Date: 12/02/2023
Who Said Travel Was Easy?
I’m sitting here, just wanting to scream.
31 days, until everything changes again. It’s exciting, but it was never the plan.
Stressed is an understatement.
I’ll let you know what this is about when I calm down.
Date: 23/12/2022
2022 All Packed Up
As I scrolled through a year of Facebook posts to find the picture of this year’s goals, I went past all the posts from this year…
All the pictures, all the videos and all the adventures that myself and Holly have been on.
Looking back at Jan 2022, I had a map of Scotland that was barely coloured in. After a full year of travelling, Scotland now has nearly all of the mainland coloured in but not just that there are 7 more countries that I’ve been able to explore a little during this year.
So many things were seen this year. The recent trip to Iceland was amazing, seeing the sights of volcanoes and hot springs. Incredible bars in Prague. Unexpectedly Beautiful beaches in Aberdeen. Tasting the still mouth-watering pizza in Bergamo. And so many more things.
But I write this to see if I’ve completed my goals for this year and to set new goals that will hold me accountable for the year to come.
Goals for 2022
Leave the UK
We did this. At the time of writing this goal, it was looking difficult due to restrictions and looking at flying again was strange.
Leaving the UK to head to Copenhagen early in the year set us on a habit of booking more trips and ticking this goal off many times.
Visit friends and Family
We did this. At the time of writing, I had plans to already see my family and friends in January which we did. We then later went back in October
Get 10k Views on a YouTube Video
This happened just a couple of weeks ago. The video about Oban released over a year ago has been steadily gaining views. I hope that other videos will hit this same marker. Also on TikTok, I got a video that hit over 145k views.
Complete a New Book
This is something I have again put on the back burner as I have been prioritising videos over any other work. When I have free time I put it into articles for the website, Fiverr gigs and promotional stuff. I’m not annoyed that this wasn’t ticked off.
Visit the Hebrides
This was completed, when we visited the Isle of Skye, A beautiful Scottish Island. There are so many Hebrides that I want to see, But starting to tick these off this year was an amazing start.
The Goals of 2022 were 4 out of 5 which I will see as a success but I’m happier about the fact this year has put me on a really good footing for next year. This means the goals for 2023 can be more challenging and rewarding. This year I will be taking things from my bucket list.
Anyways without further ado here are my goals for 2023
Say Screw it one day, and just leave the country
An idea of total freedom why not just wake up and say, I want to go to another country today, and just go. No Plans, Nothing stopping you.
Visit Family & Friends
This again is on my list as it’s important. As much as I love travelling, visiting home is always amazing. I want to make sure I keep in better contact with many friends and family.
Make £100 in A month From Online Creating
This month I’m set to make £10.61 from my online Creating, most coming from a Fiverr gig of writing an Itinerary and the other pennies from website advertisement. I would love to hit the £100 mark in a month. From anything linked to my online creating.
Travel Around Eastern Europe via train
I have fallen in love with Europe this year and I want to see more! I would love to explore Eastern Europe by Train. Budapest, Kraków, Split and Bratislava to name a few places.
Be Proud of All The Content I Make This Year
This year, I have made a lot of amazing content. For the last nine months everything I have posted I’ve been happy to release. Before this mark, I was unhappy with some of the footage in the videos with it being a bit shaky. I want 2023 to be the year I’m proud of everything I make.
These are my goals for 2023, Here’s to ticking all of these off.
Happy new year to all!
Oh make sure you check out the new Iceland series
And Yes it was amazing, too much to write in this diary, but the series covers it nicely.
Date: 20/11/2022
5 years of YouTube
Today marks 5 years of me being on YouTube, Since making my first video on this channel was a promotion for a travel book I wrote.
Things have massively changed not only with this channel but my life.
I started this channel with hopes of motivating people to travel, then moved on to try and change the travel vlogging scene with sketches based on travel comedy.
Then finally committing to the journey of showing others that you can travel full time. I document my travel life, from saving for travel, balancing travel and work and showing you all the amazing places I see on the way.
Next week, Holly and I go on a trip of a lifetime to Iceland, This will be filmed by me in my normal vlog style showing you some of the best things that you can do in Iceland, Ways of saving money and things you must see. But instead of this being one massive video I am already planning on filming this in a series, to give you a better story, better advice and more great scenery of the Beautiful country of Iceland.
Here are my current ideas for upcoming videos and Release dates… (please beware these haven’t been filmed yet and are currently just ideas) 9/12/22 -Things you should know before you travel to Iceland. It’s a talk between me and Holly reviewing the trips with tips.
Upcoming trips
16/12/22 -Super cheap Iceland travel package from the UK- Getting to Iceland Getting to the airport in Manchester , Talk about the deal, what we packed, the UK hotel and our plans for Iceland. Then show you Manchester to KeflavÃk Airport and an Iceland hotel tour.
23/12/22 -What’s Reykjavik like – is Iceland really that expensive? Show off the area of Reykjavik, and update people on our trip so far.
