Life Update 2025! (house & kids)

How is it done?

Is that a sign for the year?

All right, all right, that's enough. That's enough.

2025.

This is our fourth year in a row making a life update video to start out the year. And we love this tradition.

It is one of my favorite videos of the year to make. I always look forward to it because I love getting to reflect back on the past year, pull all of the stats together, and then start making plans for the next year.

Got a little bigger.

Thanks.

I just shoved it a little further.

This video is going to be broken up into four different parts. I've got my notes right here. I always like to write it out by hand. Something about that just feels different than what we do all year, which is spend all of our time on our phones.

Mine are on my phone computers.

The four categories are stats from last year, superlatives. Then we've got behind the scenes, and then finally we're gonna share our plans for next year. Usually this is on a big calendar and it's just the videos that we plan to film. This year's plans might be the biggest news we've ever shared on this channel. You weren't planning on that?

We have two massive life updates.

This is gonna be awesome.

Stick around to the end.

We're doing this.

Let's get into it with some travel stats.

We need to give a big shout out to Spotify for the, like, wrapped theme.

I think we did our own version.

Yeah, yeah, totally.

Definitely.

Completely different.

Yeah. Cuz there's this vertical on the phone and ours are horizontal. This year we flew on 28 different airlines. I think we flew 32 last year. So this is actually like. We toned it down a bit.

Oh, okay.

Miles flown.

So does this include flights we took separately?

Yes. So this is maybe a little overinflated because like Cara flew Air France first to go to the Taylor Swift concert, and then I did an entire trip around the world on my own. And all of those miles are in there.

Usually we share the miles.

200,921 miles. This might be the most miles we've ever flown in a single year, which is pretty crazy because this year was the year we were supposed to be slowing down. This year we visited a total of 21 countries. I don't know how many new countries we visited this year, but I do know that our total country count now comes to 110, which is a nice round number. I really like being there.

I really like being at 110. It's still really crazy to me. That we went to a hundred countries in four years. We've now completed four years of non 100 country journey.

In four years, we've been to 10 countries. After you visit 100 countries, it's hard not to go back.

So last year I started a new tradition where I keep count of how many beds we sleep in each year. This tradition started because I was really tired at the beginning of last year and I thought, how many times do I have to put all my stuff in a bag, lug it somewhere, and then sleep in a new bed and then do it all again over and over and over again? I am very happy to announce that our bed count is quite a bit lower, I wouldn't say significantly lower than it was in 2023. Right? It's not 2025. This is 2024. Our 2024 bed count is one.

Beds.

Which for the year that the goal was to slow down, still sounds like a lot.

Bringing our average bed count per night. It is leap year, so it was 125 beds over the course of 366 days. That makes our average bed 2.9 beds per.

Wait, 2.9 nights per bed.

So nearly three nights in every bed that we slept in this year.

Our goal next year is to be above 3. So while that sounds like a lot of moving, do you remember what we were at last year? 2.3 nights per bed.

And I'm still proud of it. Like, I still love that we travel this much and can sleep in this many beds and that this is our life. But we are trying to take better care of ourselves and slow down a little more. But, you know, balance.

I feel like if you're watching this, you can probably just tell that we're in a much better spot than we were last year when we were filming this video. Like, I feel like last year was like, oh, we're so exhausted.

I'm tired. I am a totally different person so sitting here than I was at the beginning of 2024, which is nuts, because in case you didn't know, the day after we filmed our 2024 life update, I had a massive seizure and our lives were flipped upside down. I thought it was going to be the worst year ever. There was a lot of lows and a lot of scary moments this year. And so to sit here and feel as happy and joyful and content and excited as I am right now feels really, really good.

This hurting your.

I feel like the hat is itching.

Okay, now we're moving on to video stats. This year, we posted 34 videos, which was the exact goal that we had for the year. Posting two videos in January and February and then three videos a month for the rest of the year.

Do you remember what you said when we announced our three videos per month goal last year?

I'm not sure that we're going to be able to hold ourselves back for not post posting more. My secret goal is 40 videos.

Our whole theme of last year was we're slowing down to create space. We don't know what we're creating space for, but we're ready to have a little bit of space for something extra. And that was doctor's appointments. So I really am so proud that we even hit that goal. Like, we could have easily just been like, let's just take the year off. Like, it was crazy.

And I feel like maybe that could come across the wrong way. I think we kept filming videos because we wanted to film videos, not because we felt like we had to. For I think that's a really important distinction to make. Like, we really enjoyed ourselves this year and I feel like we have a much healthier relationship with YouTube. This stat, I think, like, tells a big story. Our average length of video this year.

Oh, gosh.

Was 41 minutes and 45 seconds. Do you remember what last year's was? 32 minutes and 25 seconds. And how did you feel about last year's?

