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How to Use Zoom on the Road (& While Driving)

You can use zoom on the road while driving, but there are some limitations and safety settings you need to be aware of….

• 1 You can use zoom on the road while driving, but there are some limitations and safety settings you need to be aware of…
• 2 Does Zoom Work on the Road?
• 3 Can You Use Zoom on an Airplane?
• 4.1 Is Hotspot Good Enough for Zoom?
• 4.2 Solutions
• 5.1 Zoom Safe Driving Mode
• 5.2 Can You Use Zoom with CarPlay?
• 5.3 How to Use Zoom with CarPlay
• 6 Spotty Service is 1 of 3 Big Cons of Working While Traveling
• 7.1 Related

With the rise of remote work and virtual meetings, it’s not uncommon for people to participate in Zoom calls while traveling. However, using Zoom on the road presents some unique challenges and safety concerns that must be addressed. 

This article answers the most common questions about using zoom while traveling and provides some tips and solutions to minimize unreliable connections.

We use affiliate links and may receive a small commission on purchases at no added cost to you. Thank you for your support. 

Does Zoom Work on the Road?

Yes, Zoom does work on the road. We mean that literally (as in from a car) and also figuratively (as in wherever and however you travel). For the purpose of this article, we’ll focus on the literal answer of how Zoom works while traveling on the road.

But, real quick, we’ll answer the most common question about using Zoom on an airplane…

Can You Use Zoom on an Airplane?

Yes, sometimes . You can use Zoom on an airplane if the airline offers strong, reliable wifi and if the airline allows Zoom calls. Some airlines do not allow video chat or meetings while in-flight, and many airlines’ wifi, well, sucks.

Now, back to the main focus of the article…

How to Use Zoom If You Have Spotty Cell Service

Most road warriors rely on cell service and cellular hotspots to keep them online. Those get the job done most of the time, but only if you’re in an area with a strong enough cell signal.

The further you travel from metropolitan areas, the more spotty your cell service becomes. And then there are the times when your signal cuts out for seemingly no reason.

In weak signal areas, you can often still make a phone call or text. But once you try to get online or use an app like Zoom, you’ll not have enough bandwidth.

Is Hotspot Good Enough for Zoom?

Hotspot can be good enough for Zoom if you have a strong enough cell signal. Remember, a hotspot is only as strong as your cell signal. So, Zoom will not work well (or at all) in remote locations or places with spotty cell service.

Solutions 

There are three main solutions for using Zoom on the road when cell service is uncertain. These solutions can minimize or overcome spotty cell service (and thus enable you to use Zoom more reliably):

• Use a portable cell phone booster
• Use a portable hotspot device separate from your phone
• Bring portable Internet with you (However, we’ve yet to find one we’re willing to recommend. You can see our disappointments with Starlink and Nomad Internet )

(Having bad or no internet is one of the 3 Big Cons of Working While Traveling . You can click on that link to learn more about the other 2 and the solutions to overcome them.)

Can You Zoom While Driving? (Should You?!)

Yes, you can use Zoom while driving, but you should never use video when you do. If you must use Zoom while driving, you should treat it just like you do a hands-free voice call. Turn off the video and use audio-only hands-free. 

Or, better yet, activate Safe Driving Mode in the Zoom app…

(NOTE: The safest option is to pull over and conduct your meeting from a safe parking space)

Zoom Safe Driving Mode

Zoom has a Safe Driving Mode that automatically stops your video and mutes your microphone during the meeting. You simply “swipe right” to enter Safe Driving Mode and “swipe left” to exit it.

To talk, you tap the “Tap to Speak” icon that is prominently displayed while in Safe Driving Mode. Since you have to tap to speak, it’s safest to have your phone on a dash mount within easy reach.

Can You Use Zoom with CarPlay?

Most newer vehicles are CarPlay compatible, which enables a car’s radio or head unit to be a display and controller for an iOS device. Essentially, it links your phone to your car, so you can control your phone and use its features through your car’s infotainment system (a.k.a. Dash display).

When you have Zoom with CarPlay enabled, you can use your car’s touchscreen, buttons, or voice control to join and participate in Zoom meetings. This can be especially useful if you’re on the road and need to attend a meeting.

How to Use Zoom with CarPlay

If you have a car with CarPlay support and an iPhone with the Zoom app installed, you can use Zoom through your car’s infotainment system. Here’s what you need to do to use Zoom with CarPlay:

(Safety Note: If you do not have a passenger, steps 1-6 should be done while parked.)

• Connect your iPhone to your car’s infotainment system using CarPlay.
• Once connected, you should see the Zoom app icon on the CarPlay interface.
• Launch the Zoom app.
• Enter the meeting ID and password.
• Join the meeting.
• Use the car’s touchscreen to navigate through the meeting interface.
• Use the car’s microphone and speakers to communicate with other meeting participants.

It’s worth noting that using Zoom with CarPlay is only recommended if you’re not driving, as it can be distracting and dangerous to try to participate in a meeting while driving.

Spotty Service is 1 of 3 Big Cons of Working While Traveling

In another article, we address the 3 Big Cons of Working While Traveling and provide solutions for overcoming them. Here’s a quick summary…

Con #1: Bad (or No) Internet

We addressed the solutions in this article, but there are two other cons that likely effect you if you work on the go.

Con #2: No Designated Workspace

Solutions: invest in a mobile office bag, travel organizers, or car desk .

Con #3: Distractions

Solutions: use noise-canceling headphones, use a scheduling and focus app, or invest in a focus-supporting product.

To learn more about these cons and solutions for working while traveling, read the full article .

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9 Travel-Inspired Zoom Backgrounds for Your Next Meeting

If you’re anything like us, you’ve likely become pretty comfortable with Zoom, the robust video-conferencing software, over the last few weeks. While we’ve quickly learned about all of Zoom’s cool features, our favorite is the software’s ability to let participants select a virtual background —no more showing off that pile of unwashed dishes in the sink. Our team has used the cool feature to teleport to a Hawaiian beach, a shrine in Kyoto, and more.

Want to test it out for yourself? We’ve dug through our roving photographers’ archives and picked out nine unique images that will add a little “sense of place” to your next mundane conference call.

To download the backgrounds, click the heading title, then right-click to save the image to your computer. To add a Virtual Background to Zoom, navigate to Preferences > Virtual Background, and upload your image. Enjoy!

Cliffs of Big Sur

TripSavvy / Taylor McIntyre

The Central Coast of California has got the best of everything: mountains, ocean, and sunshine. It's my one true happy place! — Elizabeth Preske, associate editor

Cherry Blossoms in Washington, D.C.

TripSavvy / Taylor McIntyre 

Washington, D.C.'s iconic cherry blossoms are such an inspiring harbinger of spring. I can't help but smile when I see them, making them the perfect backdrop for days filled with virtual meetings. — Laura Ratliff, editorial director

Snowy Cascade Mountains

TripSavvy / Chris VR 

I love wintery and snowy landscapes, and this particular scene is of the Cascade Mountains, a place that's been on my bucket list to visit. — Jamie Hergenrader, senior editor

Penguins at Baldwin Beach

TripSavvy / Chris VR

South Africa is on my 2020 (fingers crossed!) bucket list, so this background is doing its part to keep that dream alive. Also, it looks like these guys are rallying around me like chilly little cheerleaders. It's the closest I'll get to a group setting while we're all social distancing. — Astrid Taran, senior audience editor

Maui Fisherman

TripSavvy / Todd Coleman

This soon-to-be Zoom background classic is the ultimate conversation starter—a fisherman’s net is about to drop on you. But more importantly, it reminds me of my visit to Maui’s Ka'anapali Beach Hotel (known as "Hawaii's Most Hawaiian Hotel”) to learn the almost-lost art of throw-net fishing from Kent Keawehiku Apo. He used me as target practice! — Todd Coleman, creative content director

In an ideal world, I'd be lounging on a beach right now. These palm trees make me think of relaxing days and warm weather. Who doesn't want those good vibes on a Zoom call? — Sherri Gardner, assistant editor

Calming Beach

Who wouldn't want to be on a calming beach right now? Plus, I love the way the palm tree frames the view. — Taylor McIntyre, visual editor

Plaza Santa Cecilia in Tijuana, Mexico

TripSavvy / Lizzy Myers

March is always my least favorite month—it sounds likes spring but never really delivers—and this year, it’s like March took steroids. So I added a dose of sunshine with this background of Tijuana’s cheerful Santa Cecilia Plaza. For anyone who hasn’t been to Tijuana in a while, the border town is undergoing a revival thanks in part to a thriving food and craft beer scene. Join me as I dream of my next taco and lager pairing! — Molly Fergus, VP and general manager

Brooklyn Bridge

TripSavvy / Winifred Lao

The Brooklyn Bridge is my favorite landmark in New York and the only touristy activity I enjoy doing. I love taking visiting friends and family there for a stroll across. — Emily Manchester, senior SEO analyst

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40 Travel-Inspired Backgrounds for Zoom, Skype & Other Video-Conference Apps

Chris Hassan

Social Media & Brand Manager

213 Published Articles

Countries Visited: 24 U.S. States Visited: 26

Keri Stooksbury

Editor-in-Chief

32 Published Articles 3126 Edited Articles

Countries Visited: 47 U.S. States Visited: 28

What Is Zoom?

Choose your background and lighting wisely, close other apps, check your internet connection, dress appropriately, test your audio and video, position your camera, upgrade your equipment, let your family or roommates know that you are on a call, cisco webex, google meet, google hangouts, gotomeeting by logmein, microsoft teams, final thoughts.

We may be compensated when you click on product links, such as credit cards, from one or more of our advertising partners. Terms apply to the offers below. See our Advertising Policy for more about our partners, how we make money, and our rating methodology. Opinions and recommendations are ours alone.

Thanks to the coronavirus ( COVID-19 ), many of us are now working from home and finding ourselves with a calendar full of virtual meeting requests.

If you are new to the work-from-home (WFH) club, these virtual conference calls can be intimidating and sometimes tricky. With a new video platform popping up seemingly every day, you may find yourself downloading the Zoom app for 1 meeting, Skype for another, Slack for another, and so on — until you run out of time or space.

Whether you are meeting with colleagues about a project you are working on or hosting a virtual happy hour with your socially-distanced friends, getting familiar with the video app will help make your experience better.

And if you want to change your background, calls could get a little more fun!

Even if you aren’t telecommuting, you have probably heard of Zoom as it has exploded in popularity since the pandemic hit.

Zoom is a free, cloud-based video conferencing app for your computer, smartphone, tablet. The app allows users to easily set up virtual meetings (with video or audio-only) without an account, so users only need a link and a password to start their meeting.

If users want a more robust experience with longer calls, recording options, professional meeting options, and more, there are multiple paid versions.

The frictionless experience has made Zoom the go-to app for online gatherings in 2020, both professional and personal, despite competitors like Skype being in the video calling field for over a decade.

Tips for Your Next Video Conference Call

Since working from home is new for many of us, some pointers can come in handy for the WFH newbie.

Before we get into the fun stuff (like changing your virtual background), here are some basic tips to improve your video call game.

If you have been on the internet at all in the past few months, you have surely seen some video call fails courtesy of new Zoom users (tip: don’t bring your computer into the bathroom with you).

If you are setting up for a call, especially a work call, be sure to appear professional.

It is probably a good idea to keep your camera stationary (not in the bathroom) and make sure the lighting is in front of you, not behind you, so that you are visible to the camera.

Depending on how old your computer is, running a video application may slow down its performance and make your call choppy.

It is generally a good practice to close any other apps that will not be used during the call and disable any pop-ups, especially if you plan on sharing your screen.

Even if you have the fastest computer in the world, if your internet connection is weak or slow, your call is doomed.

If you aren’t sure if you have a solid connection, you check your internet speed easily online .

If your internet speed isn’t fast enough (generally you will need at least 1-4 Mbps), try moving closer to the router and asking other users to reduce their video usage or downloads while you are on your call.

We’re not here to judge — we love to travel in comfort, so sweatpants are generally fine with us. But some calls may require a bit more professionalism than others. Your annual budget meeting may be a bit more formal than a happy hour with friends. Just be sure to read to the room!

Once you have checked off all of the previous to-dos, now you can check your audio and visual connections.