30/12/22 -Secret lagoon and golden circle tour We have a tour planned and we hope to show you this tour
6/1/23 Day3 No plans for this day yet
13/1/23 Day 4 No plans for this day yet
20/1/23 -South West tour ( waterfalls and Black sands) We have a tour planned and we hope to show you this tour
27/1/23 -Last thoughts on Iceland plus Showing off KeflavÃk Airport airport Summarising the trip
This is a list of a short videos I hope to make and publish at some point. (normally as soon as they are made I publish them)
How expensive are 8 days In Iceland
Must see places in Iceland Coolest things to do in Reykjavik
Reykjavik airport Things you should and shouldn’t do in Iceland
As you see I have quite a lot of amazing videos on Iceland Upcoming on this channel, so If you haven’t Already Subscribed, Do it now so you don’t miss out… Oh for you guys that’s enjoy the Scotland vlogs… We have plans to visit the north of Scotland so Stay tuned.
Date: 08/09/2022
Making My Biggest Change Yet!
For years I have believed that if I was to go back to my old job as a dental technician I would be giving up on travel as I know today. Blogging would be no more and no more vlogging.
I’ve been telling myself for years, the only way I can stay travelling is by staying out of that profession.
I only just understood why I thought this as I wrote up my CV with the details of me being a dental technician. Back in 2016 just before I left to travel to Australia I had a very bad relationship with work, money and life. I would somehow be able to spend all my money, travel around 150 miles to and from work and still spend around 15 hours at work every day.
This wasn’t always the case. over years, I chased higher positions which meant more travelling to work, and I chased the money as I was spending so much which meant more hours. This happen until I broke, And decided to go off travelling.
I blamed dental being the reason why I had a bad relationship with money, work and life. When it was me.
Going to Australia taught me that you can earn money in a more relaxed environment. You could earn less and spend less. But Australia only taught me to slow down. I was still terrible with money and I was back in debt very quickly again.
I chased the idea of getting money online, to save myself. Blogging and vlogging weren’t a passion just a way out. I worked so much on learning how to build websites and YouTube pages. Not for a hobby but for an income that never came. I still had a problem I just covered it up with something new.
The money never came and the travel slowed down. Moving back to England and travelling on little trips so I could blog and vlog more. Travel wasn’t for me, but chasing the money and telling myself the dream wasn’t over.
After hitting rock bottom at 10k worth of debt, and living on a sofa bed at my mum’s house, I focused on fixing my debt by working many hours at a supermarket. After 6 months of extreme work and saving, I was able to fix my debt and learn how to balance money and not hope the internet was going to be my saviour.
With the new mindset, I was able to turn Blogging and Vlogging into a Passion, with no pressure. This made travel more of a passion too, not chasing the best places for articles but going where I wanted.
This continued when I met Holly and continued into more hospitality jobs. I was able to balance money and travel, with this I had someone to travel with.
We have travelled so much of Scotland and been on many trips in Europe. Using free time. But the problem with hospitality jobs was the free time isn’t a lot. Unsociable hours, and unpredictable rotas makes planning for travel harder than necessary.
Going back to a Mon-Fri job was the right move, going back to dental was right. I finally feel I can control Money, Time and Work.
It’s time to balance a Career and Travel. Well, I’m nearly 30 I need to at least try.
Date: 08/09/2022
Making My Best Better
- 100k views on 1 video on Tiktok
- $20 made for writing a Travel Iteniery on fivverr
- Over 600 hours of people watching my videos on YouTube
- 2 more countries visited
Just a couple of things that have been achieved since I last wrote an update on my diary. The funny thing is the last couple of months have felt very same old. Work, work, work, work, Sleep. Travel when we can.
This is why I like sitting here and writing this diary.
You can easily overlook all the places you have been, and all that you have achieved in your life when you are thinking about the next destination, your next trip, or your next day off work.
This diary is my most unsuccessful piece of work, of the amount of effort but in, to the amount of time others spend reading this, I know this (I’ve got the stats). But this diary helps me organise my brain and I highly recommend anyone travelling to have a diary.
Let’s talk about how I have decided to make my best better
- Better intros for my videos
You might have seen some of my newer videos, with slight changes to intros: shortened it down and gave a little bit more of a taster and insight to the video. - Making them more interactive with viewers in videos
Shouting out viewers that buy me coffees - Promoting myself in videos
Mentioning the fact I do travel Intenieries and how they can support the videos - Making shorts and Tiktoks alongside the main video
Hitting a new audience with short-form content - Deleting my Patron Page
Focusing on Buymeacoffee.com/funnybackpacker more
But the main way I’m making my best better is by focusing on a new way to travel. I can’t say anything yet, as we are in the very early planning side of things, plus I have many trips already planned like the return trip to England to see family and Iceland at the end of this year. I’m super excited about both of these trips.
I will mention more at a later date.
What plans do I have for the near future?
This is a hard one, as work is a lot at the moment, 50-hour weeks of continual standing and serving some rude customers, setting up weddings by carrying heavy stuff and just tiring us out. So a lot of the planning for trips has been very last minute. This means going on trips on our days off from work if we get days off together. But we have made this work and started saving money too.
