The quickest way to make a travel video on iPhone is in the Photos app: it builds Memories, short movies set to music from your photos and videos, and you can change the song, the look, the length and which photos are in it. For more control, Apple's iMovie app makes a movie from the clips and photos you choose, either automatically or cut by cut. Menus move between iOS versions, so if a button isn't where this page says, look for the same name nearby.
Option 1: a Memory in the Photos app
Photos makes Memories on its own from trips, places and people in your library. In Apple's current guide, you find them in the Photos app under Collections, then Memories.
To make one your own:
- Open a Memory of the trip and let it play.
- Tap the screen while it plays to bring up the controls.
- Change the music: choose from Apple's memory soundtracks or suggested songs, or, with an Apple Music subscription, browse for any song.
- Change the look: Apple offers preset combinations of songs, pacing and style. Swipe through them and tap one to apply it.
- Set the length to short, medium or long, edit the title, and add or remove photos.
- Share it from the share button.
On iPhones with Apple Intelligence, you can also make a new memory movie by typing a description, such as "our week in Kyoto, food and temples", from the Memories screen. Apple says this isn't available on every iPhone model or in every language or region.
Option 2: iMovie
iMovie is Apple's free video editor. Its iPhone guide lists three kinds of project:
- Magic Movie: you choose clips and photos, and iMovie builds a movie with a soundtrack and transitions.
- Storyboard: a template with a shot list, titles, transitions and music, good if you're still on the trip and filming.
- Movie: a blank timeline where you edit each clip and add titles, music, filters and effects.
Start with Magic Movie if you want something quick that you can still adjust, and Movie when you know exactly what you want. When you're done, share it as a video file.
How to make it good
The tool matters less than the choices. A few that work for almost any trip:
- Choose fewer shots than you think. For a video under a minute, 20 to 40 moments is plenty. Go through the trip once and favorite only the ones that make you feel something, then build from the favorites.
- Open with where you are. A sign at the station, the view from the plane on landing, the first street. The viewer needs a second to know the place.
- Mix wide, medium and close. A skyline, then a street, then a plate of food, then a face. Three wide shots in a row look like a slideshow.
- Use Live Photos and short clips. Movement holds attention far better than stills. Waves, a tram passing, steam off a bowl.
- Cut on the beat. Change pictures when the music hits, and let a quiet shot breathe at a soft part of the song.
- One song, one mood. A slow piano track and a beach party fight each other.
- End quietly. The last shot can be the walk back to the hotel, the view from the plane home, or a simple card with the numbers: "Portugal, 9 days, 3 cities".
Decide the shape first. Stories, Reels and TikTok fill a phone screen upright; a video for the TV or YouTube is wide. Cropping later always cuts something you wanted.
Before you post it
- Location. Photos and videos can carry the place they were taken. If a video includes shots near your home, see how to share without the location.
- Music. A song that plays fine on your phone isn't automatically cleared for a public post. Check the rules of the app you're posting to, and use its own music library when in doubt.
- Back it up. The finished film is a new file worth keeping. How to keep your travel photos safe covers it.
To post it with a map of where you went, see how to share your travel map on Instagram.
If you can't remember which month you were where, your photo library can tell you: see how to find every country from your iPhone photos. Globestamp also makes a short film of any trip, cut to music, for Stories, Reels and TikTok (a film without its mark is Pro).