Most people enjoy visiting new places and exploring new lands. However, the complexities of modern life do not always allow you to visit new places. Be it the lack of funds, career or family commitments, very few people can afford to travel as much as they would like. For such people, watching travel videos is the closest that they can get to see new places.
If you are someone who frequently travels to new places, then you should consider making videos of your travels. Such videos are increasingly popular and stand high chances of getting viral on social media. Here are ten tips that will help you create high-quality travel videos.
1. Watch Travel Videos
The best way to improve your travel videos is to learn from the mistakes of others. Study some of the most popular travel video channels to identify the format of their videos, the way they shoot the different frames, voiceovers, and other technical details. Pay due attention to the storytelling as well. That way, you can figure out the things that work in a travel video and look for ways to incorporate that in your videos.
2. Do Not Make It About Yourself
While creating a video, try to plan the content so avoid a narcissistic approach. For example, when you visit a new place, try to film clips of the locals, their handicrafts, and handloom. Such a video will be better received as compared to one where you take the viewer through the pubs and spas of the place. Understand that people who watch travel videos want to see the real place and not your affluent lifestyle.
3. Shoot Close-Ups of Locals
Human beings communicate with their eyes, and if you can get close-up shots of locals, it will contribute to the authenticity of your videos. Try to befriend locals and request them for short video clips where they talk about their life and culture. If you can come up with interesting questions for them, it will improve the content value of the video. A look at the most popular travel videos will reveal that all of those have some value to add to the lives of the viewers.
4. Adjust Your Camera Settings
It is a good practice to adjust the settings of your camera before you set out on a trip. When you make this decision beforehand, you can identify the settings that work the best in your camera. Having a default mode of video shooting also helps you to ensure that your footages are consistent and helps reduce the burden during the editing stage.
If you do not want to maintain the same settings in all your footages, try to adjust the camera before you set out for the day. Understand that no matter how experienced you are, attempting to change the settings while you are on the go will affect the quality of your footages.
5. Know When to Shoot
While it may seem tempting to shoot as much as possible, you need to draw the line between filming and overshooting. If you are busy filming all day, you will not be able to take in the beauty of the place that you are visiting.
Understand that unless you enjoy the trip, you will not be able to tell your travel story engagingly. Try to restrict your filming to the early hours of the day. That way, you will get the best lighting for your shoots while having the rest of the day to take in the beauty of the place.
6. Convey a Travel Story
People like listening to stories, and travel videos that talk about the story of a place are the most popular ones. After you collect all your travel footage, sit back, and evaluate how you can weave them into a story. While it is a good idea to mimic the travel flow in the order of your footage, make sure that there is a common thread that connects the clips. That way, your viewers will stay hooked to the story, and you can expect minimal drop-offs.
7. Diversify Your Shots
It may not always be possible for you to give a proper structure to your travel story before you film it. That is why it is a good idea to diversify your shots. If you have videos where you are panning right, left, up and down or slow spinning shots, time-lapse videos, etc., then you get a lot of creative freedom at the editing stage. With such shots, it becomes much easier for you to hold the viewer engrossed in your travel story.
8. Create Motion in Your Videos
The reason why videos are more popular than images is that they can effectively convey motion. The challenge with travel videos is that static buildings and architectural marvels do not have motion. In such situations, you can bring these to life by filming pigeons flying around them or kids playing in the background. Camera motion such as time-lapse is another effective way of creating motion in your films.
9. Choose Your Editing Tool
No matter how well your shoot your film, you must subject it to basic color correction, trimming, repositioning, and other minor changes before posting the video. InVideo is the ideal video editor choice for all your travel videos. It allows you to create multilingual videos. Understand that people who do not speak the language of your video might be interested in your travel diaries. With a tool like InVideo, you can easily add captions and subtitles to your content.
10. Export in High Quality
While exporting your travel videos, make sure that you export them in the highest ProRes (RAW) quality. That way, when you need the file in some other format, you can directly convert it without having to download the original file from the online video editor all over again. Also, avoid compressing your files to MP4 to avoid quality degradation.
With the above tips, you are now equipped to tell your travel stories to the world. Let nothing stop you from telling your tales of exploration.
Rhydian Choi 
Kim Marks