One of the easiest ways to create something memorable from your travel photos is to compile them into a photo slideshow. But to create an impressive slideshow from your travel photos you need to do more than just select some and place them one after the next.

If you want your travel photo slideshow to captivate viewers and hold their interest, there are a few tips that you should try to follow:

• Focus on the story the photos are going to tell

Before you start to select photos, you should decide on the story that your slideshow is going to tell viewers. Ideally it should be a specific story related to your trip, and one that you can show viewers with the photos that you captured.

Focusing on a story will make your slideshow far more interesting than an abstract collection of photos from a trip. More importantly you’ll be taking advantage of the ability of slideshows to tell stories effectively by displaying photos in a specific order and use visual storytelling elements to put across the plot that you want it to have.

• Choose background music that fits the mood

Adding background music to your slideshow can make it much more impressive and drive home the emotional tone that you want it to have. For that to happen however you need to choose the right background music to accompany your slideshow – and preferably base it on the overall mood that you want it to have.

Ambient or light acoustic music are good general choices for travel photo slideshows. However if your slideshow focuses on the culture of the destination that you were visiting, you may want to explore the local music options.

It may help to check out some of the royalty free music libraries that are out there to get a better idea of the choices you have.

• Do not compromise when it comes to quality

If you want to blow viewers away and impress them you really can’t afford to compromise on the quality of the photos that are in your travel photo slideshow. Instead you should be ruthless and eliminate any photos that don’t match your requirements.

Not only does that include photos that may have issues with them (that can’t be edited out), but it also encompasses low-resolution photos that will look pixelated when stretched, or photos in different aspect ratios that will appear with black bars.

As you can imagine it will help if the slideshow software that you use gives you tools to help you create a more impressive slideshow. Try to go over some of the options that are out there, and for example you may want to check out Movavi Slideshow Maker.

Suffice to say the software could help you to apply lots of tasteful finishing touches to your slideshow. At the bare minimum it should allow you to add background music, and customize your slideshow so that you can take advantage of the tips listed above.