Travel photo book is made with one single purpose – to keep your travel memories fresh from day to day. A perfect travel book takes you back to your favorite destinations from the first page.
Take your Travel Photography to the Next Level: How to Make a Perfect Travel Photo Book
I’ve been pondering with the idea of making our travel photo book for years. The first time this idea got in my head when we were road-tripping in Alaska. Taking hundreds of pictures of all incredible natural wonders of the state, I was sure they needed a special place. In my head, I clearly saw Alaska photo book with our best pictures in it. But after that trip, daily routine little by little overshadowed the idea of bringing that book to life. Soon I almost completely abandoned my plan of making our travel photo book. Occasionally, “when I have more time” thoughts continued to quiet my mind.
Then a few weeks ago the idea of making a family travel photo book returned. I was looking for a perfect birthday gift for one of our family members. We’ve been traveling together, and I, a person with a camera, have most of our pictures. That was a start. I had our travel pictures, and now I was going to share them in a travel photo book.
Why do You Need a Photo Book
1. Keep your travel memories fresh
There are ample reasons people choose to make their own travel photo book. For me, it’s always been such a creative way to keep our travel memories fresh. Moreover, a coffee table travel photo book works miracles when sharing your travel adventures with your house guest.
2. Organize your travels by years
After traveling so much, you slowly start forgetting when and where this or that event took place. I decided to bring our travels in order and make yearly travel photo books with plenty of photos and short stories to summarize our trips
3. Photo Book as a Gift
I think a book is one of the best gifts. And if my new book includes ample beautiful photos from my favorite places, I’ll treat it as one of the greatest treasures. I’ve noticed that people who don’t even like books reacts almost the same to a travel photo book with their pictures in it.
4. Help with a special project
Travel photo books can also help your business or project. Instead of using PowerPoint slides, make your own photo book and take it to lunch with your boss or potential client. Surprisingly, some deals get sealed faster when pitched in a creative manner outside conference rooms.
5. Photo book instead of portfolio
You can make a photo book to show your work to your clients. Regardless of the style, the photo book can work as a portfolio that suits professional photographers, models, and even businesses.
How to Make a Travel Photo Book
While the idea of making your own travel photo book can seem overwhelming, the process in nowhere as complicated as you might think. Picking the best pictures from your personal photo collections presents more difficulties that the book itself. I personally spent a few days just organizing my photos. The photo book took only a few hours to make. You get the idea. Now, let’s look at my step-by-step guide to making your own travel photo book.
1. Select pictures
As I just mentioned, selecting the right pictures is by far the most time-consuming task. You definitely need to decide what is the main focus of your photo book. Is it going to include pictures from all your adventures for the last year? Do you need a photo book to illustrate one of your trips? Are you going to prove in your photo book that traveling with kids is possible?
Once you have a main idea, select your pictures to support it. Moreover, see if your photos need last minute editing or color adjustments to suit the overall pattern. This is the time to put your photo editing skills into practice.
2. Choose a photo book publisher
The next step in making your photo book is to choose a reliable company. Tavel and Leisure named Amazon Prints, Artifact Uprising, Mixbook, Shutterfly, and Snapfish as some of the best online photo book makers.
3. Select your travel photo book theme
Once you find a company to work with, set us a fee account with it and browse its theme options. Don’t limit yourself to only travel photo books as other themes will work just fine with your travel pictures.
4. Pick you template
Each photo book online company has pre-made layouts you can use for your pictures. I find them very useful if you are pressed by time or for somebody who need a “draft” to work with. On the other hand, you can alway go with blank book and create your own design.
5. Upload photos
Finally, you can upload your photos and start making your own travel photo book. The process of uploading photos is straightforward and almost the same for majority of the companies. Mixbook, however, enables you to uploads your pictures from your social media and phone.
6. Start designing
If you use a pre-made template, the photo book publisher already fills the pages of your book with your travel pictures. You can still edit the pictures and change design, write text, and add or remove pages.
If you create your book from scratch, begin filling the pages and editing them according to your taste.
7. Review and send your photo book
Once you’re happy with your travel photo book, review it once again before saving and sending. You’ll get your book via mail in about a week. However, you can always choose expedited or next day shipping and have it sooner.
Congratulations! You just made your first travel photo book.
