for steadier shots.
  • If you’re shooting something in front of your handheld, lean your arm against your own body for steadier shots.
  • Use a stabilizing gimbal with your camera.

Timelapse/Hyperlapse

  • Select scenes where you can see a lot of change over time (not a still building in front of a cloudless smoggy sky).
  • Set longer intervals for scenes that change very slowly over time.
  • Pre-set your focus. Turn autofocus off.
  • Shoot time-lapses/hyper-lapses in manual mode to prevent the flickering that occurs with changing light conditions in automatic settings.
  • If your camera is set on a tripod in a fixed position, turn your optical image stabilization off.
  • If you aren’t holding onto your camera as it’s in the middle of making a timelapse video, at least keep your camera and tripod attached by some kind of leash mechanism.
  • For moving time-lapses or hyper-lapses, try to keep one point of reference in the same position within your camera frame.

Slow Motion

  • Shoot slow-motion videos when there is plenty of light.
  • For actions that are as slow as walking, slowing down your footage to 50% of the original speed looks good enough. If your video editing project is in 30 fps, shooting your video in 60 fps will give you a 50% slow-motion video. If your video editing project is in 60 fps, shooting your video in 120 fps will give you a 50% slow-motion video. Any slower is overkill for slowing down the speed of walking.
  • For actions that are as fast as water splashing, slowing down your footage as little as 15% of the original speed can look good. For a video editing project in 30 fps, you would need a camera that can shoot at up to 240 fps to slow your footage down this much.

Storage and Back-Up

  • If you’re using a phone that can store images and videos on a separate SD card, take advantage of that and record your travel footage onto your SD card. Later, you can easily get to your travel media as it will all be in one place.
  • If you have your laptop on you, regularly transfer your media files from your cameras to your external hard drives.
  • If you don’t want to bring your laptop on your trip and plan to video edit once you’re back home, use a USB memory card reader that connects with an app on your phone to transfer your files into your external hard drive.
  • If you have access to a reliable internet connection and you leave your laptop at your place of accommodation, have your computer upload your files onto cloud storage while you are out to travel vlogging.
  • Take advantage of Google Photos’ free, unlimited cloud storage for video files up to 1080p.

Video Editing

  • If you’re editing a video project with videos from multiple different cameras, make sure to set the correct time and date on all of them before you start filming. Later, in editing, you can import all your image and video files and sort them in the exact order that they were taken.
  • If your video editing software can work with proxies, transcode all your video files into proxy files for much faster editing.

Posting On YouTube

  • Choose a title that people will search for. Keep your target keywords at the beginning of your title. “S01E01: My Summer Backpacking Trip” is not an effective title. Instead, a title like “Going Up The Eiffel Tower… Beautiful View of Paris!” would be better.

Ready to Become a Travel Vlogger?

Here in this article, I shared travel vlogging cameras &accessories, travel video ideas& resources, and travel vlogging tips. Did you get more hints to become a travel vlogger? Stay tuned and start your own travel vlog! Leave your comments below if you have any suggestions about this travel vlogger guide.

This past year has been a challenge, so if you want to make a #travelanywhere video without traveling, you can try Wondershare Filmora X video editor.

Download Filmora X Win Version Download Filmora X Mac Version

author avatar

Richard Bennett

Richard Bennett is a writer and a lover of all things video.

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Richard Bennett

Oct 26, 2023• Proven solutions

0

Want to become a travel vlogger?

Traveling around the world is one of life’s most exciting experiences – just ask anyone who has caught the travel bug. It is no wonder that travel videos are a big hit on YouTube. Any viewer can be instantly transported to another part of the world, all from the comfort of their seat.

With all the high-quality cameras and video editing software that are much more accessible to the general public now than even a few years ago, it has never been a better time to make a travel vlog.

Below, I have prepared a comprehensive guide on how to become a travel vlogger.

