As I have said many times before, Mark and I love to travel! In fact, we live to travel! We have spent many years following our dreams and visiting as many destinations as possible. When we’re not actually on the move (as is the case now when we are spending several months in beautiful Tobago), we relax by listening to podcasts about travel, reading books and blogs about travel, watching films, vlogs, and TV programmes about travel, planning future travel, writing about past travel … you get the picture!! 😂🤣😂
In this post, I want to introduce to our five favourite travel YouTubers. We think these are amongst the best travel YouTube channels. We regularly watch the content put out by these talented creative people. Their films bring back great memories of places we’ve already visited, or inspire us to travel to new destinations. I hope you will find some inspiration of your own here!
In this article
Pocket Trailblazer
I first met Charlie Keep, aka the Pocket Trailblazer, a travel documentary maker from the UK, at a bloggers’ conference in Trento, Italy, last year. I was taken by her enthusiasm for video-making and picked up some great tips when we were on the same trips organised by the local tourist board. Back in France, I subscribed to her YouTube channel and enjoyed ‘getting to know her’ through her content (that sounds a bit weird, but you know what I mean! 😂).
Our paths crossed again at BorderlessLive in London in September. In between those two meetings, Charlie had been on a tour around Morocco similar to the one we did. She even had the same guide as us! I’m really looking forward to seeing the films she makes of that trip!
Charlie’s videos are not the dry, fact-filled travelogues of old. She specialises in creating feature-length films with a strong narrative. The content she produces is very personal. She is an incredible storyteller with a bubbly personality that draws you in and keeps you watching until the final frame. As upbeat as her films are, Charlie isn’t afraid of showing her vulnerability. You will learn about the highs and the lows of travel, the good and the bad.
The Pocket Trailblazer recently relocated to Australia to marry her long-term partner, Tom. Her newest video is the story of their relationship. Watch it to get a sense of who Charlie is and the kind of content you can expect from her channel. After viewing a few of her videos, you will have a greater appreciation of what it takes to create great content, as well as a longer bucket list than you ever thought possible!
Daneger and Stacey
Dane and Stacey are travel YouTubers from New Zealand who have been travelling and blogging about it for the past three years. In that time, they have visited over 50 countries.
I first came across their YouTube channel when I was looking for content about Cornwall, an English county which is very close to my heart. Since then, I have watched most of their back catalogue which features a lot of the UK, Eastern Europe, and countries in south-east Asia including Vietnam, the Philippines, South Korea, and Thailand.
Dane and Stacey post short videos on a regular basis. They have an informal, travel diary style which I love. I hope they wouldn’t mind me saying that their productions are not as polished as other travel YouTubers. This is one of the reasons I enjoy them. They give you an insight into what a place is really like. Just as we do, Dane and Stacey like to travel slowly, renting somewhere so that they can stay longer and really understand the culture. They also love to uncover the stories and quirky facts about a destination which add interest to their videos.
This is the first video I watched on Dane and Stacey’s channel:
Karl Watson: Travel Documentaries
Karl Watson is one of the emerging names amongst travel Youtubers. His channel has over 90,000 subscribers. I have been a subscriber since I met Karl at Traverse 19, the same blogging conference where I met Charlie (Pocket Trailblazer).
As a professional video editor, Karl’s content is known for its very high production values. Taking his inspiration from ‘The Long Way Round’ and ‘By Any Means’, he creates entire series of full-length TV-style travel documentaries. His aim is to make fun and engaging films that appeal to everyone.
When you watch one of Karl’s videos, you feel like you are on the journey with him. This was particularly the case when I watched his recent documentaries about Morocco. He teamed up with Intrepid to create a bespoke small group tour. Hamid, ‘the best guide ever’, was the guide! Charlie was one of the people who went on the trip. He really captured the essence of the country and its people. Mark and I watched both videos about Morocco (just over two hours in total) in one go and loved every second of it!
You don’t have to have been to the place Karl makes films about, though! A man after my own heart, his documentaries inspire you to travel further for longer. Make sure you check out his channel. You could binge-watch all eleven episodes of his HK2NY (Hong Kong to New York) series – just make sure you’ve got plenty of popcorn!!
Kombi Life
For me, the Kombi Life YouTube Channel is fun, inspirational escapism! It’s also full of useful information for those who aspire to living the van life. Run by Ben from Jersey in the Channel Islands and Leah from Melbourne, Australia, the channel records their life travelling the world in a 1973 VW campervan. This is the plan for Mark and me in a few years’ time so it’s great to follow the adventures of people who are already doing it!
Ben and Leah are travel YouTubers with an informal and conversational filmmaking style. Like Dane and Stacey, their videos aren’t over-produced. They are shot in real-time and show you what it’s really like to cross a border or run into problems converting a van. Subscribe to their channel and get inspired!
Check out Ben and Leah’s website here.
Shu
Shu Lin is a London-based food, travel and lifestyle content creator with a mission to eat her way around the world – her words, not mine! 😊 Her YouTube channel combines our two great loves – food and travel – how could I not include it in this list?
As with Charlie and Karl, I met Shu in Trento last year (is there a pattern here?). She is super-friendly with a very engaging presenting style, a trait which was picked up by the BBC! Shu presented a recent episode of A Very British History which documented the contribution made by the Chinese community.
Check out Shu’s film about a food tour she did in Trentino, Italy.
Final Thoughts
This article lists the five travel YouTube channels that we watch all the time. As good as these travel YouTubers are, I would have liked to include a channel which better represented us and our readers, i.e. couples of a certain age who are, or aspire to be, nomadic. I researched thoroughly, but couldn’t find one! If you know of YouTubers who fit the bill, please drop a link in the comments. Otherwise, we might have to brush up on our video skills!
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Thank you so much for your kind words as I put my heart and soul into every film I produce for my channel!
You’re welcome, Charlie. That’s obvious in the content you produce! 🙂