I thought that was crazy. Have I mentioned that I'm tired and now they're even longer?

I don't know how we made videos that long.

I would just like to make it known that we have never set out to post a 50, a 60, a 70, 80. We even have 90 minute videos out there this year. We're never like, all right, let's make a long one. We just have a feeling when we've filmed a full story and then we edit it the way we want it to be. And sometimes it's 25 minutes, sometimes it's 90 minutes and I don't really know how else to do it.

Feeling somehow has, like continued to back up. Now a seven day trip that would have been three videos in the past is one video.

Do you want to unpack this now or later?

You're unpacking a lot of things.

We used to make part one, part two, part three videos all the time of the same trip. This year, all of a sudden, part twos and especially part threes, views gone. No one cares. People have moved on.

Yeah, I feel like people used to enjoy series and I thought of it like a TV show. You know, like this is episode one, episode two, and it's a continuation of a story instead of us moving from one country to another. But it was very obvious based on the views that those videos received that like, it's like, okay, we get to just in part one and we don't care about part two.

It was an ongoing theme and so now we don't think we're making part twos anymore. I'd love to know your thoughts in the comments and we can talk specific specifics later, but for sure we would.

Have done a part one and two Christmas markets.

Yeah. Last year we did three. In 2024, we posted 1,420 minutes worth of long form videos.

23 hours and 40 minutes of videos.

We only leave in the best parts.

So much effort has gone in to each minute of that 24 hours.

Every minute counts. Yeah.

That's crazy. Nice work. Okay. Ah, this is just not going well for me. Our most viewed video for the third year in a row.

Are you serious?

Was our Earth Roamer video. Wow. So three years in a row we've stayed in an Earth Roamer and made a video about it. And each year that video has been the most watched on our channel. So guess what's coming in 2025. And then I'll just kind of like follow that up. Just like I did. Top three. Our train trip that we did across Canada got 3.4 million views. That was number two.

Wow.

And then our Amtrak train that we did across the US got 3 million views. So also consistently, you all still love trains and we're happy to do more of that in 2025 as well. Least viewed videos, these are slightly skewed because they've been posted more recently, so they haven't had as much time to get views. But kind of like how strong a video starts out is a pretty good indication of how it's going to do. And if we're being completely honest, the end of this year has been like a major slump for the channel. I don't know if it's just like overall our channel is in a slump or we just posted three really bad videos in a row.

Yeah.

But it feels like especially one of these should not have been a least viewed video. It was just more of an overall indication of channel health. So our least viewed video of the year was the video we made about hitting 4 million subscribers.

Yeah, I'm okay with it. Like, I'm really proud of all of our videos and I want them all to do well. We put our life and Soul into every single one. So obviously, I can't help but feel a little sad when they don't perform.

Well.

I have a theory. The video we posted the week before that was an ad for our company. It was a fun ad. We had a great time.

We put tons of effort into it.

We rented an entire airplane Hollywood movie set. So it was a real airplane, and we thought it was the coolest spot to promote our business. That video, as expected, you know, didn't go viral because it was us talking about our company, but we were.

I feel like people thought it was too hard.

Maybe so, but we were like. While we have this very expensive hourly rate that we were paying for this plane, we might as well film our second video in there, which is our 4 million celebration video. We wanted to just go through our entire journey, give some behind the scenes. But it was in the same plane. Maybe people saw it and thought it was the same ad they had already ignored.

Just change the title on them. Gotcha.

Or maybe it was just super boring and nobody wants to hear us talk. And maybe we'll never do that again.

Because our hundred country video, which is basically the same thing where we recap going to 100 countries, has 6 million views now.

Well, that was totally different.

My flying around the world video, that surprised me.

Yeah.

I had several feelings about that one. I just feel like I wasn't there.

Totally get it.

I don't know. I don't feel like I need to defend that one. I'm fine. If that's the waste view video bringing up the number three spot for least viewed. For least viewed.

I'm scared. What is it?

Polar bears? No, I think it's just a sign of overall channel health. So if y' all could, like, leave a few extra comments or thumbs up or subscribe. Yeah, do that.

Go watch the polar bear.

Get us out of the swamp. The longest video that we posted this year was the Leadville 100.

Yeah.

At 1 hour and 36 minutes. The shortest video of the year was flying Eddie Hod's the residence at 22 minutes and 49 seconds. That does it for stats.

Wow.

Are you ready for superlatives?

Stats were fun. I think I need a sip of water.

Okay.

Got a lot to say.

