200 videos, visiting Nowhere, and where will I be going this summer?

Send in your questions!

In a few weeks, I’ll be posting my 200th video on Travel with a Wiseguy, and I’ve decided to go ahead and do one of those Q&A’s. Last year, for my 100th video, I did highlights of the first 100, and I thought about doing the same for #100 through #200 but have decided to try the Q&A instead. I’m sure this won’t be the most popular video ever, but I do get lots of questions in the comments these days and if you send me some good ones, I’ll try my best to answer them in the least boring way possible :)

Send your questions to jwise@goshockers.com or on any of my social media accounts (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter).

April recap – keeping busy!

The busiest months of my full-time job as a track coach at Wichita State University are always April and May. So, I’m currently right in the middle of that hectic time. I wasn’t sure I would be able to keep up the pace of two videos per week on the channel, but I think I managed to get though the toughest part. The hardest thing was just getting enough content because I’m not able to do much personal travel between January and June. But I snuck away just enough to have the videos you’ve seen (or will see) lately.

As for how the channel did in April … well not great in comparison to previous months, but like I’ve said before that doesn’t bother me. The “core” audience for the channel continues to grow and I’m sure eventually it’ll hit another spike in views/subscribers/etc.

April 2023 was the 34th month of Travel with a Wiseguy on YouTube. The first 25 months were a period of very slow growth where the BEST month had 27k views and 200 subscribers for the entire month. The past 9 months have been when the channel has been at a different level. For example, last month (April) was only the 7th best of those previous 9 in terms of views with 120k and around 600 subscribers. These YouTube channels go up and down in phases, so the worst months right now are about 5 times better than the best months a year ago. And the good months are 5 times better than that!

So, at the end of April, we had over 13,600 subscribers and 2.4 million total views. That’s a far cry away from July 2022 when those numbers were just 2,100 subscribers and 325k views.

I’m looking forward to continuing this journey and seeing where May will lead in terms of both geography and analytics! (I love both :) )

Recent travels – upcoming travels

For my track and field coaching job, my April travel wasn’t too exciting as all I did was go to Lawrence, KS, twice (we hosted a couple of meets too). We also had a rare off weekend and I spent two days driving around western Oklahoma. I literally went to Nowhere, Oklahoma haha. I also took the long way home from Lawrence one of those weekends and explored around Wabaunsee County (just released that video this week).

I love visiting places like Nowhere. Even though it wasn't much of a community, it had an epic little tower and a great story as to how it got its name. The quirky nature of some of these places keep doing this channel so much fun. When I find out there is a place named something like Nowhere, I get excited just thinking about visiting - even if there is hardly anything there to see.

May will get a little more exciting as I’ll be going to Tampa, FL, for the American Athletic Conference Track & Field Championships next week. Two weeks later I’ll be in Sacramento, CA, for the NCAA Prelims. In between I’ll probably be on the road recruiting, but not sure where. Hopefully I can combine that with some small town exploring and adventure. I don’t plan to film any videos while in Florida or California – I’ll be focused on coaching.

Once June rolls around my coaching world slows down a bit. There are still some possibilities to travel for a meet or two, but mostly I’ll start doing more personal travel at that point.

Summer travel?

I’ve had a lot of people ask me where my big summer trip is going to be. I’ve only recently started thinking about it and I’ve got a couple ideas. I’m hoping next month I’ll be able to talk about it more as I’ve just had some initial thoughts. The track and field season is very time consuming and has dominated most of my mental and physical energy for the past several months. However, I’m definitely excited to get out on the open road this summer and I’m 90% confident it’ll be in the western half of the United States, with the exception of a possible trip to Ohio to see family and friends.

May video releases (for the diehards)

I always like to reward anyone who is interested enough to have continued reading this far!

Here’s what I have coming up on the channel …

Thu, May 4 – Kansas Ghost Towns #19 – Wabaunsee, Volland, Templin (released this week)

Sun, May 7 – small town, USA – Waynoka, OK

Thu, May 11 – Oklahoma Ghost Towns #9 – Avard, Hopeton, Capron

Sun, May 14 – Exploring Wamego, KS, including the OZ Museum

Thu, May 18 – Dead Woman’s Crossing – Weatherford, OK

Sun, May 21 – small town, USA – Jet, OK

Thu, May 25 – My 200th video – Q&A

Sun, May 28 – small town, USA – Freedom, OK

Last month I totally changed what I had posted here, so we’ll see how this ends up.

