Here are some tips to help you get good photos of your trip and to have fun doing it.

Equipment

The most important rule when flying with photographic equipment is to carry it with you. If you check your camera, equipment and film in with your luggage your run the risk of having it damaged, lost, or stolen. If you have interchangeable lenses, one wide angle to telephoto lens such as a 28mm - 300mm can be a great travel companion and reduce the amount of equipment you will need to carry with you. Bring extra batteries so you don’t lose out on an important photo opportunity. It is better to have too many than not enough. If you use rechargeable batteries and you are traveling overseas, make sure your charger is capable of working at different voltages. Bring extra film or digital storage cards with you so that you have enough and don’t have to pay a premium price in a distant land. Mini tripods are a convenient alternative to carrying a full size one when traveling. Another option is to bring a small fabric covered beanbag so that you can rest your camera on a rock, car fence or other stationary object. If you are traveling to another country and your equipment is new if is a good idea to bring photocopies of your receipts to prove ownership when going through customs.

Research

One of the most important aspects of photographing a trip has nothing to do with cameras or lenses or film; it is the time you spend researching before you go. Planning a photographic itinerary will vastly enhance the number and quality of the photo opportunities you encounter. Learn everything you can about the place you are going to visit by researching travel magazines, newspaper travel sections, and guidebooks. Other good resources can be found online such as the local Chamber of Commerce.

Airplanes

The plastic windows on airliners are very thick and will cause some loss of sharpness in your photos but you can still get some good shots for small prints such as 4x6 inch. Minimize blurring by getting the lens as close as possible to the window.

Don’t touch the window because the vibration of the plane will cause camera shake. Take-offs and landings are the best time to shoot, because the lower altitude makes ground features more recognizable and there's less haze. Low-altitude air tours are a good source to help you get some one-of-a-kind scenery shots. A normal or mild wide-angle lens is best for both commercial and tour planes. The exposure recommended by your through-the-lens meter should be very accurate. Use the highest shutter speed you can to offset vibration.

Cruise Ships

When taking photographs on a cruise ship you have to be prepared to work in a lot of different lighting situations: on deck in very bright sunlight, indoors by dim light, and in various weather conditions.

Coming into port is an especially exciting time, but it happens quickly and often at dawn, so be up early and bring everything you need. Work from the upper decks and use a wide lens to include the bow or side of the ship for scale and perspective.
Cruise Ships publish a daily calendar that lists the next day's events and will help you to plan your photo opportunities.

 

Signs

On the road, especially in more exotic parts of the world, spotting interesting signs is great fun; you can use them as a running theme in a travel journal. Pictures of signs can identify locales, mark progress, provide information, or even just make people laugh.
The best use of signs is to mark progress in your travel album. Look for signs that announce dramatic localities, city limits, unusual town names, driving distances, and hotel locations. Signs are also useful as backgrounds for posing your companions.

People In Pictures

Two good reasons for taking pictures are to remember what happened and to share the experience with others. Give your viewer a reason to care. Put yourself, a companion or a family member into the scene. Not only will it give the shot scale, it will provide a reason for taking the shot.

Attitude
When photographing your traveling companions, let them have fun. Don’t take the set up and posing for the photographs too seriously. Let silliness reign and your pictures will be more fun to look at and a lot more fun to take.

Have your subjects decide how they want to pose. Make sure that you are not constantly catching them off guard and in poses that they may not want to share with others.

 

Travel Journal

Every journey has a start, middle, and a finish. Arranging your photos in a scrapbook will be more meaningful to you and interesting to others if they express that framework. Keeping track of where and when you shot each picture will help in organizing them when you get home.

If your camera is digital, then each picture has a record of when it was taken. If you are using film, then turn the date stamp on for the first and last shots of each roll to set up date parameters. Use removable labels and mark each film canister with information you can use later. Transfer the labels to the processing envelope when getting them developed.

Mixing up views of landmarks with interesting detail shots and portraits will provide variety. Try to mix ordinary scenes such as dinner by the sea, with your more spectacular shots of a waterfall or mountain. Another good idea is to create a running theme.