Looking ahead to my summer road trip and recapping a crazy June!

June travel recap – getting the itch to get out and about

With the spring academic semester ending at the beginning of June, life has been a little less hectic lately. There’s still plenty of work to do around the office, so I’m keeping busy, but looking forward to my big trip later this month (see below).

In June, however, I did get out and explore a little. At the beginning of the month, I spent 2 days driving around the very desolate county of Comanche County, Kansas. I really enjoyed it and released 3 videos about the area. I did a little longer trip over to Arkansas for 4 days finding the smallest towns in the state, which I’m currently releasing this weekend. That was an interesting trip as I literally went to all 4 corners of the state to find these places. There were several parts of the state I had never been to, so that made it interesting. But I also battled some rain that put me behind schedule, as well as getting a flat tire on my final day! Besides filming the smallest towns and two other videos, I did a “behind the scenes” vlog that I might try to put together. We’ll see – I’m not always sure people want to watch stuff like that on my channel and often it feels self-serving.

Here in Wichita, I went over to the Old Cowtown Museum one Sunday and will be putting something together for that. And one day after work last week, I went down to Perry, OK, to explore my buddy Brent Kemnitz’ hometown. That will be a different kind of “small town, USA” video – should be interesting!

Overall, I made one 4-day trip, one 2-day trip, and a couple day trips.

June YouTube recap – Texas rolls on and my “racist” video hits a nerve!

It was a wild month of releasing videos. Overall, I published 9 regular videos and 4 shorts. And while there were some new videos that did well, the one that really got views was the 10 Smallest Towns in Texas that I released in February. Midway through June, this video started randomly getting thousands of views per day and had 67k views in June alone (mostly in the past 2 weeks). It’s quickly headed towards 200k views overall and will be interesting to see how long it will stay popular in the YouTube algorithm. I say keep it rolling Texas!

For recent videos, I released one that could be considered slightly controversial – Zinc, Arkansas. It’s home to the Grand Wizard of the KKK. I don’t do videos like this very often, so I had a lot of people view and make comments that aren’t regular viewers – even his granddaughter commented! Mostly it was received well, but a few local people thought I wasn’t fair in how I portrayed the town. They’ve been hit hard with the “most racist town in America” tag, and even though I didn’t accuse the town of that, a lot of people took it that way. It got a lot of views on the first day I released it and has been pretty steady since. I think it’ll probably end up being one of the more popular videos on the channel over time.

A video that has done surprisingly well is the one I did about the Chinese ghost town of Locke, CA. I don’t have a lot of fans from California, but after a couple weeks of not getting very many views, it started gaining traction and a lot of people from the Golden State started commenting. That’s a good sign because I have one more video from there to release, and I’ll be back there later in July. On the other hand, I released a video about Old Sacramento that did very poorly in comparison. But it wouldn’t surprise me for it to find a future audience as well. Fortunately for me, most of my videos aren’t time sensitive and videos can take off at any given time (Texas 10 smallest towns for example).

But overall, it was a very good month on the channel. Over 210k views and 963 new subscribers. That’s the best month on the channel since February, which was a big blip on the radar. Hopefully this momentum will continue into July!

Upcoming travels

I’ve got my big trip coming up in a couple weeks. However, first I’ve decided to take a couple days this weekend to explore Dade County, MO. It’s kind of a random trip, but I haven’t made any videos about Missouri lately and I know I have a lot of viewers from there wanting to see some new stuff. 2 of the 3 most popular videos on my channel are about Missouri. So, I decided to take this little trip and do a 2-part video like I’ve done about some counties in Kansas. I’m also planning a couple of small town, USA, videos.

Summer road trip – US 50 - Kansas to California

I’ve been talking about my “big trip” this summer for a while and now I’ve got some of the details figured out. I’ll be stopping in the middle to hang out with our coaching staff in Breckenridge, CO, so it won’t be a straight non-stop trip. I’m also planning some rest days to explore more in the area or to take a break if I need it.

This is a tentative itinerary. I have yet to book hotels. If anyone has any recommendations let me know!

July 12 – Leawood, KS to Newton, KS – staying at my home in Wichita that night

July 13 – Newton, KS to Garden City, KS

July 14 – Garden City, KS to Rocky Ford, CO

July 15 – Rocky Ford, CO to Salida, CO – then up to Breckenridge, CO

July 16-18 – Breckenridge, CO

July 19 – Breckenridge to Salida, CO to get back on US 50 then over to Grand Junction, CO

July 20 – Grand Junction CO to Salina, UT

July 21 – extra day in Salina, UT

July 22 – Salina, UT to Baker, NV

July 23 – Baker, NV to Eureka, NV

July 24 – extra day in Eureka, NV

July 25 – Eureka, NV to Fallon, NV

July 26 – Fallon, NV to South Lake Tahoe, CA

July 27 – extra day in Lake Tahoe

July 28 – South Lake Tahoe, CA to Sacramento, CA – end of US 50 trip

July 29 – Sacramento, CA to Santa Rosa, CA

July 30 – Flying back to Wichita, KS

My plan is to make 2 US 50 videos per state (KS, CO, UT, NV) and one for CA. I’ll also be filming ghost town videos and other historical sites along the way. I am planning to release these videos from early August until mid-October.