Thanks again for all the support! Until next time, safe travels!

 

Ups and downs of YouTube and trying to keep the pace!

I’m trying to do this on the first Sunday of each month as a recap of the previous month. So, if you enjoy reading these, you’ll know when to look for them!

March Recap – ups and downs of YouTube

After a February that was the best in the history of “Travel with a Wiseguy”, reality came crashing down in March haha. Views and subscribers in March were about a third of the previous month, which at first would seem bad, but actually is quite solid when put into a bigger perspective.

YouTube channels go in phases of growth and mine grew a lot in the past three months. In December, January, and February the channel basically doubled in subscribers and more than doubled in views. That’s not something that is sustainable forever and the March results are somewhat predictable. I’ve also read that this time of the year is less popular on YouTube as a whole compared to the summer and winter months.

I put out two videos about Linn County, and even though they weren't as popular as the previous ones I did about Greenwood County, I still received lots of nice messages from people who live there. So many of them thanked me for putting a spotlight on their small communities. For most of these small towns, it's the only presence on YouTube they may ever have. I'm proud to be the middle man to connect them with so many others who are learning about them for the first time.

In the month of March, there were still over 160,000 views and over 700 new subscribers, to bring the totals to 2.3 million and 13,100, respectively.

What will April bring? Stay tuned.

Recent travels

April is the busiest time of my year with coaching track at Wichita State. So, traveling for YouTube is pretty tough. However, at the beginning March, I was able to get out to western Kansas for a couple days and have released 2 of the 4 videos I filmed (Kansas’ Rocks! and Plains, KS). That was a fun few days – I always love exploring around that part of the state!

This past week I was in Austin, Texas, with our team for the Texas Relays. I wasn’t able to do any YouTube work, but it’s always fun to hang out in Austin. That city is growing like crazy! I went to In-n-Out Burger and Buc'ees while in Texas!

Other than that, I’ve been in Wichita trying to help people run fast :)

Trying to keep up the pace

Starting last summer my goal was to publish two videos per week. So far I’ve been able to do that, but the next two months will test me. I’ve filmed enough videos to get me through the month of April, but May could be difficult. Once I get to the end of May, my schedule opens up a bit and I’m able to get out to explore more frequently.

I definitely want to achieve this goal, so I might be getting creative to reach the finish line at the end of May. Would you be interested in a Q&A type video? I’ve never wanted this channel to be about me, but I’ve had a few people request this and I’d try to make it interesting (might even bring in my mentor Curt Rierson for some of his wisdom too).

Are there any other non-travel videos you would like to see?

For my 100th video, I did a highlight recap of the first 99. That was fun to look back. I could do the same for #200 and highlight videos 100-200 as it will be approaching in late May.

Having this goal has been a great way for me to continue thinking about new ways to make videos. It’s a very healthy way to force me to continue to be creative. Hopefully you have enjoyed it too!

April video releases (for the diehards)

I always like to reward anyone who is interested enough to have continued reading this far :)

Here’s what I have coming up on the channel (subject to change of course – it always does) …

Sun, Apr 2 – small town, USA – Plains, KS (released today)

Thu, Apr 6 – Texas Ghost Towns #4 – Grapetown, Oatmeal, Nameless

Sun, Apr 9 – The Dalton Gang Hideout – Meade, KS

Thu, Apr 13 – Arkansas Ghost Towns #3 – Monte Ne

Sun, Apr 16 – Greeley County – Least Populated County in Kansas

Thu, Apr 20 – NE Oklahoma Ghost Towns on or near Route 66

Sun, Apr 23 – The Largest Salt Flat in the World – Uyuni, Bolivia (filmed in 2019)

Thu, Apr 27 – Bolivian Train Graveyard (filmed in 2019)

Sun, Apr 30 – TBA

I’ve also started releasing YouTube Shorts on Tuesdays. Early returns are hit and miss, but I’ve only done two so far. I’ll report back next month to analyze how that’s going.

I may or may not work on those two videos from Bolivia. They would be interesting, but a departure from what I usually do. And this list will change up quickly if I’m able to get out and about in the next few weeks. I have an open weekend on April 22-23 so I’m hoping to do some filming then.

Thanks again for all the support! Until next time, safe travels!

How the channel is growing and future trips to the least populated counties in the country

I’m trying to do this on the first Sunday of each month as a recap of the previous month. So, if you enjoy reading these, you’ll know when to look for them.

February Recap – the all-time best month yet!

