I did The Oregon Trail! And thoughts on the YouTube algorithm

It’s been a while since I have posted a travel blog, so I think it’s time for an update!

The Oregon Trail

I took a couple weeks to explore The Oregon trail in mid-July and it was as fun and educational as I had hoped! I am in the process of editing several hours of video down to an acceptable length to put on my YouTube channel. I am going to start rolling those out this week!

I’ve had a lot of people ask me what my favorite part was and what it was like. It’s really hard to pick one thing, because the totality of the experience is what really hits you. Realizing what those pioneers did over a course of 2000+ miles and 4-6 months is mind blowing. I hope I am able to give a reasonable account of the trail in the upcoming videos, because I just kept learning day after day about the places they traveled through.

I visited every possible location along the trail I could including hundreds of small towns and every historical landmark I could find. I also went off road a few times and drove as close to the original trail as I could. On three different days, I ended up having to turn around because the path I took either was a dead end or would’ve taken me into private property. One of the most treacherous drives took me deep into an Indian reservation (I had permission to drive through). When I was approached by a couple of natives who worked there, they couldn’t believe where I had gone and said I was probably the first person in a long, long time to actually drive that part of the original trail. It made sense because I encountered many animals that look at me funny and didn’t think they needed to move off the “road” haha.

Anyways, I’m hard at work combing through the footage so make sure to check out Travel with a Wiseguy for new videos each of the following 6 weeks or so.

While along the trail, I also stopped and filmed several ghost town videos in Kansas, Nebraska, Wyoming, Idaho, and Oregon. I think I’ll have about 7 videos from across those states (see further below). There are SO many ghost towns along the way. Unfortunately, I didn’t have time to stop and really explore all of them, but I tried to pick some really good ones for upcoming videos.

The YouTube algorithm

Hanging out in LaGrande, Idaho

While on The Oregon Trail, I was able to connect with Cole and Rachel Davis. Cole (former Friends University track coach) and Rachel (former on-air news reporter) have been living in a camper for two months and it was great to catch up with how their lives are going.

Rachel started a YouTube channel (Workin for the Wild) and has had tremendous success in a very short period of time. The number of subscribers and viewers quickly rocketed past what I have done (mostly because she’s way better at this than me haha). One of their videos went “viral” and currently has about 150,000 views in a very short period of time. That got us talking about how confusing it is to understand what the YouTube algorithm is and how it suggests videos. We all know how watching YouTube works and how there are always suggested videos based on what we’ve previously watched, but to have small channels like ours (comparatively to the huge YouTube channels out there), how do our little videos ever get suggested?

My channel had never really had that viral moment Rachel’s did. It just grew slow and steadily for the past couple of years. And then all of a sudden, this past week a video I released 8 months ago about the smallest towns in Oklahoma caught fire. It didn’t go crazy like Rachel’s video, but it’s had over 20,000 views in a few days. And the other thing is that it’s made virtually all of the other 100+ videos on my channel get significantly increased viewership as well. Obviously, we know how that works – you watch one video from a YouTube channel then if you like it you start down a rabbit hole that lasts for hours and eventually it’s 3am and you’re watching something totally unrelated to what you watched 6 hours ago!

This whole YouTube thing is a strange and interesting world. It’s fun to have another person going through a similar experience at the same time. I think Rachel’s channel will continue to explode because she’s so good at it. I can see them doing very well financially if they do it for the next few years. As for mine, we’ll see. I have a pretty niche topic of videos, but it seems a lot of people have interest and there aren’t many people doing videos like mine out there. I think there’s a fascination with our country’s history and as these small towns start to disappear, people seem to want to learn more and more about the subject.

I continue to enjoy it and it doesn’t take me away from my duties coaching track and field for Wichita State. Hopefully I can keep making interesting videos.

No Coast Film Festival

To my surprise, I had another video selected to be included in the No Coast Film Festival in Emporia, Kansas. It’s about one of the most fascinating historical events (in my opinion) in the city of Wichita. The Wichita Monrovians (the city’s premiere black baseball team of the 1920’s) played the KKK in a game. And yes, it’s as wild of a story as it sounds! Here’s the video if you are interested in what happened.

I found out about this game through a late night rabbit hole I took reading about Wichita sports history on the internet. I found out about this crazy Island Baseball Park in the middle of the Arkansas River and then how that incredible game was played there. It’s a story that has been told here and there around the city for years, but I didn’t think it ever got the attention it deserved. So, I was glad to make this video, and I’m glad it will get a wider audience being part of the film festival. I also submitted it to a bigger film festival, but I doubt it will be accepted. Usually, they don’t accept films made exclusively on an iPhone by a total amateur haha.

Upcoming video release schedule (for the diehards since you’ve read this much so far)

I filmed so much stuff on The Oregon Trail I’m kind of struggling to figure out how to release it. My original plan was to do like past road trips where I did one state at a time, but I have too much footage and some of these states would end up being like 45 minute videos. My longest video ever has been 30 minutes and I feel like that’s a lot to ask of someone to watch. I know how I get when I watch YouTube, and anything that long has to be really good.

So, here’s what I have coming up starting this week and it’s very tentative …

Mon, Aug 8 – Oregon Trail – drone footage

Thu, Aug 11 – Oregon Trail Missouri

Thur, Aug 18 – Oregon Trail Kansas 

Thur, Aug 25 – Oregon Trail Nebraska Part 1

Mon, Aug 29 – Oregon Trail Nebraska Part 2 (includes a short section of Colorado)

Thur, Sept 1 – Oregon Trail Wyoming (If I need to split it up, Wyoming Part 2 would be the following Monday)

Thur Sept 8 – Oregon Trail Idaho (same as Wyoming if I need to split Idaho into 2 videos)

Thur Sept 15 – Oregon Trail Oregon (same as Wyoming and Idaho for Part 2 if necessary)

Once I get done with The Oregon Trail series, I have these videos to publish in no particular order:

--Kansas Ghost Towns Part 12 – Morse, Bonita, Lanesfield

--Nebraska Ghost Towns Part 1 – Steele City, Belvidere, Paulina, Roscoe

--Wyoming Ghost Towns Part 1 – Miner’s Delight, Atlantic City, South Pass City

--Idaho Ghost Towns Part 1 – Chesterfield, Silver City

--Idaho Ghost Towns Part 2 – Grasmere (trying something different with this one)

--Oregon Ghost Towns Part 1 – Lime, Sumpter, Cecil, Bridal Veil

--Pioneer Village in Minden, Nebraska

Those are enough videos to get me to mid-November. In October I would like to return to Nebraska and do the Top-10 Smallest Towns in Nebraska, as well as get some more ghost towns from the Cornhusker State. I have several other Kansas ghost towns I want to visit when I have time too. We’ll see!

Ok that’s enough for today. Hopefully everyone has had a great summer! Happy travels!