Motivational Travel — Travel Videos That Will Get You Out of Your Seat

From a Swedish bushcraft life to trekking videos packed with stunning scenery and practical information, quirky themed trips around Japan, and a film that reminds us how travel can broaden our understanding of nature and other people, here are six videos from creators who show different ways of looking at travel. Since we weren’t sure what you’d like, we prepared a little of everything.

Words Hur Taewoo

He Isn’t Afraid of Being Alone in Nature

The ‘Swedwoods’ channel is about bushcraft: staying in Sweden’s forests with a minimum of tools. The channel’s owner never says a single word in his videos. He is expressionless, as if he feels nothing amid Sweden’s beautiful nature. There is no background music and no explanation, either. Only the names of the ingredients he cooks with appear in the subtitles. Instead, the sound of water, wind, falling snow, boiling coffee, burning firewood and animal cries cut through the still footage, amplified. With nothing to get in the way, you can’t help but be absorbed from start to finish. That is why it stands out so distinctly among the many similar videos appearing these days.
One more thing. The text in the channel’s introduction reads like a manifesto of bushcraft humanity. “I am not afraid of being alone in nature. Living in a big city is far scarier.” If you share a similar thought, be sure to watch it at least once.

Nothing Is Right, Nothing Is Wrong

Nas Daily, one of the travel YouTube channels with the most followers, exerts a positive influence. The channel’s owner, Nuseir Yassin, has an unusual background. Born and raised in Israel as a Palestinian Muslim, he is familiar with discrimination and prejudice; having graduated from Harvard University and worked at a New York start-up, he is also at home with tech and business.
Yassin suddenly quit his job and traveled the world, posting a one-minute video on Facebook every day for 1,000 days. The social media world responded enthusiastically to his videos, which embraced the world with an open mind. After the 1,000 days of posting ended, his popularity continued when he launched a YouTube channel. As of June 2022, he has more than 20 million followers on Facebook and more than 8.4 million on YouTube.
Nas Daily’s videos maintain an open perspective. By meeting and talking with people around the world in an easy, entertaining way, the channel helps subscribers understand the world. In the video above, Yassin tells the story of how, traveling the world as a Muslim, he gradually came to accept and respect other cultures. In this world, there is nothing right and nothing wrong, so let’s all embrace the world and one another. In just three minutes, it reminds us of an important attitude toward life that we might never have learned without traveling.

For Seasoned Japan Travelers

If you’re planning another trip to Japan, how about this kind of trip? One that packs the itinerary full of night trains, vending machines, boxed lunches and capsule hotels, enjoyed day and night without rest. The YouTube channel Solo Solo Travel uploads travel videos edited with only footage, subtitles and a little ambient sound, never a voice, and it’s remarkable how Japanese they feel. After watching, it seems like nothing much, yet strangely you want to watch again. Comparing the different vending machine drinks and boxed lunches that appear in each episode is quietly fun, too. The video we recommend first is a review of the West Express Ginga premium cabin, which runs from Izumo to Kyoto. You can experience this year’s newly launched ‘Ginga’ train vicariously from a first-person point of view.

From a Person Who Walks

There is only one reason to watch YouTuber Kraig Adams’s trekking videos: he doesn’t chatter on as he walks. (He doesn’t get in the way of the gorgeous scenery.) Nor does he simply walk on alone endlessly; from departure to arrival, he offers very practical information that answers trekkers’ questions. The first half of each video mixes third-person, first-person and second-person clips to show the highlights of the whole route, while the second half shares tips and know-how useful for trekking. About two-thirds of the videos cover trail routes in the United States, and the rest are from world-famous routes such as Machu Picchu, the Tour du Mont Blanc, Kilimanjaro and Torres del Paine. For anyone actually preparing for a trek, they should be quite helpful.

In That Town, Ramen Freezes Solid

Kiun B is a YouTube channel that documents daily life in the coldest city in the world. Yakutsk is, by common consent, the coldest city on Earth. In winter, this capital of the Sakha Republic in the Russian Far East literally freezes over. The lowest temperature ever recorded in Yakutsk is minus 71 degrees Celsius. Can you even imagine it? Kiun, a Siberian born and raised here, entertainingly conveys the remarkable adaptability of locals who live alongside the terrifying cold. As the videos show, the cold is simply formidable. Try to eat instant cup noodles and the noodles freeze; fling boiling water into the air and it turns to ice dust and scatters. No matter how cold it gets, personal hygiene still matters. Locals wake up, melt ice over a wood fire and use a sauna in place of a shower, and once they have washed this way, the day’s work is done. Chopping firewood, harvesting ice, tending the fire, boiling water… no wonder it takes all day. The channel also captures many other aspects of life in the coldest town, so if you’re curious, drop in on Kiun B’s channel.

If Video Could Save (the World) Even a Little

Zimy da Kid, a Swiss filmmaker and environmentalist, says, “I was born in the mountains and raised in the sea.” His YouTube channel is full of jaw-dropping videos. Not only is his filming technique, which makes lavish use of drones and action cams, outstanding, but the landscapes and stories from around the world that he captures through his lens are riveting. In his videos, our planet is simply magnificent. The scenery he filmed in the Italian Dolomites and Denmark’s Faroe Islands is almost surreal. “Man of The Sea,” shot in the South Pacific, is even more striking. It is a documentary about a freediver who has devoted his life to protecting marine life in Tahiti. It captures false killer whales and tiger sharks right before the camera, and the sight of the freediver communing with them underwater shows a moving encounter between humans and nature just as it is.