AD | One of the loveliest things about going on holiday is creating all those wonderful memories, isn’t it? But once you’re back home and real life takes over, it’s often hard to remember every little moment. Have you ever considered making your own personalised travel photo album online, as a permanent record of your special time? It’s a lot simpler than you might think – just 5 steps to create something that you can look at again and again, and easily share with family and friends too.
Why Create Your Own Personalised Travel Photo Album Online?
Very simply, because there are so many applications, apps, and websites out there that allow you to do so quickly, simply, and for free. You can browse myriad travel photo book ideas and designs until you find one you like, create your masterpiece, and then share your online album link with family and friends. You don’t need to print multiple sets of photos, nor shop for lots of hardback photo albums either. Although of course the option is always there to do this if you want to.
How Do I Make A Travel Photo Album?
As I said, it’s a lot easier than you might imagine to create your travel photo album, in just 5 simple steps. Starting with…
Getting Ready – What Camera To Take
Once you’ve chosen where you’re going, you need to decide what cameras and lenses will work best for your holiday. How long is your trip going to last? What type of photography do you want to shoot? How much space (and weight) are available in your bag? You’ll also want to decide on whether a DSLR or a mirrorless camera would be best. Or, like me, you could just use your smartphone 🙂
Shooting – Capturing Moments
I use my iPhone for all my photos (holidays, garden, blog, and more) but I’m always open to learning new ways to improve my shots. I’ve found SLR Lounge’s iPhone tips and tricks very useful, and I also love Hootsuite’s composition and technical tricks for improving your photos. Prior to switching to an iPhone, I was a devoted Samsung Galaxy user for many years, and found these tips on how to take better photos very helpful.
How to Choose and Edit the Best Photos for Your Travel Photo Album
Assuming you’ve captured a good range of shots from your trip, it should be easy to select the best photos for your travel photo album scrapbook of memories. Pick the ones that mean the most to you. Such as, a day at the beach, climbing to the top of a castle, the view from the deck of your cruise ship, a fabulous meal in a taverna, some cute cats near your accommodation (or is that just me?). As to how many travel photos are needed, that’s entirely up to you, it’s your travel photo book after all.
Then it’s time to have some editing fun with a range of free apps to give your photos the edge. My personal favourites are ColorStory, Lightroom, and my iPhone’s inbuilt editing software. You don’t have to spend a fortune on a PhotoShop subscription (#sorrynotsorry Adobe) to get the professional look. Just play around with different filters and effects until you get the style you want.
Create Your Travel Photo Album Online
Although there are lots of online photo album websites and applications, I’m a huge fan of Canva*, the online graphic design tool. I use it almost every day to create social media posts, presentations, posters, videos, logos and more, both for my blog and for my freelance clients. And Canva PRO* also has a great range of travel photo albums to suit your style, like this travel book template, for example.
You can change the colours, font, and of course edit the text to suit your own travel memory book. And once you’ve finished uploading and inserting your photos, you can get really creative by adding some music.
Adding Music To Your Photo Book
When I worked in education marketing, I used to edit videos for our clients, frequently adding their supplied cover footage and music to really bring the videos to life. I often had to extract VOB files from client-supplied DVDs. You can’t just copy VOB files though as they’re usually encrypted, but you can download some free software to rip DVD to MP4 format, so you can work with the files.
This is also true of older holiday footage, home movies, or favourite music that you might have archived on DVDs. DVDs do degrade over time, so why not digitise them in the same way and save them to your hard drive or online cloud storage for easy access? Then you can extract your chosen music, upload it to Canva, and add it to your travel photo album.
Just be aware that ripping DVDs containing copyrighted work is illegal in most cases. However, if you’re only doing it for personal use and not planning to sell any ripped DVDs, you’ll probably be OK – although don’t take this as gospel, please do check your local laws, as I’m not a legal expert.
What Makes a Great Travel Photo Album?
For me, it’s the one that gives us joy and transports us back to our special moments whenever we look at it. And now you know how easy it is to create your own personalised travel photo album, why not have a go at making one yourself? Or perhaps one (or more) of the following too? They’d make fabulous presents as well, don’t you think? Perfect for a birthday, Christmas, or anniversary gift to celebrate a special date.
- birthday photo albums
- wedding photo albums
- honeymoon photo albums
- baby photo albums
- christening photo albums
- kids photo albums
- family photo albums
And you don’t need to stop there either. You could choose your favourite holiday photo and have it made into a desk calendar, or print out a hi res version for some truly personalised photo wall art. Your possibilities are endless – so good luck, have fun, and do let me know how you get on!
Have you ever created a travel photo album after your holiday? Or any other kind of photo album? If so, which is your favourite app or online software that you’d recommend?
* This is a sponsored post and contains affiliate links – please see my Disclaimer.
Great idea and advice. I love the creativity behind it as well.
https://www.bauchlefashion.com
Thank you very much, I’m glad it was helpful 🙂
Amazing ideas, instagram challenged my photography
but this bring lots of memories together..
Thanks for recommending..
Thank you, Gabi, glad it was helpful.