In the previous blog, I was feeling pretty good about how December and January went, and then February came along and blew it out of the water. Even though there were only 28 days, the channel had 540k views and added over 2200 subscribers (both all-time bests).

I had kind of bragged how the “Loving County, TX” video was doing well at 30k views the first week. Then it skyrocketed to be the most viewed video on the channel and now sits at 321k. Wow! On top of that I released the “10 SmallestTowns in Texas”, and it has steadily chugged along to 60k views so far. I’m assuming it will continue to grow, because it kind of got lost behind the Loving County video for a while. Needless to say, I gained a lot more followers from Texas in February!

As a total accumulation, we’re now up to 12,450 subscribers and 2.1 million views. That’s crazy.

How the channel is growing

What I’ve noticed is that there is an increasing “foundation” of viewers as the subscriber count increases. This seems obvious but isn’t always the case on some channels. At this point it seems that whatever video I put up, it will immediately get at least 3000 views in the first day, and then from there it varies depending on how well it’s received. A few months ago, that foundational number of views was probably around 750-1000 in the first day.

The good news is that the channel seems to have some very dedicated followers who watch every time a new video is released, no matter what/where it’s about. The success of the video after that seems to be 1) geographical and 2) randomness.

For example, because I’ve done “10 Smallest Towns” videos in five states (KS, OK, MO, NE, TX), and all those videos are popular, I have a good number of subscribers from all those states because of those videos. So the geographical part I mentioned above means that if I release a video from one of those 5 states, it will probably do fairly well. If I release one from a state not on that list like Arkansas, it probably won’t do as well – as evidenced by the Feb 9 video about Rush, Arkansas, that only has about 2500 views so far.

The 2^nd reason for success (randomness) … I have no idea how to predict that. I did that Loving County video and thought it have an average reception, and it has become the most viewed video in the history of the channel. That totally surprised me.

Future trips

I’ve been super busy with my full-time job as a track coach at Wichita State, so I haven’t been able to do very much in the way of “YouTube” travel lately. Although I was able to sneak in a couple days in Oklahoma a few weeks ago. I’ve been thinking about the next “10 Smallest Towns” video so I put the question out to subscribers on YouTube to see what they thought. There were 438 votes, and the results were: Arkansas 33%, Colorado 24%, Arizona & Iowa 17%, Ohio 8%.

So, I guess I should start planning a trip to Arkansas haha. It makes a lot of sense, because I’ve already released two videos about Arkansas and plan to release a third one in April.

Actually, I’ve already looked at it. The 10 towns range from a population of 50 down to 20. They are pretty spread out and would require four days to visit them all. I doubt I will have four consecutive days free until the summer, unless I can get creative later this month and do it in two different weekend trips. I’d prefer to do it all at once, but I just don’t have the free time during track season. Stay tuned.

I do plan on doing some more local trips around Kansas that I can get “there and back” on a weekend.

Back to Loving County …

No, I’m not going to travel back to Loving County, Texas (the least populated county in the USA), although I would if I could so I could eat at The Stop. But the success of that video got me thinking … Would a series called “Least Populated County in (insert state here)” be interesting? I think it might be.

So, I looked it up and the least populated counties in KS and OK are Greeley County, KS (population 1,284) and Cimarron County, OK (population 2,296). Those are huge compared to Loving County’s population of 64, but I still think it would be interesting to explore and try to show others what those counties are like. I did something similar when I explored Greenwood County, KS, and released it in two parts, looking for all the ghost towns I could find. Those videos were well received and I’m planning to do the same for Linn County, KS, later this month.

What do you think?

March video releases (for the diehards)

I always like to reward anyone who is interested enough to have continued reading this far :)

Here’s what I have coming up on the channel (subject to change of course – it always does) …

Thu, Mar 2 – Trading Post, KS (released this past Thursday)

Sun, Mar 5 – small town, USA – Coldspring, TX (released today)

Thu, Mar 9 – Nebraska Ghost Towns #5 – Venus, Wee Town, Ames

Sun, Mar 12 – small town, USA – Oxford, KS

Thu, Mar 16 – Kentucky Ghost Towns #3 – Wisdom, Knob Lick, Sulfur Well, Alone

Sun, Mar 19 – small town, USA – Arcadia, OK

Thu, Mar 23 – Linn County, KS, Ghost Towns Part 1

Sun, Mar 26 – TBA

Thu, Mar 30 – Linn County, KS, Ghost Towns Part 2

I think this is a pretty interesting list of videos. The Trading Post video was a lot of fun because I was able to get a tour from the local historian.

