If you are on your way to a new adventure soon and you want to make sure that you make memories, you may consider a travel vlog. A vlog is a video blog, and it can help you to make travel videos that you want to watch over and over, share with your friends, pop on your social media, and even send to your boss to rub in the fact you are on your vacation.
Vlogging is a whole new thing, but it has been around for a while now. People are taking on the GoPro cameras and the DJI drones and they are choosing to see the world from a whole other perspective. Enjoying a trip while being able to document everything can be a game changer! With this in mind, here are the top travel vlogging tips that you need before you fly.
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Put down the drone! Okay, this is going to sound confusing, but the best travel tip you need is not to put everything on camera. The idea is that you want to be able to film the things that are memorable experiences and not the fact that you walked down the road, or you bought a bag of chips, or that you would’ve run a lovely warm bath. You want to choose things that are good. Capturing the moment means capturing the interesting things that you really want to video. It can also mean that instead of enjoying your vacation you are glued to your camera or your screen so that you can watch what’s going on through a lens; really not ideal. Set aside some time during your vacation and write a list of what videos you want to make and what things you want to capture as per your itinerary. This will help you to be more specific and cater your videos to your audience and your memories.
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Make the video specific. So, you are headed to Thailand – is your video going to be about Thailand? Is it going to be about the temples in Thailand? Are you going to center your vlog around the food that you eat while you are traveling around Thailand? Are you going to a specific resort in Phuket? All of these things are important for you to realize because you want to make sure that your video is specific to your niche. For example, if your current YouTube channel is showing off videos about food in different countries, it makes sense to make sure that you are covering everything from Thai delicacies to Thai street food. You need to make sure that you are taking your videos in the right direction, and that’s why you need to make it a niche.
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Don’t make them drone on. Keeping your videos shorter and more succinct is going to help you to appeal to the audience. Nobody wants to sit around and listen to somebody talking about their travel plans for an hour and a half. The end goal here is to have small bites so that people want to take in your content that is available and relevant for them. If you were talking for an hour about going to Italy, then you need to cut that right down to an eight-minute ‘This is what’s great about Italy’ type of video
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Don’t just show the scenery. If you want to make your blogs memorable, you need to be on camera! Flip your view so people can see you talking passionately and smiling about what you are seeing. Make sure they can see you actually enjoying things and eating things, and make sure you invest in a really good tripod to help. If you are sending up a drone, make sure you are captured on the camera waving especially if you have an amazing sunset in the background! Being in front of the camera isn’t for everyone, but it definitely should be for you if you are hoping to capture the moment, and keep people interested and engaged. Don’t be shy – this is your big moment and you should enjoy every second of it.
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Interview other people. If you’re heading to a new country – in the city – even in a new town, you need to include other people in your video. If you are new to this, you might not know that they are always more interesting when there are other people involved. Go to the local supermarket while you’ve been buying your breakfast and ask the shopkeeper some questions. If you have linked up with other travel buddies, ask them some interesting questions about what they enjoy and what they think about the trip so far. You want to add flavor and personality to your video, and people are personalities! If you ask people questions, you’re going to get great responses and you’ll be able to edit your videos to reflect that.
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Remember those awesome point of view shots. When you send up your drone, have it just a few feet above your head so that people can see your perspective but taller. If you are using a go pro, flip the camera so they are looking at things from your perspective when you are hiking or when you are looking at the sun rising over the horizon. The biggest difference between a travel vlog and a normal travel video is that the blog will focus a lot on you and your personality. Don’t forget, while the destination is great, you are the star of the show. People are tuning in to see you. Point of view videos are going to help you to show people exactly what they are missing out on, and then you can flip the camera to you when you are discussing the places you have been.
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Pick a memorable shot for your beginning. When you are starting your vlog, you need to make sure that people want to keep watching it. This means making sure that your very fast shots when people click on your thumbnail is a visible shot of somewhere they would love to be. We gravitate towards the white sugar beaches on the bright blue ocean images and it’s because they are beautiful and we imagine ourselves. An establishing shot is the video chat that will show the bigger picture of the place that you’re in. So if you are heading off skiing, do you want this to be a lovely shot of the surrounding snow. People spend so much time videoing the things that they are doing and people they are with, that they forget to take videos that really show where they are.
If you have never considered running your own travel vlog, now is the time. You are going to be going on adventures around the world and other people out there looking for inspiration and where they should go next. Talk about the hacks that got you the best prices and talk about where you bought your tickets. You could even have an entire video blog dedicated to saving tips so that people can travel more often. No matter what you do, you need to make this vlog an interesting one so that you can generate the right audience and keep the traffic coming towards your YouTube channel. Don’t be afraid to branch out and don’t be afraid to be a little more niche with this – this is going to be a wonderful way to showcase exactly where you are and what you can do.
