This situation happens far too often: you're at your bucket list destination. The sun is just rising over the horizon. You have your trusty GoPro in hand. What do you do? Turn it on and point it at the sun? Hold it at arms length and try to get the shakiest shot possible? Realize the camera is dead because you never charged the batteries? No way-You're a pro (after this article).

You're going to capture the moment perfectly- your feelings, the sounds, all the details. Just in case though, here's a few little things to keep in mind that will make a HUGE difference in taking your videos to the next level.

The 7 Steps to Better Travel Videos

Talk to Yourself

Never work with animals or children. Unless you have a chance to work with monkeys. Always work with monkeys. The most difficult thing when we started shooting videos was to sit down and talk to the camera. The best way to get over that initial awkwardness is to have someone asking you questions about what you're doing today, how you felt about the experience, etc.

Make sure that when you answer those questions (even if you're prompting yourself) that you answer in complete sentences. Then you can simply cut the audio of the question being posed. Sounds quite simple but a quick “talk in” to what the video or subject of the video is about is a great way to hook your audience.

2. Capture B Roll

B-Roll. Also known as Insta-gold.Mark it down- 2017 is the year that the classic version of vlogging starts to die its already overdue death. Yapping heads droning on and on about what they did or what they want to do, or worse: what they're about to do during their trip is played out. To create a truly dynamic video, focus on trying to capture all that great background footage of your trip-sunsets on the beach, snorkeling reefs, footage of sled dogs, close ups of flowers blowing in the wind, etc…..all this footage can go over verbal talk ins, personal reflections, or a rocking soundtrack.Go out there and get some awesome B Roll footage.

3. Make Better Travel Videos Tip 3: Don't Be So Serious

Unless you're Richard Attenborough, you should really limit the amount of facts that you're throwing at the camera. The most cringe worthy and unfortunately boring travel videos usually are the ones were some teenager yaps on endlessly about the details of some complex subject they have zero grasp of, like theology in Indonesia.

A few fun facts can be, well, fun, but overall, the Youtube audience is watching travel vlogs to have a good time. If you want to throw in a little learning, think hydrogen peroxide volcano, not organic chemistry textbook. Stick with what you know and take the viewer along on the fun part of the trip. Leave the educational stuff to the pros at BBC.

4. Make Better Travel Videos Tip 4: For damn sake, hold the camera steady

A gimbal! (or the exact moment when I gave up on Allison ever holding the camera steady by herself)Just hold the camera steady. If you can't hold the camera steady, set it on a table. Or a chair. Or press it against the wall, or buy a gimbal.

Shooting with a GoPro and have nothing to set the camera on? Hold it against your chin or forehead. Yes-seriously. Turns out the human body is a great steadicam. Or buy a gimbal.

5. Use More Interesting Camera Angles

If you're lazy and shoot everything eye height the audience is going to get bored quick. Lay down and shoot up so that everything has a taller, more epic appearance. Shoot scenes with items really close in the foreground to give the scene depth. Get creative with where you place the camera and what the focus is. Alternate establishing shots with close ups in your final edit for visual variety.

6. Cut out the everything not necessary, and then cut even more

The worst sin of creating video is to be boring. It's really easy to get attached to footage you may have shot but attention spans are at an all time low. Chop your footage, chop out even more, and then have a friend give feedback on where they feel your video drags and where it rocks. Learning to be brutal with what you don't show is one of the hardest skills to learn.

7. Stop NARRATING and do

"Look, I'm getting on a plane!" “Today we'll be doing this". "We're about to get on the plane". "We're at the bus stop". Yes. We're watching VIDEO. That is our visual aid and using context clues we have figured out you are at the airport. Now, film your conversation with someone, talk about how you're feeling or better yet, get out and start doing something (in your video) and cut out the majority of that "dead" time.

Or take the easy way…

If nothing else, throw money at the problem

Finally, like all things in life, there is no problem that money can't solve.

Does the audio you capture suck? Buy an external Mic.
Is your footage still shaky? Buy a gimbal to smooth things out.
Don't know the nuts and bolts of actually editing a video? Let us walk you through it.
Need a royalty free soundtrack to use? This is the music service you wish you'd known about years ago.

So those are true beginner tips for how to improve your travel footage starting right now. What are your best tips for travel videos? Drop something in the comments! We'll use the best tips in an upcoming video.

Watch 7 Steps to Better Travel Videos

Read Instead

Tim: 00:00 Picture it. You're finally at your bucket list destination. Everything's perfect. The weather's great. It's more beautiful than you could have imagined. You want to share this with people, why not have it be great? We are by no means experts, but what we can help you with is to avoid the stupid mistakes so you don't have to make them like we did for probably a year straight. First thing, you're going to go out and get some B roll and what is B roll, B rolls. All that background footage is that video you're going to take on vacation of all the details that if you weren't there, you might miss out on by itself and at an extended length it's not very interesting, but if you go on and get all those little details lined up and then you put them in your video with a verbal talking over 'em, just personal reflection on the experience or even just put some awesome soundtrack to them, suddenly they're very interesting and it helps paint the whole thing. Picture of that expression.

Tim: 01:05 One of the hardest things that when we started shooting video was actually talking to the camera and looking at, and it's little camera eye. Even doing this, I needed to take a couple of breaks before I could really get into it again cause it's been a little while. One of the easiest ways to get used to talking to the camera and even pretending this is something somewhat normal, is to ask yourself questions and make yourself answer in complete sentences. And even better than asking yourself questions and sounded like a crazy person on camera is probably to have somebody else asks you questions. For example.