Sorry to interrupt. We are currently en route to Colorado, which, if you stick around for our big announcement at the end of this video, this will make a lot more sense. Y' all know we travel for a living, meaning we have very few routines in our lives, but somehow we've managed to make AG1 a daily routine for the last four years. Four and a half actually. They have been an amazing long term sponsor for us and I'm so grateful for them. But I truly mean it when I say we drink this both on and off camera and don't go anywhere without it. Securely fasten until the captain does turn off the pass the Sea Bo sign. Like I was saying, AG1 is the easiest thing you can do for your health. So if one of your New Year's resolutions is to have a healthier 2025, then I cannot recommend it enough. Just one serving is packed with high qual nutrients including vitamins, minerals, pre and probiotics that support energy, digestive regularity, immune defense and a healthy mood. We are always sharing AG1 travel packs with our friends and family and I can proudly say that we have converted so many of them to AG1 subscribers themselves because they fell in love with it too. Actually, one of my friend's mom sent me a three minute voice note last week telling me that I finally convinced her to start drinking AG1 every single day and she has not felt this much energy in. That's what she said and this is the only reason it made me so happy. I'm telling you, the stuff really works. So if I've convinced you to finally try AG1 for yourself, then I have good news. Scan the QR code on the screen or use the link in the Description below because AG1 is offering new subscribers a free 76 gift. When you sign up, you'll get a welcome kit, a bottle of vitamin D and five free travel packs in your first box. Oh gosh. Oh, that's a pretty good bed.

I'm actually always gonna squeeze that bed test in every video. It is time for my favorite part of the video every single year. And that is the superlatives confession.

You know, I didn't pick just one video.

I think there's a couple things that we need to caveat before we start. One is that the Leadville 100 I probably could have put for every single superlative.

It was a lifetime squeezed into 30 hours. Everything, every emotion, anything that I could feel happened during that time. Oh my gosh, I can't breathe.

So we've made a rule that we can only choose a specific video once. So like if we use it one category, we can't use it again. Also, we both do these separately. Cara doesn't know what I've written down. I don't know what she's written down. And I think that's why I love this so much.

Yeah.

Okay. Are you ready?

No, I just need to think of which one I'm going to say first. Many months later.

Okay, scariest video to film. 1, 2, 3.

Ice Cave, level 100.

Interesting.

Funny that that was your answer.

They both occurred in Leadville.

Let's start with yours.

So at the beginning of this year, we learned how to build a survival ice cave. Some experts came in. They taught us how to do it. The next day, we hiked up into the mountains and we dug out and we built a snow cave.

Insane.

So fun. One of the hardest things we did all year, like, that was physically so exhausting to build and freezing. But the scariest moment of the year in my head is we built it after one day of training. And then we get inside of it, and I get in my sleeping bag, I stick my arms down in my sleeping bag, and I look up and I realize how much snow is on top of us. And I'm like, if we didn't build this right, and this roof collapses, I'm going to be buried alive in my sleeping bag because there's no way I'm getting my arms out. Oh, that was just like. It was the most claustrophobic feeling ever. It ended up being super sturdy. I jumped on the top of it before we left the next morning. Like, it was strong. We built it.

Well, that was up there for me, because not only was it physically terrifying and difficult, but it was also our first video. We filmed in 2024 after my seizure. And it was just kind of the first time, like, leaving my hibernation and, like, you know, starting our work again. And it just happened to be this really insane idea that we were excited to do. I wanted to do it, but it was almost this, like, I had this big secret that I was carrying, and I didn't know if somehow could you tell that I was, like, not the same and am I coming off differently? Like, when something's wrong with your brain, you just question a lot of things. And I don't know, I just remember being a little nervous. I hadn't had another seizure since it happened. Like, I didn't think I was going to have one, but, you know, fear was kind of a theme throughout the year. And I don't know, I just remember feeling both emotionally and physically scared. So as I was scrubbing through our videos from the year photos and stuff on my phone, I was reminded of probably the most scared I've been in my entire life.

What was scarier? Swimming Alcatraz or this?

This. Wow.

I would not say that.

While Nate was training for the LEPA 100, I thought maybe he was either in major trouble or dead on a mountain. It was getting dark. All right. I walked over a mile now. Still no sign of Nate. This is not fun. My gut is telling me to turn around. Gosh, I hate this.

My watch died, which is what I was using to navigate, and my phone was dead, so I had to guess which trail to go on. I chose the wrong one. So I was late showing up to where we were supposed to be.

I didn't have any cell phone service, so even if his watch wasn't dead, there was no way I could find him. I spoken to a local who told me there was a really bad storm and she was a little worried.

We found each other in the woods as it was getting. Dad.

I'm so tired.

Where did you go?

Most fun video to film this year.

Okay.

One, two, three gorillas. That was a good one.

That was a good one.

That's a backup for me.

I had my Air France solo video as my backup. What? I went to Paris by myself with my best friend. We saw Taylor Swift, and then I.

Forgot to Air France first. I forgot Taylor Swift was there, and.

I saw Chris Hemsworth at the airport.

I mean, I'm a little hurt that your favorite Spawn video of the year was without me.