Thanks again for all the support! Until next time, safe travels!

How I juggle being a track coach while building a YouTube channel

I’ve been super busy, so I haven’t been able to write a blog lately, so here’s the first one in a couple months …

10k subscribers

The channel has continued to grow steadily, and it cruised past 10,000 subscribers a couple weeks ago. I thought there might be a dip in growth, but it’s just been very consistent with slight ups and downs since December.

December was the best month the channel has ever had. How good was it?

In the month of December alone, Travel with a Wiseguy had 2,063 subscribers, 339,244 views, and 37,287 watch hours.

In January those numbers were slightly lower. 1,672 subscribers, 303,721 views, and 33,309 watch hours. Still really good, but not quite what December was.

I think the growth of YouTube channels vary widely depending on what kind of channel it is. Mine seems to have found an older audience that stumbles upon it gradually over time. It’s been very interesting and continues to be a humbling experience that so many people are watching me talk about these obscure places.

Recent videos and their ups and downs

Since my last blog on December 11, I’ve released 17 videos to varying levels of success. Obviously, I love when a new video finds a wide audience, but I don’t make videos trying to get views. I make videos that I personally find interesting, and I know some won’t get as many eyeballs as others – and I’m totally good with that.

The most successful video of those 17 was one I just published last week about the least populated county in the USA – Loving County, Texas. I wasn’t sure how this would do because I don’t have a large Texas following (yet). But it really caught on and got over 30,000 views in the first week (and gaining momentum every day).

Another one that did well was Missouri Ghost Towns Part 7 (around 10k views). Almost anything I put out there about Missouri does pretty well, because I’ve gained so many followers from the “Missouri Top-10 Smallest Towns” and “Missouri Route 66 Ghost Towns” videos. Those are the two most popular videos on my channel with both over 180k views.

On the other end of the spectrum are two videos, that only have around 1400 views each: “New Year’s in Luckenbach, Texas” and my walkthrough of an abandoned school in Gray Horse, Oklahoma. I thought the Luckenbach one might do better, but oh well it was still a very cool place and I had a blast that night! The school tour was an experiment where I released it on a random day without any announcements to see what would happen.

But to be honest, I had no idea if the Loving County video or Luckenbach video would be more popular. Interesting stuff.

I’m a week away from releasing my next “big video”, which will be the Top-10 Smallest Towns in Texas. The previous four versions of this (Kansas, Oklahoma, Missouri, Nebraska) all rank in the top-5 most popular videos I have published. Will Texas follow the same pattern? I would think so. But maybe this time YouTube won’t like it. My bet is that it will do pretty well. I’m currently working on it, and I think it should be an interesting video. We’ll see what happens!

Juggling coaching track and YouTube

If you follow my YouTube channel, you might think I spend a majority of my time traveling around the country and editing videos. That’s actually the opposite of how I spend my days. I’d say 90% of my time and effort is put into my full-time job as a track and field coach at Wichita State University – where I’ve been since 2006. And from January until June it’s probably more like 98% of my time. In fact, I’m writing this as we travel back on a bus from a meet we just had in South Dakota.

For the first couple years of my channel, I tried to release one video per week. I could travel some in the summer and over the winter holidays filming for a couple weeks and have tons of footage available to edit over the course of the busy track and field months. The philosophy right now is the same, except I’m trying to do two videos per week. I’ve been able to keep up that pace since August, and we’ll see if I can keep it up until this summer.

Currently, I have shot enough video to get through about the end of March. Most of those were things I did in late December and early January when I was on vacation during the holidays. If I’m going to be able to continue with two videos per week, I’ll have to get on the road when I have a rare off weekend. Looking ahead at my schedule I do have a few of those weekends available. Being able to have a productive video shoot mainly depends on being at the mercy of mother nature. And if you’ve ever lived in Kansas in the Spring, you’ll chuckle at how unpredictable the weather can be for the next few months.

I definitely don’t want this to come off as complaining. Not at all! And keeping up with posting two videos isn’t that difficult – except for just being able to get out and shoot videos. I’ve gotten good at editing quickly and I rarely spend more than 5 hours per week on that process.

I’m very lucky to have two things (coaching and traveling) that I am able to do. There’s just not quite enough hours in the day to do both fully. So, track and field gets the nod – as that’s my full-time gig. And a great one at that!

Future videos (for the diehards)

I always like to reward anyone who is interested enough to have continued reading this far haha.

