Work Abroad

Your ability to work abroad or from anywhere is the key to time and location freedom. Once you master a few tricks, you can do what you want, when you want, and where you want.

How Much YouTube Pays Us

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This is the first time we’ve ever lifted the veil on our YouTube Analytics and shared what YouTube pays us for publishing our videos.

These numbers might surprise some of you who aren’t familiar with the business side of YouTube. There is a common misconception that YouTubers earn a lot of money from ads, but it’s less than you might think.

So in this first-of-its-kind income report, I’m going to walk you through our analytics and show you how to calculate the ad revenue for your favorite channels.

Why We’ve Never Shared This Before

There are three reasons we’ve never done this before:

First, we were raised in a culture (and in families) that think it’s taboo to talk about money, especially income, so it’s uncomfortable for us to discuss this.

Second, this is a lot of money by Ecuadorian standards where the average white-collar worker earns around $1,000/month and minimum wage is just $460/month (as of 2024).

Third, for a YouTube channel with over 100,000 subscribers, and from a United States income perspective, it’s a little embarrassing that this is all we earn from YouTube ads. And it’s one reason we ask ourselves several times a year if we want to keep doing this and for how long.

What It Takes to Create a Video

Some people think that we walk around, live our lives, and the video of the experience magically appears on our YouTube Channel. Boy I wish it was that easy!

Paris Video – An Unpopular Video

Let’s take a look at our most recent video about Paris, France. It took us 9 hours to film that video on the day of our walk (we started at the Pantheon at 1PM and stayed at the top of the Arc de Triomphe until 10PM to film the light show at the end of the video).

However, we spent several days researching and filming the other segments we inserted in the video, I spent 4 days editing the video, a day editing images to post on Facebook and Instagram to promote the video, and we spent several hours working on different versions of the title and thumbnail in a failed attempt to get more views. It’s still one of our least viewed videos in years!

Altogether, it took us 10 days to research, film, edit, publish and promote this one video. We didn’t keep track of our hours, but I’m guessing we spent somewhere in the neighborhood of 80 hours between the two of us to create this video.

Here’s what we’ve earned during the first 9 days after it was published:

Without factoring in expenses, which were far more than this, we earned a whopping $1.87 per hour from this video! That’s far from a livable wage and less than the minimum wage in Ecuador!

Thankfully, most of our videos get more views than this and some get a lot of views, which helps offset the videos that bomb.

Montenegro Video – A Typical Video

Let’s look at our Montenegro video, which had a typical number of views for us. It’s just over 40,000 views as I’m writing this and here is the ad revenue:

This video also took us about 80 combined hours to research, film, edit, publish, and promote so we earned about $4.23 per hour (not factoring in expenses). That’s about what a server in a US restaurant earns, only without the tips.

Reverse Culture Shock – An Outlier

Now let’s look at our highest earning video. It was our reverse culture shock video about our trip back to the US in August 2022.

We only spent about 10 combined hours creating this in-studio video so we earned about $484.76 per hour.

Sadly, we only have a few videos in almost 6 years that come remotely close to this one.

Other Related Work

The work doesn’t stop once the video is published and we settle on the best title/thumbnail combination (based on click-through-rate or CTR).

Here are some other tasks on our plate each week:

  • Ideation – we spend a lot of time talking about what videos to record and how to position them so you want to click and watch.
  • Comments – we spend at least 30 minutes per day responding to comments on YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram.
  • Emails – we each spend about 30 minutes per day responding to emails and answering questions.
  • Community – we spend about 30 minutes per day engaging with our Patreon and Live Abroad Program community, and responding to member questions and comments.
  • Blog Posts – we spend about 6 combined hours per week on our blog.
  • Newsletter – I spend 2 to 3 hours per week on the newsletter (unless I don’t have time to write it).

Being a YouTuber and blogger requires a lot of behind-the-scenes work that no one ever sees, but it all adds up to a significant amount of time.

How Much We Earned in May 2024

Since we started our YouTube Channel in September 2018, we’ve published almost 400 videos with a total of 17.4 million views. By YouTube standards, we’re still considered a small channel.

Each month, lots of our videos from the past and the present get views. Here is what all of them together earned in May 2024:

Our channel had 320,499 views for the month, which is about average for us. However, our “channel earned less revenue than usual” according to the not-so-helpful note provided by YouTube.

