Wyoming recap
This was originally emailed to the newsletter list on 9/1/26
WORDS WITH A WISEGUY #29 ...
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YOUTUBE LIVE – TONIGHT! (Wednesday 6:30pm Central)
I recently hit the 80k subscribers mark and every 10k I’ve been doing a YouTube Live. Hopefully you can join me this evening (Sept 2) at 6:30pm Central! Just go to my main channel Travel with a Wiseguy and click the live section. It should pop right up. You can also save it before and get a reminder when it goes live. I usually sit and answer questions for a while. The previous ones have lasted a little over an hour. Thanks to everyone for helping the channel reach 80k!
YouTube Live link: https://youtube.com/live/RTVzs2RROCo
RECENT WYOMING TRIP RECAP – UPCOMING VIDEOS
I took a 9-day road trip that was mostly spent in Wyoming with one day also in South Dakota and Nebraska. I started the trip flying from Wichita KS to Billings MT and then I drove 2,502 miles back to Wichita. I filmed 6 videos about Wyoming and 1 about South Dakota, as well as 5 “detours” during the trip (I’ll explain that more below).
Here’s a VERY TENTATIVE September release schedule of videos coming up in September. W1 = main channel, W2 = Wiseguy TOO!:
9/1 – Silverton CO museum – W2
9/3 – Behind-scenes of my previous South Dakota trip – W1
9/6 – 10 Smallest Towns in Wyoming – W1
9/8 – Corn Palace, South Dakota – W2
9/10 – Small Town Downtown Wyoming – W1
9/13 – TBA – W1
9/15 – Wyoming Capitol Building, Cheyenne – W2
9/17 – Niobrara County, Wyoming (least populated) – W1
9/20 – TBA – W1
9/22 – Needles Highway and Custer Park Wildlife Loop SD – W2
9/24 – Behind-the-scenes of my Wyoming trip – W1
9/27 – TBA – W1
9/29 – Murdo SD Museum – W2
Other videos I have filmed and will probably release in October on W2:
--Enid OK dead mall and military museum
--Cheyenne WY Territorial Prison
I have plans for the ones that say TBA but haven’t filmed them yet. I’m planning for at least a couple of these to be in Kansas. Stay tuned!
THOUGHTS ON WYOMING
Even though I didn’t film as many videos in Wyoming as I have in my previous two summer trips (CO, SD), I still had a blast exploring all around The Equality State. I’ve done quite a bit there in the past as I have 7+ videos on my channel about Wyoming, but that was mostly in the National Park areas and along the Oregon Trail. The foundation of this trip was finding the 10 smallest incorporated towns and that took me around parts I haven’t been. As mentioned earlier I flew to Billings MT, which is only about 60 miles north of the Wyoming state line. I explored down the middle of the state before heading to the southwest corner for a day and then back east along the southern border. Eventually I ended up on the east central part of Wyoming before exiting into South Dakota and then heading south to Nebraska and back home. Wyoming is the least populated state in the USA (576k in 2020), but also the 10th largest in size, so that means lots of wide open spaces – which I loved. I was reminded how beautiful it was by several of the different drives I took. I hope those are able to be shown well in my behind-the-scenes video on 9/24. I had a lot of fun staying in Cheyenne – that’s a great small city and their capitol building was very nice. All in all it was a lot of fun, and I’d definitely recommend visiting the non-National Park areas in the summer!
NEXT BIG TRIP – OHIO
I’m really excited for my next trip to the state I lived in for 30 years. I was born in Cincinnati OH, grew up on a tobacco farm along the southern part of the state (Brown County), went to college in the northeast part of the state (Kent State), and eventually returned to southern Ohio before moving to Kansas. I’ve been to almost every part of the state but I’m sure I will find some hidden gems this time around. I’ve already mapped out the 10 smallest towns, and they are in the northeast, southwest and southeast parts of the state. I’m still in the planning stages but other possible videos are: State Capitol, Small Town Downtown, Weird Ohio, a historic highway, possibly some ghost towns, maybe a dead mall, and I’d like to do something in my home county. Also I’m hoping to spend a little time with family and friends. I’ll be flying there (and flying back) at the end of September so all those videos will be coming out in October.
NEW DETOUR VIDEOS
If you didn’t notice, last Friday I put out a “detour” video on Wiseguy TOO! Often I’m traveling and come across something that just doesn’t fit into one of my videos. Previously I had included some of these into shorts, reels, or TikToks. But while I was in Texas a few weeks ago I had an idea to piece together a few of these random short videos into a long form video. For example on Friday I posted a video that included walking around the recently moved Slug Bug Ranch in Amarillo TX, then exploring around an abandoned outdoor plaza in Borger. I actually had a 3rd segment where I recreated the final scene of Cast Away in the same spot they filmed the original movie. You may have seen I made it a separate link because when I uploaded it Fox marked it as a copyright violation. So I separated it off so the Slug Bug/abandoned plaza could still be monetized and the Cast Away wasn’t monetized. ANYways I don’t plan to do these every Friday, but you might check it out as your weekend starts to see if a new “detour” pops up!
My first “detour” video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mO6gw6Vt41U
THE BUSINESS OF YOUTUBE – VIEW COUNTS ARE NOW DIFFERENT
Something you may not be aware of is YouTube recently changed how they count a “view”. Forever a view has counted when someone watches a video for an undetermined (publicly) amount of time. YT never said how long that was, but it was somewhere between 10-30 seconds. All other platforms (Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, etc) have always counted a view the instant the video was clicked on. On Thursday, YouTube started counting them this way on long form videos as well. So new videos have “inflated” view counts compared to what they would’ve had previously. YouTube allowed creators to still see the previous “engaged” view count and it appears it’s about 50% of the current views. For example, if a video show 10,000 views today, it’s more like 5,000 in the old system. Why did they do that? They didn’t give reasons, but I assume it’s to show advertisers more impressive numbers as compared to other social media platforms. I guess it makes sense, but when you’re used to something for several years it’s a bit of an adjustment. I guess inflation hits us everywhere haha!
WANT EVEN MORE CONTENT? BECOME A MEMBER TODAY!
If you’re not aware, I also have a member section of the channel, where you can get extra behind-the-scenes content every week. We call it Member Mondays! We’re up to 242 members, and they’re the first to know about what’s going on with the channel, where I’ve been exploring, and where I’m going next. We have a lot of fun with these videos, and I like to show a lot of sneak peek clips. I do a ZOOM call once a month for $5 and up members. The support goes a long way in helping the channel continue to grow! If you are interested you can learn more on my website: https://www.travelwithawiseguy.com/membership
WANT TO SEND ME SOMETHING?
Sometimes I get asked for my address so you can send me something. I always show my gifts in the member videos. If you want to send something my address is: John Wise, PO Box 2793, Wichita, KS, 67201. My t-shirt size is XL.
THAT’S ALL FOLKS!
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, TikTok, and Twitter/X (Instagram is probably the best to follow). Oh yeah buy some merch! (but only if you want). Info for 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
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