As a travel creator, coming up with your next video idea can be as tricky as picking your next destination. The world is your oyster with limitless travel content ideas to try out. So where do you even start?
You might take inspiration from YouTuber Drew Binsky and tell stories of people from different cultures. Or follow in Kara & Nate’s footsteps by checking off as many countries as possible. You can explore ways to freshen up your channel, or try something completely new.
No matter where in the world you’re headed, there will be a fresh format which works for you. To help you find it, we’ve packed a suitcase full of the best video ideas for travel creators.
- Inspire viewers by showcasing destinations
- Share experiences and take your audience with you
- Give out practical travel tips and advice
- Connect with your audience by letting them into your world
Inspire your viewers by showcasing travel destinations
People love watching travel content, whether they’re planning a trip away or looking for a bit of escapism. Inspire your viewer’s wanderlust by showing off your favorite destinations.
The more you prove yourself to be a travel expert, the more viewers will come back to your videos for inspiration. Soon your channel will be the perfect getaway for people dreaming of their next adventure.
1. Highlight stunning luxury destinations and dream getaways
Package up the best bits of your trip and share a taste of places people might want to visit. The Luxury Travel Expert is an expert in giving viewers FOMO by sharing stunning footage of high end destinations.
Your footage is the real star here. Show off crystal clear waters and white sandy beaches to make your audience dream of warmer climates. Or if your trip takes you somewhere less exotic, edit a highlights package of the bits you loved most to get your viewers excited, whatever the destination.
2. Present stunning terrains using drone footage
Drones take landscape shots to new heights, quite literally. They give you the opportunity to capture completely unique footage of stunning locations. With drone cameras becoming more affordable, it’s easier than ever to add cinematic aerial footage to your videos
Just take a look at how Sam Kolder brings the island paradise of Guam to life with lush, sweeping shots. This kind of attention-grabbing content can make all the difference when you’re looking to hook viewers on your content.
3. Showcase dynamic landscapes with striking time-lapse videos
Want to stand out from other travel creators? Time-lapse videos can showcase scenery in an eye-catching way, from the beauty of a beach sunset to the buzz of a city.
Geoff Tompkinson’s videos of Singapore skylines condense hours into minutes and command your attention throughout. Try this technique for yourself and show how a location changes over time. Not only can it produce stunning content but it can also significantly boost your average view duration, making it more likely for your content to go viral.
4. Share your top picks from favorite destinations
Who doesn’t love a countdown? It’s a simple format but it works. Group together your favorite locations, attractions and experiences into an easy-to-follow video for your audience. By leaving the best until last, viewers will often stay to the end to see what comes out on top.
Just check out Ryan Shirley’s list of the top 25 places to visit in the USA. You’ll see how easy it is as a viewer to find yourself watching to the end. As a bonus, ask viewers whether they agree with your picks and you’ll soon spark a debate in your comments.
5. Leave a review of your destinations
Before people do anything, they look for reviews. If something’s good, bad, or downright weird, people want to know about it. So review food, attractions, hotels or anything else you come across and let viewers know how you really feel. You’ll build your audience’s trust over time and establish yourself as a seasoned travel expert.
YouTuber Attaché’s review of Helsinki is a great example, with public transport tips and top food recommendations. These candid insights can bring a destination to life and build trust with your audience. Take things a step further by using a consistent way of scoring, like Dave Portnoy’s one bite pizza reviews that he rates out of 10. A repeatable format like this soon becomes familiar to viewers, giving them a reason to watch to the end.
Document your experiences and take your audience with you
The magic of traveling comes from the sheer variety of experiences and cultures you can discover. By sharing your travel adventures with viewers, you’re allowing them to live vicariously through your channel.
Taking people along for the ride is a great way of building up regular viewers too. As they get invested in your travels, they’ll become more likely to seek out your newest uploads.
6. Keep a travel diary by filming a vlog
Filming a travel vlog lets you share experiences with your viewers on the fly. Documenting the highs and lows of life on the road is a tried and tested format used by creator heavyweights like Casey Neistat and Peter McKinnon.
Travel YouTuber FunForLouis vlogged his trip across America in a DIY Tesla van, combining stunning b-roll with candid diary entries. By making viewers feel like they’re part of your adventure, you’re more likely to build a personal connection with them, meaning they’ll stick around for the ride!
