How To Make The Best Travel Driving Videos

When you say you’re going to “Do Road” in Jamaica…..mean it!

And capture it!

This is my personal review on how to make the best driving videos while in Jamaica.  And it doesn’t matter if you drive or if you let someone else do the driving….DO NOT  miss out on all the video opportunities you meet with on the road!

Because I’m a travel blogger I try to document every single thing I do in Jamaica whether it seems stupid or not.  Somehow everything turns into blog post material.  Since I started driving in Jamaica in 2010 I’ve gained a whole new sense of freedom but I had also lost something – my ability to take pictures (safely) on the road.  Most of you probably know there are very few good places on narrow, winding Jamaican roads to simply pull over and be a photographer or videographer.

So a few years ago I bought a dash camera for the sole purpose of traveling.  It was great except none of the dash mounts for this piece were suitable for my kind of travel.  They either had suction cups to stick to the windshield or a double-sided, super stick on method for the dash.  The suction cups were crap….hit a bump or pothole and it falls off.  Every Jamaican road is a bumpy potholed mess.  The super stick method was awesome until you needed to return the rental car and rip that mother off the dash without damage.

In the last couple of years I’ve scrapped bringing a real camera to Jamaica, PERIOD.  I simply use my Samsung smart phone for everything.  The freedom and convenience is amazing compared to traveling with my clunky good camera, and a dash camera, and a cell phone.  Hence this contraption I found, and use regularly, and LOVE!!!

Have a fun time watching the video and then below it I’ll post some of the best tips for using this smart phone dash mount.

Okay now that you’ve seen the video I’ll tell you this smart phone dash mount doesn’t stick on.  It’s weighted on the base and I can testify that no matter what kind of road I’m on it does NOT MOVE.  It won’t slide or turn while driving unless you turn it yourself.  It just stays put which is a bonus because you can just pick it up off one dash and move it to another. It’s completely mobile.  So even if you don’t drive in Jamaica you can make all kinds of driving videos as a passenger in anyone’s car, hands free!

You can also swivel the holder part so you can make landscape or portrait videos/pictures.  The BEST part about this being a smart phone holder is that pretty much any modern smart phone operates by voice command so you don’t even have to touch the phone to start filming….unless of course, your phone speaks another language like mine seemed to in the next video lol.  #ArguingWithMyCellPhone

My phone also seems to like the word “WOW” because every time I said it the phone would snap a picture.  I have lots of random photos that only happened when I said the word “Wow” while driving lol.

And one last cool thing about traveling with your smart phone….time lapse videos like the sunset one you saw in the first video above.  That’s a super cool and easy app called Lapse It Pro .  You can download it for a couple bucks, stick your phone in the dash mount on a veranda, beach or bar and capture the most awesome sunsets every day!  Just leave it sitting there doing its thing while you drink or eat or do whatever!

And there you have it, a little inside scoop at some of the gear I use regularly and can’t do without!  And here’s where you can get it!