A conversational YouTube vlog-style transcript in which Nate Buchanan and Kara visit the Batu Caves on Valentine’s Day and answer viewer questions about their relationship, travel routines, and day-to-day life as full-time traveling vloggers. The content mixes on-site narration (stairs, monkeys, statue, pool) with a Q&A about habits, finances, time together, and what they appreciate in each other.
Chapters
It's Valentine's Day today.
We're having one of our most exciting days. We are visiting the Batu caves.
Because it's Valentine's Day, we wanted to do a different kind of vlog, so we asked you to send in questions about our relationship, and we got some really good questions. I'm so excited.
And as we go about our day, we'll be taking the time to answer them. Let's go check out the caves.
Actually, before we go, why don't we go ahead and answer a couple questions?
Okay, so the first question we're gonna answer. Does Nate always bring you coffee in the morning, and did he do that before the travel? The answer is yes. Nate has always brought me coffee in the morning, and just because we started traveling, he has not stopped.
There was another one that said, who wakes up first?
I wake up first. Like, way first. We actually. We don't have disagreements bite too often. But last night, we wanted to get here to the caves early, and I did a little bit of complaining and then felt guilty after. So normally what happens is, like, I have to wake up 30 minutes before Kara so I can rub her back, and then she has to, like, take 30 minutes to lay in bed to get up, and that means I just have to be up for 30 minutes.
So another question.
Does film me make you guys be nicer to each other since, you know, other people are watching?
I think we cut out a lot of stuff. So, like, if I was ever really mean, I feel like I could cut it out. So I don't really feel like it makes me be nicer to Kara. But when you have to go back and watch yourself every day and how you act it, I definitely think, like, you're more conscious of that.
Yeah, for sure.
Like the day that you hiked Victoria Peak.
Yeah.
About to go 272 stairs.
That's a lot of stairs.
Hopefully the monkeys.
Oh, there are a lot of monkeys. Whoa, baby. Look at that one.
Kara, seriously, don't touch the monkeys, okay? She's gonna try to touch them.
I'm not gonna try to hand them. Next question.
For some reason, while we were walking up the stairs, it seemed like a good time to answer another one.
How in the world do y' all agree on what you're going to do each day? You'd think that that would be difficult. So I guess in my mind, I know what we're gonna pay for and what we're not gonna pay for. We also know that there's no way we're gonna be able to fit everything we want to do in each country. Since we're.
Four days to a week.
Normally seeing the top sites, eating. And as long as it doesn't involve spending too much money, I'm usually fine with whatever Cara wants to do. Quit throwing things at people. We're getting closer. Whoa. Hello, buddy. What are you eating?
You have zero perspective on the camera, but that's probably, I don't know, 300ft high.
We thought we'd do this question with our monkey friends running around behind us.
Okay. Another question is, how long did you date? We started dating when I was a sophomore in high school and Nate was a senior.
Six and a half years until we got married when Kara graduated college. And now we've been married for over two and a half. So we've been together for over nine years.
What all kinds of animals in here? Found some roosters.
Ye of monkey.
Look at it fill that thing with its teeth. It ate that in, like, two seconds. You stay away.
What did you just eat? That didn't even look edible.
We are leaving the batu k. Got a couple questions about spending time alone or time apart. I'd say the answer is we don't spend any time apart. We're basically together 247 from the time that we wake up to the time we go to sleep. I'd say Kara works on the vlog for probably, like, three to five hours a day. And so, like, we're not really talking during that time. So maybe that's a little bit, like time apart.
Yeah.
And while she's doing that, I'm travel planning and working on other things, so. But no, for the most part, we are together 24 7. We have, I don't know, I guess we go to the bathroom without each other. I'm trying to think of, like, when we've actually. Like times we've actually split up.
Nate left to get coffee a couple times and left me alone in the room.
I've gone to get coffee. I left her alone on the beach in the Philippines for, like. Like 10 minutes while I ran back to the hotel and some creepy guy came up and started hitting on her.
So it was horrible. So I told him he can't do that ever again.
So basically we're stuck together for the rest of the year.
We're at the bowl now.
Do you ever get on each other's nerves?
Probably not as much as people would think that we would be together 24 7, but occasionally, yeah.
I tend to get frustrated when I'm ready to do something like eat or see something. And Nate is trying to get the perfect shot for the vlog, so I'm, like, waiting. But then I'm always thankful when I'm editing the vlog when I have all these awesome shots, because Nate took the time to take them. So I feel like there's something else.
I think I already covered mine in an earlier question. It just takes care. A long time to get up in the mornings. Yeah. And then I have to sit around and wake up earlier. Oh, okay. I have one. Kara gets to this, like, hangry point where, like, no matter where we are, whatever the closest restaurant is, if it looks good, no matter how it goes, expensive it is. She's ready to eat there, Even if it's a terrible decision of where we should actually eat. But she's so hungry, like, she just. It just doesn't process through her head anymore that we could find somewhere better for cheaper. I. I think I'm learning, though.
When that point's coming, and so I can anticipate it and hopefully put us in a better position to find a cheap restaurant. Yeah.
Okay. That is one other thing that Nate is very. He likes to save money, and I'm the spender of the family. We just kind of balance each other out, I think. And there's a lot of times on this trip where I think something's worth the money and he doesn't. And he kind of has to remind me that we're traveling for a whole year, and if we did every single thing and bought every little thing I wanted, we would be out of money in, like, a week.
But I'm not, like, cheaping out on experiences. I don't think, like, it's more of, like, food. Like, you can't pay $40 for a meal at night and still have enough money to continue traveling.