This way of travelling continually can get tiring. I’m sitting here writing this an hour before work and 12 hours after getting back from Dublin. It’s a lot. That is why things need to change.
The good thing is, in the next couple of months we actually have some time off work, for gigs, the earlier mentioned trips and other stuff meaning we have a little more time to recover. With the fact “winter is coming” flights should be cheaper again so may leave the country where possible but with the goal of saving money.
Plans for growth for content
The YouTube channel growth is very slow, with the amount of content I have made over the summer the growth hasn’t really seen much of a change. Especially on the new subscriber front. The video continually seems to do better at the start but overall, very little impact to the growth of the channel.
Maybe time is needed for YouTube Videos or I need to look into further improvements.
But on the opposite side of the fence, This website seems to be growing at 20% a month, with very little input from myself but this is on very old articles, I’m talking 2/3 years old content.
My YouTube channel content is now no longer older than 16 months old. This is because I deleted a lot of the older content as it didn’t match the style of video I make now. Maybe time is needed for YouTube.
Fivver the place where I have a range of jobs that I can do for money seems to be getting more traction after my 1st sale, which is good, but currently, no new sales have come from this.
Well this has been my update thanks for reading and I’ll see you …… wait, my next video out is Dublin. not tomorrow but next Friday………. Sooon.
Date: 11/07/2022
Since Prague, I have been busy. Life, work, travel the usual stuff. It has been a hard couple of weeks, even with the promise of future trips, balancing a heavy workload and busy travel life. It can cause stress.
This in turn makes me want to find quit my job and can focus more on travel, but travel isn’t free. This then leads to me thinking about new ways to fund travel…
A quick Google search Of ” How to Fund Your Travels” leads to…
Best way to fund your travels while just laying down – come to our 5* Hosptial where we will remove a kidney, an eye and half your brain for a great price of £99.99
Sell your friends the holiday of your dreams – its the holiday of your dreams as you make a commission off selling over-the-top expensive holidays which just use Ryanair and motels
This guy makes millions for his travels– This guy has got 25 years of experience a massive loan from his parents and makes a million Indonesian rupiahs
After reading all of these extremely weird ways to try and make money to fund your travels. I felt deflated and annoyed me to think there are so many people that want to scam others to fund their own travels and there is no one out there to actually give good advice.
I decided I would be the person to actually help others, while helping myself, try and fund their travels.
Setting up a couple of things
While focused I decided to try and set up a couple of new ways to try and make some money online.
- Starting a Fiverr account. https://www.fiverr.com/prawnbutt Has a couple of gigs that I can do while travelling, I will build on this over time. At the current time, it has Scottish Itinerary planning, Thumbnail Design and Scotland Postcards.
- Next, I set up a new YouTube Channel: How to Fund Your Travels Which is all the ways I tried to make money for my travels, a way of kinda documenting this journey and explaining how I’ve already funded my travels, and stuff to avoid.
- I continued writing my book which is designed for people that want to start travelling but are not sure how to begin.
- A new Category on this website: With Articles based on funding your travels Which I hope to add more on soon.
- A new Page on this website: How to Fund Your Travels Gives people an easy way to all the articles and videos that I make on the subject.
Of course, this is done as a side project to the Funny Backpacker and I still plan to make the normal content on this website and Youtube Channel.
My last couple of trips
- Isle of Seil
- Fife Coastal Road
- Isle of Arran
- A Sheppards Hut in South Ayrshire
We have also made plans in October to fly back down to Essex for a week so I’m excited about that too.
What’s coming out soon
last week was my second week this year that I hadn’t released a video, for the reasons, I had a bit of burnout mixed with lack of time and mixed focus.
But yesterday I was able to regain focus (as you can tell because I’m writing my diary) I was able to get a few things done.
- Today at 6pm, I have my first video out on the new channel called “I Made ALL This Money Writing A Travel Book” Which talks about how you might want to fund your travels with travel writing
- Friday at 6 pm I have my longest Scotland video yet “Isle Of Arran – Scotland In Miniature (Exploring The Whole Island)” Which might be my new favourite video based in Scotland.
I’ll add links to these next time I update my diary
Until then, thanks for reading and I’ll see you again SOOooon
Date: 26/05/2022
Setting up for the Summer
This is going to be a quick update due to the fact I’m writing this 30 mins before I need to get ready for work. Currently Rending a video on the most Southen Part of Scotland in the background and still have my bag from Prague to unpack fully.
Since I had my car back a month ago life, has been all go for travel. This is a list of adventures I’ve been on all in the last 4 weeks.
- Queensferry
- Gretna Green
- Isle of Skye
- Most southern Part of Scotland
- Aberdeen
- Prague
It’s been mad, I’m tired but wanting more; Bigger Adventures, New Stories and New places.
I’m trying to update, this website with places I’ve been to, this diary and hopefully new articles. Also, need to edit the Aberdeen video and Prague video. As well as I’m trying to make a short video now once a week too.