Table of Contents PART 1: TRAVEL VLOGGING EQUIPMENT 1.1 Travel Vlogging Cameras How To Choose A Travel Vlogging CameraCameras That Are Good For Travel VloggingLenses That Are Good For Travel Vlogging 1.2 Travel Vlogging Accessories Camera Accessories That Are Good For Travel VloggingSmartphone Accessories That Are Good For Travel VloggingCamera Mounted Shotgun Microphone For Travel VloggingOther Useful Travel Vlogging Accessories PART 2: TRAVEL VIDEO IDEAS PART 3: TRAVEL VIDEO EDITING Video Editing SoftwareTravel-Themed Video EffectsMusic LibrariesSound Effects PART 4: TRAVEL VLOGGING TIPS

Create Your Travel Vlog with Wondershare FilmoraX

Wondershare FilmoraX is a video editing application that offers a lot of editing features that can be used both by a beginner and professionals alike. You can easily cut, split and trim your video, and apply transitions, filters, and texts, etc. to your travel vlog. What’s more, its advanced color grading settings and audio keyframing will add a unique flavor to your travel vlog. Just get started and make your video go viral!

Download Filmora9 Win Version Download Filmora9 Mac Version

PART 1: TRAVEL VLOGGING EQUIPMENT

In order to make travel videos, you’re going to need camera equipment. Below, I’ve prepared a comprehensive list of cameras and accessories that would be good for travel vlogging.

Filmstock Stock Media Library ](https://filmstock.wondershare.com/creative-theme-tourism?spm=rs.filmora%5Fweb&source%5Fchannel=seo%5Farticle )

1.1 Travel Vlogging Cameras

How To Choose A Vlogging Camera

When it comes to travel vlogging, you should look for a camera that ideally has the following eleven qualities:

  1. It has a fully articulated screen (flip screen)
  2. It has good continual autofocus while recording video
  3. It has good focus priority through face recognition
  4. It has touched to focus
  5. It has good low-light performance
  6. It has an external mic jack and a hot/cold shoe bracket
  7. It has optical image stabilization
  8. It is lightweight and portable
  9. It has a good battery life
  10. It is durable and weather-sealed
  11. It has hyper-lapse/timelapse/slow-motion shooting modes

For more information on why a lot of these features are ideal to have in a vlogging camera, check out my post on the Top 15 Best Cameras for Vlogging 2020 .

Cameras That Are Good For Travel Vlogging

Considering my list on what to look for in a travel vlogging camera, I’ve prepared a table below of thirteen cameras I’d recommend for travel vlogging:

Camera Release Date Camera Type Flip Screen Mic Port Price
CanonEOSM50 Canon M50 February2018 Mirrorless Fully Articulated Yes $-
PanasonicLumixDC-GH5S Panasonic GH5S January2018 Mirrorless Fully Articulated Yes $$$
GoProHero6 Black GoPro Hero6 September2017 Action Camera No Yes $-
CanonEOSM100 Canon M100 August2017 Mirrorless Flip-Up No $
CanonEOS6D Mark II Canon 6D Mark II June2017 Mid-size SLR Fully Articulated Yes $$
CanonEOS RebelSL2 Canon SL2 June2017 Compact SLR Fully Articulated Yes $
CanonEOS RebelT7i Canon T7i February2017 Mid-size SLR Fully Articulated Yes $-
CanonEOSM6 Canon M6 February2017 Mirrorless Flip-Up Yes $
SonyCyber-Shot DSCRX 100 V Sony RX100 V October2016 Compact Flip-Up No $-
PanasonicLumix DMCG85 Panasonic G85 September2016 Mirrorless Fully Articulated Yes $-
PanasonicLumix DMCLX10 Panasonic LX10 September2016 Compact Flip-Up No $
CanonEOS80D Canon 80D February2016 Mid-size SLR Fully Articulated Yes $$
CanonPowerShotG7 X Mark II Canon G7X mark II February2016 Compact Flip-Up No $

Lenses That Are Good For Travel Vlogging

Every travel vlogger should have a wide-angle lens. Wide-angle lenses fit much more of a scene into your camera frame, making it ideal for capturing establishing shots. You’ll also need a wide-angle lens if you plan on holding your camera out in front of yourself with an extended arm to get selfie footage.

