The Nonsense of W&J

When Windell wanted to advertise our YouTube channel on the back of our truck and camper, I thought it was a waste of time.  We created our YouTube channel for ourselves to record our own adventures.  I thought most people would not be interested in our simple adventures.  And, I wasn’t sure I wanted people to know me based on our videos and posts.  After all, we are simply amatures with no previous experience in videomaking.  Of course, we have a blast learning more about making videos and posting on YouTube.

However, advertising on our vehicles has provided some surprising benefits.  We have met some really nice, amazing people simply by having our YouTube channel posted on our truck and camper.  Recently we met a friendly couple who followed us while taking a detour in Colorado from our campground.  We then followed them to the nearest Super Walmart.  It was a blast to smile and chat about our short adventure together.

Our little YouTube channel is not big by any means.   We are not influencers and we do not make money from it.  We do not really care if we ever do.  Not everyone we meet will want to subscribe to us or watch our videos.

Our videos do not contain a lot of drama.  We do not post our Full-Time RVing life or the maintenance and repair on our camper.  You will not find campground reviews on our small channel.  And, our adventures will not appeal to everyone; not everyone wants to shark dive (I don’t know why!).

But our YouTube channel has provided us many benefits which we have written in a blog.  One of our greatest benefits of advertising our channel has been meeting and chatting with new people.  Because they see the advertising for our YouTube on our vehicles, we have more people coming up and saying hello or asking us about our travels.  We love the comments and suggestions we receive.  Unfortunately, while traveling, we do not always have internet service.  It may take us a few days to reply to comments.  But, we do read them and try to reply.

Being afraid to post publicly on social media or advertise your YouTube channel simply so people will not judge you does not make any sense.  Since advertising, we meet awesome, friendly people that we would probably not meet if we did not advertise.  We receive a lot of friendly comments about seeing the advert or meeting us at a place.  It makes us feel warm and fuzzy.

Sure, we get dislikes on our video and sometimes harsh comments.  We do not take it personal.  We make our videos for our own enjoyment and memories.  However, we do enjoy it when people find new places to explore from us.  And, we love when people provide us with new ideas on adventuring.  So, it is no big deal if we receive a dislike on a video or a critical comment.

Also we know we are not perfect.  As we plan to travel overseas more, we hope to open our own minds to new experiences without any preconceived ideas or notions of how people should act.  We cannot wait to explore and learn from various cultures and populations.   And, we hope we continue to make new friends along the way.

We will continue to post our adventures for our own memories and for anyone else interested.  Our vow is to remain true to ourselves.  Sure, we may not have many subscribers or any revenue from our little YouTube channel.  However, the joy and opportunities it has brought us to date has already paid us back in rewards.

Our first year of RVing and adventuring full-time, we did not have a GoPro for most of the year.  We simply had our Olympus camera to capture the Outer Banks in North Carolina; Savannah, Georgia; and kayaking the Three Sisters Spring in Florida.  Because we were very private, we never thought of creating a YouTube Channel to record our adventures.

While sitting in Fort Myers, Florida, we decided we wanted a GoPro to capture our fun.  This is also when we decided to create our YouTube Channel to post videos of our adventures.  We created the YouTube Channel so we could look back later in life and relive our fun.  One of our first videos was us boogie boarding at Ormand Beach.  We were laughing and having a great time.  We still watch that video and laugh at ourselves.

Since that first year, we have always had a GoPro with us on our adventures.  It did take us some time to accustom ourselves to carrying the GoPro and we have had some mishaps.  We thought we were getting some great footage at the Badlands.  Jessica, who is scared of heights, climbed up the tall cable ladder on The Notch Trail in the Badlands.  When she reached the top, she started doing a happy dance and yelling “Yippee.”  It was hilarious.  People all around us were laughing with us.  However, the newbies that we were, we later discovered the GoPro was not filming.  Ooops!  That was a hilarious moment, that although we remember a little, we would have loved a video of it.

So, we have a blast recording our memories and posting them on YouTube for us.  But we also hope others enjoy our videos.  We get excited when people watch our videos and want to visit the place or do the adventure we are recording.  We believe we are not adrenaline junkies, as we have been called.  Our adventures are simply of two middle-aged persons in good health, with one person afraid of heights.

Surprise Benefits of Our Channel

Our idea of recording our adventures for our memories has paid off well.  Not financially, of course, with only a hundred subscribers.  Yet with our laughter and our fun.  We watch our own videos and recall that memory together.  Many times, we had forgotten something we had seen or done.  So, we watch the video to remember and have a good laugh at our own misadventures.

However, making videos and posting them on YouTube has brought some surprise benefits.  Windell loves making the videos.  He is always discovering new features on the software and playing around with the special effects.  He has a lot of fun combining the videos and pictures and adding music.  His joy is one of the surprise benefits we discovered with the GoPros.