Depending on the app you are using, an option for testing your connection will pop up as you are logging in to your call.

If you are using a new computer or recently updated some software, it is generally a good idea to do a quick test before joining the call. You can find out the step-by-step instructions for Zoom here.

Depending on the device you are using, your camera may not be located in the most flattering position.

For example, some laptops have the webcam located at the bottom of the screen, which means that everyone in your meeting is looking up at you… or depending on how you are sitting, up your nose.

If necessary, stack your computer or tablet on something so that the camera is eye-level… and remember to look at the camera!

Although your trusty old laptop may have a webcam built it, it may not be the best option — especially if you will be attending video conferences regularly.

Investing in an external webcam with an upgraded microphone can go a long way in improving your video call experience.

If you want to take your calls to the next level, consider adding a ring light so that you don’t need to be shifting around your home’s lighting just to avoid awkward shadows.

Finally, it doesn’t matter if you have the perfect video call setup if you are constantly being interrupted by family or a roommate making noise in the background.

Simply letting people know that you are on a video call will help prevent that potentially awkward moment of someone walking behind your after they just got out of the shower — it happens more than you might think!

How to Change Your Background

One of the cool parts of having a video call is that you can digitally alter your background.

If you don’t feel like cleaning up your home office or just want to add a fun tropical vibe to your next online meeting, just swap your background with one of the great travel-inspired options below.

Despite Zoom being the most popular of the video conferencing apps of the moment, there are plenty of others that offer similar services. Here is a quick introduction on how to change your background in some of the most popular programs.

If you use BlueJeans for your virtual calls, you will need to download the Snap Camera desktop app by Snapchat to change your background.

In addition to changing your background, Snap Camera can add filters, virtual makeup, and even accessories to help brighten the mood of your meeting.

Once you have downloaded the app, just launch BlueJeans and select the camera option that will now show you all of your new, fun options, including the ability to add your own backgrounds. For the full instructions, click here .

Webex is another big name when it comes to corporate video conferencing. If you want to blur or change your background, it is quite easy.

Before you join a call, just click on the Change Background button and either blur your background or replace it with an image.

For full instructions, click here .

Google says that the option to blur or change your background will be “available soon.”

Since Google has not launched a background feature, Google Hangouts users rely on Snap Camera for their filter needs.

Once you download the Snap Camera app, open the Google Hangouts setting option, choose your new camera, and go. You can even create your own Snap Lens with one of our travel-inspired backgrounds below.

If you find yourself hosting professional webinars, you probably don’t want to be adding silly Snapchat filters to your video.

However, a nice background change may help keep your audience engaged. GoToMeeting users can use SparkoCam to get this option.

For the full instructions, click here .

Many companies use Microsoft Teams, so knowing how to change your background can be helpful to many employees with messy home offices.

Whether you want to just blur your background or swap it out for one of our travel-themed backgrounds, the process is easy.

When joining a meeting, there is a button next to the microphone labeled Background effects . Just click and choose your style.

For more details, click here .

Skype is (was) probably the most recognized name when it comes to video chatting. The service is packed with features, including the option to alter the background of your video call.

During your call, just click on the …More menu and then Choose background effect  and upload one of the photos below.

You can find the full instructions here .

Finally, the instructions we have all been waiting for… how to change your virtual background in Zoom!

There are a few different options, but if you are already in a Zoom call, just click on the upward arrow (^) next to the Start/Stop Video  button and click Choose Virtual Background .

You can find the complete set of instructions here .

Background Options

If you are looking to add a little wanderlust to your next conference call or just create a more tropical feel during your next virtual happy hour, we have the perfect virtual backgrounds for you.

Just save these travel-themed images on your computer and then add them to your favorite video conference app during your next call.

Airplanes are some of the most beautiful and technological marvels that humans have ever created. Until you can get back on board, here are some aspirational aviation backgrounds. If you are ready to fly, be sure to read our post on how to pick the best seat with SeatGuru .

American Airlines Boeing 737

Delta MD-88

Emirates Airbus A380 Fleet

JetBlue Airbus A320 Cabin

JetBlue Airbus A320 Even More Space Seat

Helicopter Flying Over Rio de Janeiro

Qatar Airways 777 Qsuites

Singapore Airlines Airbus A380 First Class Suites

United Airlines Boeing 787 Cockpit

United Airlines Polaris Business Class Seat

Strolling through airports is one of our favorite pastimes. If you need to scratch that same itch until your next flight, you might enjoy some of these backgrounds. And if you really want to revisit some of your favorite airports, check out our guides here .

Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport LED Light Tunnel

Hamad International Airport, Vitality Wellbeing & Fitness Centre, Doha

JFK Airport, JetBlue Terminal 5, New York

JFK Airport, JetBlue Terminal 5 Check-In Kiosks, New York

JFK Airport, TWA Hotel Pool, New York

Singapore Changi Airport Rain Vortex

Working from home certainly has its perks, and for some, that might mean being able to work from the beach. If you can’t feel the sand on your toes, you can at least pretend with some of these gorgeous backgrounds. And if you are looking for some of the best beaches for your next trip, check out this list .

Beach in the Maldives

Beach Umbrellas by the Ocean

Cave Beach in Indonesia

Ocean During Sunset

Although Americans can’t easily visit Europe or other exciting destinations at the moment, they can at least visit virtually. We have picked out some beautiful photos of our favorite cities from around the world so you can add a little flair to your next meeting. And if you are looking for a virtual getaway, check out our list of popular attractions from around the world with virtual tours .

Amsterdam, Netherlands

London, United Kingdom

New York City, United States

Paris, France

Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Tokyo, Japan

Sometimes we just need a little extra magic in our day, and there is no better place to get that magic than from Disney . Scroll down and pick one of your favorite backdrops for your next conference call.

If you are looking for some virtual magic, be sure to experience our list of virtual Disney rides from around the world .

Monorail at Magic Kingdom at Walt Disney World, Orlando

Epcot at Walt Disney World, Orlando

Cinderella’s Castle at Magic Kingdom at Walt Disney World, Orlando

No need for elite status to get an upgrade here. Scroll down for some of the best views at some of the best properties in the world. Ready to start planning your next trip? Don’t miss our list of most popular Ritz-Carlton locations from around the world.

Burj Al Arab, Dubai, U.A.E.

JW Marriott Khao Lak Beachfront Resort, Thailand

Park Hyatt Saint Kitts Christophe Harbour

The Ritz-Carlton South Beach, Miami

St. Regis New York

The right credit card or Priority Pass membership has made accessing elusive airline lounges even easier for frequent flyers. If you want to reminisce about grabbing a drink before your dream vacation, pull up a chair to one of these virtual lounge backgrounds.

American Airlines Admirals Club Phoenix

SilverKris Lounge at Singapore Changi Airport Terminal 3

United Airlines Polaris Lounge

Many travelers are loading up their RVs for a road trip to one of America’s great national parks . If you dream of crisp mountain air and serene lake vistas, these are the backgrounds for you.

Blue Lake and Snowy Mountains

Mountains by the Lake

Snow-Capped Swiss Mountains

Whether for business or pleasure, these travel-themed backgrounds should help create some wanderlust during your next virtual conference call.

From Google to Zoom, we’ve got you covered with instructions on how to take your meeting to the next level and hopefully inspire your next vacation.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do i change my background in zoom.

Changing your virtual background in Zoom and other video-conferencing apps is easy. Depending on the software, you can just click the “background” button and upload one of these travel-inspired images we have highlighted for you. View our article to find your app and its specific instructions.

What is a virtual background?

A virtual background is a feature in many video-conferencing apps that allows users to change the scenery behind them, virtually. Normally, you can blur your background or upload an image to replace whatever is behind you. We have selected some gorgeous travel-themed backgrounds for you in this article.

Are virtual backgrounds free?

There is no cost to change your virtual background in Zoom or other video call apps. We have selected some of the best, free, travel-inspired virtual backgrounds for you to use on your next call. Just right-click on the image and save it to your computer!

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About Chris Hassan

Chris holds a B.S. in Hospitality and Tourism Management and managed social media for all Marriott properties in South America, making him a perfect fit for UP and its social media channels. He has a passion for making content catered toward family travelers.

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Anyone who’s anyone is using Zoom right now. If I could have bought stocks in any company 6 months ago you can be sure it would be Zoom (#missedopportunity). I use Zoom at work for our meetings, people use it for online classes or even for keeping in touch with family or friends. I can’t tell you how many virtual happy hours I’ve attended since March. But I know for sure after almost two months of this that people are getting sick of seeing the boring wall behind my head, or my office bookcase. Our indoor lives are mundane enough right now that I think it’s time to jazz up your Zoom background. So today I’m going to share some of my favorite new travel themed Zoom backgrounds.

What is Zoom ?

If you don’t already have Zoom, it’s like Skype…but better. The quality is better, the options are better, and if you’re part of a company like me that has the premium version then there are additional features like chat and the ability for longer calls with more people. I think the biggest Zoom meeting I’ve been in so far has had almost 200 people in it. Zoom is an online video conferencing tool that has become a lot of people’s lifelines in 2020 when going out and seeing real people in public hasn’t always been possible.

Does Zoom come with fun backgrounds?

It does, however the options are very limited. There are currently three options: the Golden Gate bridge, blades of grass or the Earth from space. While they might be nice, you’ll be sick of them after the first week. Plus the more meetings you go to, the more creativity you’ll see from people. I had one meeting where my boss had decided to do a background of a desert canyon, but someone mistook the close up of the rocks to be meat. So on the next Zoom call everyone changed their backgrounds to various meats. Now call me old school but I think I’d rather look at a pretty picture which is why I’ve started hunting out travel themed Zoom backgrounds.

How do you change your Zoom background?

Turns out it’s super easy. When you’re on a Zoom call, in the bottom left of the screen you’ll see a “START/STOP VIDEO” button. There’s a little drop down arrow to the right of it and when you click on here you’ll see an option labelled CHOOSE VIRTUAL BACKGROUND .

There you’ll see your background options. If you want a new one of your own, something different than the ones that come with Zoom, click on the plus sign (+) to the top right of the pictures and select a file to upload. I recommend a travel themed Zoom background that will have everyone thinking you’re somewhere way more fun than your office or bedroom.

Know when Zoom backgrounds aren’t appropriate

Take it from someone who just did this, make sure to check before you start your meeting what your background is. I had been experimenting with Zoom backgrounds with my friends and when I started my video on a work meeting I noticed that I’d just projected a popular meme behind myself which was not all that appropriate for the call I was on. It’s the one where the dog is sat in a burning room with a smile on its face with the words THIS IS FINE in the background. While funny for outside of work, I don’t think my bosses would have been impressed. I quickly realized and changed it. But that let me know that when you change your background and end the meeting, Zoom will often remember that was your background of choice so you should change it before starting your video next time.

How to find good travel themed Zoom backgrounds

Like any other Zoom backgrounds you can find almost a limitless supply on the interwebs. A lot of pictures will do, although you need the image to be a high quality one for it to really work on Zoom. Maybe you took some really good professional quality photos, or have a good phone camera that takes amazing pictures. But be strategic with the pictures you’re choosing. Here are some of my tips.

Placement in the picture

Mostly we think of ideal pictures as those with the focal point being at the center of the picture. But in a conference call you are likely sitting in the center of the frame. So you don’t want to sit in front of what you want others to see. For example you don’t want it to look like the Eiffel Tower is growing out of the top of your head. Instead look for pictures with these things slightly to one side.

You want your picture to be bright and fun, but you don’t want it to be so psychedelic that everyone’s tripping out looking at you. A big mass of colors or a messy picture will just distract everyone, and yourself, every time you see it.

Picture quality

It might seem obvious, but look for good quality shots. I would suggest sticking to pictures with clear skies on sunny days, or sharp images. You don’t want to be sat in front of a picture of your favorite place taken on a cloudy, gray day. It won’t have the effect you want and when your screen is smaller to some people, it won’t be clear where you are.

Avoid words in the picture

You might want people to know where you are but having it emblazoned above your head on a screen for everyone to see is not how you subtly join a conference call. It’s distracting and busy looking. Sitting in front of a travel quote is not going to do you any favors either. If there are words in the picture, let it be street signs that don’t need to be read too closely to show where you might be (i.e. neon street signs).

