We can hardly believe it but we just reached 500,000 views of the 202 travel videos we’ve shot, edited, and uploaded to our Trans-Americas Journey YouTube channel. That’s one million eyeballs!
In 2008 we started shooting our first travel videos using a Flip Video camera (now defunct). Then we moved on to a GoPro and the video function on Eric’s compact Canon S95.
Our most watched travel video
This video has been watched more than 49,000 times. It was shot when we were invited to the annual fiestas in a town in Mexico called Union de Tula. Wandering from neighborhood party to neighborhood party we came upon the La Loma neighborhood, we were handed an adult beverage and we sat down to enjoy this little kid putting us all to shame on the dance floor.
The first travel video we ever uploaded to YouTube
When we were on Lake Chapala, near Guadalajara in Mexico with our dearly missed friends Tom, Iliana, Cristina, and David we enjoyed the Red Bull Air Force, Red Bull’s world famous aerial acrobatics team, as they did some awesome aerial ballet over the lake. Take a look.
The first travel video we ever shot
Shortly after receiving our first Flip Video camera we were traveling through the Southwest of the US and received a coveted permit to hike The Wave in the North Coyotte Buttes area of the Paria Canyon Vermillion Cliffs Wilderness area in Arizona. Eric shot this Walk through the Wave video, sadly, that first Flip Video camera didn’t have any kind of image stabilization and walking with the camera lead to a very shaky video. That said, it still conveys the awesomeness of that spectacular location and it’s been viewed more than 23,000 times.
Obligatory funny animal video
In Northern Belize we came across this male ocellated turkey strutting his stuff. Really, still photos can’t do justice to this over-the-top display.
A personal favorite
This one is called Beetle Ballet and it has nothing to do with insects or ballerinas. Mexico’s famous silver mining town of Taxco is a colonial classic built in the hills. In addition to silver, it’s famous for wonderful architecture and some of the narrowest, steepest streets in the world. This video shows how crazy these streets are, even for little cars like the VW Beetle.
Our most recent travel video
The most recent video we’ve uploaded comes from our great experience at this year’s Carnival in Las Tablas, Panama. On Tuesday, the final evening of Carnival, the ladies dress up in the beautiful and very expensive national dress of Panama. It’s called a pollera and this video shows them on parade in the towns of La Villa de Los Santos, Santo Doming,o and Las Tablas.
Our deepest travel video
This video was shot during one of the coolest things we’ve ever done: riding a submersible down to 300 feet below the surface of the ocean while we were exploring Cocos Island in Costa Rica.
Famous folks caught on film
We had press credentials which got us into Mexico City’s Zocalo (main square) for the gigantic bicentennial celebrations in 2010. Not only were we directly beneath President Calderone as he shouted the traditional “Grito“, we were also beneath several other Mexican icons who were sharing the balconies of the Presidential Palace during the speech including one of Mexico’s most legendary singers, Vincente Fernandez, lucha libre wrestling star Santo Jr., and the (then) newly crowned Miss Universe, Mexico’s Ximena Navarrete.
Why time-lapse is our friend
We’ve used time-lapse a bit, for example, to produce videos shot with our GoPro camera mounted in the windshield of our truck to show you our driving route each month by compressing all of our driving into a 10 minute video that shows you Where We’ve Been on the road that month. This video from the Panama Canal uses time-lapse to take you from the Atlantic to the Pacific through all six of the amazingly simple yet sublime locks of this engineering marvel.
Subscribe to our YouTube channel and never miss another one of our travel videos from the road as our Trans-Americas Journey continues through the Americas.
Wow awesome achievement and great to see how you’ve progressed from the early days to recent productions. I’m still to dabble in the world of video, struggle enough with writing & photography. Good luck for the next 1 million eyeballs.
Congratulations! No idea how you find the time to do all this stuff ;)
I have a huge amount of respect for you guys — I know how long it takes to edit these videos from my own few feeble attempts. Kudos to you!!
Oh man.. you should have done “Gangnam Style”, than you did not have to wait this long :-P
Kudos! I love the way your posts provide a full experience with narrative, photos and video. Adding video to your post must double the time it takes them to go live (I know it does for us!). Thanks for putting so much love into your story telling.
Congratulations! that’s a nice round number!!
Fyi, unfortunately, I do not see videos embedded into this post. They appear as black rectangulars. YouTube channel works fine.
Thanks. The videos our working on our end.
Great writing. Thank a lot for taking the time. I’ll check back to find out more and tell my acquaintenances about your website.