But the biggest thing that I want to learn to do now is to learn how to make an income without being fixed to a place. Even if it’s not ready until this time next year, I know it’s time to start thinking about it.
Just a little update on Youtube stats, the video is getting views of 50-200 views a day. Website is making 10p-£1 a month.
Date: 21/04/2022
My Travel Life Broke Down
I never wanted to rely on a car to travel. Cars are expensive!
When my car decided not to start again at 3 am in the middle of the city of Glasgow, I knew at that moment I was going to have to make a decision. Do I try and save this car, or do I bin it?
By 6 am I have a breakdown company out and they got it started, with the note, “don’t stall”. If I was to stall this car it wasn’t going on without another push start. It was the starter motor that had decided to randomly stop working.
After a very cautious ride home, I turned the engine off, for what I thought was the last time. Saying my final goodbyes to a car that had explored so much of Scotland and the same car that drove all the way to Essex and back to Glasgow. I thought I’d try to start it again, nothing.
It was left there with the thought of come Tuesday, my next day off work, I’m scrapping this car! I got myself a monthly bus pass and started my new life as a bus w*****r.
By the time Tuesday rolled around the more me and Holly had spoken about the amazing time we have had because of the car, more importantly, the things we couldn’t do because of the car. She said if we could get it started one last time we could get a final check from a garage before sending it off to the scrapyard.
We took off the handbrake and rolled it and tried starting it, barely it 3 miles per hour, as Holly herself was pushing it. We attempted it about 4 times by pushing it up and down a little hill. Nothing. With this, we were ready to give up, But one last time we would push it on a straight and push it and try and reach 5 miles per hour then kick start it.
This brought the attention of the few neighbours and within 2 minutes we had a random guy in my car and me and 2 other guys pushing this car, we got it started.
We got it down to a garage and they said the car wasn’t in too bad nick, they would look at getting a cheap starter motor and I’ll have my car back in no time.
Currently writing this, I am a Bus w****r still but my car will be back shortly for more adventures.
See You SOOON!
Date: 07/04/2022
The Best Location For My 30th!
We have been thinking about this trip for a while now, We came to the realisation that planning a trip with no guidelines can be near to impossible. Not having such a strict time and money budget really does open you up to the world.
Imagine you get to plan one epic trip over 7 days where would you go?
Sounds like an easy to answer a question. Giving yourself this opportunity can make you like a Kid in a candy store. Let me explain why it took me and Holly, over 3 weeks to make the same decision we normally do within an hour.
The struggle with choosing the perfect destination
We got both our Birthdays off to go on a trip for a week in late November. Which compared to our usual trips of 2 days off work. It opened the doors to a lot more places, as we weren’t restricted to the best flight times and how long we fly. On top of this, our budgets are much higher due to it being a big trip.
This meant literally we could fly anywhere this meant there was a lot to discuss.
We started with a destination that I had in mind for a while, Iceland which looks amazing. Definitely a bucket list place! But the flights from Edinburgh & Two Glasgow airports were pretty bad. so we carried on thinking.
Next, we had the idea of Spain and getting an all-inclusive hotel and relaxing but due to it being November the Temp was hot but not great unless you went to Tenerife, but I’d to travel, todo that I would probably have to hire a car, then I wouldn’t be able to drink and relax…
So travelling in mind we thought of Thailand another one on my bucket list, but looking at all the countries and places it would be very busy and would miss a lot.
Back to bucket list places, we looked at Japan and South Korea but thought they would be good to do together at some point, San Francisco was the same, as it has Las Vegas near, New York but it was around Thanksgiving and it would be busy
Then looked at random Hot places, Cape Verde & Mauritius because they were far away from anywhere and wouldn’t be any cheaper or a better time to fly to. But flights were ridiculous times or prices.
We went back and forward on ideas and ended up looking at package deals from Manchester Airport which is 3 and half hours from home but massive savings on flights and good times. but it didn’t feel right.
Well not until we looked at flights to Iceland from Manchester… They were perfect. We are Heading to Iceland in November and I can’t be more excited.
Don’t think that’s all the travelling till then though
Since Bergamo, we have been to the east borders of Scotland and England (exploring New Asgard) And we have been to Helensburgh and the coastal area. It’s been fantastic. Videos coming shortly
Other than that I have written an Article on Bergamo
How To Spend 24 hours In Bergamo On a Budget
This is for you guys that want to explore Bergamo as we did!
As well as all of that I’m currently writing an article all about every single place I’ve Been to since starting the 10-year Adventure, As you can probably tell even though I’ve only been travelling for 11 months there are a lot of places to write about!
I’ll put a link when I’m done don’t worry.
This is that link
Other than all this, I have ended up having two days next week to explore alone, I’m not sure on the plan for that yet. But I can imagine it will be fun.
See you soon!
Struggling To Keep Up With Myself
On the 9th of this month, I wrote about climbing the Whangie and not knowing what I was going to do next in the way of travel. 15 days later I have travelled again to a new part of Scotland, Left the Country and travelled to Italy and home and writing about it on another update to the diary.