And you think it was Goril.

We got to go to both Uganda and Rwanda, and you never know what you're going to get with wildlife. And that's what I love about it. We had such high expectations, and then I feel like those expectations were massively exceeded. There's something about staring in the eyes of a gorilla from 10ft away. You could look at this as scary. The fact that, like, the silverback gorilla at any moment could have just decided to kill us.

That should have been my top scary moment.

But something about that, it heightened the experience. It added to it, you know, knowing that, like, we are in their environment and we're just hanging out and they're making a choice to let us do that.

Yeah, it was wild. Literally wild.

Least fun video to film. One, two, three.

Episode. Yeah, that wasn't fun.

Most underrated video of the year.

I have to pick one of the five.

One.

Okay, I'm just gonna pick one, two, three.

Polar Bears. Polar Bears is probably in my top 10 videos we've ever filmed. And it was in our top three least watched videos.

Really hoping it was just posted late in the year and it hasn't found its audience yet.

But yeah, that was another One like Gorillaz. I had super high expectations going in. It felt really risky to fly to this super remote area and sit in one place for five days.

We had no idea what to expect. Like it could have been a really slow and boring four days, but it was the complete opposite. And we jumped in the ocean when it was frozen.

And then when we thought it couldn't get any better, the babies came.

The babies. And then the northern light. Please go watch our polar bears video.

What was yours?

Mine was our Oman series. I'm hurt.

I wouldn't say I'm hurt. I would say I am surprised. Normally I feel like I have a pretty good internal compass of how a video is going to do. Oman, I thought had everything there.

We were in a 1974 Unimog.

Earth roamer has been our most watched video every year. This was like similar to an Earth Roamer and we were doing it in an epic location like Oman.

I thought it was gonna crush from the center capital city of Muscat into the desert alone, past camels. We saw bioluminescence on the beach. We slept on the edge of a cliff multiple times.

Some of the best campsites we've ever been in.

One of my favorite personal experiences. And we made three videos because we were just so amped. We were like, this is the coolest thing we've ever done. We're self driving all the way around Oman and then. But they all just went like this.

I would say. Yeah. More specifically, the most underrated out of the series is the third video because we got stuck in the desert and we got saved by a local Bedouin. I'm scared it'll tip. No, no, no. Go.

No problem. Go.

That's one of those videos you can't plan and one of those special moments that you just like. You hope for those amazing interactions.

It was like a movie.

Go watch part 3 of Aman if you don't want to watch part 1 and 2.

Still be out there. We should still be out there.

Most pinch me moment of the year. One, two, three. BB eyes. Oh, we just swapped up. So you swapped most fun and most pinch me moment of the year.

Well, you said moment and there is a specific moment in that Gorillaz video.

All right, give it to me.

The first Gorillaz that we saw, actually one of the hardest I've laughed all year, which is another category. But our guide knew we were making a video and was being like really cool, like helping us set up shots. And she was narrating stuff for us. And that was, she said when we.

Get there, you'll make the introduction so.

You can first come for introduction. We do another intro when we are with the gorillas.

And we just thought it meant like meet the gorillas.

Basically we see the gorillaz and she puts me in the front and she's like, so who's to make the intro? And I'm standing face to face with a mother and her cubs. Or what do you call baby gorillas? She's holding a baby. And I'm like, they didn't tell us anything about like territorial moms. Like, is this even allowed? I don't know. And she's going, I'm waiting for you to start the introduction. How do I introduce? And I thought she was talking about this noise that they had described to us where you kind of make this throat clearing noise and it means like, everything's okay, we're good. Yeah. So I thought she was telling me to do that. And so I'm like. And this is all on camera. It's like three minutes of me being like. And then she's like, do the introduction. And I said, hi. Hi. And I was three seconds away from saying my name is Kara and actually introducing myself to a gorilla.

Turns out she thought we, like, once we got to the gorillas that we would want to like set up an introduction for the video.

All that aside, that pinch me moment of just I'm standing here with wild grills. It's just I'll never forget that, that exact moment.

Mine was Mosquito Island. So in April, we had the opportunity to go stay on a billionaire's private island. And not only did we get to stay there, we got to bring our entire team. So everybody that works on the YouTube side of things and everybody who works for. For Daily Drop. So I think we had 18, I think it was 18 people in total there. Our team was a massive pinch me moment. And then the location that we were at on top of that, and the experiences that they created for us, like, we didn't really know what we were getting into going to the island. Like, we can come to a billionaires private island. Sure won't ask too many questions. Let's do it. But then they went over the top.

It felt like we were all a list celebrities. This is what I imagine celebrities vacations being like. That's how we were being treated. Honestly, my next pinch me moment is coming out of that DJ booth. Nobody knew I was down there. This DJ booth came out of the floor. I'm wearing a pink wig, there are lights. We're having A dance party.

