LIFE UPDATE 2024 (what's next)

All right, how's this work? Do not point at people. Wait, is it gonna come out this end?

I knew you had it upside down. Wow. That makes a mess.

What a disaster.

It was not worth having to clean this up.

We just completed our eighth year of full time travel, and it's kind of become a tradition to make this our first video of the new year.

Back at the end of 2021, we were sitting in a hotel room for a week trying to figure out what we were going to do with our life as the world was coming out of a pandemic. And that is where this life update video was born. We put a bunch of stuff on the calendar. Guess what we were going to do that year? And then we shared it with you.

We also like to reflect on the past year and tell some behind the scenes stories that didn't quite make the video video and share some true feelings that we have that we couldn't really tell at the time. And it's really just the only time we can just sit down and not think about the algorithm and not think about retention and just.

It's kind of like a therapy session that we share with the Internet.

Honestly.

Last night we sat down and watched 2023's Life Update video, and it was really fun to see what we thought we were going to do and how the year ended up, because in a lot of ways, it looked very different.

Also, did anyone make it through the holidays without getting a cold?

Literally everyone we know is sick or has been sick. The flu. Covid.

I just have a cold. Congratulations. If you're still healthy.

My favorite part of these little end of year retreats that we take is getting to dream about the next year and put it on a calendar. I spent a lot of time planning. Kara spent a lot of time drawing. But we will get to this after we look back on 2023. We're calling this section of the video 2023 Wrapped. My Spotify Wrapped, but it's Karen n wrapped.

We're going to give some stats superlatives for the year. Then we'll look at 2024.

We are going to start with travel stats. Last year, we took 78 flights.

Whoa.

We flew 32 different airlines, which is way more than I would have expected. And we flew 122,000 miles.

How many miles is it around the world?

24,000 miles. So we basically flew around the world five times. We visited 25 different countries. And probably the craziest stat of all and the most tiring stat of all is this. With Mine, Yes.

I started a notepad on my phone where I kept count of every time we switched beds.

That could have been a train, a van, another hotel, a plane. We slept in 159 different beds, bringing our average to spending 2.3 nights per bed.

And what's crazy about that is we spent 36 nights straight in the van. In our van, our cross country trip, I counted as one bed, even though technically the bed moved every night. Honestly, that stat makes me feel better about how tired I was this year. We'll get to that later, but I'm tired now.

We're going to jump into video stats. This year we published 47 new videos on the Karen Nate channel, respectable if.

I do say so myself.

And started a new channel where we published eight videos.

That's pretty good.

So for those of you who missed it, we started a channel for our travel hiking newsletter called Daily Drop. On that channel we talk a lot about credit cards and how you can earn rewards to travel for cheap. But we've also posted some travel reviews and flight review videos over there. And we're a lot more opinionated over on that channel. Some would say, I mean it get like an eight.

Yeah.

There were no slippers. Yeah.

There was no chapstick six.

Wow. Yeah, it was ruthless over here. So in total for the year we posted 55 videos. If you count the daily dropouts which we're going to.

I'm so proud of that.

This does not count the Daily Drop videos. This is just for the Karen Nate channel. But the average duration of our videos was 32 minutes and 25 seconds.

Have I mentioned that I'm tired?

And the crazy thing is we did not go into the year with the intention of doing that.

Never. We never set out to film a video and go, alright, let's aim for 40 minutes this time. Like, we really truly just like love to tell fun, engaging stories. And we just have this feeling when we feel like a story is complete and that's when we stop filming. And for some reason that feeling just comes a lot later than it used to.

After doing it for eight years, there's like this internal clock where it's like, okay, I think we have a video now. And sometimes those videos are 20 minutes and sometimes they're an hour.

Thankfully we have two amazing editors that help us get these long videos done. But it's just becoming more or I guess less and less sustainable to post every week like we have been for four years.

Are you feeling hints of a little bit more of the therapy session that's coming.

32 and a half minutes.

Okay. Our most viewed video of the year was Earth Roamer at 3.8 million views.

Basically, we're BFFs with Earth Roamer.

Now, should we do, like, runner up? Yeah.

Because I don't know. No. Wait. No.

It was the first video that we filmed this year.

Emirates First Class. Yeah, Emirates first was nuts. I showered on a plane.

All right. Least view video the year.

I think I know, and it makes me really sad.

No, it was living with monks in Japan. Really, that was our least viewed video of the year. The one Kira thought it was and that only beat it by 2000 views was the video I filmed with my grandfather. That video is basically our least viewed video on our channel this year. Oh, my goodness. But has the most comments of any video. So the people that did watch it really enjoyed it.

Their hearts, for sure.

It was a special video. That was one that I think I would have regretted not making. This is my favorite part of looking back on last year. This is our superlatives. We each know the five categories going into it, but we don't share the answers with each other until now.

