June 2025 update

WORDS WITH A WISEGUY 19 ...

This blog has a new look! And it’s been almost three months since the last one – oops.

If you want to read any of the previous blogs, I usually put them on my website a couple weeks after I email them here. If you know anyone who might be interested, please have them visit https://www.travelwithawiseguy.com/ and sign-up!

NEW LOOK BLOG

You may or may not like the format of this version of the blog versus previous ones. Here’s what happened. The website I was using to do the blog has a free limit of 500 emails and we went over that number recently. So I’m doing this the old fashioned way from my actual email account. I do a separate weekly email newsletter for my other job with Wichita State Track and Field that has over 1,000 emails so this is nothing new to me – hopefully you’re ok with this simple look. For me, I prefer this anyways. The only difference is to sign-up people they just email me directly on this email address – jwise@goshockers.com 

WHY SO LONG BETWEEN BLOGS?

I talked about this in March, but this is by far the busiest time of the year for me. If you like these blogs the good news is that my busy times are almost over, and I should be able to resume these with a higher frequency. I really enjoy writing them so I’m looking forward to getting back to doing this once a month or so.

PROMOTIONS! ME! ME! ME!

A couple things before I get into talking about my travels and the YouTube channel …

Just this morning a video was published of a podcast I was on here in Wichita. It’s over 90 minutes long and is done by a couple brothers who just started their podcast career. This is only their 5^th podcast and they’re still learning as they go. But they told me they really enjoyed it and hope to have me back on a somewhat regular basis. We live just a few miles apart, so it was easy to hop over and join them in their studio. If you want something to listen to while you’re driving or doing some work - give it a listen. We talk a lot about YouTube, traveling, and sports. They are truly a grassroots channel and will be interviewing a lot of interesting people from Kansas. So if you like that kind of stuff make sure to subscribe to their channel! Here is the podcast we did: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3aEAgkIo3sQ They are also on Spotify.

I’ve had requests for a tote bag in the merchandise store. If that’s something you’re interested in here you go! https://travel-with-a-wiseguy.printify.me/category/all/1

One last thing – if you want to support the channel financially you can do so through Patreon or YouTube memberships. By no means am I ASKING you to, but we now have around 200 members of varying levels, and I do a bonus video for everyone who is at the “Producer” or “Executive Producer” level. We have a lot of fun with these videos! If you’re interested you can find out more info here: https://www.travelwithawiseguy.com/membership

PAST THREE MONTHS IN REVIEW

It has been a whirlwind time in my life. To say I’ve been busy is a bit of an understatement. Since the last time I did one of these blogs in March, I’ve been to Oregon, Arkansas, Texas twice, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Missouri, not to mention a bunch of places in Kansas. Whenever we have a track meet, I try to drive separately (unless we are flying) and explore back with the remaining weekend. In previous years I just traveled with the team there and back, but as I’m putting out more content than ever I’m traveling separately to keep up the pace. You might say “don’t run yourself ragged Wiseguy!” – but if you know me this is what I prefer. It’s been an awesome spring of track, travel, and making these videos. And I’m very excited for what is coming this summer! (see more about my crazy summer plans down below)

Since my last blog on March 15, we’ve released 37 free videos and 11 member videos. You know how I like numbers. The most successful video released during that time has been Fort Worth’s Dead Mall – Ridgmar Mall. It’s fascinating that of all the videos I’ve done that is the most viewed. It took maybe 15 minutes to film and the editing was fairly minimal. For some reason whenever I do a dead mall video it gets into that YouTube algorithm very well. The good news is I have another one coming out this week.

There have been some other more traditional videos that have done well too. The two videos I did about the Kansas-Missouri border road areas have 59k views combined. The video about the abandoned railroad line in Oklahoma has over 34k views. My adventures around Clark County, Kansas, has yielded around 40k views.