Here’s what I have coming up on the channel (subject to change of course – it always does) …

Sun, Feb 5 (today) – small town, USA – Moline, KS

Thu, Feb 9 – Arkansas Ghost Towns #2 – Rush, Newtown, McIntosh

Sun, Feb 12 – Top-10 Smallest Towns in Texas

Thu, Feb 16 – Kentucky Ghost Towns #2 - Paradise

Sun, Feb 19 – TBA

Thu, Feb 23 – Texas Ghost Towns #3 – Tarzan, Penwell, Langtry

Sun, Feb 26 – small town, USA – LaCenter, KY

Thu, Mar 2 – Nebraska Ghost Towns #5 – Venus, Wee Town, Ames

Sun, Mar 5 – small town, USA – Coldspring, TX

I’ve got some other stuff I’m thinking about, so this might change. And if I am able to get out and explore for a day or two, I might add some stuff to this as well. That’s why Feb 19 is TBA. I’m hoping to film something next weekend for that slot.

Thanks again for all the support! Hopefully this is interesting for some of you as I continue to navigate this path of growing a YouTube channel.

Until next time, safe travels!

Hitting YouTube Milestones and Upcoming Travel Plans

We’ve hit some major milestones on Travel with a Wiseguy recently …

1 million views

When 2022 started, you wouldn’t have been able to convince me this would happen by the end of the year. Here’s how the first three years of the channel have grown in terms of video views:

2020 – 26k

2021 – 131k

2022 – 890k (and growing)

There’s been a solid growth in the channel in the past month, so there’s a chance it hits 1 million by the end of the year for 2022 alone. This blows me away.

7,000 subscribers

Similar to above, here are how the subscribers have grown by year:

2020 – 146

2021 – 955

2022 – 6,050

It appears that subscribers = views, or views = subscribers (or both).

100,000 views for one video

I’ve seen a lot of YouTube channels with less success have videos go “viral”, but not be able to repeat it or sustain consistent growth. As you can see from above, the growth of this channel was very slow for a couple years, and I never had a video go viral. What did happen, however, is several videos saw increased traffic in the past 6 months, and this week I had my first video top 100,000 views. What is interesting is how others are close behind …

Top-10 Smallest Towns in Kansas – 100,299 views

Top-10 Smallest Towns in Oklahoma – 95,533 views

Top-10 Smallest Towns in Missouri – 94,316 views

Other top videos are:

Route 66 Missouri Ghost Towns – 63,263 views

Top-10 Smallest Towns in Nebraska – 44,754 views (released 4 weeks ago)

small town, USA – Galena, Missouri – 32,428 views (released last week)

Greenwood County, KS, Ghost Towns Part 1 – 20,765 views (released 6 weeks ago)

There are 13 more videos that have received between 10k-20k views.

Obviously, the Top-10 videos are the most popular (I’ve written about this previously). What is interesting beyond that is the variety of videos next on the list. I have no idea why the video about the small town of Galena (population 455) has done so well. I expected it to be like all the other videos of that type, which have received between 2k-11k views. Whenever I think I have YouTube figured out, it surprises me once again.

With all that being said, I just wanted to say thank you to everyone who continues to watch these little videos. It’s very humbling to look at these numbers!

Upcoming travel plans

This week I’m headed to Denver, Colorado, for the US Track & Field Coaches Convention. I’ll be out there with other members of the Wichita State staff to talk about our sport, attend a variety of coaching seminars, and watch the presentation of the Bowerman Awards (Track and Field’s version of the Heisman Trophy). I won’t be filming any videos while I’m in Colorado, unfortunately, but it will be good to hang out with my colleagues in the track and field world.

Once I get back home from Denver, I’ll be in Wichita for a few days before driving east to Ohio for Christmas. Of course, I plan to take the scenic route along the way. My plan is to exit Kansas in the southeast corner, traverse through the southern part of Missouri, and then explore around the south and eastern parts of Kentucky. I may even dip into Virginia for a stop in one special town before heading north to Ohio. I’ll be in Ohio for several days spending the holidays with family.

Just before the new year, I’ll be flying from Ohio down to Texas where I will be trying to visit the 10 smallest towns in the state. I’m hoping to make some other interesting videos about the Lonestar State while I’m there, but it’s a huge state and I’ll be doing a massive amount of driving to get to the 10 smallest towns. Then I’ll be heading back to Wichita in early January to get ready for the indoor track and field season.