What’s the reason for this? Who knows, really.

According to YouTube, it’s probably due to seasonal fluctuations in ad prices or some other mystery factor they aren’t sharing (like viewership loss to TikTok or more views on low-value Shorts rather than high-value long-form videos like the ones we create).

Because the Paris and Montenegro videos took so long to create, and since I fired our video editor service back in April, we only had time to publish 3 videos and one of them bombed. That reduced our income for the month, which is essentially a pay cut; we worked the same amount of hours for less money.

In May, we both worked about 30 hours/week on average (we took time off between videos to play and have fun). That’s roughly 240 hours or roughly $9.46 per hour from YouTube Ad Revenue.

Our monthly salary from ad revenue was about $1,133 each, which is just above the poverty line in the US.

It’s embarrassing that we earn less working almost full-time for YouTube in 2024 than we did in the 1990s working entry-level jobs.

Which is why we MUST have…

Other Sources of Income

Amelia still works part-time (about 10 hours per week) for the same company back in Denver. They have a strict “do not share salary info” policy, but I can tell you it’s not that much, anymore.

Back in August 2019, we launched our Patreon community to help offset some of the costs that are associated with being YouTubers and bloggers (software license fees, cloud storage, web hosting, camera gear, tour guides, etc. – now we have more expenses like travel costs, writers, and a new video editor).

Amelia was still working full time back then and her salary was enough to cover our cost of living plus pay off all our debt in 3 years.

Once we reached 25,000 subscribers, sponsors like LingoPie, Surfshark, Skillshare and others started contacting us. We’re not allowed to share what they pay us, but it’s typically more than we earn in YouTube ad revenue for the videos they sponsor (but not a lot more).

We also have 3 eCourses about earning online income, moving to Ecuador, and living abroad. Each of these courses took us several months to create, but they allow us to share our knowledge and experience in a lot of detail and in a structured way that some people appreciate. In return, the money we earn from helping our students, helps us continue being YouTubers and bloggers.

We think it’s a win-win (and it’s an optional service – our videos and blog posts are all free).

How To Calculate Ad Revenue for Any Channel

Now that you’ve seen behind the curtain of Amelia And JP, the channel, here’s how to calculate ad revenue for any channel.

The key is RPM or Revenue per Mille or Revenue per 1,000 views.

Our RPM is usually around $7, which is about $0.007 per view. That means if you watch every video on our channel, we’ll earn about $2.80.

That’s total. For all of your views. Hard to comprehend, isn’t it?

Most channels based in the US and Canada earn a similar RPM between $5 and $10.

A lot of it depends on the niche; some types of videos earn more than others.

A big part is based on where most of the viewers live. If the audience is in the US or Canada, the RPM is a lot higher than an audience in, say, India or Pakistan. That’s because the cost of the ads is a lot more.

Longer videos also have a higher RPM because YouTube can cram more ads into them, which is why a lot of YouTubers are publishing 30+ minute videos now.

Using a website like SocialBlade.com, you can search for your favorite YouTuber to determine how many views they get each month.

So if a channel had 20,000 views in May, you can estimate that it earned between $100 and $200 in ad revenue: 20,000 views / 1,000 * $5 RPM = $100.

There’s no way anyone can live on that, which is why small YouTubers who aren’t retired and on Social Security must earn income from other sources.

Even if you have the comfort of a pension and Social Security, it’s easy to end up grumpy and full of resentment when you earn so little for all the hard work and value you provide.

Final Thoughts…

We’ve seen a lot of hateful comments on YouTube and Facebook about us being greedy and only caring about money, but it’s simply not true. And it’s kinda shocking to us that so much energy has been put into publicly hating and shaming us.

In exchange for providing valuable information and, hopefully, a little entertainment, we need to earn income so we can pay our way in this world, save for retirement, and continue creating videos for you to enjoy.

Everyone who works and provides value to others deserves to be compensated for it. That’s how the world works, even for YouTubers.

Let me know in the comments if this was interesting, helpful, surprising, or any other thoughts you might have.

DISCLOSURE: THIS POST MAY CONTAIN AFFILIATE LINKS, MEANING WE GET A COMMISSION IF YOU DECIDE TO MAKE A PURCHASE THROUGH OUR LINKS. THERE IS NO COST TO YOU AND SOMETIMES YOU'LL EVEN GET A DISCOUNT BY USING OUR LINK. PLEASE READ OUR DISCLOSURE FOR MORE INFO.

