I'm still processing my images from my visit to Norway but one example gives me an opportunity to talk about a slightly different subject.

Whilst the best approach to travel photography by far is to research the location and spend some time getting to know the place and the culture by just walking around and talking to the locals, sometimes the opportunities for photography are more fleeting. You may be in a car (with a local driver) with limited opportunity to stop or on a coach trip where part of the purpose is the scenic views. Do you try and get a grab shot through the window or not bother at all on the grounds that the quality is going to be poor?

Whether smartphone or conventional camera, I hope that you at least try but there are a few techniques which can improve the chances of success. For a start, grabbing a window seat is fairly obvious but research in advance which side has the better views. These days, some coach companies apply their logos to the windows as well: a ridiculous idea for a tour bus but if you have one of those, take note before you get on board. Good car and coach drivers will ensure that their vehicles are clean, including the windows. Plane windows are usually acceptable but on trains, you may be less lucky and it's worth seeing if the windows will open sufficiently or whether there is a carriage which is open at the ends. It's also worthwhile carrying some wetwipes in case you can get access to the outside glass, but if all else fails, searching for a spot that is cleaner than the rest can work. Raindrops on the glass unfortunately are a show-stopper.

Assuming that you are blessed with some usable glass, I recommend buying a rubber hood which you can press against the glass to reduce reflections. These are available for both smartphones and conventional lenses. You won't always be shooting at 90 degrees to the glass, but they are reasonably effective at 10-20 degrees either side of the perpendicular too. A lot of vehicle windows are tinted and the steeper the angle of the camera to the perpendicular, the more the glass will act as a graduated filter. To some extent, this can be corrected in post processing but far better to avoid it in the first place.

Now, settings. To avoid motion blur, you need a fast shutter speed and I suggest 1/500s or faster. Smartphone users cannot rely on their camera to do this: you may have to switch to Pro mode (Android) or use a 3rd party app (iPhone). Keep a reasonably wide angle lens (35mm equivalent is a good choice. You can always crop later and that rubber hood may get in the way.) I generally choose an aperture around f6.3-f8. With larger apertures, you'll lose depth of field and with smaller apertures you sacrifice shutter speed. Then set the ISO to achieve these values. On dull days this may mean ISO values of 1600 or above. This is not ideal but good noise reduction later will help.

Lastly, if you do end up with some window reflections, there are now reflection removal tools in Adobe Lightroom which are excellent when they work or object removal can be successful too.

So, how good is it overall? I was able to take a coach trip to Sommarøy (Summer Island), 1.25 hrs from Tromsø in northern Norway, with the trip famed for its scenic views of the countryside. The images can be seen here. All but 3 images (those from the Arctic Hotel and the Ersfjord viewpoint) were taken through the coach window. One last suggestion: keep an eye on what is coming up ahead so that you are ready for when you reach it.