Fin: 01:41 Okay, full disclosure, I know that I'm on camera. Like let's be honest, if you watch TRIPPED at all, my makeup never looks this nice. I don't know what Tim is doing, so I'm going to try my best at impromptu here.

Tim: 01:55 What is it about beaches that are so magical to you?

Fin: 02:00 Beaches are beautiful at any time of day. You can enjoy the sunrise from a beach. You can enjoy laying in the sun in the middle of the day and you can enjoy a beautiful beach sunset.

Fin: 02:11 That's it. That's it. That's it.

Tim: 02:16 So now that you have that sound, you can isolate that audio, throw away that boring video and actually put that over that awesome B roll that you captured earlier and it's going to look something like this.

Fin: 02:27 Beaches are beautiful at any time of day. You can enjoy the sunrise from a beach, you can enjoy laying in the sun in the middle of the day and you can enjoy a beautiful beach sunset.

Tim: 02:39 You don't have a Finney just sitting around waiting to ask you questions or to answer your questions. You can always talk to yourself like a crazy person. That might seem really stupid, but it kind of gets a talk track going so you can throw yourself out of question like what was it like travel with a drone for a year and you can actually respond. Traveling with a drone for year was a pain in the ass. You always looked like a nerd because you had a big square backpack on your back. It was always heavy. You never knew if you were going to even get to use it after you, I don't know, carry it up all the way up a mountain, but in the end, the footage was worth it. So with talking or asking yourself a question, it sounds super basic, but it's a great way to hook your viewer at the beginning of your video.

Tim: 03:22 Let them know kind of what is about what you're about, sets the tone. Just try it a few times. It gets easier, I promise. Or if you're still uncomfortable, you can always have a bevy while you're doing it. If you're going to take one tip away from this entire video, it's this for shit sake, hold your camera steady. Just hold it steady. Hardest thing in the world. It should be the easiest thing in the world. And maybe it's some, maybe it's a topic that's near and dear to my heart because it's something we've struggled with so greatly. If, if you can't hold the camera steady, there's the ground, you can put it on the ground, you can put it on a table, put it on a chair. If none of that stuff is near you, you can hold it against a wall. You could set it on a rock. It's nearly limitless. The places you can put a camera that are steady instead of holding it like this the entire time. If there's absolutely nothing around you, nothing to put a camera on and well, first off you're a liar, but second fine. There's nothing near you to put a camera on. Hold it against your chin or hold it against your forehead. That's really stupid. You're going to look like an idiot, but you're going to get great footage. The human body is an amazing steady cam or you could also just buy a gamble.

Tim: 04:36 Is your name David Attenborough? Is it Sigourney Weaver? Hello. Anyone? I'm Sigourney Weaver. It's probably not. If you're not one of those two people, you need to limit the amount of facts you're throwing at the camera, especially in travel videos. Very specifically, the worst and probably most boring travel videos on YouTube are where people with no expertise in the subject continued to throw facts at the camera and try to educate their audience. People don't watch travel vlogs for that reason. They watch them to have some fun, have some laughs, kind of forget they're on the bus for five minutes. We've all been there. Any viewer who wants to be really educated through a travel video is probably going to be watching the BBC, not checking you out on YouTube, which that's totally fine. Different audiences. If you want to throw a little education at your viewer, that's cool, but think more hydrogen peroxide volcano and less organic chemistry textbook. Leave the really smart stuff to the people at the BBC.

Tim: 05:32 Use some interesting angles when you're shooting video, so if you shoot everything eye-height from standing up, that's going to get stale really quick. There's a lot of different places that you can put cameras in, especially GoPros that is going to make your footage way more interesting. You can shoot some scenes with something way in the foreground with you in the background out of focus. You can do the reverse of that. You can put your camera up for a higher angle. Just experiment, play with the camera. Sometimes set it down, walk past it. Just do something interesting. If it's always holding the camera out in front of you, you facing towards it three feet away, that gets boring for everybody really quick. The worst sin of creating video is creating something, cut out everything not necessary, and then cut out some more. It's really easy to get attached to your footage and sometimes it's hard to lose it. You just got to get used to chopping more and more of it away. Learning to be brutal with what you don't show people is one of the hardest skills to learn. So we know we've been guilty of this in the past and we still are. It's kind of a crutch that, especially people who make travel videos all back onto, it's holding the camera right up here again and saying, Hey, look, I'm getting on an airplane. Hey look, I'm flying here

Fin: 06:51 Today we're driving through the Haast pass.

Tim: 06:54 Instead of just constantly telling your viewer what you're doing, show it.

Fin: 07:00 They were driving through the Haast Pass.

Tim: 07:03 That's why we're working with video in the first place.

Tim: 07:07 Nothing else throw money at the problem, like all things in life. There's nothing that money can't help. If you have shitty audio, go buy an external mic. Look at this. Otherwise, it's really echoey in here. If you have really bad video, you might need a new camera. And so shooting on that old point and click, is your footage still shaky? We didn't even know this. You can go buy a gimbal. They're not that expensive and they make everything look awesome. Do you not know the nuts and bolts of actually adding a video? Click here and we'll show you how to do that. If there's not a magic floating button on this video, check out the links below. I'm sure there's something there. Do you need awesome music to use if you do epidemic sound? We wish we had found them a year ago. So those are some of our best beginner tips for shooting travel videos and stuff. We wish we had known at the beginning of our trip. Everybody has their own little tips though. If you've got something, drop it in the comments. We'll use it in a future video.