I’m an 81-yo Retired Traveling House-sitter

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In this guest post, Warren R. Johnson shares his experiences as a traveling house-sitter and pet-sitter, along with some tips to help you get started and be successful. Here is his story…

House-sitting and pet-sitting are convenient ways to find free accommodation, and it comes with a host of other advantages, but it also comes with significant responsibility.

Whether you’re caring for a cherished pet or maintaining a home in the owner’s absence, you’re stepping into a role that demands attention and commitment.

In this article, I’ll share some of the best ways to find house-sitting and pet-sitting opportunities, how it can be a means to lower travel expenses, and some of the advantages and disadvantages of being a traveling house-sitter.

Your Responsibilities

It is essential to understand that house-sitting/pet-sitting (hereafter referred to as just house-sitting) is a job. You must accept responsibility for both the house and pet(s).

This usually means feeding and walking a dog twice a day or feeding a cat and cleaning the litter box. You are obliged to keep the house safe and in working order, while also accepting liability for the health of the pet. These are not trivial matters.

My first house-sitting job had no pet. My hosts didn’t start their own travels until after a month I arrived. I got to know their dog, Penny, who is a sweetheart and easy to walk. This was a pretty easy way to start pet–sitting.

Finding Opportunities

Finding house-sitting opportunities is quite easy when using the Internet. Use social media and search engines to broadly look for possibilities. Try searching by country, region, or even city.

Beyond that, there are numerous websites devoted exclusively to offering these possibilities. You pay a fee to become a member, which gives you the ability to receive the openings that homeowners post.

Some of the major house-sitting sites with yearly fees are:

I found my first sit on HouseCarers.com. The homeowners had never used a house-sitting site before and just happened upon this one. It was serendipitous that we found each other this way. We’ve become good friends and continue to reach out to each other even today.

My second sit was in England. I did the unthinkable of flying to London and sitting in Heathrow Airport for eleven hours so I could take a night bus to Manchester. My rationale was that I could save money by not flying and avoiding hotel accommodations for one night. It worked and I would do it again.

Once you find an appealing house sit, you will need to fill out the application and put your best foot forward. Suggest to the homeowner that you meet online for a face-to-face interview. This gives both of you a way of getting acquainted, asking questions, and seeing the home and the pet.

Let me assure you that finding opportunities is a challenge, primarily due to the many competing house sitters looking for assignments. In the 6-1/2 months I performed house sits, I applied for 110 opportunities and was accepted for 9. This had turned into a 20-hour-a-week job searching and communicating with homeowners. It helps to be secure in yourself to deal with so many rejections.

What You Will Find

It is your responsibility to get yourself to the home and provide your own food for the duration of the sit. Few sits pay for your services; the arrangement generally is an exchange of living accommodations for your responsibility to take care of the home and the pet. If you normally pay for housing, free house-sitting is like paying yourself in place of a rent or mortgage payment.

Very few house-sitting opportunities exist without the care of a pet. In fact, 50% of all house sits have a dog needing care. Most homes will have an Internet connection for your use. In addition, some homeowners may ask you to take care of the outside property such as gardening, mowing the lawn, and watering plants.

I discovered that every house had different appliances and I had to quickly learn how to make each work. The first thing I always did was to assess each appliance and get the owner to teach me how to use the ones with which I was uncomfortable.

At one home, I arrived and learned that the owner was leaving in half an hour to catch a flight. I had little time to get educated about the job. There was a microwave I couldn’t figure out. I discovered that, if I pressed one button, it would heat for 30 seconds. That meant I had to stand there for six rounds of 30 seconds to get 3 minutes. I called the owner and she told me it was a new microwave and she hadn’t learned how to use it. I never did figure it out while I was there!

On the next sit, I realized that Google was my best friend. I started researching all of the appliances that I didn’t know how to work. When I found and learned how to work the problematic microwave, I emailed the earlier homeowner and passed on what I had learned. She was very relieved to now know how to work her own microwave.

Transportation

Besides your costs for food, the other major expense is transportation. You need to get from one house sit to the next one. Homeowners do not reimburse you for that cost. Avoid planes except for long distances. Take buses and trains for less expensive fares. To help alleviate transportation costs, try to book house sits geographically close to each other. Also, look for deals such as a monthly pass or discounts for age (such as England’s 33%-off train travel for older people).