Size of the picture

Here I’m thinking more the size of something in the picture. You want to show you’re in San Francisco? Don’t have a miniature Golden Gate bridge in the background. Want to show you’re in Paris? Get an Eiffel Tower that’s big enough to see. You get the idea.

The 15 best travel themed Zoom backgrounds I use

That brings me to the Zoom backgrounds I have been using. A way I can enjoy traveling the world without leaving home. Or at the very least making people think I’m on a beach somewhere or walking down a famous street. Travel themed Zoom backgrounds are, in my opinion, the best kind. It can brighten up your day or someone else’s day when you’re in a long meeting. It can inspire you for future travel by reminding you where you want to go when this is over (or where you want to go back to). And if nothing else it’s a great conversation starter. I love seeing which places people choose now on my meetings and can ask them where it is.

So without further ado here are my TOP 15 travel themed Zoom backgrounds . Simply download them by right clicking on the picture you like and hit SAVE AS , then upload to Zoom from your saved files for your next conference call.

The Maldives

The classic beach view. The whiter than white sand and bluer than blue water. If there’s ever a way to make yourself and others dream of the vacation you always wanted it’s by using this travel themed Zoom background. Imagine the heat of the afternoon sun as you stroll down the beach back to your over-water bungalow for cocktails and sunset. Yes please! Take me there now.

The Sahara Desert

The epic sand dunes picture that everyone wants. Walk it, camel ride it or sand board down it. However you want to experience the incredibly vast deserts of Morocco and beyond, you can think about it while on your latest Zoom conference call. Imagine yourself on a trip through the Sahara Desert with an overnight stop at the most unique campground you’ll find.

The London Underground

Missing your daily commute? Well with this Zoom background you can almost feel the sweaty, stinky, hot air of the Underground. Maybe use it before your first meeting of the day and apologize for being late by telling your team that the traffic was a nightmare this morning. Better yet, use this background to bring back amazing memories of a trip to the marvelous city of London , England. Wait, you haven’t been? Make it your first stop when this is over. There’s no city like it (I’m British so I’m probably biased). Read more about the TOP 50 things to do in LONDON here .

Rice Terraces, China

One of my favorite travel memories was trekking through the rice terraces of Longsheng, China . There aren’t really many official places to stay in the village I stayed in, located at the top of a winding, steep hill among the beautiful rice terraces. Instead, locals meet the buses coming from the bigger cities and offer rooms in their house for a fee. It’s a unique experience, even more so given the houses are not the most modern establishments. I remember showering over a bamboo drain while making eye contact with locals passing outside the glass-less bathroom window. Spending the days walking through, up and over field after field of rice. Take me back! Job done with this travel themed Zoom background of the rice terraces.

The Pyramids of Giza

Isn’t it every kid’s dream to visit the pyramids? With any luck, that dream will follow you into adulthood. Because who wouldn’t want to take after Indiana Jones and see the only remaining ancient wonder of the world? I hope I get there one day, but for now I’m going to have to settle for this Zoom background. Hey, on the plus side the climate will be a little better while I sit in my temperature regulated apartment instead of the baking heat of Northern Africa. But the view is incredible isn’t it?

Paris, France

I mean, it has to be done doesn’t it? You can’t have travel themed Zoom backgrounds and not at least pause over the beautiful city of Paris. I love everything about this city: fresh pastries at every corner, limitless art and museums, watching the crazy driving that makes me glad I have never chosen to rent a car in this city. And is there any view more worthy of making your background than the Eiffel Tower looming over the Seine on a sunny day? Sure it’s a travel cliché but that’s OK. Clichés are clichés for a reason.

The giant cacti of Arizona

Don’t ask me why, but this is a bucket list item for me. To see a cactus that’s taller than me? Heck yeah I want to do that. I told Jeff I wanted to go to Arizona for this reason and he jokingly told me “Dream big, Emma”. Well, you know what? I am dreaming big. Big cactus big! Maybe it’s because I’ve never been to a desert region also, but I can see a trip to Arizona in my future. For one it’s so easy to get to from Vancouver, where I live. Until then it’ll just have to do as my Zoom background for a while.

The Northern Lights

I think everyone has seeing the Northern Lights on their bucket list. And if you don’t, you’re crazy. The incredible Aurora Borealis can be seen from the globe’s most Northern locations like Scandinavia, Northern Canada and Iceland. I was lucky enough to see them briefly from the plane while flying back to Canada from the UK, but that is not enough. I need to see them fully and hopefully get a good picture. Iceland is on my list, along with apparently everyone else’s. But that shouldn’t make you want to skip it. If you want to go, go! I also recently visited Finland, a country where you can see the lights. And although I didn’t have much time in Helsinki it got me thinking that I would love to go further North or visit the surrounding Scandinavian countries.

PENGUINS!!!! That is all! OK, that’s not all, but that really is the argument won right there. I don’t need to say anything else and I can virtually see you all nodding along like “yeah…penguins…she’s right”. Who doesn’t want to see those amazing creatures, waddling along, swapping pebbles, dancing, breaking out of the zoo to head to Madagascar. OK cartoon penguins aside, you can’t say you wouldn’t want to see penguins in real life! As far and remote as Antarctica is, it’s a dream of mine to visit. It looks freaking awesome. There’s no other way to describe it. So, yes, I will rock my penguin screen until such day as I can make this travel themed Zoom background a reality.

Times Square, New York

Start spreading the news, I’m leaving today…. Unfortunately not. Not even close. But a girl can dream. And while Times Square should be avoided at all costs, unless it’s your first time to New York and you should usher through just to see it. Do not stop, do not collect $200, pretend you’re going to Monopoly jail and just keep moving. In fact, this is the best way to experience Times Square. Digitally, without crowds, from the safety and comfort of your own home. But it’s a place that’s synonymous with this crazy busy city, so it makes a pretty good travel themed Zoom background, doesn’t it?

Lake Louise, Canada

From the hustle and bustle of one of the busiest cities in the world, to the calm and tranquil turquoise waters of Lake Louise in Alberta, Canada . It’s a bit of a tourist trap, but it can’t be missed if you’re heading to the Canadian Rockies. Hundreds of tourists are dropped off each day by tour buses at the Fairmont Lake Louise hotel. They pile out of the bus, take their photos and leave. If you’re lucky though you can stay at the hotel like I did. Honestly the view was so amazing I didn’t close my curtains that night so I could wake up to the gorgeous view. But a way to visit Lake Louise without any other people is by using this cool photo as your Zoom background of choice. Plan your ultimate road trip through the Canadian Rockies with this guide .

Lavender fields, Provence, France

Tell me you haven’t always wanted to run through the field of lavender, I dare you. I LOVE lavender. Candles, lotion, baked in a cake with lemon. Talk about multiple uses. And so pretty and purple. So it’s no surprise that I was itching to try out this bad boy of a Zoom background to whisk me away (virtually of course) to the fields in France. For action shots you could try starting at the other end of the room and running towards your computer, thus looking like you’re merrily skipping through the fields. Maybe scope out your audience before you try this.

The Grand Canyon

We haven’t had nearly enough world wonders in this list so far, so I’m bringing out the big guns. Or the grand guns I should say. The Grand Canyon has long been on my list, and even though I’ve been to Las Vegas a couple of times I’ve never dragged my other half away from the blackjack tables long enough to get to this incredible looking place that can be done as a day trip from Sin City. For now I’ll settle with this amazing travel themed Zoom background of the Grand Canton, but I’m ready to start planning a trip here ASAP. Maybe I’ll keep heading South to see those giant cacti.

While you’re in Arizona, not too far (in relative terms) from the Grand Canyon is the famous Horseshoe Bend, which in my opinion might be even more spectacular than the Grand Canyon.

The Scottish Highlands

Highland cow or no Highland cow? In this case I omitted the ridiculously cute looking coos in favor of the plain and simple (yeah right) rugged views of the Scottish Highlands. If you have been to the UK and not made it past London, get yourself on a train up North and then rent a car to drive around the wilds of Scotland. You’ll never want to visit anywhere else. It’s beautiful. We did a trip up to Loch Ness when Jeff came to the UK with me last, but I haven’t been to nearly enough of this spectacular country. So until I can get back there, this view will have to do.

Machu Picchu, Peru

I skipped the Highland cows but you didn’t think I’d be able to resist a virtual llama selfie did you? Oh yeah, Machu Picchu makes an appearance in this one too. But enough about that, look at the llama! Although I haven’t been lucky enough yet to visit South America, I would for sure start with Peru and would love to take a trek to Machu Picchu. It’s almost a rite of passage isn’t it? And if you go there you will need to get your llama pictures too. So while you plan your trip to Peru, stick this background up in your need Zoom meeting and show off the ancient wonder along with a virtual ice breaker llama shot.

If you’ve enjoyed this post leave a comment or share using the social media buttons below. What are some of your favorite Zoom backgrounds right now? Where do you want to virtually visit on your conference calls?

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26 thoughts on “15 Free Travel Themed Zoom Backgrounds”

Very helpful post in this time! Thanks for sharing!

I’ve actually just been looking for some Zoom backgrounds, so this is the perfect post for me!

How Interesting. I had never thought to use a background. I think I like the thought of a beach behind me!

Wow this is cool,I have used zoom but never knew so much about it.thanks for sharing,I will try to change the background

Some great suggestions. I didn’t even know you could change the background so this is good to know!

I have always used my travel pictures on a zoom call as a background. I have to use some of these next time.

Haha this is such a random article! But I love it! This happened to me the other day too, I was on a call and someone came in with I think a roller coaster background haha! There is so many beautiful travel pics! I think I would use lake louise as it’s my favourite spot in Canada!

I love this!! I agree that experiencing Times Square is done best through a zoom background, the few times I have been in NYC and have had to go through Times Square the crowds stressed me out so much haha (definitely best super late at night or first thing in the morning!)

Great post! love all the photos!

I don’t use Zoom but I’m definitely saving these images as my laptop wallpaper! Loved the post <3

Im in zoom! I havent thought using a background 🙂 Interesting to know and very informative post!

Haha, this is amazing! I never knew you could do this! Thank you for sharing. I’m away to play with some of these.

Love them.. so beautiful! Thank you for sharing 🙂

These backgrounds are beautiful. They will definitely make my zoom meetings more enjoyable!

What a fun idea! If we can’t travel, at least it can look like we’re somewhere more exciting than our living rooms!

Well of course I love this! You have a photo of the Pyramids and I am Egyptian! Great and timely article since we will probably be using Zoom for a long time now!

Like!! Great article post.Really thank you! Really Cool.

What great ideas! Can’t wait to spice up my zoom chats 😄🏝

Very cool! Definitely a fun way to keep the travel spirit alive while we’re all at home 🙂

I wish I’d seen this sooner! I’m a teacher and my kids know I’ve traveled extensively. We just finished our school year, but they would have thought these were cool.

Such a fun way to share travel inspiration! 🙂

This was so funny to read! I loved the comments about the London tube!

Love the Sahara background, thanks!

Love this post – never knew how to do it but I don’t see where to download them. Reread a few times.

All you need to do is right-click on the picture you like and SAVE AS to download. Then add to your Zoom picture database. Happy Zooming 🙂

I’ve seen other people do this but never knew how myself, so this is awesome! Thank you! I’m definitely heading to the Maldives next meeting! 😉

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50+ Places to Find Free, Travel-Themed Virtual Backgrounds for Video Calls

By Jason Cochran

One of the delights of this bizarre age we're living through—and yes, there have been delights, including a worldwide proliferation of home-baked cakes and cookies—has been the explosion in video conferencing.

Whether you use Zoom, Microsoft Teams, or some other chatty app, 2020 has given us entree to the private spaces of friends and the famous alike. Don't pretend you haven't been fascinated to see what celebrities keep on their shelves near their home computers. Don't pretend you had assumed some of them lived better than they actually do. We're all transfixed. We are all Peeping Toms now.

Literally: The crisis has even permitted us to peep at Tom Hanks in his tastefully appointed kitchen as he virtually hosted  Saturday Night Live. 

The delight of sanctioned nosiness is improved only, perhaps, by the delight of kooky self-expression through fake digital backgrounds that you can upload to make it look like you're somewhere you're not.

