How To Take Beautiful Travel Photos For Social Media

Why your photos suck and what you can do about it

If you’re wondering how to take beautiful travel photos it is always a good reminder to remember that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Photography is a form of self-expression, so your photos don’t have to look like everyone else’s on Instagram and Threads. But if you are not happy with your photos, then that is an issue that we can address here so you’ll have beautiful travel photos you’re proud of! You’re probably not happy with your photos because you haven’t addressed the fundamentals of photography, and that is what we will go over in this post. It is the most important thing when learning how to take beautiful travel photos.

Why should you Care about taking beautiful travel photos?

Taking photos while travelling has become one of the main purposes of leaving the house for a large majority of travellers. If you do not return with epic photos of you enjoying a cocktail at sunset, did you even have a good holiday? For a lot of travellers, travelling means creating beautiful travel photos for content on their socials (or other’s socials) in order to gain money or clout. Regardless of your reasons why you are taking photos, I am a firm believer that you should.

At the end of the day, these are the memories that you will hold on to forever, when your skin is all wrinkled and you can no longer do a 12 hour bus ride followed by a 14 hour economy stint on a budget airline. Memories fade, but photos last a lifetime if you back them up.

What you will find here

In this post, you will find some areas that you will want to address as a beginner photographer or casual photographer who wants to know how to take beautiful travel photos. I’ve even given some examples using my own photography. If you’re an artist or creative that loves making, I have some great art resources for you to check out.

Understand what you are trying to convey

Before you do anything the most important thing is understanding what you are trying to convey to people with your photographs. The first question you want to ask yourself is what is the purpose of my photographs? Do you want to show people the reality of a specific place? Do you want to create a narrative of your journey and what it looks like from your perspective? Do you want to inspire? Do you want to romanticise and idealise a place and make people wish they had your life?

This is obviously not an exhaustive list lol but it shows the scope of why people share their photos. Knowing the purpose of what you want to convey with your photographs will help you work backwards to create the effect that will work best. 

Find the time that works best for your photos

Now that you know what you want to achieve, you can start to create the right environment for your photographs. For instance, if you want to show the moody ambience of Iceland mountains, then picking a time in the morning to shoot when the sky is cloudy and there is morning mist would help create this feeling. 

In general, morning and evening light are the best for shooting photography as the light is softer and the contrast is better. As a morning person, I love to wake up early in a new town and go on a photo walk first thing. That way I get all my photographs out of the way and I can enjoy the rest of the day exploring without the pressure to take photos. That is because my purpose for photography is to create a narrative of what my trip was like. If you’re wanting to learn how to take beautiful travel photos for social media, I would recommend having a look at your favourite creatives on Threads or Instagram and see what time of day they’re taking their photos (you can ask them, too!).

Think about composition

Composition is super important when it comes to learning how to take beautiful travel photos. As a general rule, the middle of your photograph should be your main focus because that’s where the viewer’s eye will automatically be drawn to. Think about when you’re scrolling Instagram or Threads, when you see an image you don’t get drawn to the side – you are looking in the middle. Using the rule of thirds is a great way to ensure your photograph has good balance, and the great thing about most phones is that this is a feature you can turn on. The rule of thirds is basically a guideline to help divide your photograph up so you can think about the placement of subjects within the space.

Another thing you want to consider is how busy or minimalistic you want your photograph to be. I love busy photographs that keep the viewer looking at every little detail, and I tend to frame my photos by shooting from behind flowers/trees to give it a romantic feel. 

If you want to show how expansive and empty a place is, composing your photo of just the subject is key. If you want to show how busy and bustling the street is, cropping your photo to show people moving from the corners of the photograph is a great way to show that the scene continues beyond the photograph. 

Always shoot with a lower exposure than necessary

Overexposure can ruin your photos. If you have a photo that was shot in intense light, the only real tool you can use to edit your photo is to lower the exposure, which will darken your photo and create an aesthetic you might not be going for. It is so much easier to lighten a photo, and it gives you more opportunity to play with lowlights, highlights, and colour without affecting the integrity of the photo (too much noise). Generally, I have my iPhone set to -0.7 and my camera I dial down depending on the light. Learning how to take beautiful travel photos involves playing with your settings to see what works best for your camera.

Experiment with angles

Sometimes you might have to work with what you have. You might be wondering how to take beautiful travel photos when the environment is crazy busy and you’re jammed up against twenty other people trying to get a look at a tourist trap. You can’t move a building back and you can’t expect people to move out of your photographs as they’re trying to live their lives. The key here is to know at least 3 different poses and angles that work for different scenarios so you can take beautiful travel photos no matter the situation you are in.

Think about new and exciting perspectives

Please, for the love of everything good in the world, stop taking the same photo that everyone else has taken. Do not, I repeat do not, line up to get the same shot as everyone else. This is so boring for you and for everyone who has to look at your photo. We don’t care that you sat in that same spot in Venice in your meticulously laid-out dress next to the bridge.

Yes, your photo might be a beautiful travel photo but it’s a big yawn because it is just a copy (and probably not as good as the original). Love the bridge? Find another viewpoint! Or take a photo from further back. Just do something different, for the sake of everyone’s sanity. It is totally OK to want to take a photo at an iconic place, just don’t waste your time reenacting the same photo your fav influencer did. What is the point of learning how to take beautiful travel photos if you are just going to make something that already exists?

Think about colour

I’m a huge lover of colour, and it shows in my photographs. To me, I think a beautiful travel photo is a colourful one, but you might feel differently! One thing I do to ensure there is at least a pop of colour is wear something colourful (and it is mostly pink lol). That way, there is bound to be some pink in my photos! Decide if you want to have super colourful, cheery, photographs or if you want muted ones. For muted photographs, the best thing you can do is edit the saturation of colours after you’ve taken your photos using applications like Lightroom. I use Lightroom to edit my photos and create the aesthetic that I want.

Create a narrative

By capturing small and big moments, you can help form a narrative for your viewers. An easy way to do this is think big then think small. Big might be the whole view – a photo of a landscape or an outfit. Small might be a closeup shot of the types of flowers in the mountain, or an accessory being worn with the outfit. These all help the viewer to understand your perspective and story. I like to share a series of beautiful travel photos like this if I want to help the viewer understand a place or an experience.