In Germany, I went to board a short-run train into the city where I could catch an express train. I arrived to find posted signs saying there was a one-day strike and the train would not be running. What was I to do? Fortunately, a man came to catch the same train and I asked him what he was going to do. He turned out to be an executive in the transportation field. He suggested we split the cost of a cab into town. Despite the split, it was not a cheap taxi ride, but it did get me to the express train.

I was on the Internet one night before leaving a sit the next day and discovered that my train, for which I had purchased a ticket, was canceled along with all trains after it that day. Fortunately, the announcement said there would be one earlier train before the strike started. I boarded that train in the morning and they honored the ticket for the train that was canceled. If I had not been on the Internet when I was, I would have been trainless all that day.

Visas and Preparedness

The first thing to grasp is understanding visa requirements and immigration policies. These vary from country to country. Check with the embassies in the countries that interest you. You will usually enter a country as a visitor and have three months to stay there. There are some exceptions to this, so check before you do any extensive planning. If you seek a temporary or permanent visa, you can stay until that process is completed. There are a few countries that allow Americans to stay six or twelve months. Know before you go.

It is important to know thyself, as Socrates said. What are your strengths and weaknesses? What will you bring to house-sitting? If you are sitting by yourself, you will likely only have a dog or other pet to talk to, as you will be alone during the sit. This is less of a problem if you are traveling with another person.

Be prepared for uprooting yourself every few days or weeks, moving to the next sit or to a break. You will be packing and unpacking every few days. The easiest way to travel is with the least amount of luggage you can. Determine if the house sit has a washing machine for your use. Be aware that few homes outside of the US have dryers; you will have to dry your clothes on a rack.

I stayed in one home that had an unvented dryer. It would run for only a short time and then stop so I had to start it up again. It took a whole day to get my clothes dry. Again, I turned to Google and found that it actually pulled the water out of the clothes and dumped it into a container that had to be emptied periodically. That has been the only time I have encountered such a dryer.

Disadvantages of House-Sitting

One potential downside with house-sitting is that you may gain weight. You will be using an unfamiliar kitchen and supplying your own cooking ingredients. You can not rely on the host’s ingredients or food unless they tell you to feel free to use what you find in the kitchen. The danger is taking the easy way out and relying on too many prepared meals. These are full of preservatives and will cause your weight to soar.

Despite Internet introductions, what you find when you arrive at the home can be anyone’s guess. I walked into several very beautiful homes where I was comfortable for the duration of the sit. I also walked into several abominable homes. One older home had not been kept up. It had mold on the walls, was very dirty, and had furniture piled up in unused areas. I made do.

I am still paying the price for not eating well. My weight gain has resulted in intensifying my workout and fasting a minimum of 16 hours a day. It will take me a while to get my weight down to become more manageable.

Loneliness can easily creep in as you may have only a pet to talk to. The responsibilities for the house and pet are demanding and can not be taken lightly. You will encounter people with whom you may not be compatible and houses that are not to your liking. On the other hand, you may find a wonderful situation and hate to leave it.

Advantages of House-sitting

The advantages of house-sitting are numerous. There is, of course, the pleasure of paying no rent or mortgage. I would, however, suggest you focus on other advantages.

You will have the opportunity to experience new communities, cultures, and foods. You will meet many new people, some of whom may become lasting friends. Moving between sites on ground transportation gives you the chance to at least view new territories. You will also come to know many pets who will adopt you for a short time. This can be a great way for digital nomads to work in their free time. The gift of experiencing a new life will be priceless.

One homeowner had a fall when she was traveling and came home in the middle of the sit to recover. While there, she took me to the next town to visit Glastonbury, the supposed final resting place for King Arthur and Queen Guinevere. It was fascinating to walk through the remains of the Abbey and discover the whole town focused on this legend. If the homeowner had not come home, I would never have known that I was but one town away from Glastonbury.

Some people have been house-sitting for 20 years and still loving it. You, too, could be one of those people for whatever amount of time you choose. You really have nothing to lose. Give it a try!

I am a freelance writer having published print and e-books and written for magazines. I have traveled extensively – 47 US states, Canada, Mexico, Panamá, Ecuador, and Europe. Some of my works can be seen in whole or in part here and my blog TravelSketches.info.