And then we all jump in the pool with our clothes on.

Yes.

It felt like something you would see in a movie.

We sang karaoke till three in the morning and just put that out.

I almost get chills just thinking about it. That was such a pinch me moment. If you are a Karen, Nate or Daily Drop employee, I have no idea how we're going to top that this year.

We've been trying to brainstorm and yeah, I think we're just going to have to copy and paste. Can I do some honorable mentions? The first night in Iceland with your parents in the northern lights. We just stopped on the side of the road and watched the northern lights for like an hour. Oh, Lone Star.

What? No way.

The last day of our deepest, first highest hotel. We hadn't seen seen a thing in two full days. It was so cloudy. And we wake up on our last morning to clear, beautiful skies. You could see. What was it like? Over a hundred mountain peaks.

Probably best view of the entire year. We've added a new category this year, which is hardest. We laughed. So not a specific video, but a moment. The first thing that popped into my mind was when you peed behind the snow cave.

Oh my gosh. Kara, you see the yellow line right there? Did you pee behind the shelter? Yeah. No, it seeped through.

No way.

There's a big yellow line.

Oh, no.

I'm sorry. You were not present for mine, but when my mom boarded our Amtrak train.

I got just as much joy watching.

That when she laid eyes on our roomette for the first time. I have never seen her in this state before. She didn't know what to feel like. I think it was this nervous thing. Laugh of. Is this really happening?

Chair.

Can I go sit up there? Are you gonna be okay? And then the marshals boarded our train because there was a one in fugitive on board. It was really serious. But somehow that turned into a lap fest.

I thought you were actually gonna say that that was the scariest video that you filmed all year.

You know, I felt oddly not that scared, I think. Cause my mom was just so like, oh, this is exciting. Like she didn't find it scary. She was more like, let's go see what's going on. I really loved when we were in the Joshua Tree Airbnb. That was like one big mirror building. And we bought those big floaties and we thought it'd be so fun to watch a movie in the indoor pool. But instead we couldn't stop.

Floats just kept turning away from the TV or floating to the Watch the movie. I would throw a lot of effort for those floats.

Okay. Oh, no. Now we're both going. Final superlative. The video that we're most proud of. And I love that we both saved this for the end. The Leadville 100.

The Leadville 100.

Seriously, I could have put it for, like, scared us to film. Most fun. Underrated. It did well. I was very happy with still underrated.

It should be our most viewed video.

On our most pinch me moment. Crossing the finish line, without a doubt the proudest I've ever been to have published on the video both for what I accomplished, what we accomplished as a team, but then also the way that the edit came together. I thought it was going to be impossible to, like, truly capture how special that was, and y' all crushed it.

Your determination and training and insanely good attitude. That probably is the craziest part. It's just how much fun you had during the whole thing. You never complained. And then the way that our people.

Our people came together, it was so.

Much more than just, like, a run. I did not realize, like, the team effort that goes into it, like, what a special bond that would create, how much everybody else would have to sacrifice to make it happen.

And so many people came out with signs. Signs and gifts. I'm wearing earrings from a girl who just found me, and she made these earrings. We wear our bracelets from another. Like, it was just also.

I'm gonna go ahead and. I'm gonna go ahead and do this.

No.

It's January 1st. I've been wearing this bracelet since the Leadville 100. And it's time to pick a new accomplishment for the year.

Na time. I'll wear it.

I think we can go on and on about the Webville 100, but there's.

96 minutes where you can go watch it if you missed it. Okay, so I have a few more. I wrote my most challenging moment of the year. If we just remove the whole epilepsy thing. The Four Day March. Holy cow.

If people weren't weird on the Internet, we would show you Kara's foot right now. But she is still.

Don't show it.

No, no, no, no. Don't do that.

She is still.

Follow me on Instagram.

Missing a toenail.

You know, I thought it'd be hard, but it wrecked me. I may or may not have cried myself to sleep last night.

I think you might have pushed through more pain to finish that walk than I did to finish the Leadville 100.

There's no way.

Let me tell you why. I did it in 29 hours. We walked for 12 hours every single day. So we walked for 48 hours. And you were in a lot of pain going into day two. Like, you almost day two.

I almost.

Before day two even started.

This might be the worst pain I've ever experienced.

So you did 36 hours of pain, and my pain didn't even start until hour 10. So I did, like, 19 hours of pain. Yeah, and you did, like, 36.

It was awful. At the same time, I am so glad that I did it. One of the coolest events that exists.

Definitely get yourself into it.

The absolute best way to experience the Netherlands. It's a weird thing, making a movie about doing something hard when you're really, really, really struggling to push yourself. Because so much of the level 100 and the four day march is mental. We're trying to capture the reality of what we're experiencing, but at the same time, I can't just sit there all day, every day talking about how much pain I'm in and how much I want to quit because that would mess with my head. So I was putting on a face not to be fake, but, like, because that was the only way I could keep going. I labeled this one the most fun, spur of the moment adventure. Flying to Tunisia for you to run a marathon with Russ. That was so much fun.