We may never be able to explain to Grandpa what to click on Zoom so that everyone's picture is stacked like the opening of The Brady Bunch ( it's Gallery View, Gramps ),  but we can at least baffle him by uploading wild and strange virtual backgrounds to appear behind us in our video calls.

Don't think the world's tourist attractions haven't seen a free marketing opportunity in our newfound hunger for custom backgrounds. Numerous destinations have created their own images that you merely have to download and then upload to your preferred video conferencing platform, no charge at all.

Now you can celebrate the world's wonders and conceal the growing pile of dirty laundry behind you, all at the same time.

These aren't photos that random people stole and posted as their own—they're 100% legit and provided to you with no strings attached by official offices. So you're good to go! Well, virtually.

Alexandria, Virginia : Images include Spite House, sailing on the Potomac, and Old Town Alexandria.

Anaheim : Images include Knott's Berry Farm, Anaheim Packing House, and Disneyland.

Atlanta : Images include Piedmont Park, Centennial Olympic Park, and Swan House. The Georgia Aquarium posted more of its own photos. 

Australia : Images include Uluru, the Gold Coast, Melbourne, Cradle Mountain, and a sandbar on the Great Barrier Reef near Cairns. Tasmania has its own collection here .

Bucks County, Pennsylvania : Images include Peddler's Village, Washington Crossing Historic Park, and Bucks County Playhouse.  

Chesapeake, Virginia : Images include kayaking on Lake Drummond, sunset at Elizabeth River Park, and the Chesapeake Arboretum.

Detroit : Images include the Fisher Theatre, Belle Isle, and the Motown Museum.

Discovery Cove, Orlando : Images include marmosets, otters, dolphins, and a spotted eagle ray.

Disneyland and  Walt Disney World : Images include theme park rides, Star Wars , Disney Channel shows, and Pixar movies.

Georgia : Images include Savannah, peach tree blossoms, and coastal areas.

Idaho : Images include Blue Heart Springs, Shoshone Falls, and Craters of the Moon.

Indiana : Images include Indiana Dunes, Holiday World, and Parkview Field. The Fort Wayne Children's Zoo posted some especially cute animal backgrounds.

Las Vegas : Images include the Venetian, the Bellagio fountains, Fremont Street, the top of Hoover Dam, and the Seven Magic Mountains boulder sculpture.

London : Images include Tower Bridge, Somerset House, Greenwich, and the River Thames.

Los Angeles : Images include Griffith Park Observatory, Union Station, and Hermosa Beach Pier. Even as it tears down buildings for redevelopment, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) posted some of its best works, and the Hollywood Heritage Museum has some cool shots of classic Hollywood such as Paramount Pictures' Bronson Gate, the Capitol Records building, and vintage shots of Hollywood Boulevard.

The Maldives : Images include the Coco Bodu Hithi and Coco Palm Dhuni Kolhu resorts.

Miami : Images include the Everglades, Little Havana, South Beach, and Vizcaya Museum and Gardens.

Myrtle Beach : Images include beach, sunset, and aerial shots.

Napa Valley, California : Images include vineyards, hot air balloons, and spring mustard blooms.

New York : Images include Chittenango Falls, Boldt Castle, the Finger Lakes, and the Brooklyn Bridge. The New York Public Library  and Niagara Falls  posted their own collections as well, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art got in on the gag by posting shots of some of the most lavish rooms in its interior design and architecture collections.

North Carolina : Images include the Charlotte skyline, Ocracoke Lighthouse, and the Appalachian Trail.

Oregon : Images include Umpqua River, Salt Creek Falls, and Painted Hills.

Orlando : Images include Gatorland, Universal Orlando, and Legoland Florida.

Palm Springs, California : Images include the Aerial Tramway, date palms, golf courses, and swimming pools.

Philadelphia : Images include Al Capone's prison cell, Elfreth's Alley, LOVE Park, the Rocky statue, and the Liberty Bell. The Museum of the American Revolution has its own suite of lively free backgrounds for download.

Philippines : Images include sunset at Boracay island, palm trees in Davao City, and Mayon Volcano.

Puerto Rico : Images include El Morro, Old San Juan, Culebra, and various beaches.

Puerto Vallarta, Mexico : Images include Playa Caballo, a sunset over town rooftops, and seascapes.

Salem, Massachusetts : Images include the Salem Witch Museum, the Schooner Fame, and the House of the Seven Gables.

San Antonio : Images include the Alamo, River Walk, and Mission Concepción.

San Diego : Images include Balboa Park, Torrey Pines, and Cabrillo National Monument.

San Francisco : Images include the Painted Ladies houses, the California Street cable car, the Castro, and the Pier 39 sea lions.

Santa Fe : Images include Old Town, adobe buildings, and Meow Wolf.

Sarasota, Florida : Images include the beaches at Siesta Key, Longboat Key, and Lido Key.

Seattle : Images include Pike Place Market, the Fremont Troll, Lake Union houseboats, and Snoqualmie Falls.

Sevierville, Tennessee : Images include the Dolly Parton statue and the Great Smoky Mountains in many moods. Nearby Pigeon Forge has rustic shots of Dollywood.

Schitt's Creek : Download images of the TV show's exteriors in Goodwood, Ontario.

SeaWorld Orlando : Images include a sea lion pup, a beluga whale, and penguins.

Sentosa, Singapore : Images include Madame Tussauds and beach resorts.

Tampa Bay, Florida : Images include an Ybor City rooster, the Florida Aquarium, and paddleboarding by the downtown skyline.  Busch Gardens Tampa Bay  has its own selections, including the SheiKra and Tigris roller coasters and animals such as giraffes (pictured above), sloths, and tortoises.

United Airlines : Images include cockpit views, lounges, and airplanes in flight (so at least someone's flying).

U.S. National Parks : Hotel and restaurant operator Xanterra posted images including Glacier, Grand Canyon, Death Valley, and Zion national parks.

Vancouver : Images include skyline views, tulips, and the marina.

Washington, D.C .: Images include the Tidal Basin in cherry blossom season, Ben's Chili Bowl, and Nationals Park.

Home rental companies have also gotten in on the trend to promote their most eye-popping properties. Images from  Airbnb  include luxurious sites in Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur, France; Arrowtown, New Zealand; and over the Sacred Valley of Urubamba, Peru. Images from  Onefinestay  include a loft on Place des Vosges in Paris, a pool by a mansion in Sydney, and a rooftop in the old city of Rome.

And just in case you need to know, here's how to add virtual backgrounds to one of the most popular video chat apps, Zoom:

1. Save the photo you want to your computer or device.

2. Once you’re logged into Zoom, open Account Settings (on a Mac: Preferences). 

3. If your computer or device can support the function, “Virtual Background” appears as an option. Select it, then press the plus sign to upload the photo of your choice. You can also use video. We don't think we can truly compete with the virtual wallpaper bonanza above, but we can provide a few of our own backgrounds with a distinct Frommer's spin.

Slap these shots of our book titles behind you the next time you're logged into virtual chat. People will think your place is stuffed with bookshelves, like you're some kind of library smarty-pants. They'll never see the stacks of dirty dishes behind you now!

Finally, if you're a fan of our weekly podcasts (always available for free at Frommers.com/podcast ), then the title card for our radio show might be more on your wavelength:

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8+ gorgeous travel Zoom backgrounds

By now, you’ve probably been on roughly a million Zoom calls, and you’re getting heartily sick of looking at your bookshelves or kitchen cupboards in the background. You may have even looked on in envy as other people on the call sat in front of gorgeous photos of far-away locales.

If you want to spruce up your Zoom background, tourism boards, hotels and other organizations around the world are only too happy to share pictures of their most photogenic places, which are yours to use on Zoom for free. (They’re also a fun way to virtually travel to the places we’re not allowed to visit at the minute.)

Once you’ve downloaded one of these photos (via the links to the sites below each photo), here’s how you put them in the background of your Zoom call while you’re in a meeting. Note: These instructions are for desktop and laptop versions of the Zoom app; the process is slightly different on a phone or tablet.

• Click the “up” arrow (it looks like a small triangle) to the right of the “Start Video” icon in the lower left corner.
• In the window that opens, click “Choose a Virtual Background,” then click the plus sign (+) to upload the picture from your computer.
• Now, click on the thumbnail of your uploaded image (near the bottom of the window) to make it your virtual background.
• When (or if!) you want to go back to your real-world background, click the square marked “None.” 

If you have trouble, it may be because your computer doesn’t have enough memory or the right software to run a background. For troubleshooting advice, go to Zoom’s help page .

Note that I’ve saved the photos below at a fairly low resolution so the page will open more quickly, but the versions available on the websites are much crisper.

OK, enough tech talk! Onwards to the pretty Zoom backgrounds!

Australia: Kangaroos on the beach

Could there be anything more Aussie than this shot of kangaroos bouncing down a beach on Lucky Bay in Esperance, Western Australia? This photo is just one of many stunning backgrounds you can download from the Tourism Australia website . For something a bit less stereotypical but even more gorgeous, check out the shots on that site of Mount Amos in Tasmania or Byron Bay in New South Wales.

Bermuda: Front Street, Hamilton

This colourful scene along Front Street in Hamilton, Bermuda, is one of many Zoom backgrounds available on the Bermuda Tourism Authority website . In normal times, the street hosts a Harbour Nights festival on Wednesday nights in summer, with dancers, food vendors and live music.

British Columbia: Mountainous Zoom background

Not surprisingly, the Destination B.C. website is packed with jaw-dropping photos of Canada’s westernmost province. This Zoom background comes from the Vancouver Coast & Mountains travel area.

Ireland: Carrick-a-Rede rope bridge

I’ve actually walked across this heart-stopping bridge in County Antrim, Northern Ireland—but my photos aren’t nearly as good as this one! Salmon fishermen built the Carrick-a-Rede rope bridge in 1755 to connect the mainland to a tiny island nearby. This picture is one of several photos from across the island of Ireland (both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland) at the Tourism Ireland website .

New Zealand: Sea lions near Dunedin

Seriously, all of the photos in New Zealand Tourism’s Zoom background gallery are lovely. I had trouble choosing, but I can never resist cute animals. So here you go: sea lions near Dunedin .

Rome: Vicolo Orbitelli

Maybe you’d like to convince your co-workers that you live in a posh Italian villa? Then you could upload this Zoom background of the terrace of Vicolo Orbitelli , an apartment overlooking St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome, courtesy of the upscale vacation rental site One Fine Stay . The site also has pix of ritzy digs in Sydney, New York, Paris and elsewhere.

San Francisco: Painted Ladies

This scene of beautifully painted Victorian houses facing Alamo Square, with the downtown skyline in the background, is one of the most-photographed sites in San Francisco. Locally, the homes are known as the Painted Ladies . Check out the San Francisco Travel Association’s website for other great photos of the City by the Bay.

Toronto: The skyline as Zoom background

Missing the bright lights of Canada’s biggest city? Tourism Toronto comes to the rescue with this glittering Zoom background of T.O. Several others are available on the Tourism Toronto website , including pictures of City Hall and of blooming cherry trees.

Winnipeg: Esplanade Riel and the Canadian Museum for Human Rights

When we can travel again, DO visit the Canadian Museum for Human Rights in Winnipeg. The exhibits are thought provoking and the building is architecturally stunning. In the meantime, enjoy this background featuring the Esplanade Riel pedestrian footbridge and the museum (on the right). You can download this Zoom background and others—including shots with bison and a polar bear—on the Tourism Winnipeg website .

If your travels normally take you to places within a day’s drive of Ottawa, why not sign up for my free weekly e-newsletter ? I’ll never spam you—promise.

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Home » Roadside Attractions Blog » Roadside Attractions » Zoom Background Images: Roadside Attractions

Zoom Background Images: Roadside Attractions

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Have you been using the Zoom video conferencing app to hold meetings with colleagues while working from home? If you have, you might have noticed your coworkers sitting in front of some interesting backgrounds. That’s because the software allows you to switch out whatever boring background is behind you to any any Zoom background images you want, no green screen required.

From tropical beaches to the office from The Office, there are plenty of inspirational and funny Zoom meeting backgrounds to choose from that will transport you somewhere new…or hide the dirty bedroom behind you. But which image should you choose?

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Everything you need to have and record an epic road trip.

Enjoy fun games and challenges to pass the time on your next road trip and have a keepsake to look back on for years to come with this entertaining must-have for your next vacation.

