How to Turn Your Travel Videos into a Travel Vlog
Longing to travel again? Feeling nostalgic and going through photos and videos from past trips? I certainly am! While you’re stuck in quarantine, why not spend some time turning those old travel clips and photos into a trip video!? I love capturing my travels on video and vlogging entrie trips with my sister Grace. But you don’t need to be an expert vlogger or video editor to put together a video montage of your trip!
Here’s a step-by-step guide for how to turn clips from your trip into one awesome travel video!
CURATE YOUR MEDIA
The first step is to find all the media you have available to you. Pull together any clips (and photos if you want to use them) from your selected trip and put them all in one location or folder.
ORGANIZE YOUR MEDIA
Once you have all of your media in one place, organize it in a way that will make the most sense for your video. When I properly vlog a trip, I organize my media by day. Everything taken on day one goes into its own folder, everything from day two goes in another folder, and so on. If you don’t have a ton of footage or if there were multiple days when you didn’t record anything, I recommend organizing by event. For example, everything from your time at the beach goes in one folder, everything from that hike you went on goes in a separate folder, and so on.
PICK A KILLER TRACK
After going through your footage and organizing it, you should have a good idea of the overall tone or theme of the trip (Action Adventure, Reflective, Fun in the Sun, etc). You need to find a track that matches that tone and can underlie all of your footage. I recommend picking 2-3 songs you really like because once you hear it behind your videos it may not have the effect you want.
Pro Tip: If you plan to upload your finished video anywhere, make sure you choose a Copyright Free track.
Here’s a great source for Free No-Copyright tracks: Audio Library
Here’s a great subscription-based source for No-Copyright tracks: Epidemic Sound (This is what I use!)
SET UP YOUR PROJECT
In whatever video-editing software you have at your disposal (I use Final Cut Pro), set up your project. Give your video a snazzy title and import all the media you plan to use.
START EDITING
I find this to be the most difficult step of the process. Actually diving in and starting to edit can be intimidating! But once you get going it will likely be hard to stop. If you are feeling blocked with how to get your video started, watch some other travel videos for inspiration! See how I start videos on my channel and check out some of the videos on my favorite travel vloggers’ channels like Tess Florio and Jaci Marie.
FOLLOW THE MUSIC
The best editing tip I can give you is the one I personally stick to without fail: follow the music. If you have taken the time up front to pick a great song as the backdrop to your video, trust it and edit to it. Follow the beats and musical cadences and use those as indicators for where to cut between your clips or when to move into a new segment. Similarly, if you are short on clips, the best ending point for your video might just be the end of the track you picked.
FINISHING TOUCHES
Once you have a first cut ready to go, don’t get too excited and show it off before putting some finishing touches on it! Trust me, it’s worth it to pause and ask yourself Are there any color adjustments you can make to make the video brighter or more colorful? Can you add any location titles to label where certain clips are taking place? Are you confident about your font choice and title card?
EXPORT + PREMIERE!
Once you're satisfied with your project, it’s finally time to export and show it off! Share it with everyone that was on the trip and then post it on social media so all your friends can enjoy just a few minutes of your adventures through your personal lens.
Need some inspiration? Here are two videos I put together without much planning and without having done much traditional vlogging on the trip:
Happy editing and reminiscing!