It's so unexpected, that video. I bet some people skipped because they thought, I don't want to watch a running video.

It was so much more than that.

You being in that video made it so good because the video is almost more of, like, you supporting the race, and then all of a sudden, you end up with, like, a car full of people that you've just like, randomly picked up. And then y' all are working as, like, a team to film me. I struggled so hard to finish that marathon, and then I ran 100 miles later that year. I. That actually kind of, like, gave me a little bit of a kick in the butt, and I was like, wow, I've really, like, not stayed on top of it. And that was, like, really motivating for me to get back in good running shape.

So you have rest to thank for doing the left 100. Do you have a favorite food or culinary experience?

I had not thought about this. This at all. You want to know the first thing that popped into my head?

Yes.

All of the hummus that we ate in the Middle east, like, all during our Oman trip. But I have a feeling you have a better answer.

I do. Okay. Everything that Chef Mac made.

Oh, My gosh.

In the British Virgin Islands.

Here she goes again. Here we go again. Because there was a joke in that video that she was in love with him.

Still am. Still thinking about you, Chef Mac. It was like having my own personal professional chef who was cooking to my food preferences. Like he took down our food preferences and cooked exactly what we wanted.

All right, we're moving on.

Woo. We're moving on. Oh gosh. This hat.

Take it off.

No, I like it.

I feel like we have been really long winded.

Nah.

Okay, moving on to the behind the scenes category. One, I would just like to say thank you for watching the videos that we filmed with Hawkeye. I would say that's been a really special part of this year for me is getting to do more travel with my parents. They came to Leadville, we did Iceland together, and then we just did the Christmas market cruise. They're both fully retired now, but are also still like young enough to do cool things.

They're in their travel YOLO era.

My parents, especially my mom, love to travel. So that's been really special. Thanks for letting us introduce some new characters to the video.

You a. It's a fun behind the scenes emotion.

You know me, emotional guy.

That's right.

Also this year we hit 1 million followers on Instagram.

Woohoo.

But the fun part about that was we had our first Instagram reel hit 100 million views like this out of nowhere. Most viral thing we've ever posted, it was the one of the underwater hotel in the Maldives. It basically took us eight years to get to 700,000. And then right after we posted the Maldives video, we posted the Canadian train video that also went viral and got 57 million views. In between those two videos, we got 250,000 followers basically over the course of.

Like two weeks, which has never happened. We've never had that big of a jump. Okay, a few more behind the scenes things that didn't make the YouTube videos that I just feel like are worth noting. We spilled the beans on a few of these on our podcast with Aim to B. We went on a proper spring break to cancun in our 30s with our besties. And it was so fun because none of us pulled out the camera a single time. It was very spur of the moment. We all just ended up at an all inclusive in Mexico together. And it was so life giving. And that was a direct result of stepping back our posting this year. Like we never could have made that work if we were still trying to post every single week. Shortly after Nate and I crashed a wedding in Las Vegas with Onibek.

We crashed not one, but two weddings this year.

Then this summer, we went to one of our favorite places in the whole world. A little town in Italy where our friends Bob and Gina live. We hosted a Vespa Tour there in 2018, and it holds holds such a special place in our hearts. And we had the coolest full circle moment. Someone who came on the Vespa tour, Kevin, we love you. Decided to have his wedding where the Vespa tour was. We were invited the year before, but we weren't sure if we were gonna make it. And we just happened to be in Italy and we just showed up. One of my favorite surprises of my life. I love surprises. And to just show up and see the shock on their faces was the best. We went to Dollywood with our nieces. Once again, these are all things that we couldn't have done if we were still posting every single week. So they just felt extra special. Obviously a huge theme of 2024 for me was navigating life with epilepsy. This was obviously unexpected and we didn't know how the year was going to go. But like I said earlier, it ended up being one of the best years we've ever had for so many reasons. But that doesn't mean it wasn't a roller coaster. When I really zoom out and look at this year. I'm so grateful for 2024 for so many reasons. I have so much to be thankful for. But it doesn't mean it doesn't take some work to feel this way. Like, we did not let this define our life this year. And I'm really proud of that.

I'm proud of you, proud of us. I think we all have you to thank for all the videos that went up on the channel this year.

Why?

Because had you have said, I just don't want to do YouTube right now and I just want to stop and deal with this epilepsy stuff, I would have been fine with that. And we just wouldn't have posted on YouTube all year.

I don't know if this is healthy, but in a way, continuing life as usual, like, felt really good and better.

