Holiday travels, looking forward to 2025!

WORDS WITH A WISEGUY 17 ...

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BACK HOME AFTER A LONG ROAD TRIP

I got back to Wichita on Friday night after spending the previous 26 days on the road. It was the longest road trip (by consecutive days) I’ve ever had. I was gonna push it to 27, but the weather was turning bad here in Kansas, so I decided to drive on home a day early.

Here is where I ended up staying the night each of those days:

12/10 – Wakeeney, KS

12/11 – Burlington, CO

12/12 – Burlington, CO

12/13 – Walsenburg, CO

12/14 – Taos, NM

12/15 – Taos, NM

12/16 – Gallup, NM

12/17 – Phoenix, AZ

12/18-22 – Flew to Ohio and stayed with family

12/23 – Williams, AZ

12/24 – Cottonwood, AZ

12/25 – Tucson, AZ

12/26 – Tucson, AZ

12/27 – Bisbee, AZ

12/28 – Duncan, AZ

12/29 – El Paso, TX

12/30 – El Paso, TX

12/31 – Sanderson, TX

1/1 – San Angelo, TX

1/2 – San Angelo, TX

1/3 – Drove back to Wichita, KS

Whew! It was a heckuva trip – and a whole lot of fun! I looked at this overall trip as three trips in one. Part 1 was KS-CO-NM. Part 2 was Ohio (with a side trip to Michigan). Part 3 was AZ-NM-TX. I’ve had people ask if I got tired, and the short answer is no. There were certainly long, hard days of exploring for YouTube, but one thing I did was take “rest days” from time to time. When you look at that list of places I stayed – if there are two in a row at the same place – that was a rest day. I would lounge around and basically edit video all day. That really helped with not getting worn out. I’ve done previous trips where I just went and went and went for two weeks in a row and was exhausted by the end. I guess you can still learn things when you get older haha.

The main reason I wanted to do this trip was to visit the smallest towns in Arizona. With that as the centerpiece idea, getting there and back was more random. I also wanted to spend some time along the southern border, and I saw some really interesting things doing that in NM and TX.

I believe I got footage for 19 videos on this trip. Actually, I’ve already released four of them. I did a video about my hometown of Russellville, OH, which was fun (more on that below). I’m still a little bleary eyed from the trip, so I haven’t decided what order I’m going to release these videos yet. I don’t think I’m going to do it in chronological order, so the next couple months on the channel will feel a little random from week to week.

All in all, I really had a blast on the road! Because of my coaching schedule, I won’t be able to do another trip like that again until the summer (which I’m already starting to plan).

QUICK MEMBER PLUG – ZOOM CALL TONIGHT!

For anyone who is an Executive Producer or Producer, we will have a Zoom call tonight (Sun, Jan 5) at 7pm Central. I have sent info on Patreon or the YouTube community section, depending on where you are a member. If you can’t find that, just reply to this email and I will get you the login/password info. If you want to participate you still have time to sign up! See you at 7pm!

DECEMBER YOUTUBE RECAP

Wow what a month! It was arguably the best month the channel has ever had. Here are a few stats: It was the most watched month ever by “watch hours”, which is the total hours everyone watched videos combined. December had 137,904 watch hours. That’s amazing. It was the 3rd highest month ever in raw views with 530,093. It was 3rd in subscribers with 2,338 (only 3 behind May 2024). It was also 2nd in revenue, which was great because I just spent over $3,000 on this road trip haha.

We released 14 videos in December, but the most viewed video was The Oregon Trail compilation we put out in November. I talked about this in the previous blog. We had been looking at the analytics of this video and had a feeling it was going to “take off” so to speak. And it did, getting over 84k views in December alone. And the average viewing session was around an hour (the entire video is over 3 hours long). This is reflected in why December was the record for most “watch hours” on the channel. We also put out a 3+ hour compilation video of US 50, which had about half the stats of The Oregon Trail – which was still awesome. On top of that, the “10 Smallest Towns in Illinois” video that we released in September all of a sudden found a 2nd wind, picking up over 56k views during the month. Those three videos, along with the recent videos we published created this fantastic momentum that has continued on into the first week of January (which is going better than December). Yesterday (Jan 4) was the most viewed day ever on the channel with 51,795 views. If you’re wondering, to get a “view” on YouTube requires someone to watch a video for at least 30 seconds.

Thank you to everyone for your continued support! It feels like we’re hitting our stride!

HOMETOWN VIDEO

You may have watched the first video of the new year about my hometown of Russellville, OH. I had been wanting to do more videos on where I grew up, but it’s a long way from Kansas and when I go home, I usually like to just hang out with family and not do YouTube stuff. Since I was home for 6 days, I decided to take part of one day and explore our town. I figured there would be people I know watch the video, but since the most popular videos on the channel are about the middle of the country, I didn’t expect much. And it’s a small town (pop. 542). Well, I was wrong. As I’m writing this three days after it’s release, it’s rocketed to over 40,000 views already. I can’t believe it! I think everyone person in Russellville shared it on Facebook haha. I’ve received more messages than I can reply to and have heard from old friends I haven’t heard from since the 90’s. I’m so happy a large audience is learning about where I grew up! I’m planning to go back to Ohio in the summer and do more videos about the area.

JANUARY TRAVEL

As a college track coach, my schedule will begin to get very hectic soon. We start weekly indoor meets in less than two weeks, so I will be on the road with the team most weekends. However, I do plan to drive separately and do some exploring the day after the meet on the way home (usually a Sunday). Our first meet is Jan 17 in Manhattan, KS. The next weekend we’ll be in Lincoln, NE. So, you can plan to see something from those areas on the channel in late January or February.

FOR THE DIEHARDS (Spoiler alert)

Usually I put out the tentative release schedule at the end for those of you who read all the way down here. I don’t have this planned out yet, but I will list the videos that I filmed during my road trip. We’ve released two videos in January so far, and I have two more planned. After that your guess is as good as mine haha. I’m also going to be traveling on some shorter trips like I mentioned where I’ll film more local videos to be released between these listed.

Already released:

Thu, Jan 2:  small town, USA – Russellville, OH

Sun, Jan 5: Small Town Downtown – OK/KS

Planned videos:

Tue, Jan 7: Jerome, AZ – scenic drive (GoPro/drone)

Thu, Jan 9: small town, USA – White Deer, TX

Other videos I filmed on my trip (in chronological order):

--Small Town Downtown – Western KS

--Eastern Colorado Ghost Towns

--Small Town Downtown – CO

--Taos, NM Enchanted Circle road trip

--Taos, NM Enchanted Circle scenic drive (GoPro/drone)

--5 Smallest Towns in AZ

--Bisbee, AZ – scenic drive (GoPro/drone)

--Highway 80 from Bisbee, AZ to Roadforks, NM

--New Mexico State Road 9 (border road)

--Texas Highway 20 & State Road 192 (border roads)

--Terrell County, TX

--Small Town Downtown – Central TX

--Classic hotels I stayed in during the trip

--I also did a little filming for a family project that I may put on YouTube eventually

THAT’S ALL FOLKS!

Thanks for reading all 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)

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

John Wise