If you want to know more exact whereabouts, follow me on Instagram where I often put photos and videos on my story of where I’m currently located. My Instagram account is travel_wiseguy.

Upcoming videos (for the diehards)

Here is my tentative video release schedule for the rest of 2022 …

Sun, Dec 11 (today) – small town, USA – Fairfax, OK

Thu, Dec 15 – East Calico, AR

Sun, Dec 18 – small town, USA – Beaver City, NE

Tue, Dec 20 – Gray Horse, OK – abandoned school (this is a short 3 minute bonus video)

Thu, Dec 22 – Oklahoma Ghost Towns #7 – Sumner, Webb City, Gray Horse

Sun, Dec 25 – TBA (I’m hoping to film something next weekend in Kansas)

Thu, Dec 29 – My favorite ghost towns of 2022 (and a few from 2021)

I’ve got 4 ghost town videos I filmed previously that I’m going to release after the new year from Nebraska, Arkansas, and Missouri. And I’m still holding onto some footage from my trip to Bolivia in 2019 that I might release at some point.

Other than that, I’ll be doing a lot of filming between now and early January to be released in the first 3 months of 2023. I’ve been able to keep up the pace of 2 videos per week since August, but it takes a little more planning as compared to when I was doing one per week.

This will be my last blog post of 2022, hopefully my next one will be filled with information about cool stuff I saw in these upcoming weeks! Until then … happy travels!

Greenwood County likes the Wiseguy, and do I have a YouTube strategy?

Greenwood County likes the Wiseguy

Last month when I posted on this blog, I was about to release a couple videos of traveling all around Greenwood County, Kansas (population 6,016). That proved successful as this rural county and their ghost towns received over 35,000 views in a couple weeks.

While I continue to learn about how YouTube and its algorithm works, I never really know what will happen with a video. Generally, a lot of my followers are from Kansas, so those videos usually do well. But some of these videos are in such isolated and remote places it has to have some word of mouth for them to ultimately be successful. I received so many nice comments and emails from people who either currently live in Greenwood County, used to live there, or has family there. I think I got lucky by choosing a county that has so many ghost towns. Are there other Kansas counties that would be good to visit? I’m thinking “by county” might be a good way for some future videos.

Other videos released in the past month

I also released a couple of “small town, USA” videos from Nebraska and Iowa, and as expected they didn’t get as much traction as the earlier ones from Kansas. This doesn’t bother me (I’ll explain why below). I published a video about Nicodemus, Kansas, that I’m proud of. It’s not monetized because I used some copyrighted music, but I really loved how it complimented the last half of the video and I decided to keep it in there. It might cause me to not make a couple bucks, but at this point of my channel’s life that isn’t a priority. I received a nice message from the people who run their historic site about how thankful they were to get some positive attention for Nicodemus. Hopefully it motivates people to visit if they are ever heading out towards NW Kansas.

The longest video I released in the past month was the “Top-10 smallest towns in Nebraska”. This is the fourth video of this type I’ve released, and the first three (KS, OK, MO) are the three most popular videos on my channel. It has started out solidly and I’ve heard from a lot of appreciative Nebraskans. In terms of quality, I think it’s one of the best videos I’ve done (except for the darn audio in the final town).

Do I have a strategy for releasing videos?

As this YouTube thing is still a hobby, I don’t put a ton of thought as to how to grow the channel, but over time I have tweaked things to experiment with it. I can’t believe I now have over 6,000 subscribers and am approaching a million views since this started back in the summer of 2020. A lot of the success has been totally random, while some of it has been planned. I’d give it a 75%/25% random/planned ratio.

The first significant change I made was in the summer of 2021, where I decided to mostly focus on small towns, ghost towns, and the occasional road trip (which also focused on small towns). I noticed videos that strayed from these topics weren’t very popular (RIP slushie reviews), and my interest in the small town genre was what I wanted to focus on anyways.

The other significant “strategy” I’ve developed was totally by luck. I had released three of these “top-10 smallest towns” videos that did well, but nothing spectacular. They were all floating around 10,000 views, then they took off and one at a time got up to over 80,000 views in a couple months. The first one (Kansas) had been out for over a year before it took off. But not only did these videos go viral (at least for a small channel like mine), it raised up all the other videos that were geographically related. For example, when the Missouri top-10 video got all these views, all the Missouri ghost town videos I had previously released got way more views than normal. Same for Oklahoma and Kansas.

It makes sense now that I think about it, because why wouldn’t someone who's interested in the “popular” video click on similar ones about their home state?