If you’re a roadtripper who wishes you were behind the wheel instead of behind the laptop, try these video conference backdrops of roadside attractions and bring the road trip to your work.

Roadside Attraction Zoom Background Images:

Change your Zoom backgrounds to any of these funny roadside attractions to take a virtual road trip, and maybe even make your associates chuckle. Right click these free zoom background images to save them to your desktop to use at your next teleconference. Click here to learn how to change your virtual background on Zoom.

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Valerie Bromann

Founder & road trip expert.

Valerie Bromann is a a website manager, content creator, and writer from Chicago, Illinois (currently living in Dallas, Texas). As an avid road tripper who has visited hundreds of roadside attractions, Val always pull over for a world’s largest thing. Founder of Silly America and author of The Road Trip Journal & Activity Book , she visits, photographs, and writes about all the weird tourist destinations she visits and offers road trip planning advice and inspiration based on her own travels so you can hit the road for yourself.

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Last modified: April 7, 2020 Category: Roadside Attractions

Tony Tasset’s Eye in Dallas, Texas (& Chicago)

Tv land landmarks: statues of classic television characters, share this post ⤵.

BY Valerie Bromann

The road trip you’ve been dreaming of starts here! Journal about your stops and get to know your fellow passengers with activities and exercises designed to pass the time and bring you closer together. Instead of “Are we there yet?” you’ll find yourself asking, “We’re there already?”. Complete with prompts you can turn to while driving between locations, this journal will one day be a memento of your life-changing trip.

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Silly America is a roadside attractions blog designed to help travelers find unique stops for their next road trip. The website is a tribute to the great American road trip, devoted to all that is odd in America: roadside attractions, tourist traps, peculiar destinations, bizarre events, road food, fun festivals, and more! It’s a travel website and trip planner for those seeking an offbeat road trip.

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• Scenic Drives

Road Trip Planner

Myscenicdrives.com road trip planner.

Simple A to B Routes

Build a drive, opening stored road trips, importing myscenicdrives.com road trip plans, importing comma and tab separated files, road trip plan, scheduling stops, trip settings, path compression, export to your calendar, duplicating a road trip, deleting a road trip, sharing road trips.

• Printing Road Trips

Route Optimizer

• Reversing Road Trips

Distance Circle

Adding flights, trains, ferries, cruises, and other travel, importing addresses from vcards.

• Adding your Location

Adding Campgrounds

Finding nearby scenic drives and activities, electric vehicles, managing a budget, working with days, working with the to do list, adding day markers, adding charging ranges, adding trips as layers, undo and redo, my places of interest, installing to your home screen on iphone, ipod touch, and ipad, installing to your home screen on android.

• Installing to your Start Screen on Windows 8 and Windows Phone

Attributions

myscenicdrives.com provides detailed descriptions of scenic routes across the United States. Now our latest feature, the Road Trip Planner, makes travel even simpler with the ability to create personalized and detailed travel itineraries. Some of the highlights are:

• Build your routes and plan your trip easily using our comprehensive database of scenic roads and Places of Interest.
• Divide long road trips into manageable days, then print or download directions to your GPS for each day.
• Import and export our data into your favorite tools or share with your friends.

Best of all, it’s free with unlimited use for anyone with an account.

The myscenicdrives.com Road Trip Planner is in beta testing and fully functional. We look forward to your comments and suggestions . The myscenicdrives.com Road Trip Planner is presently free. Create your free account now to plan, save, print and share your itineraries.

Getting Started

Once you are logged in , select Road Trip Planner from the toolbar and you are ready to plan your road trip.

Prefer video? Check out our Getting Started Video for an overview of how to use the planner.

We designed the Road Trip Planner to be simple to use. Not sure what one of our features will do? Just let your mouse hover over it and an explanation will pop up.

Our Road Trip Planner is a web browser-based application, so while you may want to hit back to return to a previous screen, it may not bring you to where you were. If you do not see your Road Trip, don’t worry — you did not lose it! Simply open the copy we automatically saved for you.

Lastly, if you have any questions, problems or feedback, just send us an e-mail or select Help and then Contact Us . We respond to all e-mails.

From the Road Trip Planner , simply enter your start and end points on the left hand side of the screen. You can enter this in any of these forms:

• City, State
• Street Address
• Geocode of your location

Or you can select your location from the map. Click on the map and then a selection will appear. Select one of the addresses or zoom into the area to get more specific.

If you are using a web browser released within the last year, you may also see a button that says Use GPS . This button will use your computer’s IP address and your ISP information to guess where you are located. Click and your web browser will ask you if it is OK to share the information with us, and if you choose to, a geocode for your location will appear.

All details previously entered can be changed anytime. If you’re not sure exactly where you want to go, that’s not a problem either — just choose your first idea and make changes once inspired. But keep in mind, the more precise the information, the better our estimates and directions will be.

Once you have filled in these values, click Plan and your road trip will be generated.

The default starting location is the Default Location stored in your profile , if supplied. You can easily change this by re-entering it.

Return Directions

If you want return directions, select the Round Trip option. For example, if you are planning a road trip from Los Angeles to Sacramento and back, you can enter in Los Angeles, CA as your From address, Sacramento, CA as your destination address, and by selecting the Round Trip checkbox, we will automatically generate the directions from Los Angeles, to Sacramento, and back to Los Angeles.

Advanced Road Trips

You can create a Road Trip without the wizard by selecting the File menu above the map and selecting New Blank Trip .

Start planning a trip from one of our Scenic Drives or Places of Interest, or add them to your existing route. Simply click Add to Road Trip .

If you are not already logged in, you will be prompted to login and will have to click Add to Road Trip again.

A list of road trips previously saved with myscenicdrives.com will appear. Choose from any of these routes or select Create New Road Trip and the Scenic Drive or Place of Interest will be automatically added to that road trip.

Previously created road trips or trips someone has shared with you can be opened by clicking Open on the first page or by selecting File in the top-left corner of the map and selecting Open Trip from the menu.

A dialog box will appear with a list of your road trips, the most-recently-updated at the top. By default, the road trips are named with the towns you entered when you first created your road trip (you may change this under the Trip Settings ). Simply select the one you want and it will load.

Importing Road Trips

If you have created a route in another application, you can import it into the myscenicdrives.com Road Trip Planner. We support:

• Google Earth (.KML/.KMZ)
• Microsoft Street and Trips (.GPX)
• Garmin GPS files (.GPX)
• TomTom Itinerary Files (.ITN)
• TomTom Place of Interest Files (.OV2)
• Comma Separated Files (.CSV) (Compatible with Excel)
• Tab Separated Files (.TSV)

To import files, simply click the Import button on the first page or select File in the top-left corner of the map and select Import Route . Once selected, a dialog box will open and ask you for the file type, which file, and if you have a trip open, whether you would like to import the file into the current trip or as a new trip. After entering in this information, click Import and the file will be processed.

If the selected file is a trace of a trip you have taken, the imported route may have too many points to be practically usable. You can use the Path Adjustments to automatically remove stops at preset distances. By default though, we do not alter your imported trip.

The file formats are usually standard, but glitches may happen. Should this occur, please e-mail us the file and we will look into it.

If you have planned a previous trip using our Road Trip Planner, you can import that entire trip into your new trip. You can use this feature for collaborating your trip planning with friends, fine tuning specific days, or alternate plans.

To use this feature, simply click the Import Road Trip from the File menu above the map. Here you will be able to select the trip you wish to import. After selecting your trip, myscenicdrives.com will proceed to import all the stops from that trip into your current trip, except for those which already exist in your current trip.

If you wish to append the trips together, be sure to check the “Do not optimize” option. By default, we will attempt to optimize the best routes for the two trips, but when this option is checked, we will simply append the stops.

Since Comma Separated Files are less defined, the myscenicdrives.com Road Trip Planner workflow for Comma Separated Files (CSV) and Tab Separated Files (TSV) is a little different.

If you are starting from Excel, you first need to save your document as a CSV. To do this, select File, Save As, and change the Save as Type to CSV (Comma delimited) .

In the myscenicdrives.com Road Trip Planner, select the Import menu option from the File menu. After you have selected your file and have clicked upload, you will be redirected to a new page that allows you to see the data you have uploaded.

On this page, you will need to indicate which columns have which type of information. To be used, we require a minimum of a Latitude and Longitude or the components of an address to that we can geocode the information. The column types are as follows. Unless otherwise specified, if you set two columns to be the same type, they will be appended together.

We will attempt to auto-detect these fields from the first row. If we are able to determine any matches, the first row will be assumed to be headers and will not be imported.

The table on the page contains all the items which will be imported. If you do not want to import all of the stops, you can uncheck the box to the left of the row that reads “Import?”.

If you wish to change the value of a field in the table, you can click on the field and edit it inline.

Once complete, select the “Import” button at the bottom of the page and it will proceed to validate and geocode the values as required. In the event that any of the data is invalid, you will be informed of these and the rows will turn pink. Depending on the number of errors, you will either be able to proceed with the import or return to the editor to make adjustments.

As the CSV and TSV file-formats for GPS use is varied, if you experience any issues with the important, please e-mail us so that we can address them.

Our trip planner has four sections that work together to help you plan the perfect road trip.

The Road Trip Planner outlines the places and attractions you want to visit, where to spend the night, etc. in a simple list. Use these tools to organize your trip:

Below the last item in your road trip plan are some frequently used functions, such as the Add Destination and Directions .

One of the best parts of the myscenicdrives.com Road Trip Planner is that you can search through our extensive database for stops using the Finder Search Box.

If you aren’t sure what to search for, consider using our Nearby Route Finder or clicking on the map in an area of interest and selecting the Find Nearby Places of Interest . If you are using Distance Circle , you can override the default range.

After typing something in and press your Enter key, Search Results will pop-up, separated into Destinations, Scenic Drives and Places of Interest and the map will display black markers matching the corresponding numbers.

Then choose:

• Add to add the destination to your road trip
• Zoom To to zoom to that location
• Link to see more information about that area

On most browsers, you can also click on the stop and drag it to your Road Trip Plan or Activities .

On the map, you can also click the black markers to add them to your itinerary.

Some searches may have more results which you can access by clicking the More Results below the search results.

To hide the Search Results, click the brown arrow (►) next to the Search box.

Once you have created your basic plan, check the Directions. You can find Directions above the Road Trip Plan or by clicking Map and selecting Directions .

Whenever you change your road trip plan, you will need to update your itinerary by clicking Update Directions . This process takes a few moments.

Directions are divided into Overview and Segments.

The Overview summarizes the number of miles, approximate travel time, notes about time zone changes, and approximate fuel consumption (based on the parameters in the Trip Settings ) and related costs (See Managing a Budget ).

The Overview section also contains buttons to:

Segments separate driving days. For road trips less than 1 day of driving, the directions follow from each stop to the next. For longer trips, the plan will be divided into days (based on your Trip Settings ). For each day, if you have not pre-scheduled an overnight stop, the Road Trip Planner will automatically recommend towns where you can find accommodations.

Not satisfied with the route? Add a waypoint to make the Road Trip Planner use another route. The easiest way to do that is to zoom in on the map, click a road, and select Add Waypoint (Routing) . For best results, avoid placing waypoints at intersections and on the opposite direction of traffic flow.

The more information that you provide, the more accurate your road trip plan will be. For each stop which you plan to spend time at, enter that information into the Schedule by clicking the Edit button either within the Road Trip Plan or on the Map. The goal of the road trip is clearly to unwind and to enjoy, so leave a little breathing room in your plan.

Visualize and plan your road trip directly on the map. We use a standard Google Map layout so you will feel right at home with the panning and zooming tools.

Each stop appears as a yellow, numbered box. Hover over the box and you will see the stop details, have the ability to Edit the destination’s settings, Zoom, Remove the destination, or Close the box.

Click on the map to add new stops, find destinations, or change the map’s location. The listed streets, towns, and cities are based on the location you have selected.

In addition to scrolling and using the zoom feature, you can also press shift on your keyboard and draw a square of where you want to zoom into on the map.

Add a waypoint to make our directions pass a particular stop. This is a useful way to encourage the Road Trip Planner to take a particular road.

If you are looking for things to do in a particular area, select the Find Nearby Places of Interest , which searches the thousands of recommended stops on myscenicdrives.com.

