Guide · 15 min
How to make a travel map video in chapters (scenes)
Split a long trip into scenes, one per country, week or day, each with its own route, camera and title, joined by camera flights and finished with a zoom-out over the whole journey.
Updated
In MapAnimate, draw the first part of your trip, then press + Scene on the timeline. Each new scene starts where the last one ended and has its own route, camera, timing and title. Between scenes the camera flies to the next start (or fades or cuts), earlier routes stay on the map, and an optional finale zooms out over the whole trip.
Step by step
- Open the editor and draw the first chapter of your trip, or import its GPX file.
- Press + Scene on the timeline: the new scene starts where the previous one ended.
- Draw the next chapter. Give each scene a name and a title card in the Scenes panel.
- Choose how each scene begins: a camera flight, a fade through black or a cut.
- Pick whether earlier scenes stay on the map in full, dimmed or not at all.
- Turn on the finale to end with a zoom-out over the whole trip, then export.
Why use scenes
A single line across a month-long trip either rushes through the details or takes forever. Scenes let each chapter have its own pace and camera: a close follow camera for a day's hike, a wide overview for a long flight, a fixed shot for a city. A video can have up to 20 scenes.
Transitions
A flight moves the camera from where one scene ends to where the next begins, zooming out and in like a plane. A fade dips through black, which suits a jump in time. A cut starts the next scene straight away. Each transition can last half a second to six seconds.
The trip so far
Earlier routes stay on the map underneath the current scene, so viewers keep a sense of the whole journey. The distance counter carries on adding up across scenes. In the Scenes panel you can show earlier scenes in full, dimmed, or hide them.
The finale
With the finale on, the video ends with the camera pulling back to frame every scene at once: a good last shot for a trip recap. On the 3D globe, the finale shows the curve of the Earth.
Sound per chapter
Each scene can have its own voice-over, so you can narrate one chapter at a time.
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