Another surprise benefit is that sometimes we capture things on the camera that we missed while we were there.  We never would have seen the lobster at Phil Foster if Windell had not been filming inside some of the rocks.  We enjoy seeing in the video later something we may have missed at the time.  Sometimes, animals zip past us in a flash or we cannot remember all the details.  We can slow the video down or pause it to get a better view.  We enjoy recapturing the moment on video if we want to further research what exactly was that fish or did the Grizzly have a baby with it.

One of the best surprise benefits of making videos, however, is capturing us being in the moment.  We film ourselves a lot on our adventures.  Well, Windell films us a lot on our adventures!  He is always prodding Jessica to turn around to face his GoPro.  Looking back at the smiles on our faces and the joy of being in epic surroundings allows us to appreciate all the fun we have.  When we rewatch our videos and see our astonishment or exclamations of joy, we relive that adventure together.  That is an awesome feeling.

Some might say that you are not in the moment if you are filming your activity.  Yet, we are in the moment when we are recording.  In fact, many times we will be watching something amazing, and the GoPro will be facing the other way.  That occurred a lot with the Gray Whales in Oregon.  There were so many spouts of water.  When we rewatched our videos and looked at the pictures, we realized we weren’t even shooting the best encounters.  We were too busy watching the whales.  However, we are always reliving the moment over and over again as we watch our videos.  You would not believe how many times we watch our video and say to each other, “Wow, that was awesome!”.

Continuing Our Channel

We are not professional YouTubers.  We do not know if we will ever be.  YouTube has so many videos on how to improve your videos, add additional features, and increase your subscribers.  We are not going to lie; we love seeing our subscription number increase.  We hope our subscribers enjoy our adventures and want to see new ones.  Windell encourages friends and family to subscribe, but Jessica would rather have people who actually enjoy the videos subscribe.  We also love for others to share their adventures.  We always need new adventures to add to our Google Map!

If we ever reach enough subscribers to earn money, we will probably add advertising to the beginning of our videos.  After all, it never hurts to have a little extra gas money.  We would never want advertising all through our videos, though.  We do not like watching other YouTube videos with a lot of advertising and we sure do not want to watch our own.  However, we can handle some advertising at the front of videos.  Especially if you can skip it!

When we first started our current lifestyle, we watched many YouTube videos for information and activities.  We had no idea that some of these YouTubers have a patreon page. It never ocurred to us to pay a subscription fee to YouTubers to watch special videos or receive notices.  In fact, this is a subscription service we would never buy.  There is enough information on the web to find adventures and cool locations without becoming patrons.

So, with only a hundred subscribers, it is obviously premature of us to consider adding a patreon page.  But we would never have one anyway.  We like making and posting videos.  It is not a source of income for us, but instead, a source of joy.  If we influence someone to visit a place or try an adventure, amazing!   Share your experience with us, please.  But, from two people who know what it means to budget, we would never add a subscription page.  Ever.

We Never Want on Our YouTube

There are a few other things you will never see in our videos.  We will never eat in front of the camera.  Well, now, that is a lie.  We will never eat in front of the camera on purpose.  Windell sometimes captures Jessica on film right after she has shoved a granola bar in her mouth.  Like, when we were boating over to Manitou Island.  We do not like watching people eat on camera, so our videos will never include us eating.  Except when Windell decides to film Jessica, accidently he says.

We will rarely film driving the highway to an adventure.  We do not want to watch a highway, unless it is epic.  So, we did film driving through the tunnel exiting Zion National Park.  The scenery was gorgeous.  We were going to try to park the truck and hike for an overlook.  However, the road was a little busy and we are a little wide in the back.  So, we missed the trailhead.  We put the Zion Canyon Overlook Hike back on our list to do when we return.

Also, when we visit a spot, we do not research all the information on a place.  Some people love the history and features that make a place unique.  Unfortunately, we are those people who simply love being in the place at that moment.  So, we will never Wikipedia any information and read it in the video.  We would bore ourselves.  We assume that if someone watches a video and wants to know more about the place, they would rather research it themselves.  After all, we might get it wrong.  When we do research something, like an awesome fish we have never seen before, we try to post it in the descriptions or titles of our videos.

Sometimes, we do remember to capture the signs with information at some amazing places, such as the Painted Wall at the Black Canyons National Park.   We record these for our own memory and in case someone does want to know a little more information on the history.  But we miss a lot of these signs simply because we are oohing and awing at our view.

If you have watched any of our videos, you know that we are not professional YouTubers.  We create videos for the simple reason that we like watching our videos.  We love seeing our adventures and remembering our fun, sweat, breathlessness, and that epic lunch spot.  Reliving our adventures has added more joy to our lives that we could possibly imagine in the beginning.  If others find new adventures and places from our videos, even better.  It is an amazing feeling to be able to do something you love simply because you want to.