So, if you’ve noticed recently, I’ve tried to release several videos about Nebraska ghost towns, small towns, and The Oregon Trail in Nebraska, as a ramp up to the Top-10 smallest towns in Nebraska video. I’m also working on a few other Nebraska ghost town videos in the coming weeks/months so there is a “library” of videos for people from the Cornhusker State. The hope is if the Top-10 video goes the same route as the previous ones that it’s a “rising tide lifts all boats” deal. It seems to already be working as the Nebraska Oregon Trail videos have become the most popular ones of that entire series.

Will it continue to work? Who knows. But it kind of makes sense, right?

Upcoming release schedule and travel plans - for the diehards

I really appreciate the growing number of people who are interested in what I’m doing, so I’m happy to share what I’ve got coming up with those who are really into it.  Here’s my plan for the next few weeks or so …

Sun, Nov 20 (tomorrow) – small town, USA – Yale, Oklahoma

Thu, Nov 24 – Wyoming Ghost Towns #2 – Miner’s Delight, Atlantic City, South Pass City

Sun, Nov 27 – small town, USA – Scribner, Nebraska

Thu, Dec 1 – Idaho Ghost Towns #2 – Chesterfield, Silver City

Sun, Dec 4 – ?????

Thu, Dec 8 – Nebraska Ghost Towns #3 – Kronborg, Nysted, Dannevirke

Sun, Dec 11 – ?????

I’ve filmed two videos for these Sunday releases that I put “?????” above, but I’m not sure if I want to publish them yet. I’m going to explore a little bit over Thanksgiving break (see below), and I might want to move something in there from where I’m going. I also have two more Nebraska ghost towns videos besides the one listed above, but I want to try and spread those out and sprinkle in other states in the coming weeks. Two other videos I’m thinking about is a “Favorite Ghost Towns of 2022” video at the end of the year (everyone loves end of year lists right?), and I’ve got footage from my 2019 trip to Bolivia that I’ve been holding onto forever. I previously released videos about Easter Island and Peru, and this would be the final video from that trip. Don’t know when I might do that one, but it’s there ready to begin editing.

I’ve got a few trips planned between now and January. The first one (later this week) is still a work in progress. I’ve been very busy with my full-time job coaching track at Wichita State, so I haven’t been able to plan much. But I’m hoping to take a few days and possibly explore into Missouri, Arkansas, and Oklahoma. Not sure how much I will be able to do because I gotta get back to Wichita Saturday to see my buddy Cole Davis (Workin for the Wild on YouTube)!

I’ll be in Denver, Colorado, from Dec 12-17 for our national coaches convention. I don’t think I’ll be able to make any videos during that time, but it’ll be a nice trip.

Once I get back from Denver, I’ve got a big trip in the works. My current idea is to take a few days to drive to Ohio to see my family for the holidays. I haven’t figured out my route between Kansas and Ohio yet, but Missouri, Illinois, Tennessee, Indiana, and Kentucky are all possibilities. Once I get to Ohio I’ll be there for several days, so maybe I’ll film something while I’m “home”. I’d like to do a small town, USA video of Russellville, Ohio – the current home of my brother and where I went to junior high (the old school is still there).

Then on December 27 I’ll be flying to Houston, Texas, to spend a week exploring all around The Lone Star State. I plan to visit the smallest 10 towns and film several ghost town and small town videos along the way. Texas is a HUGE state, so we’ll see if I can get to all those places in a week. Should be fun to try!

Then I’ll be back in Wichita on January 3 to get ready for the indoor track and field season.

The best place to keep up with where I’m currently at is Instagram travel_wiseguy.

Ok I think that’s enough for now. I hope everyone has a great Thanksgiving! Thank you for the continued support of Travel with a Wiseguy!

Wyatt Earp, small town USA, and mic problems

Here’s the latest on Travel with a Wiseguy!

We have climbed to over 5,400 subscribers and 750,000 total video views in the history of the channel. I never would’ve imagined this would grow to those numbers and I want to thank everyone for their continued support!

small town, USA

Two weeks ago, I started posting a new series of videos about small towns that aren’t ghost towns, and the response has been very good! I’ve only published two videos so far (Madison, KS, and Howard, KS) and they have received over 16,000 views already. I even got an email from the city clerk of Madison that sent her appreciation from the people of the town! People are generally proud of their small town they grew up in, and hopefully these videos continue to resonate with those communities.