Than just instead of just sit around and think about it. There wasn't like one moment where we made the decision like, we're gonna post 34 videos this year still.

It was like, right, we took it one week at a time.

Exactly. And so I'm glad to see that we ended up here at the end of the year. I have one last behind the Scenes update. And that just has to do with Daily Drop, I think. Two big updates here. First, our big goal last year was for Daily drop to hit 1 million subscribers. And we did that at the very end of last year. We had just crossed the million subscriber mark. This year we took a look at those million people and at like the open rate of the newsletter. And the open rate had dropped to like 40%, which is actually like in the email world is still decent, but it had dropped quite a bit as we had tried to like add more people to the list quickly. So this year we had a focus on quality over quantity. So the list is still grown. It's now at 1.3 million. But we've taken all the people that weren't reading it, unsubscribe them from the newsletter. Then we brought in way more good people. So now we have 1.3 million people on the list with a 60% open rate, which is like industry standards. That's amazing.

And for those of you who didn't watch that airplane video update from a couple months ago, we have created a whole new side of Daily Drop called Daily Drop Pro, which are all of these tools that are super awesome that help you book hotels and flights with points. We are so proud of it. Daily Drop is still our free travel newsletter that you can sign up for anytime. And it teaches you all of these things. The Daily Drop Pro, it's like the.

Paid upgrade that will pay for itself 10 times over if you actually use it. And that's one of the big goals for next year, is just to make that way better.

We're very, very, very.

This is just the beginning. Moving on, plans for next year. This section, we need to, like, resettle.

Should we get a snack?

This is big.

Yeah.

Okay.

Can I get one snack?

Oh, you were being serious?

Yeah.

Okay. Yeah.

Just real quick.

Okay. I don't know if I'm more nervous or excited for this.

Oh, I'm so excited.

This is usually the part of the video where we have a massive calendar and we put a bunch of post it notes on it. Unfortunately, we were not able to get a calendar in time to film this video this year.

But arrive in time.

Sorry. We're going to make it worth your time. Last year, we went from posting every week to posting three videos a month. This year, we're going to continue the trend of slightly cutting back.

Just slightly.

We will be posting new videos every other week. I think it sounds like a bigger cutback than it actually is because this year we posted 34 videos. A video every other week is 26 videos. Videos. So eight less videos next year while we continue to try to find a little better balance. Also, I think when we share the two other Life updates with you at the end and you see what else is going on behind the scenes, you'll understand why we're cutting back a little bit more. But first, let's go through our plans for the year.

Some of this is new news to me. I can't wait to hear what we're doing next year.

This is kind of my role in the relationship. I come up with a lot of the ideas for the adventures. I pitch them to Kara and most of the time she goes along with them. So I basically have a big thing for each month. So we've already filmed some other videos that will be posted. This one in January and then a couple more in January and February. So we're taking January and February off like we did last year. Sitting still in one place. That was a really strong like reset for the beginning of the year. We love that. And we're gonna do it again. So starting in March in the town of Leadville, there's this thing called Ski Jordan. You basically water ski behind a horse, but it snow skis. Does that paint the right picture?

And there are jumps, you go over.

Ramps, you collect rings like you're playing a video game. It's high speed. It is absolutely terrifying. I never thought I would do this, but me and Rick and Desti have been chatting and I'm easily talked into.

This thinks, wish him luck.

You're not going to do it?

No.

You sure?

Positive.

You're such a good skier.

No.

April Marathon Dees.

Oh yeah, totally.

So I knew about that one. So there's going to be a lot of running this year, assuming I can stay healthy. My knee did give me a lot of problems after the 100, so I think I need more proper training this year. It's kind of hard after you do the WVO100 because it's like, what am I going to do to top that?

Yeah, I mean this one is so different.

Marathon de Sabotes is basically six marathons in six days in the Sahara desert. I get more scared about this when I talk about it out loud. May tone it down a little bit. We really love renting vehicles in other countries and I feel like the top of our bucket list for renting a vehicle and doing something is doing a self drive safari. And specifically I think Botswana is going to be the perfect destination destination to do that. June, I'm gonna keep a secret because this is a video I've never seen anybody else make.

Oh. Why? Okay.

So a video Kara's super excited to film in June and it's in Peru. That's all I'm gonna tell you in July. I feel like this year we really fell in love with wap life.

Oh, yeah.

So I think July is the best time to see grizzlies in Alaska or Canada.

We've never been to Alaska and I've never seen a grizzly bear.

I want to do another 100 mile race in September. UTMB is at the top of my list because I think it's the biggest, probably the most prestigious 100 mile race in the world. It happens in Europe, goes through multiple countries. I'm not sure that I'm going to be able to get into that this year, but I'll come up with something fun. November, potentially could be in Nepal. Oh, I skipped October. I skipped my favorite month of the entire year. The big thing that I want to work up to this year, like, if I had to put one thing on my goals, I was gonna say a poster or something, but the Moab 240, I did the Leadville 100, which was 100 miles. The Moab 240 is 240 miles. Leadville was a 30 hour cutoff. The Moab 240 is a 117 hour cut off. So, like, I will take short naps.