It feels like life has just sped up, and everything around is keeping to its pace. With now the amount of trips we are doing in short spaces of time, The amount of traction to this website has increased massively in the last couple of months hitting new highs. This is matched on the YouTube channel too. The best thing is this seems to be coming from sources where people are searching or finding me and not me promoting myself.
I believe the quality of my videos now have hit a new level too, giving it that professional feel that I wanted a year ago when I started this journey. To be fair I am doing exactly what I wanted to do a year ago when I started this journey, which is travelling a lot.
So why do I feel I can’t keep up?
It’s not that I don’t feel like I can’t keep up, but there is a lot more adjustment needed. I have been able to set a great bar for the year 2022 and if I was to keep it going I can see how amazing the results will be both for travel and creating. I am loving every minute.
This Friday will be the first week there will be no new video. When I first started YouTube this would have been the end-all. I had to release something. Now it’s quality over quantity. But with the aim of a video a week.
What have planned and what have I done?
Let’s start with the trip to Greenock Cut, a beautiful area of Scotland, With a lot of great walks. Not far from Largs ( a great place for fish and chips). This was a day trip on our day off work, we are currently working 60 hour weeks, this being another factor of struggling to keep up.
This was an amazing place, you can see here in the video.
As mentioned in the video, once we arrived home and during editing of the video, we planned our next trip on our next days off. Which was Bergamo in Italy. We decided to visit the Town of Bergamo instead of Milan due to time factors and price.
Bergamo was amazing and there will be a video here once I finish the editing. Be here sometime after the 1st of April.
As I write this I got back from Bergamo yesterday so I have been extremely busy. Just with life, but that hasn’t stopped me from writing a script for another video… Which will be about living a travel life when having a full-time life.
I look at filming this next week and working more on this website with new articles and stuff due to the fact I have a holiday allowance that was need to be used, meaning I have 4 days off next week. I don’t plan to leave the country, during this time either.
Hopefully, I can catch up on creating new content to match all this new travel.
5 years of travel blogging
This title might be a bit confusing for you guys that are following my 10-year journey of travelling the world. As you know I’m currently only 10 months into this and not 5 years.
But for the OG’s that have been following my blogs way before there was a Funny Backpacker and there wasn’t even a YouTube page, will know that this whole thing started with a diary-based blog, a bit like this that your reading. It was called destionsean or something like that.
I started this around 5 years ago today when I was planning for my big trip around Australia. It was meant to be a diary for friends and family to read to keep up with my travels.
This wasn’t easy for them, as my grammar and spelling at the time were near impossible to read. Even though this was the case I continued to write. This blog which became a book that in turn made me start vlogging has inspired me to continue travelling.
As much as I’m 5 years into making content online, which means a lot of money spent (too much, I don’t want to think about) and countless hours spent on making content in some shape or form. I wouldn’t change it.
I haven’t made an income that would pay me back for the time and money spent from any of my online content But It has given me more of a get-up and go and not to stop doing what I love.
Talking about inspired travel…
Last 2 weeks of Travel
Copenhagen
Copenhagen was just amazing, a last-minute trip which became a bigger adventure than I originally thought. It was 36 non-stop hours of exploring the beautiful city!
I could write so much about our trip but there is no need you can watch it here:
In the next couple of weeks, I will make some articles to match this video. About Copenhagen and how to do last-minute trips, just like we did.
The Whangie
You might have thought with a hectic week of leaving the country and then working 60 hour weeks, the last thing you would want to do is a hike. But that’s exactly what we did.
We decided to hike the Queen’s View and See the Whangie. And of course, I Vlogged it!
You will get to see this video on Friday 11th March at 6 pm.
This hike should be on your Scotland bucket list, It will be added shortly to my Hidden Gems of Scotland.
Whats next?
As I kinda mentioned earlier, I’m currently working a lot of hours, Which is great for cash flow and future trips but not so great for making plans and actually going on trips… But saying this, we are looking into more last-minute 1 night trips. Places like Madrid, Amsterdam, Brussels, Gdansk and Krakow seem to be likely as they are cheaper to fly to.
Let’s see how it goes!
Here is another Quiz, Enjoy
[ays_quiz id=’5′]Copenhagen Is Booked
Booking a flight to a random country a week before you go might seem stressful to some. Others might find the fact we are using the only 2 days off work that week for flying to Copenhagen and back. But for me, this is part of the adventure.
When our rota come out Late on Tuesday (15/2/22). I and Holly (my Girlfriend) noticed we had two days off together, so we planned to leave the country. Within an hour of this rota coming out we had flights, accommodation and insurance to a country that we had no previous plans to visit.
Filming Denmark
As much as the trip to Denmark is massively exciting especially as it’s been a long time since being able to leave the country. I have been thinking a lot about how I want to document or film this part of my life.
Let me run a couple of things past you that I want to show you on my trip to Denmark
- The whole trip from Glasgow to Copenhagen…. And back, maybe?