To find the local National Parks, select the Find Nearby National Parks option.

if you are flying to the area, you can find airports by selecting Find Nearby Airports . This will find airports and give you an idea of how fair they are to the point on the map. This also includes the airport code and name to make it easy to find great deals.

Center Map Here will recenter the map at the location you have indicated, maintaining the current zoom parameter. Select Zoom In To Here to zoom right into the selected location, or zoom out to show the entire drive by clicking Show the Entire Drive . The Directions option will bring you to the directions quickly.

You can change the style of the map under the Trip Settings .

The myscenicdrives.com Road Trip Planner allows you to list activities for each of your stops. Activities are similar to your regular stops, except they are not scheduled and directions are not provided to them. Activities can be useful for:

• Planning a list of things to do in particular cities. For example, if you are staying in San Francisco for 5 days. You can add Museums, Restaurants, Walking Tours, etc. to Activities. If you’re researching things to do from various sources, they can be compiled here.
• Keeping track of activities you may want to do if you have time.

To use Activities, first click Activities under a stop. Once expanded, you can either click on the Add Destination or you can drag any stop from your Road Trip Plan onto it and release your mouse when the list expands. You can also drag any of the search results from the Finder .

Activities are exported to GPS Directions as Activities for file formats that support them, and Activities are displayed along your route in the Printed Directions.

If you need directions to these activities, we recommend creating a new Road Trip for the stop.

Destination Settings

You can customize each stop in the Destination Settings. Most stops include a Schedule Tab allowing you to set the length of time at a stop, whether the time is part of your driving time or not, and whether you’d like to drive non-stop to that destination. Other tabs are dependent on the type of stop:

If the Destination Settings has a General Tab, you can enter in specific costs associated with the stop in the Cost field. For more information on budgeting, see Managing your Budget .

The myscenicdrives.com Road Trip Planner provides a number of scheduling options to allow you to better plan your trip.

To indicate that you want to stop at a particular stop, you can check off the “Stop for” check box under the Schedule tab of any of the Destinations and indicate how long you will be at that stop. If you are stopping there for a couple hours, you will also have the option of selecting whether or not to subtract the stopped time from the driving time.

If you have configured Start Times under Trip Settings , you will also be able to schedule when you wish to arrive at a particular stop or depart from that stop. Our Road Trip Planner will use your configured properties to adapt the time to the best options for your settings. Should we not be able to accommodate, a note will be added to your Directions and the To Do List indicating that.

If you have disabled the ability to divide your trip into days, the scheduling piece of our Road Trip Planner will also be disabled.

While the scheduling does permit you the ability to ensure that you have time for every moment, please keep in mind that travel times are estimated and that you should have extra time for unexpected delays.

Customize your Road Trip by clicking on Settings in the lower left hand corner or by selecting File on the top right-hand corner of the map and choose Trip Settings .

Once in the Road Trip Settings window, the General tab allows you to:

General Tab

Directions tab.

In the Directions Tab, you can customize the Maps and Direction Features.

In the Days tab, you can change the way that myscenicdrives.com divides your trips into days. Begin by selecting the default parameters.

Should you want to drive longer or shorter on a particular day, you can change the parameters here after updating the directions by selecting the Advanced button. For each day of your trip, you will be able to override the daily default for time or distance, start times, and budget.

Under the Legs Tab, you can set the road preferences. You can change the default road preferences by checking the Avoid Highways or Avoid Tolls checkboxes.

To change roads for specific sections of the road trip plan, press the Advanced button (if present) then navigate to the leg of the trip you wish to change. To change the leg, uncheck the Use Default and then you can change the defaults for this particular segment.

Permissions Tab

In the Permissions Tab, you can give people permission to see and/or update your itinerary.

• Publicly Readable? If you e-mail or post a link to your road trip, anyone will be allowed to read all of the information associated with your road trip.
• Share your Road Trip You can share your drive with a specific person(s) by granting them permission to Read or Read and Modify the Road Trip. Users must have a free myscenicdrives.com account. If they do not have one beforehand, they must sign-up with the same e-mail address you provided.
• Offsite GPS Support? For the times where you can type in the map URL but do not have a browser within the application, enable this feature to allow the downloading of your GPS files anonymously.

To Add Permission, type in the e-mail address, select whether you are granting them Read or Read and Modify Permission, and click Add. Or, use the Share Trip feature.

To Remove Permission, select the e-mail address from the appropriate list and click Remove under it.

Our permissions model is as follows:

• Anonymous and Read-Only Users can only get access to Printed Directions.
• Read-and-Modify users have full access to the Road Trip Planner.
• Owner has full Read and Modify privileges.

Saving Global Preferences

You may create several trips on myscenicdrives.com and some of your preferences will be similar from trip to trip. In addition to simply saving your preferences, you can also click the Save and Make Default button to make these preferences the default for future new trips you create on myscenicdrives.com. Certain fields, such as names, dates, permissions, and specific overrides will not be stored.

Export to GPS

Have a GPS or want to import your road trip into another tool? Simply export and load it in moments. We support various file formats, including Google Earth (KML), Garmin Communicator, BaseCamp and MapSource (GPX), Co-Pilot Live (TRP), Microsoft Streets and Trips, TomTom itineraries (ITN), TomTom Places of Interest (OV2), Comma Separated Files (CSV), and Tab Separated Files (TSV).

There are a few options on downloading files for multi-day trips. You can either download one file with the entire route or have it divided into per day itineraries. Per day itineraries allow you to load your GPS with your trip for each day. Or you can have all per day files downloaded in a ZIP file format, which will include an Activities and Stops file for your trip.

If you are using a program which needs access to a link, you can enable the Direct Link option. To use this, you will need to enable “Offsite GPS Support”. You will be prompted to enable it if you do not have it enabled or you can change it in the Permissions Tab of the Trip Settings . Once enabled, you will have the link to the raw data which can then be copied and pasted into the application.

Specific instructions for how to use the file format is available in the Export Maps Help Section. Of particular note is the Garmin Communicator Plugin for exporting to your GPS. If you choose the One File Per Day option, it will automatically load all the files onto your device. This feature may not be compatible with all devices.

For CSV and TSV files, you can configure which columns are displayed. You can select from latitude, longitude, name, and description. You can change the order of the columns and add new columns as you need.

While we strive to make our maps and directions as accurate as possible, it is possible that there are flaws in the data or that road conditions, traffic, weather, and other events may result in changes to the planned route. Please use our GPS directions with common sense, obey the law, and please keep your eyes on the road.

Simplify the routes that are exported to your GPS. This feature delegates more of the routing to your GPS device which sometimes provides a smoother GPS experience. Note that it does not always provide the same directions designated by your myscenicdrives.com’s Road Trip Plan, but it does bring you to the same final destination. You have the following options:

• Normal : Export turn-by-turn GPS directions.
• Start and Finish : just the start and finish of each stop and each day.
• Stops : Exports all of your stops and activities.
• Half Point and Merge : merges all directions less than the selected distances, and then exports the half points of long routes, directing you more efficiently to highways and intersections.

If you are not sure which to pick, start with normal and then experiment with the other options to find the one that suits you best.

If you have configured your trip with a Start Date in the Trip Settings , you can export your trip to your calendar, allowing you to know where your trip is taking you via your regular calendar interaction.

Once the Start Date is specified, select the File menu above the map and select the Export to Calendar option. This will generate an iCalendar file format which is usable by most popular calendaring applications.

When your web browser prompts you, you can either open it with your calendar on your desktop or you can save it. If you are using Google Calendar, you can use the iCalendar file using these instructions .

Sometimes when planning a road trip, it is useful to try out different variations.

Creating variations in separate Road Trip files allows you to keep all the detail and information safe while exploring other options. Duplicate your trip by selecting File from the top-left corner of the map and select Save As to create a new road trip with the same information. You will be prompted for a new trip name.

To return to the original Road Trip, select File from the top-left corner of the map and Open Trip .

Another use of the Save As is to refine sections of your trip or collaborating with others. Once you are complete with a section of your trip, you can also merge your changes back in via our Import Road Trip feature.

Save space and remove clutter when you Open Trips by deleting old trips. To do so, select File from the top-left corner of the map and choose Delete Trip . The application will then ask you to confirm.

This results in all data being deleted and non-recoverable. Please double check that you are on the right road trip before deleting.

Sharing your Road Trip with family and friends is safe and easy. Send them a link using the Trip Sharer.

From the File menu on the top-left corner of the map, select Share Trip .

You can choose to either E-mail specific people or post the trip on Facebook, Twitter, or other Social Networks by selecting the appropriate tab.

To e-mail the itinerary, add the desired e-mail address(es), and if you like, customize the subject and message. If the email recipients do not already have access to your road trip, you will be asked to give them permission when adding their e-mail address.

To share on Facebook, Twitter, and other social networks, your trip must be publicly readable, meaning that anyone who has the link can see your full itinerary. Keeping your security in mind, we recommend removing specific addresses and reservations to ensure that your privacy is maintained. You will be asked to check the checkbox acknowledging this. When you accept, for either Facebook or Twitter, the appropriate window will open with the link to your trip. For other Social Networks, such as blogs or forums, a link will appear that you must copy and paste into your message.

You can change the permissions anytime in the Trip Settings .

Even with the best technology, there’s nothing like a printed copy of your directions. Even if you elect not to print them, it’s a convenient way to share your road trip plan with friends and family.

To print the road trip plan, select Print from the lower-left corner of the screen or from the File menu in the upper-left hand corner of the map, select Print .

Printed directions are similar to the Directions in the Road Trip Planner. An overview of the drive indicates all of the stops, mileage, approximate driving time and approximate fuel costs. These values are determined by your Trip Settings . Below the overview is a large map and the directions divided by day, along with any notes that you have for each stop.

Above the Overview is the Print Options menu. From here, you can select which items to print:

While we strive to make our maps and directions as accurate as possible, it is possible that there are flaws in the data or that road conditions, traffic, weather, and other events may result in changes to the planned route.

Choosing the right path from place to place can save time and money. Our Route Optimizer will try to order all of your stops to minimize mileage for your entire trip.

When you plan your trip, myscenicdrives.com will automatically try to add new stop where it will likely be best fit. For many trips, this will be sufficient but as we do not reorder the other stops, you sometimes may need to optimize the trip.

To optimize the stops, choose the Map menu above the map and select Optimize Stops for Distance to minimize the distance traveled or select Optimize Stops for Time for the least time. Depending on how many stops and how complicated your trip is, this may take a few moments to calculate. Once calculated, the new order of the trip will be shown.

The Route Optimizer will find the most efficient route between the first stop and your last stop based on distance.

While we make all efforts to organize the stops as best as we can, we cannot guarantee that the order selected is the best. If you notice anything odd in your results, please let us know so that we can look into it.

Reversing Directions

If you want to return using the same path, select File from the top-left corner of the map and then select Save As . On the newly created file, select Map above the map, and choose Reverse .

Selecting Reverse without creating a new file will undo your original plan.

Our Distance Circle feature surrounds your mouse pointer with a circle whose radius is a configured distance. This is especially handy for planning trips in which a certain distance must be covered per day and for finding activities nearby your route.

To configure the Distance Circle, select the Map menu above the map and choose Distance Circle . In the upper right corner of the map, a dialog will appear where you can enter the distance and click Add . You can change the distance again by updating the value and clicking Update .

To remove the Distance Circle, simply click Remove in that dialog box. If you have closed the dialog box, select the Map menu above the map and choose the Distance Circle option again to see it.

While the feature is enabled, the myscenicdrives.com Road Trip Planner will use the distance information in the Nearby Route Finder and the Find Nearby Activities functionality.

Adding Destinations

Use Add Destination to type in an address, find places of interests or nearby stops, or add custom activities. You can access this from the Add menu above the map or below the Road Trip Plan or Activities.

Under the Address Editor, enter as much of the address as you can. Once entered, the Finder will open where you can confirm the address and add it to your trip.

Under the places of interests tab, you can enter in queries to search through our database or find nearby stops along your selected route.

And if you have selected the Add Destination from the Activities menu, you can also enter in custom activities under the Activities tab.

Some of your road trips might include segments which you will be riding on something else, such as flights, trains, or ferries. You can add such travel details in the myscenicdrives.com Road Trip Planner by simply adding a “Non-Driving Destination”.

