A Look at a Dozen YouTube Travel Channels

The good, the bad, and the dumb

Like many of us obsessed with soaking this world up while the soaking is good, I do a lot of travel-by-proxy during my considerable downtime. This, of course, started years ago with books penned by legends such as Paul Theroux and Bruce Chatwin, true stories of global adventure and velocity that also inspired me to grab a backpack and get out there.

It’s been nearly two decades since I decided to catapult myself out of the blubbery embrace of the USA, and with innumerable miles traveled—along with two books and a sheaf of magazine articles under my belt—I can at least say that I’ve made a fair attempt to emulate those writers whose words filled me with the irresistable desire to journey in the first place.

I’m now a married man with teaching responsibilities and a houseful of rescue animals, which means I have to be more strategic about choosing my deep travel dives. I’m at home more than I’d probably like to be, and while I still digest plenty of books that partially scratch this ever-burning itch to move, I’ve also taken to watching YouTube travel videos. After all, we live in a visual era, right?

I never intentionally sought out to become a YouTube travel junkie; instead, the vaunted algorithm began to curate these vids for me, and before long I slipped down the rabbit hole. While I’m sure there are at least thousands of people from more diverse backgrounds creating content from the road, the following are some that have caught my eye, in no particular order.

12. Indigo Traveller

With nearly 2 million subscribers, this Kiwi (Nick) is one of the bigger dogs when it comes to YouTube travel content. His was the first channel that really hooked me when I stumbled across his Ethiopia stuff some years back. After all, I was planning on heading to the Horn of Africa myself and Nick gave me an honest, ground’s-eye look at just what it was like to travel solo in that part of the world.

Since then his channel has really grown, as have the production values. Each video starts with a teaser, followed by a slick montage (with theme music). I actually find the teaser annoying because it’s just material you’re going to see anyway if you continue watching, and the opening sequence needlessly plays up the danger of his trips.

This is my big quibble: While Nick’s personal style is subdued and respectiful, his videos verge on poverty porn. He seems to exclusively travel to very rough and dangerous destinations where he invariably highlights the violence and hardship. This has become his calling card and is reflected in his sensationalistic clickbaity titles, such as Arriving in Honduras (not safe), and Walking Jamaica’s Dangerous Streets (urban war zone).

However, despite teetering on the edge of exploitation, Indigo Traveller does manage to sometimes veer into the land of legit journalism, as seen in his incredible series on Haiti. He also does his best to include links to local charities; his channel is big enough now that a simple shout out can mean thousands of dollars for such an organization, which in the end is a good thing.

11. Mark Wiens

This dude is among the top YouTube food travel guys, and for good reason. He heads around the globe and gets down with the real, local stuff. His enthusiasm is infectious and he doesn’t shy away from the bizarre or unconventional, while never slipping into performative Fear Factor mode (“Look at me eating fried junebugs!”).

An American based out of Thailand (his mother is Thai I believe), Wiens cut his teeth exploring and illuminating so much of the incredible cuisine that makes the Kingdom one of the world’s top food destinations. He really just did the hard work of getting out there and hitting markets and stalls all over Bangkok and beyond, growing his audience along the way. The guy has paid his dues.

While you can now see him dining on pricey lobster and Wagyu steak, Wiens shines brightest when digging into down-home family feasts in Indonesia or tacos on the streets of Tijuana.

He loves food—especially if it includes atomic spices and wobbly chunks of unpopular meat cuts—and it’s impossible to watch one of his vids and not want to jump on a bus, train, boat, or plane and get down with what the locals are eating. He’s probably done more to pick up the torch of the late Anthony Bourdain than anyone, and his massive success (10.4 million subscribers) tells you all you need to know.

10. Small Brained American

I’ve only recently come across this guy, and while he reminds me of some of my drinking buddies over the years, he also can come across as a champion dipshit. After all, the title of his channel tells us to reduce our expectations, and he plays the part well, complete with mullet, moustache, and Pit Viper shades.

The thing is, I don’t think he’s dumb at all. He’s just acting the fool for clicks, and purposefully learns nothing about the countries he finds himself in as some kind schtick, it seems. He often doesn’t even know what language is spoken, let alone a few words of greetings or thanks. I find such purposeful ignorance grating, to say this least. It also does us Americans no favors, since we already have a reputation for being a load of beef-tongued nitwits.