As a travel vlogger, you’ll also want to show some close-up shots of the various subjects in your scene. If you don’t mind walking up to these subjects, the lens I recommend for this is a standard lens.

If, however, you want to be able to shoot these close-up shots from a farther distance, you’ll need a telephoto lens.

But you probably don’t want to carry and switch so many lenses as you travel, right? A convenient solution is to get a zoom lens that covers a wide range of focal lengths. For example, travel vlogger Sam Kolder shoots with a Canon EF 24-105mm f/4 lens – that’s a wide-angle lens, standard lens, and telephoto lens all in one lens!

If most of your travel video shooting will be done handheld, you should also definitely look for a lens equipped with optical image stabilization.

Check out my Best Camera Lens for YouTube to gain a more in-depth understanding of lenses and how they work.

1.2 Travel Vlogging Accessories

Camera Accessories That Are Good For Travel Vlogging

Travel Tripod 1. Tripod Record stabilized shots and timelapse footage with a tripod.
GorillaPod SLR-Zoom 2. GorillaPod SLR-Zoom with Ballhead Wrap your camera around structures that your regular tripod can’t stay on. You can also hold out your camera further away from you using the GorillaPod as a selfie stick to fit in more of your background into your selfie shot.
Stabilizing Gimbal 3. Stabilizing Gimbal Get super-smooth shots with a stabilizing gimbal.
Travel LED Light 4. On-Camera LED Light Is there not enough light? Add an LED light to your camera’s hot/cold shoe.
ND Filters 5. Neutral Density (ND) Filters Is it too bright outside to have your aperture wide open but you still want to get that cinematic look ? You can add ND filters to your lenses so that you can do just that in very bright conditions.
Camera Cleaning Kit 6. Camera Cleaning Kit While traveling, you can get all kinds of unwanted substances on your lens and in your camera like dust, dirt, fingerprints, raindrops, snow, and sand, to name a few. If you bring along a portable camera cleaning kit with you on your travels, you can remove those things immediately so that your shots won’t be affected.
Drone 7. Drone When it comes to travel vlogging, wide shots that establish the scene and setting are important. Drones are great for taking these kinds of wide shots from high places that you would not be able to get to by foot.

Smartphone Accessories That Are Good For Travel Vlogging

Using your smartphone as a travel vlogging device is a great idea! Your smartphone is a light and portable piece of equipment that you likely have with you at all times. Upgrade your smartphone travel vlogging setup with any of these 9 Best Smartphone Camera Accessories For Vloggers:

  1. RAVPower Portable Charger
  2. Arkon Tripod Mount
  3. Mega Tiny Anti-Gravity Case
  4. FLII Selfie Ring Light
  5. Rode VideoMic Me
  6. Aukey Optic 3-in-1 Smartphone Lens Set
  7. iOgrapher Go for Android and iPhone
  8. Manfrotto TwistGrip System
  9. Zhiyun Smooth-Q 3-Axis Handheld Gimbal Stabilizer for Smartphones

Read more about each one of these items in my post The 9 Best Smartphone Camera Accessories For Vloggers .

Camera Mounted Shotgun Microphones for Travel Vlogging

RODE VideoMic Go Shure VP83 RODE VideoMic Pro+ Sennheiser MKE 440

These four shotgun microphones can mount directly onto your camera’s hot/cold shoe:

  1. Rode VideoMic Go
  2. Shure VP83
  3. Rode VideoMic Pro+
  4. Sennheiser MKE 440

Read more about each one of them in our post about The 19 Best YouTube Microphones 2020 – Options for Music, Voiceovers, Vlogging, and more!

