Why ghost town videos are popular and the Bengals are in the Super Bowl!

It’s been a while since I posted a travel blog, so I thought I’d give an update as to what has been going on and what I have planned in the coming weeks.

The Bengals are in the Super Bowl!

It’s the eve of my hometown Cincinnati Bengals playing in the Super Bowl for the first time in 33 years! I had been holding on to my latest video in hopes it would be appropriate to release this week – and luckily it was! These day trip videos aren’t the most popular, but they are the most fun, and having my brother and nephew be part of it made it even better. We took a drive from Augusta, KY, to Cincinnati, checking out George Clooney’s boyhood home, eventually making it to the Bengals stadium. Of course, we stopped and had some Cincy style chili and ice cream. Fun stuff – check it out if any of that seems interesting. Seeing my brother on the monkey bars is reason enough to watch!

Wichita State Track & Field

I’ve been very busy with Wichita State Track & Field. We’ve been to Topeka, KS, and Lincoln NE, in the past few weeks and will head to Fayetteville, AR, and Birmingham, AL, in the next two. I haven’t shot any videos relating to track, as I’ve decided to mainly keep the YouTube channel focused on small towns and road trips. I’ve thought about starting a 2nd channel for fun, where I would post other types of videos that don’t have anything to do with small towns. We’ll see.

Channel growth

Since the last time I blogged, the channel has continued to rapidly gain viewers and subscribers. Since the beginning of 2022, the amount of traffic has more than doubled. It took 16 months to get 1000 subscribers, and in the past 2 months I’ve added over 400 more. I was amazed to see that I got over 3000 views on a single day last week. And YouTube even sent me a little check for my efforts (don’t get too excited, it wasn’t that much). I wonder once your channel gets monetized, does YouTube suggest your videos more? Seems like it. Thank you to everyone who has continued to support Travel with a Wiseguy – I’ll keep doing it if you keep enjoying it!

Kansas Flint Hills video

I recently put out a video about ghost towns in the Kansas Flint Hills, and it got about as much attention as one of my videos get in a short period of time. I’ve never had a video go “viral”, so if one gets a thousand or so views in the first week then that’s pretty good. This one is closing in on 3000 views in 10 days. I’ve found that if I put out a “ghost town” video about Kansas or Oklahoma that it will do better than most any other videos I have (except the top-10 smallest towns). I’m learning if it has a theme like “The Flint Hills” or “No Man’s Land” it will do even better. People seem to be drawn to this concept. Fortunately, these are also my favorites videos to make, and I plan to have a lot more in the coming weeks. Also, the Emporia Gazette newspaper did an article today about the Flint Hills video. That was nice (even though there were a couple misquotes – I need to speak more clearly haha), and begs the question …

Why do people seem to like ghost town videos?

Why are “ghost town” videos more popular? I can’t speak for others, but for me what I like to think about is what was the town like at its most popular, and what happened to make it decline. When I’m visiting one of these towns, I try to stand right in the middle of the “downtown” area and imagine it in the 1880’s (or whenever it was founded). The wild west time is a fascinating era to learn about – good and bad. And these towns in Kansas, Oklahoma, and further west are remnants of someone’s hopes and dreams. I’ve never been a big architecture guy, but it’s hard not to be interested in how different a lot of these old buildings were designed, and how some of them are still standing a couple of hundred years later. According to the metrics of my channel, almost 90% of my viewers are over 35 years old, and around 70% are over 45 years old. I imagine many of the older generation of viewers can actually remember some of these places when they were young, and much more vibrant. What do you think? If you like this stuff, why do you watch?

Bonus video Mondays

If you noticed, I put out a drone video tour of Pratt, KS, a few weeks ago, and I’ve been trying to figure out if I should do more of these or not. So, what I’ve decided is that the weekly Thursday video release is going to be ghost towns, road trips, top-10 smallest towns, etc. and once a month I’ll put out a video on a Monday that is short and most likely drone related, like the city tours and water tower videos. To be consistent I’m thinking I’ll do it on the 2nd Monday of every month. Why the 2nd Monday? Because that’s what I did for the first one without thinking haha. So that means look for a short video this Monday. My goal is to do 12 of them this year – we’ll see how it goes.

What’s coming up?

If you’ve made it this far, and really like this stuff (thank you) then here is what I’ve got planned to release in the next few weeks.

Mon, Feb 14 – Bonus Monday drone video tour of Holton, KS

Thurs, Feb 17 – Oklahoma Ghost Towns part 4 – May, Lenora, Cloud Chief

Thurs, Feb 24 – Arizona Ghost Towns part 3 – Twin Arrows

Thurs, Mar 3 – The Tragic Story of Pinhook, Missouri

Thurs, Mar 10 – Missouri Ghost Towns part 2 – Monark Springs, Jolly, Possum Trot, Almartha

Mon, Mar 14 – Water Tower Road Trip – Kansas to Ohio

Thurs, Mar 17 – Kansas Ghost Towns part 8 – Oil Hill, Beaumont, Rock

Thurs, Mar 24 – Top-10 Smallest Towns in Missouri

Thurs, Mar 31 – Ohio Ghost Towns part 3 – Spann, Lucy Run, Elk Lick

Thurs, Apr 7 – Oklahoma Ghost Towns part 5 – Centralia, Whizbang, Skedee, Blackburn

I’ve got more filmed, but I’m not sure what order I’m going to release them this spring. I’m trying to release at least one Kansas video each month (that’s my core audience), and there are a lot of places I’d like to visit. We’ll see!

Thanks again to everyone for your support! Happy Travels!