Do I get to nap?

Sure, of course. When you should nap. And then December. I feel like the one, like, massive, iconic thing that we haven't ticked off the bucket list yet is the South Pole. We've been to all the continents. We've been to the North Pole. We haven't been to the South Pole. It's time.

I don't really have a plan for how we say this. All right, I'll see if I can start. I'll try to lead into it. Ready? I feel like for the past nine years, I think we've really prided ourselves on being full time travelers. But I think that ends in 2025 while we are in Colorado. January and February, we have all intentions of buying a house in Colorado to make our home base.

Who are we?

I really wanted to make it to year 10 of being homeless. Like, that was a nice round number for me. But it's just the right time in our life.

We know that this is not that crazy of an update, but for us, it feels extremely crazy.

I do want to say, though, this is still a travel Channel. We are not buying and renovating a cabin in the woods.

We will never do that.

And we do not have intentions of filming content in or about the house. The question is, that was a big update. Do you think that we can top that update?

Gosh, is this too much?

I'm just kidding. Kara's not pregnant, but if all goes as planned, then she will be.

We think we're in.

Towards the end of the year, we will start trying to have a kid. I don't think we will have a child by the end of this year. Also, we talked to several, like, close friends and family members over the holidays and they were like, do not share this on the Internet. But here's my thinking. If things don't go as planned, like, if it's hard to have kids, I think we'll openly share that.

And we've been extremely open with our feelings for the last several years, like, since the beginning of whether or not we want to have kids. And it's been a roller coaster. And, you know, maybe the roller coaster continues or maybe everything goes as planned.

I would say don't start checking in or worrying about us with kids until after our life update video next year. Because the plan is to not start trying to have kids until the end of the year. For the last eight years, I feel like we've been moving so quickly that we couldn't think about anything else. Which we absolutely loved that season. Had a time implant place.

It was awesome.

This year. Slowing down a bit, being forced to slow down. I feel like finally just gave us the time to think about it. I thought when we shared this news, if we ever did that I would feel like, disappointed, like, a little bit like to share it. I feel like I have really prided myself on living a very abnormal life.

Yeah.

And these two things are very normal things. I say they're bad, they're just normal. It's like what most people do. And I've loved that we've lived a life that most people haven't up until now. But I know that it's the right time because I feel excited about it. And I didn't think I would ever get to that point. I thought we'd probably do it. I thought I would do it more.

It would be more like we're settling begrudgingly.

Yes. Yeah.

Wow. There you go.

It's out there.

Do we have anything else that's.

It can't top that.

I have created a playlist of all the videos we posted in 2024. It's going to be linked below. If there's anything that we talked about that you missed that you want to catch up on, it will be there for you.

If you have like an idea or like, if you know something that lives up to like polar bears or gorillas or something like that, that's just like not on my radar, leave it in the comments. In a way, it feels like this is kind of like our last year of freedom. Oh, so like send me the big ideas. I mean, I know life doesn't stop when you have kids, but also like, it will be different.

Let's view this year as like the least kid friendly things that we could do.

Or you know what, Sign up for the Sunday Summary. That'll be linked below. That's our email newsletter that we send. Send out occasionally and just respond to one of those emails because I do read all the responses to those emails. Wow. I feel like we're just going into 2025. So much healthier and better than we were going into 2024.

So much better. I look back at that video and I'm like, sad for that.

Well, I was like, ending on a positive note. No, it's.

It is positive.

Love you. Love.

I love you.

Hope you're excited to follow along in 2025.

Thanks for watching. Thanks for being here. Let us know your thoughts and emotions in the comments.

Nice work.

That was fun. Now, once again, should I post my.

Third time this year to pick up confetti?

I was gonna say, should I post my toe update right now on Instagram?

No, don't post your toe on Instagram. Wait, wait, wait. I've got a.

I think you look great in red glasses, by the way. I think you need a pair of red glasses.

Well, I have mine. I just need to tighten it because my nephew tried to eat it on New Year's Eve.

So.

So when I start crying, should I wipe my tears underneath the frame or.

It's gonna be a fun video, not an emotional video.

This is the first life update that I wasn't wearing all black with you.

Mmm.

I'm wearing all white.

Wow. It's like a sign my mom got me. You're freshly into the new year. Yes. I know for sure that this is the exact same shirt that I wore last year.

For sure.

At the beginning of this video, we talked about how our videos are getting longer and it will be interesting to look at our life update videos and see if they've progressively gotten longer as well. We just have more to say these days.

I think that's what happens when you age as well.