Upcoming video releases (for the diehards)

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

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

Sun, July 2 – 10 Smallest Towns in Arkansas

Thu, July 6 – California Ghost Towns #2 – Coloma

Sun, July 9 – small town, USA – Perry, OK

Thu, July 13 – Old Cowtown Museum – Wichita, KS

Sun, July 16 – small town, USA – Greenfield, MO

Thu, July 20 – Arkansas Ghost Towns #4 – Eros, Bruno

Sun, July 23 – small town, USA – Lockwood, MO

Thu, July 27 – Dade County, MO, Part 1

Sun, July 30 – small town, USA – Greensburg, KS

Thu, Aug 3 – Dade County, MO, Part 2

Sun, Aug 6 – Behind-the-scenes of my Arkansas trip

Thu, Aug 10 – this will begin my US 50 series that will last until Oct 12

Like every month, I end up changing what I’ve planned, so we’ll see how this ends up.

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

 

Winning back-to-back championships and "Summer Road Trip 2023"

May travel recap – track & field season comes to a close

In my real job, May was a very hectic and very memorable month. Our men’s track and field team at

Wichita State won back-to-back AAC Outdoor Championships, defeating the highly ranked and incredibly tough opponent Houston (coached by Carl Lewis). It came down to the final events and our guys pulled through for one of the most dramatic victories in my 25 year coaching career. It can take decades of coaching to have one moment like that, and I’ve been fortunate to have more than my share since I started coaching in 1998.

That championship took place in hot and muggy Tampa, Florida. I didn’t do any YouTube filming while I was there like I did 3 years ago, but I was able to get out to a couple other places in May. The weekend after going to Tampa, I took a short trip to Chase County, Kansas, where I filmed a small town, USA, video about beautiful Cottonwood Falls, and then the next day explored the rest of the county looking for ghost towns (2 videos coming up about that).

A few days later I was back on a plane headed to Sacramento, California, for the NCAA West Prelims. We were there for 6 days, and these meets have a lot of down time, so I took a couple early mornings to explore around the area. I released a ghost town video about the Chinese community of Locke last week, and I have two more videos I’ll be working on in the coming weeks.

My coaching for the year ended at the NCAA West Prelims. I still have plenty to do around the office, but I should be able to get out and travel much more in June and July.

May YouTube recap – bouncing back with help from The Oregon Trail

I had mentioned in previous blog posts that the previous couple of months have gone well, but not as well as December through February. The month of May, and in particular the last half of May, went considerably better and a few of the videos that were the most popular were somewhat unexpected.

The 8 videos I published in May did decent, with all of them getting between about 2,000 and 5,000 views. None of them were unbelievably popular though. The most popular video for the month was the 10 Smallest Towns in Texas. This video has done consistently well and continues to gain views even though it was released in February. It picked up over 18,000 views in May (over 120,000 views total).

While the Texas video has been doing well for months, the other videos that were popular in May were surprising. Last summer I published 10 videos about my trip on The Oregon Trail. They did ok when I put them out, but nothing that was much more than a normal video. For some reason they really took off this month with over 40,000 views. The Idaho part 1 video had over 15,000 by itself.

Maybe people are starting to look for summer road trip ideas? And it’s interesting that it was the Idaho video that did the best. YouTube is unpredictable.

As for the channel overall, May brought in around 150k total views and we picked up almost 800 new subscribers. This brings the lifetime totals to 2.55 million views and 14.4k subscribers!

Upcoming travels

I am going out to Comanche County, Kansas, this weekend in hopes of exploring several small towns and ghost towns. It’s the fourth smallest county by population in the state (1,689).

The following week I’m trying to venture over to Arkansas to find the 10 smallest towns in the state. Earlier this year I put out a poll on YouTube asking which state people would like to see the next version of the “10 Smallest Towns” and Arkansas won by a slim margin over Colorado. I’ve done some research and the towns are very spread out around the state. I think it’ll take 3 days to see them all. I’ll also try to find other ghost towns and interesting places along the way.

I’m not sure if/where I’ll go in the last couple weekends of the month. I’ve been wanting to go to Wichita’s Cowtown so maybe I’ll stay here for once haha.

Summer road trip – US 50

In my recent Q&A video, I announced I’ll be doing a summer road trip on US 50 from Kansas to California. US 50 actually goes all the way from the east coast to the west coast, but I don’t have time to do the whole thing this year – maybe I’ll complete it in the future. Fun fact, it goes just a few miles north of where I grew up in Ohio!

I’m planning for the US 50 road trip to be from July 12-29, although I’ll be taking a few days in the middle to stop in Breckenridge, Colorado, to hang out with our coaching staff. I’m hoping to explore some more places in Colorado while I’m there too. Last time I was there I made two videos including visiting the real South Park!

I will talk in more detail in next month’s blog about the US 50 trip. I’m very excited for it and have already started some early planning!

Upcoming June 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, Jun 1 – California Ghost Towns #1 – Locke & State Route 160

Sun, Jun 4 – small town, USA – Freedom, OK

Thu, Jun 8 – Chase County, KS, Ghost Towns #2 (#1 was released Feb ‘22)

Sun, Jun 11 – small town, USA – Coldwater, KS

Thu, Jun 15 – Chase County, KS, Ghost Towns #3

Sun, Jun 18 – Old Sacramento, CA

Thu, Jun 22 – Comanche County, KS, Ghost Towns

Sun, Jun 25 – Arkansas Top-10 Smallest Towns

Thu, Jun 29 – California Ghost Towns #2 – Coloma

Like every month, I end up changing what I post here, so we’ll see how this ends up. Some of it depends on what I find in Arkansas.

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

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!