You never know how a new video will go. I know that I have a pretty solid base of ghost town “fans” as well as an even larger base of viewers that watch anything I put out about Kansas. These new videos kind of combine that. I will be putting out “small town, USA” videos from other states in the coming weeks, so it’ll be interesting to see how that goes (Here’s looking at you Butte, Nebraska).

Recent travels and mic problems

We just had our “Fall Break” at Wichita State, so I took a few days and traveled up to Nebraska. The goal of the trip was to visit the 10 smallest towns in the state (which I accomplished). I also visited a bunch of ghost towns and did some of the aforementioned small town, USA videos. The highlight of the trip was when I got to meet and interview Elsie Eiler, who is the only resident of Monowi, Nebraska. I rarely ask someone to do an interview and I was fortunate that she sat down with me and talked for 10-15 minutes. The bad part is for some reason the mic on my phone didn’t like something and much of the interview has a scratchy sound. I couldn’t believe it – this is basically the only interview I’ve ever done, and the mic screwed up (face palm). But I am hoping to salvage it enough to be part of the video, because she was great to chat with! I also bought a cool Monowi t-shirt from her. 😊

 Wichita’s Wild West past

1870's Wichita

Speaking of different kinds of videos, today (Sunday, October 23) I released a video about the early years of Wichita and when Wyatt Earp was roaming the streets in the 1870’s. I’ve always been fascinated with Wild West history and now that I live in Wichita I can literally walk to where a lot of those historic things happened! There aren’t many photos and videos from that time period, so much of this video is just me talking. Honestly, I hate that, but if you watch you’ll notice I try to put up what photos I could find, newspapers quotes, maps, etc. to take the focus off looking at me haha. I know some of the most famous YouTube personalities make themselves the focus of the videos (and often that is exactly what they need to do), but I hope my videos generally keep the focus on the topic I’m talking about. I just want to be a voice giving the information and showing videos I’ve made, but I have been told that it’s important to have a “connection” with the viewers (that sounds arrogant) to keep them coming back to watch more videos. I definitely never want to make this about me, because the history out there is so much more interesting!

Travel plans and future videos

While I was in Nebraska, I was able to get around to enough places to have footage for 10 future videos (see below). I have been thinking about a couple of short trips before the end of the year. I might take a day trip up to Cottonwood Falls, KS, and some interesting areas near there. Also, I might go down to Oklahoma for a day or two before the weather gets chilly. As I mentioned last month, I have a lot of ideas for late December/early January travel. Those are still up in the air. I might go to Denver for the US Track Coaches Convention in mid-December. I plan to go to Ohio for Christmas. I’d like to squeeze in a few days in Texas before returning to Wichita for track practice in early January.

If you are interested in keeping up with where I’m at, the best place to follow me is Instagram (Travel with a Wiseguy). Often, I’ll put some photos in the story of where I’m currently exploring.

Here is the tentative release schedule for the next few weeks (sometimes I change it on a whim):

Sun, Oct 23 (today) – Wichita’s Wild West Past/Wyatt Earp

Thu, Oct 27 – Greenwood County, KS, ghost towns Part 1 (14 towns and 1 bridge!)

Sun, Oct 30 – small town, USA – Butte, NE

Thu, Nov 3 – Greenwood County, KS, ghost towns Part 2 (13 more towns and 5 more bridges!)

Sun, Nov 6 – small town, USA – Hamburg, IA

Thu, Nov 10 – Nebraska Ghost Towns #2 – Amboy, Angus, Spring Ranch

Sun, Nov 13 – Top-10 Smallest Towns Nebraska

Thu, Nov 17 – Kansas Ghost Towns #15 – Nicodemus

Sun, Nov 20 – small town, USA – Scribner, NE

Thu, Nov 24 – Wyoming Ghost Towns #2 – Miner’s Delight, Atlantic City, South Pass City

Sun, Nov 27 – small town, USA – Beaver City, NE

Thu, Dec 1 – Idaho Ghost Towns #2 – Chesterfield, Silver City

That is the current plan through the end of November. It could easily change if I go for a short trip to one of the above mentioned places. I like to try and mix it up and not have to many videos from the same state all in a row.

I also have 3 Nebraska ghost town videos that I filmed and will release in December or later:

Nebraska Ghost Towns #3 – Kronborg, Nysted, Dannevirke

Nebraska Ghost Towns #4 – Sparks, Meadville, Brocksburg

Nebraska Ghost Towns #5 – Venus, Wee Town, Ames

That seems like enough for now. Thanks again to everyone for the support! Happy Travels!