- What I am Packing for the short trip
- Show Off Copenhagen
- Talk about how we booked it last minuite with our job
- How much we was able to get the trip for
As much as all these things might be interesting, it’s hard to make all these videos
Let me explain what I mean. My best video from last year was: OBAN
This currently stands at 3,800 views at the time of writing. This video is just about Oban if I was to repeat the vlog style on Copenhagen. The Video would be called, what is their todo in Copenhagen for 2 days. As much as that would be a good video on Copenhagen, it’s a much harder Youtube Market to break into. But high-risks high-reward.
This video would cover: “Showing Off Copenhagen” very nice but that’s it. I wouldn’t be able to show my journey there and wouldn’t be able to make a second video covering that as it would overlap too much with the first video.
My Current YouTube Channel
Over the last 6 months, my YouTube Channel has slipped more away from my original plan of doing vlogs of my travel life and instead split into 3.
- Vlog updates on my travel life ( Videos like; “why visiting home while travel is amazing”, “changing travel styles might be a good idea”)
- Destionation Vlogs ( Videos like; “Oban”, “Glencoe” “Newcastle”)
- Travel Tip Videos ( Videos like; “best place to fly a drone in Scotland” , “where to travel in Scotland”
Where the original plan was to put all three of these styles mixed into one video. Like this video About heading off on my travel life.
Only a poor 224 views at the time of writing (not my worst but not great)
Watching this video back now, If I were to remake this video there are many things I would change, As the video starts really slow and is harder to follow. Probably the reason it didn’t do as well as I hoped and didn’t do as well as the Oban video.
At the time I thought the Oban Video Did better as it’s about one area and has good search terms and has a bigger market for people wanting this video. This probably is true too but the Oban Video gets to the point and is easy to follow which I think is a bigger impact.
The Plan for Denmark video
As much as my head is kinda saying make a video on “Things to see in Copenhagen” then a second video on “How to get cheap flights and pack for Copenhagen” meaning I would cover more of the YouTube Search Market. But I don’t want this.
I really want to show the full journey, as much as Copenhagen is part of my travel life, the biggest impact on my travel life is the journey, the journey of leaving the country for the first time in years, the journey of experience of the airport and the journey of the first time I leave the country with my girlfriend.
I’m going to try and remake the original style of Vlog that I wanted to do at the start of my Travel journey. by including everything into one long but easy to follow video. I’m not hoping to break view records, but the video hopefully redeems the Glasgow Vlog and helps find my style again for upcoming adventures.
This video is going to take a lot of work, but It’s going to be worth it.
Visiting Home & Seeing England
Visiting home is a vital part of travelling, seeing family and friends after a being away from home can be exciting and especially as things change and you get exciting updates, celebrations and for me meeting new family members
A short while ago I was an uncle, so going back to England wasn’t just a short stay back to see family and friends, it was going back to meet a new member of the family. As well as giving my Girlfriend (Holly) a chance to meet all the family and friends. But there was one massive problem that I caught covid, yet again.
It did put a dampener on the celebration but we made do. I have been able to see travel to parts of England in the times we weren’t isolated, We still saw a lot of family and friends but not all.
The Journey Down
Me, Holly and Jess (our Candian friend, Or known in the Harry potter sightseeing video The Candian Hermione Granger) We all headed off to Newcastle and stayed the night from Glasgow. There will be a video about this on Youtube at some point!
We then all travelled to Watford for the one and only Harry Potter Studio Tours. Again this will be on the Funny Backpacker YouTube Channel given time.
After seeing Harry Potter Studio Tours we Kicked Jess out of the car and she went off to see London while we moved on to Essex.
Essex and Suffolk
Went spent most of the time in the Essex, Suffolk area. Seeing places like Chelmsford, Colchester, Sudbury & Lavenham. Here is a video of Lavenham. See I have already made a video
The Journey Back
The Journey back was via Manchester, Which is a massive city. We spent the day there before heading back to Glasgow.
Here is our day in manchester if you want to do the same as us.
Other than England
There has been a lot of time this month where I have been off work, due to travelling to England, getting stuck in isolation and due to the fact January is a slow month for work in a hotel and pub. I have had a lot of time to make a lot of content for this website and YouTube as well as schedule months worth of old posts on the Facebook page.
Here is the latest article I wrote, It’s all about 2-6months of your nomadic life. I decided to make a series to help people that want to travel.
The Plans Now
To be the plan now is to try and leave the UK on a short trip or maybe go see the Hebrides. But before I plan I need so time to get back in the swing of life in Scotland!
Saying this, there are plans to go to Loch Ness Tomorrow. So I guess straight back in to the traveling
A Basic England Travel Knowledge Test
Here is a quiz I made up based on locations that I travelled to. So enjoy the quiz, I will try and make a new quiz every time I update my diary so enjoy!
The Harry Potter & The Scottish Filming Locations
As I sit watching a marathon of Harry Potter, there is no better time to talk about the trip I went on yesterday!