7. Get to know the locals with revealing interviews
Want to give your audience a flavor of local life and culture? Speak to the real people who live there. These authentic insights provide a depth to your content that’ll help you stand out from other creators.
Drew Binsky often puts local people at heart of his videos, giving his content an authentic local voice. You don’t need to go to lengths Binsky does - speaking to a real life cannibal - but interviewing locals will always give viewers an interesting perspective on your travel destination.
8. Go in-depth with full travel documentaries
Why not flex your storytelling chops and find a unique angle about your destination? Documentaries give you the opportunity to explore a place’s culture, history or people in a more in-depth way.
Kara & Nate used their trip to the most remote town in Australia to share insights about the Aboriginal people who live there. By building your video’s narrative around an interesting hook, you’re giving people even more reason to stick around and watch to the end.
9. Plan adventures you can turn into a series
If you feel like you have too many great ideas for a single video, try planning out an entire series instead. Not only can you go into greater depth on different parts of your travel, you’ll also build anticipation for future episodes.
The Endless Adventure often create YouTube playlists based on a single adventure, like the time they renovated a vintage RV. As a viewer you become invested in their progress and find yourself coming back to watch each episode.
10. Discover new cultures and share them with your audience
Immersing yourself in a new culture is one of the most fascinating parts of traveling to new places. Tapping into the intrigue of seeing how people live in other parts of the world will always provide a rich source of material.
David Wen regularly explores the culture shocks in his adopted homeland of the Netherlands. This content is interesting for anyone looking to visit, while making funny viewing for locals too. It’s also the kind of relatable content that’s likely to fire up a lively comments section, earning your videos plenty of interaction.
11. Eat your way around the world
One of the most exciting things about traveling to new places is sampling the local cuisine. Wherever you end up, there’s going to be new and exotic dishes you can share with your viewers. Not only does food make for a mouth-watering subject for a video, eating your way around a destination can also shine a light on what different cultures are like.
Take the Best Ever Food Review Show’s episode on Korean street food as an example. They reveal the city’s bustling food market packed with diners grabbing a late meal. Food reviews are an easily repeatable format that shine a light on local customs, making it a great series idea to capture alongside your other content.
12. Embark on adrenaline-fuelled adventures
Travel content is exciting, but you can take things up a notch with daredevil antics and extreme activities. Action-packed videos make for gripping content, with viewers keen to see the lengths you’ll push yourself to.
Creators Danegar and Stacey took on the world’s deadliest road in Bolivia on mountain bikes. Watching along gives you the thrill of cycling above 2,000ft cliffs. This makes for an addictive video that has you hooked right the way through.
13. Take viewers with you to wild landscapes
Not everyone has easy access to remote wilderness. So if you’re the type of traveler who seeks out extreme landscapes, why not give your audience a taste of the wild?
The Outdoor Boys are a family who take viewers on regular trips to remote parts of Alaska and other parts of the world. Most people aren’t going to try and survive camping in a snowstorm. But through the Outdoor Boys’ videos, anyone can watch what happens on these kinds of adventures.
14. Tell little-known stories from far-flung places
Good old fashioned storytelling will always make for a great video. So share personal tales from your travels that resonate with your viewers on an emotional level.
Eamon & Bec’s story of building a dog shelter in Mexico in just 30 days really tugs at the heartstrings. They’ve created a memorable video which not only highlights a problem, but shows them interacting with the locals and building a real connection. You only have to look at the comments section to see how impactful these types of videos can be.
15. Set yourself challenges in unknown locations
Challenge videos are one of the most popular formats on YouTube. So why not spice up your travels with some fun goals? Make sure you set out your objective nice and early in your video to keep people watching to see if you’re successful.
Take Yes Theory as an example, trying to survive a day in Shanghai without money. Straight away, viewers want to see how they get on and whether they complete the challenge. And as the action unfolds, they get introduced to the city too.
Share your traveler know-how with practical tips and guides
Experienced travelers will often know the best ways to tackle common problems with life on the road. If you’ve built up knowledge that could help your audience, why not share your go-to tips?
Practical travel guides make for super helpful, evergreen videos that mark you out as a travel guru worth following. You’ll find people coming back to your channel time and again to get your priceless traveling insights.
16. Make travel guides for popular destinations
When you’re excited to head away to a new destination, it’s only natural you’re going to check out things to do. Loads of people seek out video guides for cities and countries to get an idea of what’s in store for them. Wolters World does this well, providing guides on what not to do in different places.