9. Itchy Boots

This Dutch woman is pretty badass, riding her motorcycle all around the globe with only a couple of cameras and some saddlebags. She’s gone from India to Europe, Patagonia to Peru, Ecuador to Alaska, and places beyond, specializing in raw dirt backroads that take us into the deep heart of wheverever she’s exploring.

Itchy Boots is currently making her way through West Africa, navigating rivers, mud-slicked tracks, rain forests, and sketchy border crossings. Despite her channel’s size (2.19 million subscribers) she travels hard and alone, which, being a woman, adds a whole new element of challenges, I’m sure.

8. Simon Wilson

With over a million followers, this Welshman often pops up in my mix, and while he seems nice enough, I just can’t account for his popularity. Perhaps his everyman demeanor is part of the charm, or maybe much of Wales has subscribed. After all, it’s not a big place.

Simon Wilson is perhaps best known for his “no money” challenges, where he gets by for a set number of days on just his wits and the kindness of strangers. This often includes very low-level grifts such as how to get a free burger at McDonalds or a coffee at Starbucks. And by grift I don’t mean just taking advantage of the rules: he’ll straight-up lie to the employees to get what he wants.

Okay, there’s really no foul in squeezing McD’s for a gratis cheeseburger, but the fact that he commands a large YouTube following and still feels the need to “play poor” for likes and subs just doesn’t sit well with me. Perhaps if he were a more compelling personality I’d be on his side.

That said, he has traveled extensively in the US and it’s always interesting to get a foreigner’s perspective on moving around back in YankeeDoodleLand. His US videos remind me just how big of a ballache the place is for a budget traveler. Unless you fly or drive yourself, Greyhound—a national shame—is still the country’s default busline. I’ve ridden far better transport in Cambodia.

7. Volpe Where Are You

This guy is one of my favorites. He’s laid-back, funny, and very kind, just bringing us along for the ride. Born in Venezuela, he grew up in Miami before heading to Latin America to pursue his passion for travel. His channel has since taken off, and his vids usually just feature him wandering the streets interacting with the locals.

He of course speaks fluent Spanish, which makes things much easier in that part of the world, and I suspect a good deal of his followers are Latin Americans. Still, it’s an English-language channel, and worth checking out for his Venezuelan stuff alone.

While a few of the other YouTubers listed here have made their way there, this dude returns home after 26 years in the US and lets us in on the journey. You can tell he savors being back in the homeland, while also saddened at the turmoil and poverty that have come to grip the place. Still, he cuts through it all by connecting with the real people, a talent which he seems to have an effortless knack for.

Highly recommended.

6. Best Ever Food Review Show

With his trademark red bandana, Sonny travels the world and eats. And at 10.5 million subscribers, he even beats out Mark Wiens as the King of YouTube food travel, even if the channel’s name is so generic it hurts. His videos are splashy, fun, and slickly done. Watching Sonny’s stuff is like tuning into Food Network or The Travel Channel: it’s super-pro and expertlly edited. In fact, he’s the only YouTuber here who travels with a crew, and it shows.

Sonny got his start here in Korea, though I never knew him, despite a couple of friends in common. I also haven’t watched that much of his content, as it seems to feature staged “challenges” more than letting the food speak for itself. I’ll take Mark Wiens over Sonny’s act any day, though that may just be jealousy talking. After all, maybe if I had started a travel channel a ten years back I wouldn’t be typing out missives to (at best) dozens of people on Substack.

5. Drew Binksy

Another Korea ESL vet to go on to YouTube greatness is this guy, who claims to have set foot in every country on earth. Binksy was probably the second travel YouTuber I started following, and despite periodic annoyance, I have to hand it to him for really getting into the mix and coming up with engaging content.

While overly-polished and schticky at times (he definitely plays to the camera), Binksy has gone to some very interesting spots. His Venezuela videos are terrific, and he’s the first big YouTuber I know of to dive into Pakistan. In fact, that’s what really made his channel take off. Pakistanis were so happy to see an American portray their country and people in such a positive way that they responded by showering Binsky with love and boosting his channel. Since then everyone else goes to Pakistan in search of some of that magic.

