Travel Posters and Phone Wallpapers: A Practical Guide

10 Oct 2026 · 7 min read · How we choose · Affiliate disclosure

A calm print above a desk: the Lake District in an oak frame.

The same print in Black, Oak and White frames.

The Bali Temple Gate design as a phone wallpaper.

A good travel poster does a job a photo album can't: it puts one place you loved on the wall where you see it every day. This guide covers how to pick a travel print that suits the room, which size to choose, whether to frame it, how high to hang it, and how to stop it fading. It finishes with travel phone wallpapers, the cheapest way to carry the same picture in your pocket.

We use our own GO PAC travel prints as examples throughout, because we can tell you exactly what they are made of. The tips work for any print you buy.

How to choose a travel print

Start with the place, not the picture. The prints people keep looking at are tied to a memory: the honeymoon, the first trip abroad with the kids, the week it rained in the Lakes. A famous city you have never visited is decoration; a harbour you sat beside with chips is a story.

Then think about style. Illustrated posters with bold colour and a big place name, like our Cornwall St Ives Harbour print, read well from across a room. Black and white photographic prints are quieter and sit happily in busy spaces such as hallways.

• Match one colour, not all of them. Pick a print that shares one tone with the room: the blue of a sofa, the oak of a table, the warm pink of a cushion.
• Dark walls suit light prints, and the other way round. A dusky print such as Edinburgh Castle at Dusk can disappear on a navy wall but stands out on cream.
• Consider the light. A calm, misty scene like the Lake District Rowing Boat suits a bedroom or a desk you work at for hours; bright colour works in kitchens and hallways.

A4 or A3: which size works where

Both are standard ISO paper sizes, so frames and hanging kit are easy to find. A4 is 210 x 297mm. A3 is 297 x 420mm, exactly twice the area of A4.

• A4 suits shelves, bedside walls, the space above a desk, narrow walls by a door and the smaller frames of a gallery wall.
• A3 is the better choice for a single print above a sofa, sideboard or bed, or on a chimney breast, where an A4 can look lost.

A quick test before you buy: cut a sheet of paper or newspaper to size and tape it to the wall for a day. It shows quickly whether the size is right.

Our prints come in both sizes: A4 unframed £19.99 or framed £45.99, and A3 unframed £24.99 or framed £55.99.

Framed or unframed

An unframed print is cheaper and lets you choose your own frame or mount later. A framed print arrives ready to hang, which is easier if it is a gift.

Our prints are printed to order in the UK by PrintShrimp on archival matte paper. The framed versions use slim pine frames in Black, White or Oak, with shatter-resistant plexiglass and no mount.

How high to hang a travel poster

The most common rule of thumb in picture framing is to put the centre of the artwork about 57 inches (around 145cm) above the floor, roughly standing eye level. To find where the top of the frame goes, halve the height of the frame and add it to 145cm. For an A3 print, which is 42cm tall, that puts the top of the print at about 166cm, plus a little extra for the frame.

Above furniture, the same framing guidance suggests leaving 7 to 10 inches (roughly 18 to 25cm) between the top of the furniture and the bottom of the frame, so the print relates to the sofa or sideboard rather than floating above it.

• Mark the wall lightly in pencil and use a spirit level before drilling or fixing.
• For a lightweight frame on a rented wall, picture hanging strips avoid nails. Check the weight rating on the pack against your frame.

Building a travel gallery wall

A gallery wall is the best way to show several trips without one print taking over. Treat the whole group as one large picture and centre the group, not any single frame, at around 145cm.

• Keep the gaps equal. The same space between every frame makes mixed sizes look planned.
• Repeat one thing. The same frame colour, or the same style of print, ties different places together.
• Plan on the floor first. Lay the frames out, then trace each one onto paper and tape the paper shapes to the wall before making any holes.
• Mix A3 and A4. One A3 anchor with two or four A4 prints around it is an easy layout to get right.

If wall space is tight, one print can do the job of a gallery wall. Our Our Family Adventures print puts four or six places on one sheet, each with the year of the trip, and your family name underneath.

Keeping prints from fading

Light is the main enemy of any print. The Canadian Conservation Institute says faded colour cannot be recovered, and that the only effective way to slow fading on display is to cut how much light reaches the work. Its figures show how big the difference is: in full daylight, highly light-sensitive colours can fade noticeably in as little as a day to two weeks, while under dim museum lighting of 50 lux the same change takes roughly 1.5 to 20 years.

• Avoid direct sun. Do not hang a print where sunlight from a window falls straight onto it for part of the day.
• Don't rely on glazing alone. The CCI notes that UV filtering on its own does not stop fading, because visible light does most of the damage to sensitive colours.
• Rotate. Swapping prints between rooms or seasons spreads the light exposure.
• Keep it dry. Bathrooms and the wall above a kettle are tough places for any paper.

Personalised travel prints as gifts

A personalised print turns a trip into a present. The trick is to choose a place the person already has a feeling about, then add the words that only they will understand.

Our Our Trip personalised print covers 48 cities, from Bath and Whitby to Rome, Tokyo and New York. You add one line of up to 32 characters, set in capitals: names, a date or the occasion, such as 10TH ANNIVERSARY · ROME 2026.

For families, Our Family Adventures lets you pick from 51 places and add the year of each trip, so it builds a little timeline of holidays. Both come in A4 or A3, unframed or framed, at the same prices as our destination prints. Personalised prints are made exactly as you type them, so check the spelling before ordering. For more ideas, see our best travel gifts UK guide.

Travel phone wallpapers

A wallpaper is the quickest way to keep a favourite place in view. For a sharp result, the image should match your screen's resolution or be larger. Apple lists the 6.7-inch iPhone 15 Plus display as 2796 x 1290 pixels, which is the size our phone wallpapers are made at (1290 x 2796, portrait). On phones with a smaller screen the image is scaled down, and you can pinch and drag to reposition it when you set it.

Every destination print in our range also comes as a digital wallpaper for £4.99, with a phone file and a 3840 x 2160 desktop file. Each Our Trip city is available as a phone wallpaper for £4.99 too. The download link is emailed after you buy, and the files are for personal use. You'll find them all under phone wallpapers.

On iPhone, save the image to your Photos app first. Then, as Apple Support describes, open Settings, tap Wallpaper, tap Add New Wallpaper, choose Photos and pick the image, then tap Add and choose whether to use it for both the Lock Screen and Home Screen.

On Android, steps vary by maker. On a Google Pixel, Google's help page says to touch and hold an empty space on the home screen, tap Wallpaper and style, then More wallpapers, Change wallpaper and Choose a photo, then Preview and Apply. You can set the lock screen and home screen separately.

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