Other Useful Travel Vlogging Accessories

  1. Camera backpack
  2. Extra batteries
  3. Memory cards
  4. External hard drive
  5. Power plugs and cables
  6. USB card reader
  7. Universal plug
  8. D-ring clips (to prevent your equipment from slipping out of your grasp)
  9. Smartphone SD card tray key (if you’re storing your recorded footage in your SD card)

PART 2: TRAVEL VLOGGING IDEAS

If you’re needing some travel video ideas either to get you started or to bring some fresh content into your channel, here are ten travel video ideas that you can try.

1. Travel Vlog

Travel vlogging, the kind where you film yourself just going about your day in a different part of the world, is a great way to not only document your travel moments and memories for yourself, but also a great way to share your experience with others.

Rather than being too picky with your video shots and possibly ending up with a lack of footage to work with, shoot as much as you can.

Try to capture your thoughts and feelings around the things you taste, smell, see and hear. Sharing these details can help your viewers feel more like they’re with you on your travels.

2. Tips or Tricks for Traveling

Although learning from mistakes during your travels can be a rewarding experience, most people want to avoid them and, rather, enjoy their trip as much as they possibly can. After all, travel, for most people, happens in intervals that seem too short. You can help this sizable group by offering travel tips and tricks.

Prepare a list of tips and tricks, a shot list of all the footage you’ll need to go along with those tips, and then capture all your footage. As you go through your list, you can then cut away to your associated travel shots.

3. Video Tour of a Location

Many people are curious about different parts of the world and would love to join a tour without the high cost of flights, hotels, meals, and admission tickets. Give them that experience by making a video tour.

4. Review An Attraction or Experience

A lot of travelers having a limited amount of time and money to enjoy their chosen travel destinations want to know which attractions and experiences to prioritize and which ones to skip. Help them make their decision by making a video review.

5. Timelapse Videos

All you need in addition to your camera is a tripod to get started with making timelapse videos. Your tripod stabilizes your shot as your camera captures all the changes that take place in a given location.

When your footage is sped up, your viewers can appreciate all the changes that take place that they may not have had the patience to sit through in real-time. It’s also interesting to observe the passage of time in a different way.

6. Average Daily Cost

Before going on a trip, many people try to make a budget and figure out how much money to exchange into foreign currency. Making a good budget and getting just enough foreign cash, though, requires you to know how much, on average, things cost.

Make a helpful video on the average cost of daily expenses including meals and transportation like Paolo did in the above video “Average Daily Cost in Tokyo Japan | Is it Expensive?.” His video actually helped me a lot when I was trying to come up with a budget for my recent trip to Japan.

7. Interview Locals

People don’t travel only to see popular attractions. A lot of people travel to connect with and understand people from different parts of the world.

Interviewing locals and sharing their thoughts can help to provide that kind of connection.

8. What’s in My Backpack?

Packing for a trip can say a lot about who you are as a person because it involves prioritizing items based on your personal values.

For your next trip, share a little part of yourself with your audience through a video about the things you’ve packed in your bag.

9. Talk About Your Own Home City

When you’ve lived in your own home city for so long, you might forget that people all over the world may marvel at the things you take for granted because all those things just happen to be at your doorstep.

Take advantage of the expert that you already are in your own home city and make an informative video for others who are taking a trip there.

10. How To Become a Travel Vlogger

After you’ve done a lot of travel vlogging and learned so much along the way, you can make a video about how to be a travel vlogger.

In the above video, Andrew Santos teaches how to make a travel video, all while hilariously poking fun at many of the cliché trends in the travel genre.

PART 3: TRAVEL VIDEO EDITING

Video Editing Software

When it comes to editing your travel video together, there are different kinds of software you can do that with.