Can I go ahead and confess something to you?

Sure.

I don't think I chose one answer for any of them.

All right, number one, scariest video of the year to film the bike.

Whoa.

I have the monkey run as my runner up. I think biking across the US Is the most dangerous thing that we've done in all eight years of travel. Statistically, the chances of us getting hit by a car were high. That's what I said as we were crossing the finish line. We didn't die. We didn't get hit by a car. And that's genuinely how I felt, like, so much relief each day.

I had such a positive attitude that, like, oh, like, this day is like, this part of the trail is pretty bad, but it'll get better from here. I think that's why I don't look back and only think of fear. Sorry to interrupt, but I have to thank our first sponsor of the year and AG1. Chances are you've heard Nate and I talk about AG1amillion times because it's actually a product that we love both on and off camera. And it's a daily routine that we've stuck with for over three years now. We don't have many routines in our chaotic life, but this is a big one. I kid you not. We love it so much that for Christmas this year, Nate and I handed out AG1 travel packs as party favors. To our friends and family. They all loved it. And I'm about to tell you why. The new year is a perfect time to commit to healthy habits, and AG1 could not make it any more simple. Just one serving of AG1 is packed with so many essential vitamins and minerals, many of which we definitely aren't getting from our diets alone. Especially with our hectic life when we're, I don't know, living with a remote tribe in Indonesia or riding a motorbike across Peru. AG1 has her back. In case it isn't obvious, we heavily rely on AG1 to fill the nutritional gaps in our diet. And the super high quality ingredients they use help support our immunity, our gut health, our focus and energy levels, and even stress. And as an added bonus, we think it tastes great. Much less green and grassy than it looks and actually more on the sweet side. But don't just take it from me. Try AG1 for yourself. If you use our link below, not only will you get the jar and shaker, but they'll also include a free bottle of these immune supporting vitamin D3K2 drops, which we also take every day. And this bottle lasts up to a year. And you'll get five of these travel packs for free.

I do agree that the Monkey Run might have actually been more dangerous.

The Monkey run was dangerous in a whole different way. I've never driven a two wheeled motor vehicle before in my life. And we're all on our own. There's no one around for miles, not to mention it's freezing. I'm carrying everything I own on my back while driving the motorcycle.

Motorcycles are basically meant to break down.

Nate is like ill the entire time.

The monkey run is one of the first things that we've done that. When we got there the first day and we were learning how to ride the bikes, I was like, I think I went too far.

Like, honestly, the moment that sticks out the most where I was the most scared was when we're on the side of a cliff. Thousand foot drop on one end. We had to get up and over to get to the next town and Nate's clutch broke. He has to run to start it and he's like, once I get going, I can't stop and I can't wait for you. So he gets it started, which was a miracle, and I was happy that he was able to go, but that left me on the side of a cliff.

That was one of the very few times that something got so intense that we didn't even pull the camera out. The Video this year that we had the most fun filming. 1, 2, 3. Australian.

That was my second one.

The road trip that we took through the outback in Australia was just an absolutely amazing week.

We just went and had a ton of fun, and the camera just came along for the ride, and that is the sweet spot. It was, like, a little dangerous, but so fun. I think the hardest I laughed all year was with kinging it when we.

I forgot about that.

It was Arctic Van Life. We were in the north of Norway, living in their van, all four of.

Us, and we decided we were gonna go surfing.

Arctic surfing sounds like a great idea.

Does it?

No. We're just trying to get down to the beach, but the ground is frozen. I'm holding my surface.

The wind was blowing so hard, and the surfboard was basically a sail, and.

Amy's trying to come get me. That was a lot of fun until it wasn't fun anymore.

I'm so cold, and it's so windy, and I can't put my face one more.

Okay.

Our Back to Van Life video. Positioning ourselves for the bike trip. We got in the van. We had a super fun road trip out west, and I got to go to the Adele concert.

One of our family members during the holidays was asking about moments of pure joy during 2023. And I think Kara at the Adele concert is the most joyous that I've seen her in I don't know how long. The most underrated video of 2023. This is the video that if you haven't seen yet, you should go back and watch it.

All right, I have three.

Well, you have to pick one.

Okay.

Three, two, one. Mental. I got better views is why it's not my number one. Well, yeah, that was one of the videos that we were super excited about. We put probably more effort into that video than we did any other video all year ever. And then I think we spent more time on the edit than we've ever spent on a video. And then it was our worst performing video at the time.

And then Lake Tea Cacao.

We just kind of show up for these experiences and let them organically happen. Then that's the video that you see. I was super skeptical of how touristy this was going to be. And then we get to go spend time with this family, and they're amazing. And then I get to, like, go out on the boat and fish with this guy, and he starts telling me about how much tourism positively impacts his life, and then I end up a changed person at the end of the video.

