Right now, with the pandemic, traveling is not easy because of all the restrictions the governments have put in place. Plus, it is simply not safe. However, it does not mean you can’t discover new places and explore the world. You simply have to do it through other people’s experiences. A very easy and free way to do that is to subscribe to some travel YouTube channels and enjoy their rich content. This allows you to live a great experience without leaving your home or spending any money. In addition to that, these vlogs can help you plan a trip for when the situation will allow it. There are so many travel YouTube channels, but here is a small selection to guide your first steps.
Gabriel Traveler
Gabriel is a world traveler as well as an author. He wrote several books such as Gabe’s Guide to Budget Travel and Following My Thumb. The former is a budget travel guidebook that gives tips to plan a trip on a budget. It gives advice on hotels, flights, visas, travel insurance, and more. Following My Thumb is more personal and tells stories of his own travels around the world.
Gabriel started his YouTube channel in 2008. He has 451,000 subscribers and 97,208,813 views in total when writing this article (all figures are from January 2021). On his channel, you will be able to enjoy beautiful views and useful tips. From Turkey to Costa Rica and Nepal, he takes his camera with him to share his adventures with us all. His way of filming is very immersive and you will feel like you are with him, traveling around the world.
Karl Watson
Karl Watson is all about making stunning movies out of his trips. He started his channel in 2011 and has 131,000 subscribers and 11,045,943 views in total. His channel offers unique content because he actually backpacks, which makes his trips a little more relatable. He also is often traveling alone, which shows that you don’t need anyone to go to the other side of the planet. His documentaries are about an hour-long, often have several parts for each trip as they usually last several weeks. On his YouTube channel, in addition to his documentaries, there are some frequent Q&As which are very useful to get traveling advice from an expert!
Vagabrothers
Marko and Alex Ayling started their YouTube channel in 2013. They now have 1 million subscribers and a total of 80,648,701 views. Marko is a writer and producer. He has always been fascinated by faraway places and studied international relations at UCLA. Marko worked in India and developed a passion for writing blogs about traveling. He also wrote for Spain and Argentina guidebooks. Alex is a filmmaker, editor, and photographer. He loves Latin America and studied Maya and Inca civilizations at UCSB. He ended up taking part in a documentary expedition in the Andes which made him love filming his travels. The two brothers teamed up and started Vagabrothers, combining their skills to make it work. The destinations they choose are very varied, so you never get bored even after watching a dozen of their videos!
Gareth Leonard
Gareth Leonard says he started traveling the world because he realized he was not enjoying living a “typical” life. Indeed, he was a very skilled Director of Marketing but did not feel the passion for the job. In 2009 he decided to drop everything and left for Buenos Aires. He has been discovering the world since then. Gareth believes in “traveling deeper”, meaning that instead of staying in a hotel for two weeks, he rents apartments and lives like the rest of the population. He does marketing consulting in order to live and it’s enough to finance his unique way of traveling. Since 2009, he has gained 295,000 subscribers and collected 50,852,001 views in total. His YouTube channel offers a mix of vlogs, advice videos, and Q&As.
Mark Wiens
Mark Wiens is all about the food. He is an author as well as a YouTuber. He was born in the US but ever since he was a child, he has always moved around the world. After graduating from university back in the US, he used his savings to go to South America. He got a diploma to teach English and he ended up doing that in Argentina, Uruguay, and Chile. He created his first website on which he posted articles about the food he ate during his travels around the world. Doing that, he visited all of Asia and he met his wife Ying in Thailand. He has been posting videos since 2009, has 7.23 million subscribers and more than 1.5 billion views in total. All of his videos are about local foods he is able to enjoy in the many countries he visits.
Eva zu Beck
Eva zu Beck is a professional storyteller and loves showing us places that are not represented in the mainstream media. Just like Gareth Leonard, she had a “typical” career before she decided to leave everything behind and go explore the world. Her adventures started in Nepal right after leaving her life in London. She started her YouTube channel in 2013 and now has 872,000 subscribers and nearly 47 million views in total. Her channel gives us truly adventurous content and she really shows us unusual yet fascinating places. For example, she spent 30 days on a remote island, stayed with a Bedouin family in the middle of the desert in Oman, and even did a 7 days horse trek in Mongolia. If you are looking for truly adventurous travel YouTube channels, you will love hers!
All these travel vlogs should keep you occupied for a while and satisfy your need for traveling. However, you should still read this article that explains how to travel after the pandemic so that you are ready when the time comes.
