What is your favorite YouTube RV channel?

Farmboy666 wrote:

hotbyte wrote:
I understand how they make money. I’ve been watching these channels for a while and I just don’t see what they do as begging. Anyone that thinks they are begging should not walk through downtown of big city near homeless folks.

Well thats the difference between begging and Ebegging, instead of holding their cup out they give you their Elinks so you can give them money.

Someone holding a cup out on the street is asking for something (money) in exchange for nothing. YouTubers are creating content that is either entertaining or informative and expending time, effort, and other resources to create that content. They provide a link for viewers, that are so compelled, to reward them for that. I’m sure at times the poor pitiful me stories are to get more viewers to contribute but it is not begging unless that is the only content in the videos.

What’s your view of street performers? Are they beggars when they play/sing/etc. and accept money?

FirstTracks wrote:
Oh, so much to respond to!

tragusa3 wrote:
I don't want this to come across as promotion, but it is on topic. I was so impressed with the new platform for sharing this hobby, that I decided to give it a go myself and get in front of (and behind) the camera. Although I think we are highly entertaining, apparently I'm no good at it. Our videos seem to get a few dozen views, and when I compare that to the 100k views that a video of a cat using the litter box gets....well, it kind of tells you the pecking order. LOL.

You ARE good at it, and I'm saying that as one of your subs. Hang in there! (which sounds odd coming from someone trying to break into the medium, too.)

I suspect that you do it for the same reason I do: the fun of it. For me, photography (and by extension, cinematography) is a hobby, or more accurately a passion. I simply enjoy it. Heck, I even enjoy the post-production. With a YouTube RV channel, I get to marry my love of cinematography with my love of camping. And YouTube is nothing but the modern day version of the vacation slide show that our parents projected on the living room wall for friends and family to watch as they sipped Manhattans from the couch. The more people who watch our videos, the happier I am.

Thanks for the encouragement! Yes, it is very much the marriage of two hobbies. My first career was in the design industry. Now I'm a school teacher. Cinematography and film editing have replaced that "creative" itch that I have and miss. I can be creative as a teacher, but needed more. I suppose I'd be happy with millions of views, but views don't drive me, it's just fun. That said, it would be nice to have enough people interested to make me feel like others are appreciating my "art". Aren't kids motivated to do a good job coloring because it might make it to the family refrigerator?

Regarding the begging comments. It felt that way to me initially (and still does from a few obvious channels), but I'm coming around to the idea. Hotbyte has some great points, how do you feel about street performers putting out a hat, or a bartender's tip jar, or PBS having fundraisers? I think it's simple, if you feel you are consuming something of value then you should acknowledge that with support. That said, I haven't put my money where my mouth is, yet. It is a new frontier in entertainment.

hotbyte wrote:

Farmboy666 wrote:

hotbyte wrote:
I understand how they make money. I’ve been watching these channels for a while and I just don’t see what they do as begging. Anyone that thinks they are begging should not walk through downtown of big city near homeless folks.

Well thats the difference between begging and Ebegging, instead of holding their cup out they give you their Elinks so you can give them money.

Someone holding a cup out on the street is asking for something (money) in exchange for nothing. YouTubers are creating content that is either entertaining or informative and expending time, effort, and other resources to create that content. They provide a link for viewers, that are so compelled, to reward them for that. I’m sure at times the poor pitiful me stories are to get more viewers to contribute but it is not begging unless that is the only content in the videos.

What’s your view of street performers? Are they beggars when they play/sing/etc. and accept money?

I guess technically it comes down to the difference between asking and begging. I had and old man walk up as we were getting off the motorcycle, he asked me if he could play his harmonica for me, he was clearly homeless or close to it, I said sure and he played for 2 min and I gave him $5. Was he a street performer or a guy who needed some money? He gave it some effort and I gave him some money. The ones who ask me if I have spare change get nothing. Youtubers put time into their channel but at the end of the day they are looking to get payed for what they do, I realize I have no obligation to pay in any way. They ask us to go through Amazon or pay through Patreon to get extra content, Asking me to send them money so I can get a news letter about what they do on their permanent vacation and me paying for it rubs me the wrong way. If you want to journal your travels and put it on Youtube because thats what you enjoy, and you get something in return just for doing that, thats great, when you ask me to reward you for it thats different. Maybe ebegger is to harsh but at best it's somewhere in between.

FirstTracks wrote:
Oh, so much to respond to!

tragusa3 wrote:
I don't want this to come across as promotion, but it is on topic. I was so impressed with the new platform for sharing this hobby, that I decided to give it a go myself and get in front of (and behind) the camera. Although I think we are highly entertaining, apparently I'm no good at it. Our videos seem to get a few dozen views, and when I compare that to the 100k views that a video of a cat using the litter box gets....well, it kind of tells you the pecking order. LOL.

You ARE good at it, and I'm saying that as one of your subs. Hang in there! (which sounds odd coming from someone trying to break into the medium, too.)

I suspect that you do it for the same reason I do: the fun of it. For me, photography (and by extension, cinematography) is a hobby, or more accurately a passion. I simply enjoy it. Heck, I even enjoy the post-production. With a YouTube RV channel, I get to marry my love of cinematography with my love of camping. And YouTube is nothing but the modern day version of the vacation slide show that our parents projected on the living room wall for friends and family to watch as they sipped Manhattans from the couch. The more people who watch our videos, the happier I am.

pnichols wrote:
I've always considering long term living/traveling on a boat as too constrictive and boring ... all on a relatively flat surface except for waves. I just don't understand the fascination with that.