To do this, select the Add Destination item from the Road Trip Plan or from the Add menu bar above the map and select the “Non-Driving” tab.

If you are adding a flight, check the “Is this a flight” which will do the airport code lookups. Enter in a summary of the flight under the Name field, such as the flight number. Then enter the Starting and Destination Airport codes and enter in an approximate travel time. Once complete, click the “Add Destination” button.

For all other travel, enter in a short summary of the trip under the Name field. For the From and To addresses, enter in the entire address of where you will be leaving and arriving, in the form of Address, City, State. Then enter in the approximate travel time, and click the “Add Destination” button.

Once the stop is added to the trip, consider editing the stop and adding in further details of the travel, such as confirmation numbers and seat numbers in the Notes field under the General tab.

A VCard is a popular Address Book file format which many e-mail clients and tools support. With a VCard in hand, you can quickly add the address as a destination.

To do so, click on the “File” menu above the map and select “Import Address from VCard”. A dialog box will appear allowing you to select a VCard on your computer and once selected, click on the “Import” button.

We will then attempt to extract as many addresses as we can from that file and a second tab will appear in the Dialog box with all the addresses we found. If we found more than one, arrows to the top right of the box will indicate how many we found and allow you to navigate from address to address. Once you have found the address you would like to import, click the “Add Address” below the address which will then locate the address and click “Add” again to add it to your Road Trip.

Adding Your Location

Most modern web browsers have the ability to detect your location based on your IP address. Results will vary, but you can try it by selecting Add from the menu bar above the map and choose Add Browser GPS Location . Your web browser will ask you if it is OK to share the information with us, and if you choose to, your location will be added to your plan.

If you are on the road with mobile browser or a computer with a hardware GPS and are using a browser that supports it, you can also use enable the Follow Me feature by selecting Map above the map and choosing Follow Me . This will add a blue indicator on the map that will follow all updates that your GPS provides.

To stop following, select the Map menu above the map and select Stop Following .

Search for campgrounds along your route either by clicking on “Find Nearby Campgrounds” near your directions or by clicking on the map and selecting “Find Nearby Campgrounds“. Campgrounds and their basic information will be highlighted and a simple click adds them to your road trip. Most campgrounds recommend reservations. Contact the individual campgrounds via phone or their website. You can note the reservation information in the notes of the campground’s settings .

Please note that our Campgrounds are presently being tested, developed, and expanded. Please let us know if you notice any glitches or have suggestions to improve your experience.

Quickly find scenic drives, outdoor recreation, and activities that are near your route from myscenicdrives.com’s growing database. While the Finder searches everywhere, this feature will highlight only the stops within 60 miles along your route.

From the Add menu above the map, select the type of stops you would like shown. Once loaded, myscenicdrives.com will show you all the routes along the way.

This can produce a lot of information, but we will only list 100 items at a time. You can get more results by selecting the More Results button under the search results. To help filter the information especially for cross country road trips, you might consider outlining your basic route with waypoints or ensuring the Directions are up-to-date.

There are three categories to choose from:

• Scenic Drives : This will search for myscenicdrives.com’s scenic drives and Side-Trips along your route. All of these options will include more information under the Details button. This is a great way to find alternative scenic routes.
• Outdoor Recreation : This will search for trails, lakes, beaches, picnic spots, and other outdoor recreation along your route.
• Activities : This will search for museums, historical places of interest, and other activities along your route.

Since myscenicdrives.com is always adding new scenic drives and content, if we are light in content in one area, be sure to check back before hitting the road. And if you know of some great spots, please let us know so that we can add it.

The myscenicdrives.com Road Trip Planner has full support for electric vehicles, providing the location of charging stations and reminders to recharge your vehicle. Begin under the Trip Settings and change your vehicle type to an Electric Car , and then on the Directions tab, enter the average distance on a full charge, the average cost for a charge, and the amount of time that a charge typically takes. This will enable all of our Electric Vehicle features.

We assume that you are starting off each day with a fully-charged vehicle. Using the above information, we will add a To Do reminder for recharging your vehicle based on the settings you have configured. By clicking on the To Do reminder, nearby charging stations will be located on the map. Note that the nearest charging station depends on availability. When you add the charging station to your road trip, we will automatically schedule the stop based on your charging time. In addition to using our To Do list, you can also click on the Map to find nearby charging stations.

You can also mark stops as a Charging Station under the Schedule Tab. While the default assumes a full charge, you can override the new available distance for your vehicle after the charge.

To aid in planning, you may also use the Charging Ranges from the Layers menu. This will show an icon on the map where your vehicle will require recharging.

The estimates are provided for informational purposes based on your entered information and may not account for delays, weather, and other conditions beyond our control. While we do make all efforts to provide accurate information regarding Charging Stations, some details may change beyond our control.

The myscenicdrives.com Road Trip Planner provides a number of features to help estimate and plan your budget. In addition to providing an estimated fuel cost automatically, you can also configure the Road Trip Planner to provide you with per-stop costs and daily costs.

To configure a per stop cost, click on the Settings link for the stop and select the General tab where you will be able to enter in the cost associated with that stop. For example, if you are visiting an aquarium that charges an entrance fee, you can enter the entrance fee here.

In addition, you can also enter in a daily budget amount under the Trip Settings ’s Day tab. The default budget per day is the amount of money that will be spent for each day on the trip for things such as meals, lodging, entertainment, etc. You can enter in different amounts for specific days simply by placing another number in the day’s budget.

Once this information is provided, your directions will provide you with a breakdown and approximate total costs of the trip.

The budget and fuel cost is provided simply for informational purposes to help you estimate your trip.

One of the nice features of the myscenicdrives.com Road Trip Planner is its ability to seamlessly divide your trip into manageable days, allowing you to plan where you might spend the night and estimating how long it will take to get to wherever you are heading.

Before getting started in planning your days and scheduling your stops, start by updating the directions for your trip. You can do this simply by clicking the Update Directions from the To Do List .

Next, we recommend that you configure your driving time parameters. In the Day tab of the Trip Settings , you can start by configuring your average daily driving time. The default is 8 hours of driving per day, which does not account for stops for breaks, meals, and fueling. When planning your trip, think of some of your previous driving experiences and choose a reasonable amount of time here that allows you ample time to reach your destinations but also reach it safely. To make the planning easier, you may also wish to enter a Start Date on the General tab so that the directions say a specific date instead of “Day 3.”

Also in this tab, you can provide specific driving times for a particular day. For example, say that you are leaving on Wednesday after work for your trip, so instead of driving a full 8 hours that day, you may only be able to accomplish 4 hours.

For any stop which you know you will want to stay there for a couple days, you can schedule it . To plan your days that you are there, we recommend the use of Activities or using another Road Trip Plan to get directions for your activities there..

In the Directions Pane , your information will be updated on any change. There are a few ways to plan your days using the information presented here. We usually recommend that you click the Toggle Directions link so that you can quickly see where you will be for each of your days. In the Day Overview section, you will see how many miles and hours you will be driving for that day, and it will estimate where you will be spending the night. By using the Day Markers feature, you can also have an icon displayed on the map.

If we have selected a stop which is not exactly where you would like to spend the night, there are a few ways to address this:

• Change the Location : By clicking on the city or town we have selected, myscenicdrives.com will guide youthrough updating the stop. You may have the choice of stopping earlier in your trip, or forcing the drive to the nextstop, or you can find nearby cities and towns for better selections of Campgrounds, Restaurants, and Entertainment.
• Add a Stop : You could add a new destination where you would like to spend the night. Once added, you can go to the Destination’s Settings and under the Schedule Tab, you can indicate that you will spend 1 night at that stop.
• Adjust the Flexibility, Daily Driving Time, or Non-Stop Drive Parameters : If your destination is just a little farther, you can adjust your driving flexibility per day so that destinations which are just slightly over your daily allotted driving time may still become part of your day. The Flexibility is configured under the Trip Settings . If this is not enough, you can also adjust the driving time per day or under the destination’s settings, you can mark the stop as a Non-Stop Drive which will force our planner to drive to that destination within a day regardless of your other parameters.

Be sure to recheck your information after each change. Should the change have had some unintended consequences, you can simply Undo that change.

Our estimates for where you will be at the end of the day may be different based on driving conditions, weather, errors, and other things beyond our control.

The myscenicdrives.com Road Trip Planner includes a To Do List in the lower right corner of the Map which will help guide you through the planning process and to help you not forget anything.

To assist, the myscenicdrives.com Road Trip Planner will automatically notice and mention certain things throughout your planning process.

In addition, you can also add your own items to the To Do List by either selecting the Map menu and selecting the Edit To Do List . Here you can add, remove, and complete your personally selected items. System generated items cannot be changed in any way.

You may hide or display the To Do list by clicking on the Map menu, and selecting Show To Do List or Hide To Do List .

For multi-day trips, Day Markers will display an icon on the map at the end location of the day’s drive. Hover your mouse above the icons for specific details.

For Electric Vehicles, selecting the Charging Ranges will show an icon on the map where your vehicle may need to be recharged based on your Trip Settings. For more information, see the Electric Vehicle section.

You can display other trips created within the myscenicdrives.com Road Trip Planner as layers on your map. You can use the layers feature to avoid traveling the same roads as a previous road trip, planning different routes in the case of weather changes, or just visualizing all of your trips on one map.

To do so, select the Layers menu above the map and select the Add Trip as Layer . When the dialog opens, select the Add Layer button, select a trip and a color, then select Apply . The directions will be displayed on the map.

To hide the directions, select the Layers menu and select the checkbox near the trip you are no longer interested in seeing, or select the Edit Trip Layers and remove the trip by clicking the X to the right of the item.

The myscenicdrives.com Road Trip Planner allows you to quickly undo up to the last 5 updates to your itinerary. If you want to change something back, just select redo. The Undo and Redo menus are located under the Edit menu.

If you are a keyboard user, you may appreciate these hotkeys from within the Road Trip Planner. Please note that some browsers may not support all of them as gracefully.

My Places of Interest allows you to create a searchable database of your own locations within our Road Trip Planner simply by uploading a CSV file. Route planning is easy and efficient with the ability to add your addresses to any trip, search your secure locations by name, city, or state, or simply click on the map to find your nearby locations.

My Places of Interest is a paid feature.

Mobile Access

Create, update, and track your road trip on the go, using your smartphone’s web browser. Our mobile-friendly website offers a single, full-screen, touch-friendly interface that requires no software installation or updates.

Similar to our desktop version, you can start by entering your start and ending locations, or by opening an existing road trip. Once in the editor, choose from four sections at the bottom of the screen: Road Trip Plan , The Finder , Directions , and Map .

We have worked hard to make the mobile version of the Road Trip Planner friendly and easy to use. Please let us know if you need any assistance.

The Mobile Road Trip Planner is currently only supported on IPhone, IPod Touch, and Android devices. Please contact us for support on other phones.

To install to your IPhone, IPod Touch, or IPad Home Screen, share icon in Safari and then tap the Add to Home Screen .

To add myscenicdrives.com to your Home Screen on an Android device, it depends on which version of Android you have.

If you have an older device, then:

• Tap the menu button.
• Select “Bookmarks.”
• Select the location and the “Add” button
• Tap the “Home” button.
• Select “Add”
• Select “Shortcut”
• Select “Bookmark”
• Select the myscenicdrives.com bookmark.

myscenicdrives.com is built using various sources, including some information from Mapbox , GraphHopper , and OpenStreetMap .

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Let us do the planning for you! Enter in a few key details and we’ll craft a custom tailored trip just for you.

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Travel-themed backgrounds to brighten up your Zoom meeting

Apr 17, 2020 • 2 min read

For better or worse, Zoom video calls have taken over our quarantined lives . From work conferences to quarintinis and quizzes with friends, never before have so many prying eyes entered our homes. On the one hand it's great because it helps us stay in touch but on the other hand... did we mention the prying eyes? Fortunately, there are ways to distract your audience and yourself by livening things up with a travel-themed background.

From cityscapes to jungle landscapes and high-end holiday homes, we've picked a bunch of virtual backgrounds to introduce to your next Zoom meeting. 