DISCLOSURE: THIS POST MAY CONTAIN AFFILIATE LINKS, MEANING WE GET A COMMISSION IF YOU DECIDE TO MAKE A PURCHASE THROUGH OUR LINKS. THERE IS NO COST TO YOU AND SOMETIMES YOU'LL EVEN GET A DISCOUNT BY USING OUR LINK. PLEASE READ OUR DISCLOSURE FOR MORE INFO.

Working Remotely From Colombia – A Perspective From A New Expat

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In this guest post, Daniel Arthur shares his journey from office job to remote worker, which allows him to live his Unconventional Life in Colombia. Here is his story…

My remote work journey began long ago, several years into my career, and shortly after graduating from college. I’ve been working remotely for over twenty years, long before it became popular.

Back then, there were only three options for folks who wanted to work from home. They consisted of people who owned their businesses or were self-employed, freelancers, or W-2 wage-earning employees who worked for companies who valued their employee’s contributions to the company, invested in their success and career trajectory, and were sensitive to their employee’s overall quality of life.

I was very fortunate to convince my employer back in 2007 to agree to this arrangement. My experience could be a model for current and future expats wishing to work abroad.

This article consists of my experiences (and success) in approaching my employer with a solid business and action plan to grant my request to work remotely 100% of the time.

Establish Location Independence Before Moving Abroad

Medellin ParkI have worked remotely since 2007 in the U.S. and now in Medellín.

My professional career has lent itself to “remotability” while not tying me to a particular location, even in the finance and banking profession, where customer relationship management and interaction primarily represent 80% of one’s daily job function and duties.

I never liked going to the office and only did it for the first ten years of my career. I dreaded the Southern California commuter freeway and traffic, the stress associated with getting out of bed three hours before my start time, rushing out the door, the office politics, the “cliques” that were in the office, having my boss or others standing over my shoulder while I worked, etc.

Over a long holiday weekend back at the end of 2006 as I sat on the sofa watching TV – dreading going to work the following Tuesday. I knew I had to begin developing a plan to present to my leadership that would allow me to work from home 100% of the time.

Establishing location independence as early as possible in your tenure with a company is the key for many expats desiring to work remotely abroad.

Furthermore, domestic stateside employees can benefit too from approaching their employer and manager about flexible work arrangements as soon as the right opportunity presents itself (no later than a year into your employment with the company –I waited for nine to do so –but I believe more employers are open to at least entertaining a conversation now about the topic of remote work).

Find or Have Your Employer Support Before You Move

Remote work in a cafeEngaging your employer in an initial discussion before committing to expat life is critical.

If you intend to keep your current job and be successful, you want their support and agreement, and this might involve a difficult discussion with your direct manager, who may or may not be willing to work with you.

Working for finance banking remotely was virtually unheard of, and management’s primary concern was it involved adverse risk to the company, especially in handling and potential exposure of customer information that I had access to.

It took me over a year of planning and creating a proposal with my manager and over nine months later for risk management, legal, and human resources to convince my company to approve my remote work arrangements.

I worked with my manager in drafting my proposal because involving them, in the beginning, was critically important. You want your manager to be your ally and advocate because they will directly evaluate your work and performance off-site.

Suppose you don’t believe your manager will support your desire for permanent remote work arrangements and location independence. In that case, you should strengthen your relationship with your manager and leadership team before moving abroad.

Engage The Assistance of A Legal and Tax Professional

TaxesBefore moving to Medellín late last year, I engaged a competent immigration attorney and tax professional.

While not required, hiring dual-licensed professionals in both your home country and your intended destination country is highly encouraged.

I lived in Florida before moving to Colombia, so running a Google search for local professionals in my area was a relatively simple process.

I shared my long-term goals and plans with the professionals I hired and sought their advice on remote work, nomad life, and the appropriate legal and tax strategies I needed to have in place before boarding the plane.

While my situation was pretty straightforward (being married to a Colombian national), both professionals recommended that I maintain tax residency in the U.S.

My tax advisor, in particular, noted that both countries tax worldwide income, both countries require personal income tax returns filings with the IRS and DIAN, and both allow deductions for foreign income earned abroad; I would still maintain my eligibility to collect Social Security upon retirement in the U.S.

