11
votes
What are some good YouTube channels/shows/series related to travel?
Recently I just came across this channel Ilya Varlamov , great quality video content related to travel. Thought I should share this channel.
I also watch Not Just Bikes , it's more related to Urban planning, but you get to explore a lot about the countries.
Then is series called Scam City , It gives great info about native people trying to scam tourist's.
Series called Deadliest Roads , Shows the tough life of the native people with bad Road networks.
What all Youtube channels/Series you watch related to travel?
"James May, Our Man In Japan" is far better than later seasons, but had some serious genuine charm.
His rant about the bus being in the shot had me in stitches.
Japan was the most travel-y and complete and really put his character on the forefront.
I very much enjoyed the saga of Bim the Traveler and his Digital [Expletive].
Tim the traveller man goes around Europe looking at nerdy stuff
But we're not here to see any of that
I watch Downie Live on Nebula. He's probably on Youtube as well.
You would probably like Honest Guide but they do only Prague (and sometimes a bit of Czech Republic), I believe.
Straybob
This guy is a poet in his narration and he’s very good with his filming. His music choices are epic too.
He doesn’t post often, or even remotely frequently, but it’s worth investing in his previous trips - hitchhiking from Vietnam to England, a trek through Jordan (and losing a pup :-(), walking across India, or paddling down a river in Australia.
He’s about to undertake a cycling journey around the world, and is due to post that soon (I hope!)
Part of the charm is waiting for him to pop up.
My personal fav is GeoWizard. He plays a lot of Geoguesser on his channel, but the best videos are his travel videos. He has a few series, like his How Not to Travel where he hitchhikes his way around various places, his "straight line missions" where he attempts to walk across various regions in a perfectly straight line, and my personal favorite his "Tenner in my Pocket" videos, where he sets out with ten pounds in his pocket and hikes across the English countryside he runs out of money, relying on foraging (he's not bear grylls) or just random encounters with strangers. In most of his videos he puts a lot of focus on interacting with people, and there are a lot of surprisingly fun and charming encounters.
Itchy Boots. Noraly rides her motorcycle solo, around the world. She's currently heading East through Türkiye. Last season she traveled through much of Western Africa.
Can’t agree more. My wife and I began watching Itchy Boots at the beginning of this year, and worked through her backlog all the way from the start up to now, just catching up to her uploads a few days ago.
I adore hearing her get excited about the geology of the places she goes through (she studied and worked as a geologist for a number of years, for those reading this). More than anything she has a wonderful positive outlook and she rarely lets herself get frustrated. She always seems to assume the best of the people that she meets (within reason - she does go through some dangerous areas on occasion).
I first watched her recent India mini-season, before circling back and starting from the beginning. I think that’s probably how I would introduce her to new people, since it’s a relatively short series and shows her current video style fairly well.
I cannot highlight C90Adventures enough in that case. Ed is hilarious! He drove from Alaska to Argentina on essentially a moped :)) And his recent adventure involved a mini (toy) jeep in which he crossed parts of the US deserts.
in case you haven't seen it linked from tildes yet, https://www.youtube.com/@jetlagthegame is pretty popular around here and it's amazing
If you like informational videos about scams, you'll almost definitely enjoy Honest Guide -- they focus on Prague since that's where they're based, but they do a pretty good breadth of content on scams, tourist traps, and genuine recommendations. Genuinely very charismatic host and interesting videos.
As a lover of bicycles, I think bicycle touring might be one of the coolest ways to explore the world.
My favourite channel is rolling existence: https://www.rollingexistence.com/
They spent months biking around europe, then southeast asia, then some of the americas. The videos are really basic, not at all 'influencer' content, feels like 2012 YouTube instead of modern stuff (in a good way).
Alee Denham/cyclingabout had a really excellent video series that started at the southern tip of south america and was going to go all the way to Alaska... but Covid wound up trapping him in Mexico for a while. The videos are excellent, though, and show off a lot of parts of South America and Central America that I never knew existed: https://m.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLRAekI_UpkJ9jO2BFM_TuBY8xexkH6M94
Unfortunately his channel is on life support now, occasionally churning out SEO-spam adjacent articles about hot button cycling issues. But the old stuff is still great.
Not purely a travel channel, but Abroad In Japan does regular enough travel series with Journey Across Japan. As the name suggests, it's mostly focused on Japan, but it's good for seeing some of the less well known parts.
I've recently been watching a lot of Alexander the Guest, a wealthy Hungarian guy who travels around and reviews Michelin-starred and other high-end restaurants around the world. The production quality is pretty good, and I appreciate that the reviews he gives, especially on the food itself, are clearly his opinion, and he isn't criticizing those who like dishes that he doesn't. (Also holy moley, wine is expensive as fuck)
I recently found Joe & Nic's Road Trip and have been enjoying it. Lots of lowkey footage from small-town rural USA given along with facts for each town (population, income, household value, crime). Sometimes when they're covering a town that's big enough to have restaurants (for example they recently completed a tour of all 50 US state capitals) they'll stop at one and talk about the food a bit.
I love All The Gear, a lighthearted travel channel from the former presenters of Car Throttle. That channel split up into 3 sub channels, 2 of which are still very much car centric (buying crap, restoring it etc.) and All the Gear. They've been to Iceland and Japan for their bigger trips and recently have just done silly and incredibly cheap things.