It's not constrictive or boring at all. We did the opposite of the current YouTube phase -- we came from a medium-sized sailboat to a small travel trailer. Years ago we lived along Florida's Gulf Coast, where we did a lot of weekend coastal cruising. Basically we got on the boat on Friday after work each week, and didn't get home until Sunday night. There's nothing like being out on a storm day, heeling 30º to leeward as you're beating upwind, waves breaking over the bow and soaking you at the stern in the cockpit. Or being at anchor in the mangroves -- the maritime equivalent of boondocking -- having a smoke on deck at 2 a.m. where all you hear all around you are the dolphins surfacing for air. Or when we registered for the race across the Gulf to Havana, Cuba (but regrettably had to back out). Then again, there's the time that we took a direct lightning strike 3 miles off St. Petersburg and made the 6 p.m. evening news. That's a whole different story, but it sure wasn't boring. ;)

Ironically, an RV is kind of an extension of the sailboat mentality for us. We can drop anchor for the night (boondock) or stay in a marina (RV park). We can travel wherever our mood takes us. We get to experience Mother Nature at her finest, and at her worst. And much like I enjoyed tinkering with, upgrading, modifying and fixing things on the sailboat, I get to do the same on the RV, especially as the systems are remarkably similar to one another.

free radical wrote:
if they have enough money to buy RV and cameras and computer they are doing better then me..and if they get famous, YT pays them plenty anyway.

Au contraire! Let's look at Nomadic Fanatic as an example, although with 135K subs he's near the top of the YouTube RV wave. SocialBlade estimates his annual YT earnings at $3800-61,400 (https://socialblade.com/youtube/user/nomadicfanatic), although I can guarantee you that the true number is well south of the median of that range, as SocialBlade's top end is beyond a best case scenario. A more realistic example would be, say, Drivin' & Vibin', which SocialBlade estimates at $919 - $14.7K annually (again, the true number is almost assuredly well below the middle of that range). Our channel doesn't yet make a penny off YouTube, because you have to have a minimum of 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 hours of watch time over the preceding 12 months to even qualify for the YouTube Partner Program...to make $20 per year once we do qualify!

That's not enough to live off for a year, especially for a couple, so these full-timers find ways to supplement their income. For Drivin' & Vibin' almost all of their income came from an Etsy shop where they sold digital products. Sure, some go the Patreon route, but even as a YouTube publisher myself I do find that somewhat distasteful. Perhaps that's because I'd starve that way myself. LOL!

Amazon links are another story altogether. Those affiliate links take absolutely no money out of a viewer's pocket. The purchaser pays the same price to Amazon for something that they were buying anyway, it's just that Amazon pays the link affiliate a small (very small) commission. How small? Our site has earned a whopping $35 in four months that way. That's not even enough to cover the $15/month we pay to license music to use in the videos.

In my own example, I'll explain the backstory. I thought for sure that I was losing my job this past fall. My wife and I have sufficient financial resources that we decided that, should that happen, we'd tell the world to go screw itself, we'd pack up the dogs and the RV and go wander around the western U.S. until ski season started. At that point we'd return home and I'd ski while searching for a real job. It would be a three-month sabbatical of sorts.

And if we did that, we wanted to be able to document the experience for ourselves. I wanted to keep photos and video as a souvenir. As described above, I wanted to share my "modern-day slide show" with anyone who wanted to see it. So several thousands of dollars later I accumulated the drone, the gimbal camera, the microphones, the studio lighting, the camera bags, the green screen...

...and then I somehow kept my job.

So we're not full-timers, we're weekenders and vacation weekers who love sharing our own love of RVing with anyone willing to watch. Our Amazon links do a very small part to help offset that investment. We only provide links to products that we use ourselves, and would recommend to friends and family. Do I feel like an eBeggar because Amazon pays our channel a small commission on each sale? Not at all.

I agree that SocialBlade is not 100% accurate and there is generally quite a gap between what they claim as monthly and annual earnings, but in my case it is definitely closer to the higher side in terms of accuracy. Most of your earnings are based on views, length of views, and frequency of postings. The more you post the more you make so long as your views are consistent. Subscriber count means very little in terms of overall revenue. It is just a good measure of how many views a video might get when it's posted for the first few days (generally about 20% of your subscriber base will watch every video you post). If you have a semi-Viral video, then that number of course will be much higher. Hope this helps. I can guarantee you that Nomadic Fanatic makes closer to around $55k-$60k per year as income from Youtube.

Interesting feedback - thank you.

I've been following Campervan Kevin and his Woof Pack.

hotbyte wrote:
What’s your view of street performers? Are they beggars when they play/sing/etc. and accept money?

Yes they are. If they were truly artists, they be out there on Boston Common in February. I haven't seen too many that were very good. I saw Tracy Chapman in a T stop in Cambridge once (I didn't know who she was at the time) and she was terrible. I can't imagine that brake dust and electrified carbon dust makes your voice better.

I don't like ANY of them. To me, it's more about their ego and seeing themselves on video than anything. If you notice, it's mostly just talking while they are selfing into the camera. And I really think a lot of them think they are going to make an easy living doing this, but I don't see it. AND I see a lot of misinformation from people that haven't been RVing enough to have the experience to give out information. BUTTTT- I watch a lot of RV videos; nobody in particular, but I am getting to know the names.

JustinCredibleTV

Dave & Muppy (older videos)

Wanderlust Estate

Rod Reddick

Road Warrior (Too bad he passed away)

To me, 99% of those you tubers just love to see themselves on video. One of them that is VERY informative as related to boondocking and really great camping spots, is "Grand Adventures".