A travel documentary is a documentary film, television program, or online series that describes travel in general or tourist attractions without recommending particular package deals or tour operators. A travelogue film is an early type of travel documentary, serving as an exploratory ethnographic film. Ethnographic films have been made for the spectators to see the other half to relate with the world in relative relations. These films are a spectacle to see beyond the cultural differences as explained by the Allison Griffith in her journal. Before the 1930s, it was difficult to see the importance of documentary films in Hollywood cinema but the 1930s brought about a change in the history of these films with the popularity of independent filmmakers.
A travel channel filming the Yosemite Valley
A documentary film or documentary is a non-fictional motion picture intended to "document reality, primarily for instruction, education or maintaining a historical record". Bill Nichols has characterized the documentary in terms of "a filmmaking practice, a cinematic tradition, and mode of audience reception [that remains] a practice without clear boundaries".
A 16 mm spring-wound Bolex "H16" reflex camera – a popular entry-level camera used in film schools
The cover of Bolesław Matuszewski's 1898 book Une nouvelle source de l'histoire (A New Source of History), the first publication about documentary function of cinematography
Frame from one of Gheorghe Marinescu's science films (1899)
Geoffrey Malins with an aeroscope camera during World War I