Couldn't have written it better.

I know. That's what I'm saying. It was like a movie.

All right, honorable mentions.

We're doing rapid fire now.

The bike trip finale. I'm a little offended.

And the finale was the best.

Every time I shake my head.

Next.

Most underrated. The Cat Hotel in Japan.

If you want to laugh, say your hardest.

I laughed all year.

The end of that video, Kara, I left for two seconds. Video that you're most proud of.

Orcas.

We got one. The intro to that video is the first minute there's no talking. And it's one of my favorite edits that we've ever done.

Most pinch me moment of the year.

We climbed up Christ the redeemer.

Yes.

Into his shoulder and we popped out the top. I heard somewhere that if you blink, you're more likely to be able to recount an experience. And I remember sitting up there being like.

We are so close to pulling out the 2024 calendar. But before we do that, in last year's life update video, we set three goals and I thought it would be fun to go back and look and see how we did.

We didn't do very well.

One of the three goals that we set last year was to get to a million readers and make this the best travel newsletter on the Internet.

Done.

And right now we are at 1,012,000, 348.

It's just created a life of its own. And it's. I can't even think back to before daily drop.

We now have nine full time people on the team and five contractors. It's just growing in the best way possible. This is the one goal that we hit and we pretty much had nothing to do with it. I would love to be more involved with it, but our first priority is this channel. So this is where we spend the majority of our time. But it's probably a good thing because Mike, our head writer over there, is 10 times the miles and points expert that I am. Also, if you're not a reader, we will leave a link down below where you can sign up. Maybe 2024 could be the year that you learned to use miles and points to travel for less. The second goal that we set for ourself in 2023, 365 daily videos.

No, I don't know if I can commit to 365. I don't even think we made it the first 30 days of the year.

It felt like we were working harder than we had ever worked before. Kara's managing way more footage. She's doing way more editing because we're trying to do that on top of the long form videos. But like we were gonna do it. Like we were excited about it. We were in hustle mode. And then it felt like everybody hated them.

The response was very negative.

I actually don't think that most people hated them, but there was a loud minority that really did not like the shorts.

Right. I think a lot of it had to do with the way that we didn't communicate our goals. We always take off time around the holidays and don't post videos for a few weeks. So that was happening. We weren't posting long form videos and all of a sudden we were posting a short every day starting January 1st. So I think a lot of people who follow us thought we were just gonna be a shorts channel all of a sudden without telling anyone and think that nobody would notice. So people made it their goal to make us know that that is not what they want us to do. But our goal was to start posting long form video. Always do. In addition to the shorts, our goal.

Was to post 365 shorts. We post it 32.

We're not shorts people. So our third goal for 2023 was to post 52 videos.

Every year at the beginning of the year, we've looked at each other and we've said, do we have another year of this crazy life in us? And every year up until now, our answer has been a resounding, we got this, let's go. And that is exactly how we started out. 2023, we posted 47 videos, so we were five videos short.

And that was mostly my fault. That feels a bit harsh, but it's true.

We collectively, not just Kara, in the middle of this year for the first time, felt like we didn't have it in us anymore.

I've been calling it my mental breakdown to everyone in my life that I tell this story to, which sounds a bit dramatic, but I think that's what it was.

It was like a tiredness that no matter how you slept, you couldn't shake. And our routine has been run the gas tank to empty and then take a few days off, refill it back up again, get back on the road and go.

Yeah, we've been doing a full sprint for eight years and loving it. And usually after our sprints, we take a few days and then I'm ready to go again. And for the first time, I wasn't like ready. I was more like almost like dreading going again. It was a little scary because in my heart I'm, like, still so in this.

This was a week. This wasn't, like, all of 2020.

It all came out in the span of a week.

Yeah. Yeah. This summer, we sat on the beach in Tonga and made a video about burnout. And we didn't post it.

It's sitting on my hard drive. I thought I would get through my rough patch, then make the video. That was my goal. Like, I didn't want to make a video where I just sat and was an emotional wreck. So I thought, okay, I'm gonna save this time. I'm just gonna rest, and then we'll make a video. Sharing this, because I think this is something I need to share with the life that we get to live. I feel like I need to strike this balance between sharing the good days and the bad days, but also, you know, realizing how privileged we are and how grateful we are for what we get to do and knowing that a lot of people probably don't have sympathy for somebody who gets to travel.

Fair enough. We literally have the best job in the world.

So we sat down, filmed the video. I spilled my guts. And then when it came time to, like, edit the video, it just. It was so weird.

We were both in a much better place.

It felt so unnecessary, so we didn't post it. But it was a big part of our year, and it's gonna be a big part of our next year, and so it feels like something we need to share, and I just kind of want to have it here as a permanent spot in our video journal.

