This is the ultimate, step-by-step guide to creating a travel video with Travel Story Maker. Follow each screenshot below and you will go from a blank map to a finished, share-ready video — a real road trip across the American West, from Los Angeles to Santa Monica via Kingman, the Grand Canyon, Las Vegas, Yosemite and San Francisco — without installing any software.

Step 1 — Open Travel Story Maker

Start on the Travel Story Maker home page. Everything runs in your browser: there is nothing to install, and your route is never uploaded to a server.

Click “Get started” to launch the editor.

Step 2 — Open the editor

The editor opens with a full-screen map and a toolbar at the bottom: Recenter, Export, Stops and Settings. The map is a live preview of the final video — everything you change updates here in real time.

The Travel Story Maker editor with an empty map — The editor: a live map and a bottom toolbar.

Step 3 — Name your trip

Open the Settings panel and type a clear, descriptive title in the Trip name field. A good title doubles as your video caption and keeps you focused on the story — for example, “Road trip across the American West”.

Naming the trip in the Settings panel — Name your trip from the Settings panel.

Step 4 — Open the stops panel

Close Settings and open the Stops panel. This is where you build your itinerary, one destination at a time, and reorder stops with drag-and-drop.

The stops panel open — The stops panel — the backbone of your route.

Step 5 — Build your itinerary

Search for each place and press Enter to add it as a stop. You need at least two stops to draw a route. In this guide we add seven stops in order: Los Angeles, Kingman, the Grand Canyon, Las Vegas, Yosemite, San Francisco and Santa Monica.

The search is language-aware, and you can also click directly on the map to drop a custom point.

Adding Los Angeles as the first stop — 1 — Los Angeles

Adding Kingman as the second stop — 2 — Kingman

Adding the Grand Canyon as the third stop — 3 — Grand Canyon

Adding Las Vegas as the fourth stop — 4 — Las Vegas

Adding Yosemite as the fifth stop — 5 — Yosemite

Adding San Francisco as the sixth stop — 6 — San Francisco

Adding Santa Monica as the seventh stop — 7 — Santa Monica

Step 6 — Choose a vehicle for each leg

Each leg between two stops can have its own vehicle. Tap a segment to open the vehicle picker, then choose how you travelled. Here we drive a car out of Los Angeles, switch to a van toward the Grand Canyon, then hop on a plane to Las Vegas.

Cars and vans follow real roads, while planes draw a smooth curved flight path — a great way to show longer hops.

Choosing a car for the Los Angeles to Kingman leg — Car — Los Angeles to Kingman.

Choosing a van for the leg toward the Grand Canyon — Van — on to the Grand Canyon.

Choosing a plane for the leg to Las Vegas — Plane — flying to Las Vegas.

Step 7 — Pick a map style

Reopen the Settings panel and choose a map style that matches the mood of your trip. Light suits city breaks and Vintage feels nostalgic, but for an outdoor road trip the Satellite style gives the most cinematic look.

Reopening the Settings panel — Reopen the Settings panel.

Satellite map style selected — Select the Satellite style.

Step 8 — Recenter the map

Use the Recenter button to frame all your stops at once. This makes sure the whole journey is visible before you export, so nothing gets cropped out of the final video.

Recentering the map to fit all stops — Recenter to fit the entire route in view.

Step 9 — Go to the export page

When you are happy with the preview, open the Export page. This is where you choose the format and resolution and render the final video file.

Step 10 — Choose format and resolution

Open the Format panel and pick the aspect ratio for your platform: the vertical 9:16 “Reel” format for Reels, TikTok and YouTube Shorts, 1:1 for the Instagram feed, or 16:9 for YouTube. Then set the quality — Full HD (1080p) is the sweet spot for social media, crisp on every screen while keeping the render time reasonable.

The format panel open — Open the Format panel.

The vertical Reel format selected — Select the 9:16 Reel format.

Full HD 1080p resolution selected — Choose Full HD (1080p).

Step 11 — Export your video

Click “Export in MP4”. Travel Story Maker renders the animation frame by frame directly in your browser — your data never leaves your device. When it finishes, download the MP4 and it is ready to publish.

Starting the export in MP4 — Start the export in MP4.

Export in progress — Rendering happens locally in your browser.

Going further

You now have a complete travel video from start to finish. Each part of the workflow has a dedicated tutorial — follow them to master every step:

How to add destinations to your travel route
How to change vehicles between your stops
How to customize icons and markers
How to customize your travel animation style
How to plan your travel itinerary
How to add photos to your travel animation
How to export your animated travel map

How to create travel videos: the ultimate guide