This is a good transition to another question. Do you ever get annoyed or frustrated when you can't do something on the trip because it's too expensive? And Nate keeps track of all of that it needs.
I feel like a lot of people saw the vlog where we didn't ride the Ferris wheel and, like, really judged me for that. Yeah.
I would like to point out for Nate that I knew he was gonna say no to that question. We never ride ferris wheel. I didn't really care to ride it that much. I just thought it would be funny because I knew he would say no. And once again, if we did every little thing like that, we would have no more money because we're always around cool stuff because we're In a new place every week.
That's a good point. There's always an opportunity to spend like $20 a person to, like, ride a ferris wheel, go to the top of a tal.
If this was a one week vacation that we were taking for the whole year, then we would do all of those things. But we can't treat every country like it's a vacation because we would. We wouldn't have anything to sum all that up. I get frustrated when I can't do things sometimes, but then I'm always reminded that we're saving money so that we can keep traveling. And then I never think about it again. It says, do you both smile when you are fighting?
No.
Okay, so we don't fight very much. We didn't fight before, and we still don't really fight.
I would say now that we're traveling, we definitely fight more than we did when we were back home.
We just have a lot more decisions together now than we did at home.
You're constantly making decisions. Like, when you're at home, you're in, like, this routine, and so, like, you really don't make a difference. Ton of decisions every day, but, like, now every day, what should we eat for lunch? What should we eat for dinner? Where should we go between lunch and dinner? What should we do after dinner? Where should we stay in this next country? What type of transportation should we take to get to the airport, to the hotel? Like, it's just tons of decisions.
I think we do a pretty good job.
And I feel like you're a lot more likely to fight when you're hungry, tired, and lost. And we have been all of those things a lot of times in the.
Past majority of our trip. But we are also kind of forced to get over it quickly because it's not like we're going anywhere.
You're stuck together.
Yeah. Next question. What have you learned about yourself and your spouse on this trip so far?
I think we've both learned that I changed my mind a lot.
Oh, my gosh. I should have put that in my.
Annoyed one, like, very instantly.
Yeah. Let me think of an example. Like, Nate, do you want me to get you a sparkling water? No, I'm fine. He'll answer immediately and I'll be happy. And then he'll go.
Yeah, I'll take one. And it's fine. It's just like. Like we said, we make a lot of decisions and he answers quickly and then he thinks about it, Then he changes his mind, and then sometimes he changes his mind again.
It's just Thinking out loud.
It's.
Yeah. Okay.
What else have we learned about each other and ourselves?
Well, no, I mean, we did live together for, like, two and a half years. It's not like. And we've been together for nine years, so it's not like a lot of new things have come out from traveling.
What do each most appreciate about the other at the moment?
I'm glad that Nate's not sick of me yet and lets me eat pretty much whenever I want.
I'm glad Kara has not purchased a single thing since we've been on this trip.
I haven't.
No clothing, no jewelry, and.
You have no idea. Well, I guess you have an idea, because we've showed you how many night markets we've gone to. And I think knowing that whatever I buy, I have to put on my back between each place, like, I already have to sit on my suitcase to zip it up.
I am thankful that Kara can do things like stay in some pretty gross hotels and ride some pretty gross public transportation and be fine with it, because I know that there are a lot of girls who would not be.
Aww. Thank you. I'm glad that Nate is pretty much the reason we're doing this trip. He signed up for all the credit cards. He signed me up for credit cards. He collected all the points. He booked all of our travel, does all of the research for where we're gonna stay and where we're gonna go. And I just grabbed my passport and follow him.
Kara is killing it on editing the vlogs and that she enjoys it because I think this is a really fun way to document our travels.
Yeah. The vlogs are my one, and I.
Will say they take her, like, three to six hours a day, so she can't handle too many more jobs.
We film, like, our whole day, and then I have to watch it all again. Like, it just takes time.
This kind of feels like a Thanksgiving.
I know.
Vlog. Let's keep going. I can think of some more things.
I can think of one more. A couple of the times that we've kind of gotten in a fight were times that I was being probably not very smart, and Nate was trying to keep us safe. So I really do appreciate that I have Nate, because the times I've been by myself, I've been really.
Sometimes being the protector in the relationship gets misunderstood as being the party member in the relationship. I am thankful that Kara enjoys trying new things as much as I do.
That has been a blessing for us because I enjoy eating, and Nate enjoys new experiences and so most of our eating experiences have been new fun experiences. And so I get to eat, Nate gets a new experience. It just works out. We're having our fancy Valentine's dinner in the lounge. We were going to answer some questions about dates and dinner, but it's really quiet in here, so it would be really awkward.
The vlog was getting a little long. We're just going to end it here.
For today, but we got a lot of great questions about track travel in general. So we're gonna come back and do another Q and A. Another day. Happy Valentine's Day.
This entire subway smells like ocean estate. You like that? Kara.
No making out on the trains.
We'll have to find a new train line.
Valentine's.
That looks better. Here. We need to change the battery. Fun fact. This is the world's largest statue of this guy. Kara really doesn't want to get pooped on, so she's making a very wide circle around all these pigeons. Oh. Yep, I'm getting pooped on. That thing is probably the weirdest one I've seen yet.
Oh, he's coming for you.
You're so mean.
Sorry for the convenience.
I look naked.
Sorry.
We're in the pool. Kara has on a bathing suit. She's not naked. You want to see something really funny?
Yeah. No.
You said yeah. All right, that's enough. No more. No more.
Bye.
