Blog #20 - Summer trip review

WORDS WITH A WISEGUY #20 ...

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MASSIVE SUMMER TRAVEL DONE

I’m now in Wichita (my home) for the first extended period of time in a long while. I was on the road filming for YouTube or coaching track for two months with just a handful of days in Kansas. It was a lot of fun, a lot of traveling, and very tiring – but it was definitely worth it. In my “non-coaching” travel, I drove just under 7,000 miles through 24 states and provinces. I spent around $4,000 on hotels and fuel. Honestly I thought I would spend more, but I was able to find some good deals along the way.

WHERE DID I GO?

What I eventually did was slightly different from my original plan – but not by much. I started in Kansas and then went to Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio (where I stopped to visit family for a few days), West Virginia, Virginia, Washington DC, and Maryland. That ended my US 50 trip. Then I went to Delaware, Pennsylvania, New York, Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine. At the top of Maine I entered Canada in New Brunswick and traveled to Quebec and Ontario before re-entering the US at the Michigan Upper Peninsula. Then I explored Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota (where I stopped to stay with my friend Cole for a couple days). I had to quickly get back to Kansas to go to Oregon for a track meet, so I took two days driving through South Dakota, Iowa, and Nebraska, before arriving home in Wichita. Then the next day I flew to Oregon for 6 days before eventually getting back to Wichita for good.

WHAT DID I DO?

If you’ve been watching my recent videos, then you’ve seen some of what I filmed on the trip. So far I’ve released 12 videos from the first half of the trip: US 50 through Illinois and Indiana (2 parts each), Butler County KS, Cole Camp MO, EastGate Mall OH, Kevin Lucas interview, Moonville OH, Winchester VA, small town Delaware, and Centralia PA.

Here are videos I also filmed that I’ll be releasing in the next couple of months: US 50 Ohio (2 parts), US 50 West Virginia (2 parts), US 50 Virginia, US 50 Washington DC, US 50 Maryland, Indiana Military Museum, Lubec ME, Pennsboro WV, Scranton PA, abandoned DC mall, New York Route 28, Vermont’s smallest towns, Montpelier VA capitol, Madawaska ME, Quebec Route 167 & 113, Michigan Upper Peninsula, small towns in Wisconsin, and roadside attractions in Minnesota.

Whew that’s a lot! Luckily I filmed everything so I can remember all the places I went!

US 50 SERIES

I’ve been pleasantly surprised how well the US 50 videos have done. The first four have almost 100k views so far. This is the best any of my “road trip” series videos have done in the early goings. Hopefully that trend continues into Ohio this week!

WHAT’S NEXT?

I’m not planning on doing any major travel during August. However, I received a special invitation to Abilene KS next weekend to ride on the Smoky Valley Railroad, so I plan to make a video about that. My other job as a track coach at Wichita State gets a little busier as the student-athletes return to campus and we have lots of “beginning of the year” meetings. I’m going to be pretty boring in August haha!

I DID A LIVE STREAM!

I am so appreciative of everyone who joined the recent live stream. Honestly I thought there might only be a handful of people on there, so when I saw there was over 700 people that popped in at one time or another I was blown away! I think I will do a live stream every time I hit another 10k subscribers. We’re already over 55k so hopefully the next live stream will be sooner than later!

THE BUSINESS OF YOUTUBE

It’s been a really good summer with the channel. July was the first time I ever had over 1 million views in a month. We also picked up 4500 subscribers (also an all-time high). You would think I’m rich right? Haha hardly. Believe it or not the amount of money made was less than earlier in the year when there were 50-60% of the views. Basically you get paid on YouTube by views, but different times of the year have different rates. So a view in July might be worth half what a view in December is. Nevertheless, the channel continues to grow, and the trend is up overall and that’s exciting!

HOW YOUR SUPPORT IS SO HELPFUL

Currently we have 162 members on Patreon or YouTube memberships. The reason I want to mention that after explaining some of the “business of YouTube” is to show how up and down this can be. Last year I moved from full-time to part-time coaching and now my main income is generated from YouTube. The member contributions help to have a stable “base” when there’s the inevitable down month on the channel – which certainly happens.

This is not a plea for anyone else to become a member, but I get a lot of questions about how the business of YouTube works – especially from people who are wanting to start their own channel. I feel very fortunate to be able to do this and all of you are a big part of it, whether you are a member or just watch videos on a regular basis. Thank you ALL!!!

THAT’S ALL FOLKS!

Thanks for reading my ramblings!

If you enjoy my channel and want to help it grow, feel free to share videos to your friends and/or family! I also have Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter/X (Instagram is probably the best to follow). Oh yeah buy some merch! (but only if you want)

Links to everything can be found on my website: https://www.travelwithawiseguy.com/

Thanks for all the support and we’ll see you down a backroad!

John Wise