FREE VIDEO EDITING SOFTWARE PAID VIDEO EDITING SOFTWARE
OpenShot Video Editor (Windows, Mac, Linux) ShotCut (Windows, Mac, Linux) Hitfilm Express (Windows, Mac) VideoPad Video Editor (Windows) Lightworks (Windows, Mac, Linux) VSDC Video Editor (Windows) Machete Video Editor Lite (Windows) Avidemux (Windows, Mac, Linux, BSD) Read more about each software in our post about The Best Free Video Editing Software for YouTube – Top 8 Reviews . Wondershare Filmora X (Windows, Mac) - start at $49.99 for one year license and Free trial Final Cut Pro (Mac) - $299.99, Free trial Vegas Movie Studio (Windows) - $49.99

Travel-Themed Video Effects

If you use Filmora Video Editor, you can also take advantage of a variety of travel-themed video effects packs, like the one shown in the above video, filled with titles, transitions, filters, overlays, and other visual elements.

For my recent trip to Japan, I actually used Filmora Effects’ Japanese set.

At the 2:10 mark of the above video, I used an overlay of falling cherry blossom leaves. At the 3:03 mark of the same video, I used an anime-themed overlay.

At the 2:48 mark of the above video, I used a shoji door transition.

Music Libraries

Music is an important component of a lot of travel videos. Here’s where you can get them:

ROYALTY-FREE MUSIC LIBRARIES PAID MUSIC LIBRARIES PAID SUBSCRIPTION MUSIC LIBRARIES
Audionautix Bensound dig.ccMixter Free Music Archive Free Stock Music Incompetech Josh Woodward Moby Gratis Musopen Purple Planet Music TeknoAXE YouTube Audio Library Premium Beat Audio Jungle Audio Network Audio Blocks Epidemic Sound

Sound Effects

Free Sound Effect Sites

  1. Filmora Sound Effects
  2. Freesound
  3. PacDV
  4. Sound Bible
  5. Sound Gator
  6. Sounds Crate
  7. Zapsplat

PART 4: TRAVEL VLOGGING TIPS

Vlog/Life Balance

  • Give yourself more time at each location if you want to have a good balance between getting the shots you need and enjoying your present moment.

Theft Prevention

  • Carry a backpack that doesn’t have zippers on the outside that thieves can easily get to.
  • If you’re shooting with a flashy smartphone, make it look less appealing to thieves with a grotesque smartphone case, like an Otterbox.
  • In locations with high crime, pre-plan the shots you want to capture and take your SLR camera out of your bag only to take those shots. Otherwise, keep your SLR camera concealed.
  • Never leave your equipment unattended in a visible area, not even in a locked car.

Pre-Production and Planning

  • Before shooting, make a shot list of all the footage you need.
  • Have all your filming equipment that needs to be calibrated all calibrated and ready to use.

Onscreen Performance

  • Look into your lens, not the projected image of yourself on your camera’s flip screen.
  • Show a lot of energy as you film yourself.
  • If you’re nervous about talking to the camera in public, keep your talking head clips short and gradually build your way up to longer clips. You can break up longer sentences by saying a few words from one scene, saying a few more in another, and finishing off your last words, again, in another scene. Later, in editing, you can stitch all of those clips together to make one fluid sentence.
  • If you’re nervous about talking to the camera in public, you can capture your talking headshots later when you find a more secluded space.

Audio Recording

  • Silence everything you don’t want your mic to record.
  • Put your mobile phone in airplane mode.
  • Block wind from reaching your mic with windscreens and dead cats.
  • Upgrade your mic.
  • Adjust your levels.
  • Get close to the sound you are wanting to record.

Check out 10 Recording Tips to Get The Best Sound From Your Microphone for more audio recording tips.

Filming

  • To avoid crowds, wake up early and grab your footage early while everyone else is still sleeping or getting ready.
  • Capture wide shots, medium shots, and close-up shots for better coverage.
  • Use the Sun Seeker app to set up your sunrise/sunset shots better.
  • If your camera can record 4K footage, record in 4K all the scenes that you want to zoom in closer later in editing without losing quality (your video project in editing has to be at 1920p x 1080p for this to work).