Those Monday morning Zoom calls will become a lot easier when you dial in from this five-storey  bamboo treehouse, courtesy of Airbnb. Sipping coffee while imagining you're sitting at this terrace overlooking the jungle and sacred Ayung River will add just the right amount of escapism to the meeting. "What's that Shelia? I can't hear you over the sound of the macaques."

San Francisco

Provided by San Francisco Travel (who offer a great library of San Francisco-themed Zoom backgrounds), this image of the city's famous Steiner Street and its "Painted Ladies" (that iconic row of Victorian houses) gives us the chance to imagine what life would be like on a street we'll never be able to afford. What a view though. Download here .

The Long Room, Trinity College, Dublin

Impress those friends who position their laptop cameras in front of bookshelves (containing stacks of books with suspiciously crease-free spines) with the iconic 16th-century library in Trinity College, one of Ireland's greatest tourist attractions. Your friend may have a copy of Ulysses on their shelf but you have the Book of Kells . Download here from Unsplash, an open-source collection of images that can be downloaded for free.

Cuzco, Peru

Your home is now a glass pod perched on the side of a Peruvian cliff featuring views of the Sacred Valley of Cuzco. To get to the Skylodge Adventure Suites from Natura Vive in real life, you'd have to hike 400 metres of protected trails using ziplines. Not for the faint-hearted. In the virtual world, however, you just need to download the above image from Airbnb and you're there. Sky's the limit.

Forget Joe Exotic , you are now the tiger king with this safari-inspired background from Unsplash. Is that 5pm meeting on Friday moving a little too slow? Just keep looking over your shoulder to remind your colleagues who the real boss in the room is and then call it a day. It's quarintini time! Download here .

Note: To add a Virtual Background to Zoom, go to 'Preferences', then 'Virtual Background' and upload your image.

You might also like:

See the faroe islands digitally through the eyes of your own local avatar, 4 ways to enjoy a virtual wine tasting from home, free online classes and resources that give you a deeper look at travel destinations, explore related stories.

Apr 23, 2024 • 6 min read

From Paris to Buenos Aires, you’ll want to settle in and raise a glass at these famous literary bars, notebook at the ready.

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Tune in for Storytime Success

Preschool Storytime: Transportation

Print PDF Version Here

This 30-minute storytime has been adapted from one I learned from Allison Taylor McBryde in my Children’s Services courses.  You can hear all of the songs and rhymes by clicking on the Watch Here links.  For more transportation storytime ideas, check out our Pinterest board !

Books I Shared:

Who’s Driving? by Leo Timmers Trashy Town by Andrea Zimmerman and David Clemesha Down by the Station by Jennifer Riggs Vetter Freight Train by Donald Crews

Who is Driving? is a highly interactive story that helps kids learn to make inferences.  I did this one first, but it could have easily come last because it kept the kids engaged the whole time.  When I do Trashy Town , I teach everyone three hand movements that match the refrain in the book: dump it in, smash it down, drive around the trashy town.  It’s a great way to emphasize the repetition and get the kids involved.  I sing Down by the Station to the tune of Little Bunny Foo Foo. Lastly, I did Freight Train as a felt story. I don’t have the pattern to share, but you can find it here with lots of good early literacy tips as well.

Rhymes and Songs:

1. Welcome Song: I’m in the Mood for Singing

I’m in the mood for singing. Hey, how about you? I’m in the mood for singing. Hey, how about you? I’m in the mood for singing, singing along with you. Hey, hey, what do you say? I’m in the mood for that today. Hey, hey, what do you say? I’m in the mood for that.

Other Verses: Clapping, Stomping, Listening, Reading

Watch Here!

2. Action Song: Zoom, Zoom, Zoom

Zoom, Zoom, Zoom We’re going to the moon Zoom, Zoom, Zoom We’re going to the moon If you want to take a trip, climb aboard my rocket ship Zoom, Zoom, Zoom We’re going to the moon In 5, 4, 3, 2, 1,,, Blast off!

3. Song: I’m Sitting in a Boat

This song is an African American spiritual. I have the kids sway side to side and then lift their arms (or their whole bodies) when the waves are high.

I’m sitting in a boat And the boat is rocking, rocking, rocking I’m sitting in a boat And the boat is rocking, rocking, rocking I’m sitting in a boat And the waves are oh so high Oh so high in the morning Lord, Lord, Lord

4. Song: Have You Ever Seen A Sailboat? Tune: “Did You Ever See A Lassie?”

Have you ever seen a sailboat, A sailboat, a sailboat? Have you ever seen a sailboat Waving its sail?

Wave this way and that way, Wave that way and this way. Have you ever seen a sailboat Waving its sail?

Other Verses: Rocking back and forth

5. Sign Language Rhyme: Stop Light Colors

Watch the video to see the sign language demonstrated.

Stop says the red light, Go says the green Now just wait says yellow in between That’s what they say and that’s what they mean, We all must obey them, even the queen.

6. Action Song: I’ll Take You Riding in My Car by Woody Guthrie

I’ll take you riding in my car, car I’ll take you riding in my car, car I’ll take you riding in my car, car I’ll take you riding in my car

The doors on the car go open, shut (x3) I’ll take you riding in my car

Windshield wipers go swish, swish (x3) I’ll take you riding in my car

Horn in the car goes beep, beep (x3) I’ll take you riding in my car

How It Went:

The books were such a hit!  Three out of the four were very interactive and I think that helped keep the attention of the 2-year-olds who tagged along with their older siblings. When signing I’m Sitting in a Boat, I mentioned that the rhythm of the song would make a great lullaby or bedtime song for any age group. If I could do it again, I would introduce the sign language stop light rhyme at the beginning of the storytime and then again at the end to reinforce the signs.

11 thoughts on “ Preschool Storytime: Transportation ”

Don’t you have the actual tune for “Down By the Station”? It’s a standard, and the book here is notable for the fact that it actually fits the tune perfectly. Wish I could say the same about most of the horrible “piggyback” songs children’s librarians tend to invent to go with their themes….

Okay, so I actually looked up the tune to ‘Down by the Station” and it’s the one I’ve been singing all along. I guess I just thought it sounded similar to the beginning of Little Bunny Foo Foo.

It is the tune of Little Bunny Foo Foo 😉 You guys do an awesome job on this site…thanks for all your inspiration!!

I thought so! Thanks, Kim, for your lovely comment!

Again, thank you for your wonderful blog; it is so helpful to have you sing the songs for us 🙂 Our outreach librarian and I will both be using “I’m in the Mood for Singing.” I get so many great tips from you! Shelley

Thank you so much, Shelley, for your lovely comment! It absolutely makes our day to get this kind of feedback 🙂

I know you created this a couple years ago, but I just discovered you guys and I have questions! 😉 So, you list books and songs but I was wondering if you incorporated a flannel board, puppets, or any other activities? If not, did 4 books and 6 songs fill up the full 30 minutes? Thanks in advance! I love your blog and YouTube channel. I have an YSL interview coming up so I’m trying to prepare as much as possible. 🙂

Hi Amanda, we always welcome questions! For this particular storytime I didn’t do puppets or flannels. It was for an older preschool crowd (ages 4-5) and I had just started doing storytimes and wasn’t comfortable enough yet to introduce those other elements. It did take up the full 30 minutes because kids this age love talking about the books as you read so the books take up the bulk of the program. If I did this storytime now, I would cut it down to maybe 2-3 books and definitely have a flannel story and perhaps a puppet element. The other thing I’ve done with a transportation theme is at the end of storytime I give out this counting activity: https://fallingflannelboards.wordpress.com/2013/08/08/flannel-friday-count-and-clip-cards/ It takes a bit of prep work to print and laminate the cards, but the kids absolutely loved it and it encourages caregiver-child interaction. Also, please check out our transportation Pinterest board because it has some amazing ideas for this kind of storytime: https://www.pinterest.com/jbrary/transportation-storytime/ . Best of luck on your interview and please feel free to email us at [email protected] if you have any further questions 🙂

Thank you so much! I love the Clip & Count activity.

*Count & Clip – whoops! Haha 😀

• Pingback: Storytime Thursday: Trains – The Tinkering Librarian

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Virtual Narrative Road Trip

May 11 2024 - June 1 2024

The Virtual Narrative Road Trip is an online workshop meeting via the Zoom platform . Please review payment, refund and cancellation policies below before registration. 

We often rely on travel destinations and meeting new people for inspiration. We can become numb to where we are right now. There are always worlds to be explored even in you own backyard. This fun but intensive online workshop asks you to photograph the world immediately around you as if you just happened upon it on a cross country drive. To drop one’s prejudices for the place you know best and embrace it anew.

By combining the work of all the students in the class, pictures taken in towns around the country–or the world–it’s as if we collectively took an epic road trip without going anywhere. As we virtually drive around the world (your town), the goals of this intensive workshop are to learn all aspects of narrative portraiture and how a portrait itself can be the story. It will help you navigate the power and implications of photographing someone “where they are” versus posing a person in a different environment altogether. This workshop intends to tip the scale of intentionality while retaining a “decisive moment” in a portrait.

Working with people you know as well as strangers, this workshop will hone your ability to visualize the picture beforehand, and in turn, yield a better one. The workshop will address fears around approaching strangers, ethical guidelines as well as best practices for obtaining model consent forms and more.

Workshop will include:

*3 three-hour class sessions

*a 30 minute, one-on-one, meeting with Greg

*ends with a final critique of all work from class

Class meets online, using the Zoom platform, once a week for four weeks. The 30 minute, one-on-one, meets during the third week.

Class Schedule

Saturday, May 11

9 am – 12 pm (Eastern Time) – Introduction and class assignment

Saturday, May 18

9 am – 12 pm (Eastern Time) Critique of previous week’s work

Wednesday and Thursday, May 22/23 (Class will not be held on May 25)

30-minute one-on-one meeting with Greg scheduled at a time that works for you.

9 am – 12 pm (Eastern Time) Final Critique

Early Bird Price Until April 11 – $600 (Discount automatically applied at checkout)

Price after April 16  – $700

Testimonials from Past Workshops:

No matter the range of experience of the workshop attendees, Greg makes the course accessible and valuable for everyone. He is a great teacher and knows how to provide very constructive criticism and to challenge his students at every level in ways that make students more inquisitive and contemplative image makers. He also encourages you to defy your fears of approaching people and making the photograph you know you need to make. Jennifer H.

I was immediately struck by his genuine, authentic and kind nature. Such beautiful humanistic traits gracefully paralleled his patient and hands-on teaching style. Regardless of your photography level, Greg will not stop until you are completely satisfied. I ABSOLUTELY would recommend Greg and his very professional team for your next workshop experience. Kevin J.

I am inspired by the humanity in Greg’s work as well as his approach to image-making. His mentoring has been an invaluable resource in developing my own content and technique as well as in developing myself as an artist. He has taught me not only how to make meaningful and beautiful work but also how to see and to shoot with purpose. With his help, I have learned to find and respect my own artistic vision and, maybe most importantly, how to summon the personal authorization to go out and make it. Tracy C.

Not only was I impressed with Greg’s knowledge and help with technical aspects but his insight into human nature and relationships that brought that extra depth to a photos meaning I found helpful. During our daily group review periods his individual attention to each persons way of seeing and level was accommodating and beneficial to all. I began to see how my own photographs were becoming deeper in content. It is Greg’s ability to see each person’s work individually and give personal feedback that I saw to be the benefit of working with him. This guidance I still apply to my work today. Susan G.

Payment, Refund, Cancellation and Zoom Recording Policies

The Virtual Narrative Roadtrip is an online  workshop. This course will be meeting online via zoom . We encourage you to install and test the software on your device prior to the class. If you have any questions about the workshop please email [email protected] .

Payment is due in full at the time of enrollment.

Refund Policy

You may cancel up to 7 days before a workshop start date. A $25 administrative fee will be charged on all refund requests. No refunds will be provided for requests arriving one week or less prior to the course start date.  All refund requests must be submitted via email to   [email protected]

Course Cancellations

On occasion, a course may cancel due to low enrollment or unforeseen instructor conflicts. If such a case occurs, all students will be refunded in full.  Greg Miller Photography LLC  does not take responsibility for non-refundable airline tickets, hotel expenses, or any other costs that may be attributable toward enrolling in a course.

Online Learning Zoom Recordings

Classes will not be recorded to respect the privacy of all students.

If you have any questions regarding the workshop please email [email protected] .