Plan For The Unexpected To Happen At Any Time With Your Remote Job

I don’t have the same remote job as when I moved to Medellín last year. This past April, I became the latest victim of corporate downsizing and was told over a Zoom call that my job was now redundant.

I had anticipated this scenario could happen several years before I decided to move abroad. Given in the last year that many companies were downsizing, this became even more relevant. Despite the current state of the economy, I was confident I had built up my skills and abilities over the years into new possibilities.

The next day after that Zoom call, I immediately began seeking freelance opportunities by contacting my network and offering my service. I pitched several consulting gigs and received two offers, which I immediately accepted.

Years prior, I had implemented a solid savings and investments strategy that was firmly in place. I turned to other ideas to generate income should I ever become unemployed at any point in my career (i.e., backup plan, savings, investments, passive income streams, etc.).

Final Thoughts

I’m blessed beyond measure to be able to work remotely for over ten years. At age 47, I’m proud of my professional accomplishments, and a large part of my success is directly related to the opportunity and confidence of my leader to work remotely many moons ago.

Despite being laid off within a short time of moving abroad, I’m confident that the time I invested in the above long-term strategies has helped me tremendously.

I would encourage anyone who has ever dreamed of moving abroad to forge ahead and turn their dream into a reality. With the proper support in place, anything is possible.

You can read about my transition from Orlando to Medellín, living abroad for the first time, and find out more about me by visiting my Medium page by clicking here.

How To Start a Successful YouTube Channel: A Step-by-Step Guide

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Dreaming of living abroad and funding your expat lifestyle by starting a successful YouTube channel? That’s exactly what we have done!

With over 300 videos, 90K subscribers, and 13 million views on our YouTube channel, we now earn a six-figure income that supports our life in Ecuador and our travel to other countries.

In this comprehensive, step-by-step guide, we’ll share our journey and strategies for starting and growing a successful YouTube channel. Let’s dive in!

Step 1: Choose a niche

If you plan to move abroad, a channel about your journey and the destination you choose is an ideal niche. For every popular expat destination, there are thousands (maybe millions) of people who want to know more about that place and your experience traveling, moving and living there.

When we were thinking about moving abroad, the first thing we did was watch every YouTube video we could find about all the destinations we were considering. All those YouTubers helped us on our journey, and now we’re happy to pay it forward by helping future expats.

Our channel is mostly about living abroad and how to achieve a higher quality of life for a lower cost of living. Our videos cover lifestyle, travel, and city/country comparisons to help you decide where you want to live.

Pros & cons videos about different places to live, work, retire, and travel have been particularly popular.

Going forward, we’re also going to talk more about working online so you can learn how to fund your life abroad (for those of you who aren’t retired yet). The only way we’re able to live the quality of life we have in Ecuador as pre-retired people is by working online.

Choose a niche that fits your lifestyle and interests so you stay motivated to create new content each week.

Step 2: Create engaging content

Producing high-quality videos is crucial for attracting and retaining viewers. Experiment with various formats, such as vlogs (video logs), tips, interviews, and reviews, to discover what resonates with your audience. Remember, your content should be appealing and informative.

Is the vlog format dead?

According to some experts, vlogging is dead. Or, at least the old style of vlogging like we used to do.

Our first videos were in a vlog format and featured our daily lives. We walked around Cuenca, Ecuador and filmed our adventures in run-n-gun format. However, those were not very popular and they were difficult to do well.

We spent so much time trying to remember transition shots and redoing bad takes that it took a lot of the fun out of the process. Sometimes we got so stressed out trying to film under time constraints that it ruined the experience.

Eventually, we decided that format was just too difficult for us.

Edutainment is where it’s at!

Now, we call our video format “edutainment,” which just means we create educational videos that are also entertaining.

We film B-roll (location shots) when we’re out and about or traveling. Then we film the A-roll (narration shots) in our studio after we’ve had time to digest the experience and better plan and prepare for what we want to say.

This pivot in format makes the filming process of sharing information (the education part) a lot more fun for us, which shines through in our playful banter on video (the entertaining part).

Our channel took off when we shifted from vlogs to edutainment. Even though we still get requests to share daily life vlogs, the majority of our audience prefers our new format.

A few words about equipment…

We get a lot of questions about the equipment we use to film our videos. The simple answer is: It doesn’t matter.