The trip around the West of Scotland viewing all the wonderful locations used in the Harry Potter Film Series. It’s very weird watching the films and seeing all the locations that we saw yesterday. Here are all them Locations;
Glencoe
It is surprising but understandable how much Glencoe was used in Harry Potter but the place. The place has so much beauty and the mountains used as the background in a lot of the outdoors scenes just work perfectly with the magic.
Hagrid’s hut was filmed here too.
This location is used in James Bond Skyfall too!
Glenfinnan
Another Beautiful location that seemed to be lost in time
This area is famous for the Viaduct that is where the Hogwarts Express is found and the loch opposite was the black lake, Which is actually Loch Shiel.
This is just the best area for Harry Potter Fans.
More locations
Not going to lie there were a lot more locations for Harry Potter films yesterday but this isn’t that blog article, this is just an article explaining that I have started this year off with a lot of big travels, Which I plan to continue in the next couple of days. With a trip to England with the next stop on the Vlog stop Probably being Newcastle.
But for you want to see all the locations here is a video
Harry Potter Scotland Quiz
But for each Blog Update, I’m now going to try and add a quiz for a little bit more fun. So for this week here is a Harry Potter Location-Based quiz good luck and speak to you soon!
Merry Christmas From Scotland & Goals
It’s that time again, where we say merry Christmas to each other and give each other gifts (or maybe not all but, you know what I’m talking about)
Travelling during this season can be very stressful, due to the fact travellers can be missing home, family & friends.
For me, it’s very strange as much as I do miss home, friends and family, I have created a new life in Scotland. It’s going to be nice to have a Christmas with all the new people I met last year.
Summarising 2021
My Goals for 2021
- Get healthier
- Be debt free
- Build YouTube and Camera Skills
- Travel more
YouTube Channel Growth and 2022 plans
To be fair in one way or another I had completed every one of these goals. Which I am proud of.
I personally believe my camera skills and Youtube have massively improved within the last year. Here is the first video in 2021
This is my last video in 2021.
Personally think my latest video is a much better video! The stats say you guys are preferring them too.
Not just the one-off video is better the whole channel seems to be improving, Current YouTube Subscribers: 252 and at the start of 2021:145 which was a growth of 73% growth. Most of the videos are only 6 months old, leading me to believe that there could be massive growth in 2022.
YouTube Plans for 2022
As I was saying the growth of 2021 was great but I really hope the growth of 2022 is much better, Hoping for a 400% growth in Subscribers, but my main goal for YouTube will be hitting 10k views on a video.
There are two current main contenders for hitting the 10k views for the Funny Backpacker channel.
The Oban Video:
This video currently sitting at 3k, with it getting around 600 views a month in the summer months. this could possibly hit 10k by the end of 2022 but if this video has peaked, it will make around 8k by the end of the year, not bad but not hitting my goal for the year.
The second video is:
This video has less than half the amount of views as Oban, Currently only sitting at 1.3k views but with the fact, this view is less seasonal than Oban and I believe this video hasn’t peeked yet with 400 views being its best month. I think it will be hit around 800 views a month.
But saying this, I think my latest video of best places to see in Scotland could peek at 10k views a month if it does as well as hoped.
Growth of the Website
The website page views for 2021 is 2,552 which is 86% growth of 2020 which only had 1,370. The growth of 2021 is pretty good especially as it seems to be growing based on how many people are currently searching about travel on google not really the new articles I’ve made.
The new articles on the website seem to take a while to get shown on Google. Apart from the home page none of the top 10 2021 landing pages were any articles written in 2021. Meaning that as much work I do in 2022 it will be hard to build the website more than the work I did in 2021 and prior. So I hope I did enough to build the website by 100% giving the website 5000 page views in 2022.
Apart from some of the articles I made about Scotland and long term travel, I made a few web stories and I’m yet to see what google is to do with them. All I can do is hope and promote the website via social media to get 5000 views.
Other goals for 2022
So apart from the website and Youtube, I do have goals relating to travel and other things I want to do in 2022
–Leaving the UK, might seem an easy one but it’s been so long since I’ve done this, as much as I’m loving exploring Scotland. I want to get on a plane again!
–Visit Family & Friends, A big part of travel is actually going back home. It’s not normally in travellers plans to go home, but it’s in mine! Deal with it.
– Get 10K views on YouTube, As I mention I have 2 videos that I hope will meet it. But I really hope I’ll make more!
– Complete a New Book, I have a couple in the works, I want to finish one!
– Visit the Hebrides, Not sure if it’s the inner or the outer but I want to see the beauty of them!
I’m looking forward to 2022 and what the world offers!
Finnally Finding Calm (Within a Travel Life?)
As much as travellers love to claim that travel is a great way of getting away from the stress of today to today life, Travel itself comes with new and interesting stresses. It seems the harder you travel the more stress comes to life. I guess it can be the difficulties of travel.
As you probably know, I have been in a lot of different jobs in the last little while, but this does come hand in hand with the lifestyle. But finding a good job is harder than it should be, especially when a good job is normally down to one factor, the team.
I’ve started my new job at the start of the month and I can already say it’s a fanatic team. which makes the work-life, so relaxed. Especially with the whole news at the moment, hospitality isn’t the easiest job to be in.