Creating a travel photo album is such a great way to keep the memories of an amazing trip alive. We’ve only made a couple (despite taking thousands of photos!), but I’m now keen to start working on the next one after reading this. Thanks for sharing!
Wow, you’ve got a lot of photos to choose from! Happy editing, I’m glad this was useful 🙂
Great post, Lisa! With some great ideas on how to keep those cherished holiday memories 🙂 I love physical photo albums, I really miss them now that everything is digital and always enjoy looking through our old albums! Holidays can be such special occasions so making a travel album like this as a gift (for someone else or yourself!) is a great idea! x
Thank you, Jenny, that’s very kind of you 🙂 I know what you mean about physical photo albums but I do love the convenience of doing it online – also the lower cost/free aspect! x
I love these photos! My partner and I would like to go to Greece at some point, perhaps early next year. Thank you for sharing your experiences here x
They’re stock photos, but we are planning to go to Greece next year too, so I may replace them, haha! x
I’m using my phone for taking a lot of photos haha. I went on a trip but didn’t have a camera. My phone did a good job. These are great tips!
I much prefer using my phone camera, as all my editing apps are right there. Plus I don’t have to lug around a lot of camera kit!
Lisa these photos and ideas are brilliant! We’ve got a trip booked for the end of the month so will definitely keep this in mind to keep the memories alive!
Kinsy
kinsysmind.co.uk
Ah, thank you – I can’t take credit for the photos (they’re from a stock library) but the ideas are all mine! Hope you have a wonderful trip 🙂
Hi Lisa
What a great idea. In this digital age I think we often miss the post-holiday equivalent of getting your photos developed at Boots, putting the best (or least bad – no Photoshop and the like for prints) pics in an album, and then showing them to friends and family.
Thank you, Richie. I used to enjoy my trip to Boots but I have to confess I prefer the ease of digital albums now – it’s far quicker too!
Having albums like this are such a good idea, especially for a really important/memorable event or holiday.
Absolutely – thank you, Molly 🙂
thanks for sharing this fun way to capture travels and memories. i love making albums. i recently made one from our honeymoon in Maui. it’s fun to look through.
Oh, that’s amazing, what a perfect way to capture your honeymoon!
Hi Lisa! These are some amazing tips and ideas. I love using Snapseed to edit my photos and Adobe for my videos and love Canva. Earlier it was like save all the pictures in a specific album named after the place we visited. But now I try to make a short video and save it. Next week visiting Mumbai and later in December we have planned a long road trip in US. So excited about that. 🙂
Thank you so much, Via, I’m so pleased they were helpful! I do hope you’ll post about your Mumbai trip on your Instagram, and best wishes for your US road trip, how exciting 🙂
Thanks for sharing these tips, tricks and apps. Appreciate it!
xoxo
Lovely
http://www.mynameislovely.com
No problem, glad they were helpful 🙂
Wow… an online photo album! How cool is this? I should try make some online photo albums for myself. Thank you for sharing.
Oh yes, you definitely should, but with your beautiful illustrations, that would be amazing!
I typically use my phone to organize albums from travel trips and events, however it would be nice to have an online space to do it so I will definitely look into this for the next time I travel.
I use my phone and online cloud storage, but an album is great way of curating something to share, I think.
These are great reasons for wanting to make a travel album online. I will need to do this next time I go abroad! x
Lucy | http://www.lucymary.co.uk
It’s such a great way of keeping and sharing special memories, isn’t it? x
What a great way to be able to continue to treasure the memories of your holidays. This is super easy to do. Thank you for sharing this process.
Lauren x
It really is, and it’s a lot easier than I thought originally too – glad it’s useful, Lauren, thank you! x
I love these ideas for cherishing your memories! I really tend to create scrapbooks like I used to, but an online one is a fun idea 🙂 x
I don’t have the patience for hard copy scrapbooks any more (!) so online is easier for me 🙂 x
My photos usually sit on my phone and I don’t really make good use of them. This is a fantastic way to organise my holiday snaps! xxx
Yes, exactly, that’s the same with me! Which is why I love the online album option 🙂 x
Your idea to add music to the photo album is such a great tip. Music can add so much depth and richness to the photos!
Thank you, Heidi, and yes, I completely agree, it really enhances the memories!
First of all, LOVE your travel photos those are really incredible there are so many nice ones. Also, this is a great idea I hadn’t really considered but definimtely need to try. I didn’t realize Canva had a travel book template that sounds like something I really should look into. Thanks for this great idea and the tips!
Ah, thank you, but they’re not mine (I wish!) they’re stock photos 🙂 And yes, Canva is an incredibly useful website, they have all sorts of template to help!
This is so helpful for a family trip this winter. I love taking vacation pics and I take a lot, but I’m terrible at it and would love to make it an album.
Oh good timing on my part then, hope you have a fab trip and take lots of photos 🙂
I love a physical photo album and these tips are great.
you’ve inspired me to get one done and also add to the list for Christmas gifts.
Yay, that’s great to hear, thank you!
An awesome way of collating online holiday pics. Your pics are lovely too!
Thank you so much – although I confess they’re library pictures!
This is such a great idea to keep the memories alive! Thanks for sharing!
Thank you, glad you liked the post 🙂