We're in a really good place right now.

Yes, that should be stated.

I think it should also be said that our relationship has been good.

Yeah.

Even through the hard time. Like, it wasn't a problem with us. Yeah. It was just. I would kiss you, but, you know.

We'Re about to share 2024 with you, and it'll all make a little more sense knowing that.

Yeah.

Okay. I think I'm going to have to move the camera back.

This is our year. The whole entire year on one big calendar. You see the whole thing? Look at that.

Wow. Barely. This calendar was created by the guy who started the 29029 event that we did where we had to climb the vertical elevation of Mount Everest without sleeping. This is actually what inspired the 2021 calendar, but I was too cheap to take to buy the real one back in 2021. But this year, I splurged, and you can see our entire year in one place. I think the thing that probably stands out, the Most is that in January and February there are no post its, there's no artwork. So our plan is to take the biggest break that we've taken since starting this YouTube channel.

We are not filming any videos or.

Traveling anywhere for the first six weeks of the year.

So crazy.

We're not going to completely abandon you. Two of my favorite videos that we filmed this year we saved to post during January and February.

So we'll be posting a little bit, but us personally, we'll be staying in the same bed.

I'm obviously very excited for a break, but I do feel, I think I feel guilty. There aren't a lot of people who post weekly videos now and I've prided myself in that consistency. And we're grateful that you watch these videos and I kind of feel like in a way we owe you that. But I also don't feel like we can keep going at this pace much longer. So we're trying to make this a little more sustainable because we would like to keep doing this for years to come.

And then our 2024 goal, we're setting.

One goal for this year, which is to post an average of three videos per month. So 36 total videos for the year.

Which is only one less video per month than we've been doing for the last four years. But it feels like a massive, massive shift. We're trying to frame it not as we're cutting back, but that we're creating, creating space. We, like a lot of people, always want to grow and learn. It feels like we have been doing that in our capacity in one week is maxed out.

We've been posting weekly videos since the pandemic hit, so since 2020, that's when we shifted to posting weekly. We've been doing it ever since. And the videos have been getting bigger and bigger and bigger.

And a week is still seven days, if you didn't know. And so we're adding all of like so much more work into each week and we want to keep doing that, but we've after lots and lots of.

Conversations, we've been talking about this for months.

It's finally time to let go of that weekly goal. And it feels so wrong.

The goal is to post three videos a month, so 36 videos. I'm not sure that we're gonna be able to hold ourselves back for not posting more. My secret goal is 40 videos.

I think the goal for this year, if we could just put it simply, is to not be maxed out, to.

Do this in a more sustainable way. Should we jump into it.

It's gonna be awesome. All right, 20, 24.

We've gotta make this fast because.

We have 15 minutes until we have to be out of this room. We've gotten 4pm late checkout and somehow we're still cutting it close. Something is gonna happen the second half of February. We don't know what that is. Yellow is personal. So go see friends. New longest train ride.

The world's longest limousine.

That's not what it is. Me and my grandfather wearing kilts. Those are mountains in Europe and those are huts on top. South Africa to the bottom. There's bikes, there's mountains. The van. Hawaii, Alaska, Michigan. These little purple post its down here. That's my big physical challenge for the year.

And I mean.

Big. Honestly, why you would ever want to put yourself through this, I don't know. No one has ever done it. And you might be the first.

First.

I think you're going to start a trend.

What are you doing?

Feeling your emotion that you're about to share.

I think we should we move over there for better light. That was the emotion I was feeling.

I think it looks really good.

Oh, come on.

We understand. The fact that we get to buy a gigantic year long calendar and fill it with post it notes of the craziest travel experiences we could dream up.

Is the biggest privilege in the world.

It still blows my mind that we get to do this for our job. And just in case we don't say it enough, thank you.

We are so grateful for this. Which is why it pains me inside that we like complained a little bit in this video. But we're in a really good spot. We love what we do. And I also realize that it is a huge privilege to get to take six weeks off.

Oh.

So thank you for your patience. And we will have two videos including this one. Two videos for you in January, two videos for you in February, and then we'll be back making videos. Three to four a month.

It's gonna be a great year.

I hope at the end of next year we're like, we have so much energy. We're going back to four videos.

Daily vlogs, actually.

Okay, we have seven minutes to pick up 10,000 pie.

Oh, my gosh. Oh. I meant to say I made a playlist of our 20, 23 videos. All of them. So if you want to catch up on our year, if we talked about anything that you missed, I'll link it and you can find it there.

We're gonna make another playlist of all the videos that we filmed on the Daily Drop Channel.

All right. Happy New Year.

Happy New Year. See you soon. In two weeks out.

Sam.