On the other hand, there have been some that haven’t found their audience yet. I mentioned going to North Carolina (for a track meet). I did a really cool video about Level Cross, NC, that had a lot of NASCAR history. It has less than 3,000 views as of today. This is almost always the case whenever I do a video about a different geographic location. But over time there will be people who find that video and it’ll get a nice amount of views. I always go back to this video I did about the dying sport of Jai Alai. It’s totally different from any video I’ve ever done and virtually no one saw it for almost a year. Then all of a sudden it started getting hits and shares and now it is almost to 50,000 views! It’s always in my list of the top-15 most viewed videos daily. YouTube has taught me to be patient :)

UPCOMING VIDEOS

Before I get to my upcoming travel plans, here is a list of videos I’ve already filmed and will be released at some point in the next month or so:

--Touring the NASCAR Hall of Fame in Charlotte, NC

--The dead mall in Muskogee, OK (deadest one I’ve ever seen)

--Butler County, KS – Part 2

--Behind the scenes of my trip to Oregon in April

--small town, USA – Calvert, TX

--World’s Largest Casino – Thackerville, OK

--Chilocco, OK – Native American ghost town

--small town, Downtown – Texas and Oklahoma

Sound fun? It was!

UPCOMING TRAVEL

Tomorrow morning I’m headed back to Eugene, OR, for the NCAA Track & Field Championships. We’ve had a great season and several athletes I’m coaching will be competing in the NCAA finals this week. If you are interested, you can watch it on ESPN and ESPN2 from Wednesday through Saturday. Go Shockers!

I’m actually going to be in Oregon for two weeks, because there is another meet a week later that I have some athletes in as well. In between the meets I have about four days free, so I’m planning to try and find the 10 Smallest Towns in Oregon (and maybe some other stuff too).

Once I get back from Oregon, my coaching is mostly done for the summer. I say “mostly” because I’ll be going back to Oregon one more time at the end of July for the USA Championships. I have one athlete that is really kicking butt and will be competing against the professionals that week. And I’ve been asked to do two coaching clinics (one in Kansas and one in Ohio). Other than all THAT, I’m going to be traveling all over the place for the rest of the summer.

MY BIG SUMMER TRIP!

Are you ready for this? Sometime in late June I’ll be heading EAST for a change. My plan is to complete US 50 to the east coast. Previously I documented US 50 from Kansas to California and then added Missouri later on. This summer I’ll finish it up to the east and that includes Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, West Virginia, Virginia, DC, and Maryland. From Illinois to the end in Maryland is about 1,000 miles. I envision this being much different from the vast open western states, but I’m excited nonetheless to complete documentation of US 50. It also runs just north of where I grew up – maybe 20 miles. So I’ll be stopping in Ohio for a week or so and filming a bunch of stuff there (possibly the 10 Smallest Towns in Ohio).

But that’s not it! Once I get to Maryland I’ll be heading north through rural Pennsylvania, upstate New York, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine. What will I do once I get to Maine? My plan is to cross into Canada and start working my way back west eventually entering the US in Michigan’s upper peninsula and continuing through Wisconsin, Minnesota, and North Dakota. Once I’m in North Dakota I’m pretty much straight north from Kansas so I’ll go south through South Dakota and Nebraska before getting back to Kansas.

It will probably take over a month to do this and I have very little planned except what I’ve told you here. But I’m very excitement of being on the road and seeing these places!

HOW YOUR SUPPORT IS SO HELPFUL

I’ll be getting a ton of content that will be from a lot of very different geographic locations. And like I mentioned earlier whenever I post videos from new places they take a while to find their audience. The support of the members through Patreon and YouTube will be the main reason I can do this trip. So THANK YOU ALL SO MUCH! And even if you’re not a member, just watching the videos and sharing them with people who might like them all adds up. I never would’ve thought that the channel would be at this level (almost 48k subscribers) and my heartfelt thanks go out to everyone who has continued to be so supportive!

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