Stabilization

  • If you’re trying to get shots with movement by walking, rather than walking as you normally would walk with your knees bent for steadier shots.
  • If you’re shooting something in front of your handheld, lean your arm against your own body for steadier shots.
  • Use a stabilizing gimbal with your camera.

Timelapse/Hyperlapse

  • Select scenes where you can see a lot of change over time (not a still building in front of a cloudless smoggy sky).
  • Set longer intervals for scenes that change very slowly over time.
  • Pre-set your focus. Turn autofocus off.
  • Shoot time-lapses/hyper-lapses in manual mode to prevent the flickering that occurs with changing light conditions in automatic settings.
  • If your camera is set on a tripod in a fixed position, turn your optical image stabilization off.
  • If you aren’t holding onto your camera as it’s in the middle of making a timelapse video, at least keep your camera and tripod attached by some kind of leash mechanism.
  • For moving time-lapses or hyper-lapses, try to keep one point of reference in the same position within your camera frame.

Slow Motion

  • Shoot slow-motion videos when there is plenty of light.
  • For actions that are as slow as walking, slowing down your footage to 50% of the original speed looks good enough. If your video editing project is in 30 fps, shooting your video in 60 fps will give you a 50% slow-motion video. If your video editing project is in 60 fps, shooting your video in 120 fps will give you a 50% slow-motion video. Any slower is overkill for slowing down the speed of walking.
  • For actions that are as fast as water splashing, slowing down your footage as little as 15% of the original speed can look good. For a video editing project in 30 fps, you would need a camera that can shoot at up to 240 fps to slow your footage down this much.

Storage and Back-Up

  • If you’re using a phone that can store images and videos on a separate SD card, take advantage of that and record your travel footage onto your SD card. Later, you can easily get to your travel media as it will all be in one place.
  • If you have your laptop on you, regularly transfer your media files from your cameras to your external hard drives.
  • If you don’t want to bring your laptop on your trip and plan to video edit once you’re back home, use a USB memory card reader that connects with an app on your phone to transfer your files into your external hard drive.
  • If you have access to a reliable internet connection and you leave your laptop at your place of accommodation, have your computer upload your files onto cloud storage while you are out to travel vlogging.
  • Take advantage of Google Photos’ free, unlimited cloud storage for video files up to 1080p.

Video Editing

  • If you’re editing a video project with videos from multiple different cameras, make sure to set the correct time and date on all of them before you start filming. Later, in editing, you can import all your image and video files and sort them in the exact order that they were taken.
  • If your video editing software can work with proxies, transcode all your video files into proxy files for much faster editing.

Posting On YouTube

  • Choose a title that people will search for. Keep your target keywords at the beginning of your title. “S01E01: My Summer Backpacking Trip” is not an effective title. Instead, a title like “Going Up The Eiffel Tower… Beautiful View of Paris!” would be better.

Ready to Become a Travel Vlogger?

Here in this article, I shared travel vlogging cameras &accessories, travel video ideas& resources, and travel vlogging tips. Did you get more hints to become a travel vlogger? Stay tuned and start your own travel vlog! Leave your comments below if you have any suggestions about this travel vlogger guide.

This past year has been a challenge, so if you want to make a #travelanywhere video without traveling, you can try Wondershare Filmora X video editor.

Download Filmora X Win Version Download Filmora X Mac Version

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Richard Bennett

Richard Bennett is a writer and a lover of all things video.

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  • Title: "In 2024, How to Innovate Transforming Raw Footage Into YouTube Thumbnails via Smartphones"
  • Author: Joseph
  • Created at : 2024-05-31 13:45:56
  • Updated at : 2024-06-01 13:45:56
  • Link: https://youtube-stream.techidaily.com/in-2024-how-to-innovate-transforming-raw-footage-into-youtube-thumbnails-via-smartphones/
  • License: This work is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0.
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