Another cool thing Drew Binsky used to do was his $10 challenge. Wherever he was, he would see what 10 bucks in the local currency could buy, with often surprising results.

4. Alex Rothman

With “only” 28.5 thousand subscribers, Rothman is by far the most obscure YouTuber on my list, but I feel he deserves a spot. He’s also not very prolific: he’s only done 27 videos, but as far as quality and content, each one is like a mini-documentary.

Rothman specializes in history and politics and combines them with travel, meaning he gives graphic-infused explanations interspersed with actual visits to the places he talks about. His series on former Soviet republic of Tajikstan is fascinating, and the work he does illuminating the story of the Tamil Tigers and Sri Lanka’s nasty civil war is some of the best out there.

Given his modest following and sporadic output, Rothman surely maintains his channel as a labor of love. However, if anyone deserves to blow up more, it’s him, though his content is likely far too nuanced and smart to gather a big audience.

3. Kurt Caz

Okay, I’ll admit to subscribing to this guy when I first came across his channel. After all, his videos usually featured him cracking a can of beer and wandering into some of the roughest barrios in Latin America, where he’d end up partying with local drunks and prostitutes. ¿Cajones grandes, no?

Kurt Caz definitely brings some gonzo to YouTube travel, but it also didn’t take long for me to figure out that he also may be a garbage human being. He’s arrogant, chauvinistic, and probably racist.

And I’m not saying that because he’s South African and fills up each frame with an Aryan domination gaze that would have Josef Geobbels blasting one out in his leather trousers. It’s in the content. He just oozes a condescending contempt for everyone around him, though it took me a while to see it for what it was.

Caz’s 2.75 million fanboys eat up his narcissistic, testosterone-soaked swagger, and judging from the comments, certainly view him the “ultra alpha male” traveler. Perhaps they have a point, but he also hasn’t gotten there without really pissing some people off.

2. Bald and Bankrupt

Odds are that even if you never watch YouTube travel vids you’ve heard of this guy. This Brit made his name by delving deeply into Russia and the former Soviet Union, and with 4 million subscribers, he’s the most popular non-food traveler on this list.

Bald (Benjamin Rich) started vlogging in India after losing his shirt in a failed business venture back in the UK, and then used his Russian-language skills to navigate the people and the landscape of the once-great USSR, which is when his channel really found its legs. In 2022 he was deported from Russia for sneaking into the Baikonur Cosmodrome (think Russian NASA) without permission, and has focused on exploring the non-Soviet world since then.

I was admittedly late the party with Benjamin Rich, having only started watching him this year. A video he did in Mongolia (where he enjoys no nature and bitches about how unremarkable the place is) made me assume the worst, but subsequent content changed my mind.

He recently did a series where he joins a group of migrants dodging poisonous snakes, narcos, and human traffickers while crossing Darien Gap between Colombia and Panama, only to then make his way through Mexico on the back of “The Beast,” the freight train that delivers these refugees to the US border. It’s among the best YouTube travel stuff I’ve seen, entering into the realm of real journalism that not even multi-billion dollar media companies can seem to pull off.

1. Sabbatical

Though I say this list isn’t in any particular order, Tommy Sabbatical is probably my favorite. He’s a New Yorker who has been traveling the world for some years, and is also a polyglot. He’s fully fluent in Argentian Spanish and Madarin, as well as (at least) highly conversant in French, Portuguese, Swahili, Arabic, Japanese, Bahasa Indonesia, and who knows what else.

Sabbatical is the opposite of Small Brained American: he always arrives knowing at least a modicum of the history, culture, and—most importantly—the language of a place. The locals, of course, are sometimes bemused by his attempts to employ their tongue, though usually honored. Attempting to communicate in the native language implies agreat deal of respect, and people tend to respond to this with kindness and gratitude (though I hear Paris is an exception).

Sabbatical’s style is ultra-low-key. There is no intro, no music—no bells and whistles—nothing flashy or performative. Instead we just get a very smart guy walking around a foreign place while doing his best to make sense of it all through the synthesis of history, culture, and language.

The downside is that his production values are sometimes a bit shaky, and the vlogs so chilled-out that at times they run the risk of being boring. However, in this age of short attention spans and shocking ignorance, I’ll take quiet intelligence over bluster and fireworks, and Sabbatical delivers this in heaps.