By rounding up the must-see landmarks and unmissable local experiences, he taps into people who are searching for videos about that location. It’s practical advice people are always going to search for, meaning you could find your views climb long after you’ve uploaded the content. This is especially true if you hit the sweet spot of providing a guide for a popular destination which doesn’t have lots of content yet.
17. Compare the best and worst travel options
People love comparing hugely contrasting travel experiences. Even Mr Beast has got in on the act with his $1 vs $1 million hotel room video. It’s an entertaining format that gives viewers a glimpse into wildly different lifestyles.
For example, Gabriel Traveler used his trip to El Salvador to show how different his experience in a luxury hotel was to that of the people living nearby. Viewers click on these videos because they want to see how stark the contrast is, meaning they’re more likely to watch all the way through.
18. Reveal the secret hacks every jet-setter needs to know
Traveling between countries can be tricky, but there are tons of secret hacks that only the most experienced travelers know about. If you’ve managed to build up a bank of invaluable tips, share them with your viewers.
Saving people time and money will have them coming back to your channel for future words of wisdom. Take Nik from Away Together as an example, sharing secret flight hacks to help viewers get cheaper air travel. Viewers who watch and save money off the back of their tips will be way more likely to come back for more useful advice.
19. Share essential money-saving tips for travelers on a budget
Who doesn’t love saving money? Share your budget-friendly tips and you’ll always find an audience of thrifty travelers. You could run through your top tips for traveling on the cheap, or even put together a guide on how to get by in a particular place without breaking the bank.
Abroad in Japan has made several guides breaking down exactly how people visiting the country can save money on food, accommodation and travel. This helpful advice will always appeal to upcoming visitors, meaning these videos could continue to rack up views for many years.
Connect with your viewers by letting them into your world
The best content creators build an engaged community around their channels. How? By making a personal connection between them and their audience.
Taking the time to show viewers your life on the road can pay off big time, particularly as they’re more likely to follow your channel if they relate to you as a person.
20. Host a Q&A with your travel-curious audience
The easiest way to interact with your audience is to directly answer their questions. You could decide to respond to questions in real-time, or address them in a simple vlog format. Either way, Q&As are a great way of letting your audience get to know you better, while learning more about them at the same time.
It’s easy to repeat a Q&A for every destination you land in, or you could simply host a one-off discussion around your traveling lifestyle. Eva zu Beck did exactly that, answering questions about her life as a solo traveler. By being open and honest with her viewers, Eva got a ton of engagement and built a special bond with her viewers at the same time.
21. Show viewers what’s in your suitcase
People are nosy! They want to see what you bring with you on your trip, particularly if you’re a seasoned traveler who’s got packing down to a tee. Showing viewers what’s in your suitcase not only provides an insight into what you take with you, it can also be a natural way to share essential advice on what to bring or leave behind.
Bea Minimalista shows viewers what she takes when she’s going away for a few weeks. And as the name suggests, it isn’t a lot. Lift the lid on your packing process and share your strategies for making the most of that all-important luggage space. You might even get some invaluable tips in return from the comments section.
22. Offer an exclusive peek behind the scenes of your adventures
Traveling the world isn’t all about National Geographic landscapes and Instagram-ready plates of food. Often it involves uncomfortably long journeys and hotels that aren’t quite what you were expecting. Sharing an honest and transparent account about the difficulties of traveling can make a refreshing change for your audience.
Take Lost LeBlanc’s brutally honest assessment of Cinque Terre, showing that behind a postcard perfect destination there are actually lots and lots of crowds. By touching on some of the downsides of popular destinations, they’ve shown viewers that they can be trusted to share both the good and bad sides of travel. And as an added bonus, they lit a fire in the comments from people who disagree with the video!
Use these travel content ideas to inspire your next adventure
Wherever you’re headed, you should now be kitted out with tons of great travel video ideas for turning your wanderlust into unmissable content. You might look to inspire your fellow travelers, showcase the stunning destinations you’ve been to, or simply share your essential tips for life on the road.
What’s great is that you can try out several different formats on the same trip, meaning one destination could easily result in a handful of videos. See how you can bring your next trip to life, and don’t forget to make your travel footage pop with a stand-out soundtrack to match. If you’re stuck for which sounds to search for, check out our guide to music for travel videos.