Finding my home
I never planned on finding a base while travelling, I wanted to travel nomadically just so I wouldn’t get stuck in the 9-5 lifestyle, not being able to travel. Or worse doing what a lot of people do “I’ll travel there tomorrow”. which means never getting around to going on that trip.
But since moving to Glasgow and being in a Relationship it’s been a nice change of pace, With it being winter too it is harder to see a lot of places in Scotland but it hasn’t stopped us. Edinburgh the other week and just a few days ago getting to Balmoral Castle (which was closed) and seeing the snowy roads.
The nice thing about the more relaxed style of travel means, Spontaneous day trips and planning some longer trips. One of the upcoming trips is going back down South to England. To see family and friends which I’m super excited to do as it feels ages since doing so.
What I’ve done Online Since last update
As it’s running on to Christmas but more importantly it’s now winter, it is harder to make brand new content plus a lot of people are not bothered by travel content as much in the winter. So it gives me time to learn or practise new ideas.
Shorts
One idea I have been playing with is Youtube Shorts.
For each of the shorts I made, I tried different styles. For the Ballater one, it’s literally just a short vlog style. But for the Scotland Drone, I Tried to make a similar style to the ones I make on Tiktok and the B roll I use for my vlogs.
Personally, I like the shorter Vlog style video. It stays with more of the style of the YouTube Channel itself and Currently, the stats are telling me other people do too.
Infomational Youtube Video
After putting around 12 hours plus making this video I am very optimistic to see how it performs in the long run. I not expecting anything to happen before March on this video, I doubt it will even reach 100 videos before then but in the long run, expecting to be in my top 3 best performing videos.
Best Place To Start Travel In Scotland And Places To See. This used my 7 months worth of footage of Scotland to make.
Goes live at 6 pm on 17/12/21
Other Stuff
Other actual content I made I designed a couple of Christmas Jumpers.
It was made really to test the water and for next year. It would be too late to buy one for Christmas now, sorry.
Other than this I’ve decided to try and put more effort into the social media behind the Funny Backpacker again, But it can feel fake if I push it too much… I’ll see how we go.
Here is a little quiz I made to see if you are a long term traveller, enjoy. I was bored and messing around.
I’m Glad That’s Over With!
I’m not going to lie, life has been a little stressful lately. It’s good to be able to have a bit of a breather.
But where the hell do I start with this update. Let’s just say work has definitely been in the way of life. Since the last update, I’ve left two jobs, and not for reasons that are easily explained online but I’m going to try my best without talking badly about people or companies. Wish me luck.
Bad Jobs
Let’s go with the first job, As I mention publicly online, I worked at the Crianlarich Hostel. I loved the job and company but it is a seasonal job I would have had to leave in October time anyways. But let’s just say I left this job because a person made me unsafe in my home. But this wasn’t the fault of the hostel in any way, would happily work with them again and recommend them.
The second job was at a hotel in Glasgow, heavily understaffed during the busy times, especially during Cop 26. Witnessing someone have an injury at work, the lack of staff during busy events, the constant abuse from customers (and staff), the bad hours, the lack of benefits that’s was mentioned in the contract, the bar itself, the fact I couldn’t see change happening, the chasing for correct pay, the fact the place doesn’t run as a team. Made me think another place might be better to look for another job.
The quotes that are stuck in my head are “what do you mean the bars shut!?!”, “Do you know how much we paid to be here!?!” “Can you get more people to serve!!!!” and my personal favourite “we got told it would be a late closing bar!!!” (at 4 am) Of course, these are just the clean quotes in my head.
Moving Forward
I’ve got a new job, in another hotel, doing a very similar thing. Bartending. I have high hopes and have heard very good things about this place. I’m excited. I’ll be starting there at the start of December giving me a week to unwind, Celebrate my birthday and My Girlfriends birthday.
This will be my 1st week off other than sickness in a year and a half. I need it.
Things I Have Done
So even going from one job to another and working a lot I have had time to make some videos and articles about travel;
HOW TO START LONG TERM TRAVEL IN SCOTLAND
This is perfect if you want to start travel life in Scotland as I have!
See the Full article here
https://funnybackpacker.com/travel-in-scotland/
VIDEOS
I have made a lot of videos in the last couple of months.
A Life update on Changing Styles
And finally a video on the N.E Coast Road trip which now is my favourite video.
So what’s next?
I’ve cleaned a bit of the backlog up that was made over the summer, it’s a lot harder to film now due to the fact days have a lot less light, it’s colder and doesn’t look as good.
I’ve got a video on Stirling to edit and a couple of videos I’ve mentioned previously that I have in the pipeline. But like most winters I spend more time on the website and writing as it’s easier to do that.
I have a week off this week so I can imagine there will be a lot of changes, videos or articles. If you don’t see any of them, I decided against constructively managing my stress and decided on alcohol.
In Jan I have plans on going back to England for 2 weeks, which I’m looking forward to. So there will be a video for that at least.
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