8 Simple Steps to Creating a Travel Video on your iPhone.

How To Make A Travel Video with Pictures & Music.

The 8 steps on how to make a vacation video with pictures and music.

Number one rule don't use templates, it might sound like a good idea at the time to use a template, but why would you want your vacation video to look like someone else's and templates a corny and old school.

Making a travel video from your pictures and adding music is actually really easy, here is a step by step guide on how to make a travel video with pictures and music on your iPhone.

First of all because they get stuck on the topic of which app to use.
This is actually a superficial problem.
You can use just about any video editing app out there to make a vacation slideshow.

BUT some are easier than others.

In this article we are going to show you, step by step, how to make a slideshow video on an iPhone without an editing app.
Yes that's right, you can do this with only your iPhone.

Then we're going to show you how to do it in iMovie as well.
You can decide which method better suits what you want to achieve.

Watch our Video Tutorial

STEP 1. Vacation Video Slideshow on iPhone

First you will need to get some pictures on your phone that you want to make into a short travel video.

There is a super easy way to view your photos as a vacation slideshow with music on an iPhone just using the photos app.

Simply open your photos app.
Select all the vacation images you want to include in your vacation slideshow.
Tap at the bottom left to see the menu and scroll down to the vacation slideshow option.

Automatically your iPhone will create a travel video with music.
You can see multiple images randomly grouped together, with unique transitions between the slides.

Under options you can change the theme, the music, whether it should repeat and the overall speed. 

This is a really fast way to create a cool vacation slideshow. 

You can airplay this to your TV and show friends if you want, but that is sadly where it ends.
This vacation slideshow function does not allow you to export this as a travel video (save your vacation slideshow), so that you can share it with friends and family..
Don't worry, there is an easy workaround.
All you need to do is a screen recording.

STEP 2. Make a Vacation Slideshow Video

When you slide up on your screen it opens your control centre.

Here you should have a record screen button next to your flashlight. (A circle within a circle.)

If you do not see it, then you need to customize your control centre. 

  1. Go to iPhone settings. 
  2. Search for a Control Centre. 
  3. Select customise controls 
  4. Look for the screen recording option. 
  5. You need to tap the little green plus button to add it. 

Now when you slide to open your control centre you will see the button.

When you tap on this have 3 seconds to set up your screen and record your vacation slideshow.

This will automatically save to your recent folder in the photos app.

If you are interested in taking more control of your edits then we want to show you how to make a travel video with images and music in a 3rd party editing app as well. 

STEP 3. How to use iMovie

Using an editing app for making a travel video with images and music gives you more control to make the travel video look the way you want it to look. 

how to make a video with pictures

For creating vacation slideshows with music we use iMovie for iOS, for 3 reasons:

  • It is Free.

  • Easy to use Ken Burns Effect.

  • It comes with your iPhone, no need to install anything.

Tap to open iMovie.

Start a new project.

Next you have two options.

Movie & Trailer. 

Movie allows you to create a travel video from scratch whereas the trailer is a pre-templated travel video.

For our vacation slideshow we want to select Movie.

Select the images for your travel video.

Hit create.

start new project imovie
how to make slideshow from pictures

You will see if you push play the first image takes way too long to get through. And all the others will be the same.
You need to shorten the image duration by trimming it the way you would a travel video clip.

Before we start trimming though, you want to add in the music.

The music will have an impact on the length of the clips.

STEP 4. How to add Music to your Vacation Slideshow

Select the plus over under the preview window (left side) to open the media library. From here you can import media

Choose the audio section. 

Your options are Soundtracks, My Music and Sound FX.

The Soundtracks is a built-in music library in iMovie.

If like us, you prefer to bring in your own music you can go to My Music option and either bring in songs from iTunes or  from Youtube. 

Under imported you will see some the tracks that are sourced from a free music channel on Youtube. (This is what we usually do)

how to add music to your slideshow

Add in this track and have a listen. 

Now you can shorten the clips to match the feel of the music. 

To change clip duration you will need to trim the clip

STEP 5. Change the Vacation Slideshow duration

Tap on the image to select it. 

Once it is selected it will get a yellow border

how to trim clips imovie

In the preview screen:

  • At the top you can see the current duration which is 6.6 seconds
  • And below are the ken burns controls.

To trim, grab the yellow handle and drag the clip to a shorter length.

Bring your clip all the way down to around 1 second. Flip through all of them to quickly bring down the duration to a suitable length. I'm aiming for around 0,8 to 1.1 seconds. You don't need to be super accurate.

Let's have a look at the ken burns effect now.

STEP 6. Add the Ken Burns Effect 

Ken Burns is an effect to animate the image to get some movements.

You have the option to change the front of the clip to a “beginning state” and at the end of the clip to an “end state”.

As the travel video plays it will transition between these two states.

If you turn Ken Burns off the images remain static. This is quite boring. 

Make sure to mix up the direction and angles of movement. The more energetic the music, the more radical you can make the transitions.

STEP 7. Editing Transitions on a iPhone

The next thing you want to consider is looking at the transitions. By default iMovie places a crossfade between all clips. 

You can choose between a whole bunch of different transitions. The theme button actually comes with sound effects.

You can change the direction of the slide transition if you like. There are 4 states you can choose from. Just tap on it again to choose another direction. 

how to edit with imovie iphone
edit imovie with iphone

If you give your travel video a watch now transitions might still look a little lame. 

The main reason for this is because they are two slow.

At the bottom here you can speed it up by choosing the .5 of a second option.

Again this will depend on your music speed and energy.

STEP 8. Save Your Vacation Slideshow Travel Video

You need to basically just watch your travel video from the start and adjust the Image duration/length, Ken Burns & transitions on each of the clips. Keep going through this till you've shortened everything enough to keep the travel video interesting. 

When you are finished.
Hit done. Top left corner.

Make sure to name your project.
You can now hit the share button and share this travel video with whoever you want.

Watch our Slideshow Tutorial

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