For the first 18 months of our channel, we used a fancy, expensive DSLR camera that was recommended by the YouTube gurus at the time.

It was big, bulky, heavy and a battery lasted less than an hour so I had to carry spares and portable chargers. The onboard microphone was subpar so I had to use an external mic, adding to the bulk of the camera.

Plus, my DSLR only had one lens. It was a generic kit lens that was ok for selfie mode, but not great at anything else, especially zoom shots.

Finally, the quality of the footage was only average without a lot of color correction in editing.

That camera was a pain!

After I bought a new iPhone, I decided to test it out by filming an entire video with it. And it was awesome!

My iPhone is lightweight, fits in my pocket and the battery lasts long enough to film an entire video! The onboard microphones (there are multiple) work great, even in windy conditions, so I don’t need an external mic.

I eventually bought a DJI Osmo Mobile 6 Smartphone Gimbal to help me keep the camera steady during pan shots and while walking. And we bought a lightbox and an LED backlight here in Ecuador for our home studio.

If you’re just getting started with YouTube, equipment doesn’t really matter. A lot of people think they need fancy equipment and procrastinate until they can afford an expensive camera. Don’t make that mistake.

Just use your mobile phone and get started today.

Step 3: Promote your channel

We were TERRIFIED when we pressed publish on our first video!

Here are a few what-ifs that went through our minds:

  • What if no one likes it?
  • What if people hate it?
  • What if we get a bunch of troll comments?
  • What if everyone tells us what we said is wrong?
  • What if no one watches it?

Of all these doubts, the only one that came to fruition was: No one watched it!

All of our other fears were a pointless waste of time because when you publish your first video, YouTube won’t recommend it to anyone so the only views will come from the family and friends who follow you on your other social media accounts.

Promote Your Videos to Friends and Family

Share your videos on social media platforms like Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, etc. to increase visibility.

Off-platform promotion is critical during the first couple of months of your channel until YouTube recommendations start kicking in.

Start a Blog

If we had it to do over again, I would start a blog on WordPress, Tumblr, or Medium to grow an audience before starting a YouTube channel.

We have two lost years that I wish were documented, from the time we decided to move abroad until we published our first video.

Plus, the audience we would have built during that time would have been a nice boost for our YouTube channel after we launched it.

Collaborations

You can also collaborate with other content creators to reach new audiences. We’ve done a few video collabs with other YouTubers but didn’t get much benefit from them.

The trick is finding other channels with a similar-sized audience and a similar niche. Channels that are a lot larger aren’t interested in doing a collab with a small channel because they take a lot of time to create and that time is better spent on other tasks that will have a larger impact.

The other challenge with collabs is that if you are in a similar niche, there’s a good chance you have a similar audience that already knows about both channels. Again, collabs are a lot of work so your time might be better spent creating more engaging content.

We did a collab with Sara and Luca from Leave Everything And Wander. We only had 2,500 subscribers at the time and they had 25,000. They were in Cuenca on their van life tour of the Americas and asked us to meet up for a quick impromptu collab so it was pretty easy to create.

After we each posted our videos featuring each other, we gained about 125 new subscribers and they gained about 250. Even though they had 10 times more subscribers, they somehow benefited more from the collab than we did.

We also did collabs with two other channels that stopped posting and are now dead. That’s another risk of doing a collab with a small channel: they might not stick with it and then you have a video on your channel about another channel that doesn’t exist anymore.

Even after 300+ videos, we still promote every video we publish on our other social media platforms: Facebook, Twitter, and Patreon. This helps drive views early in the publish cycle, which increases recommendations.

Step 4: Optimize your videos for YouTube recommendations

Most of our views and subscriber growth have come from YouTube recommendations, not search.

Clickable May Work Better than Searchable

The size of the audience for people thinking about moving to Ecuador is surprisingly small.

Some people do the research, decide not to move to Ecuador, and then stop watching our videos. Others eventually move to Ecuador and then stop watching our videos because they live here and don’t need us anymore.

The vast majority of our viewers watch our videos because they enjoy the educational and entertaining content we share.

I shared a YouTube poll a while back to help us determine how many of our subscribers are planning a move to Ecuador. Only 30% of the voters said they are thinking about moving to Ecuador. The other 70% just like watching our videos.

If we optimized our videos for search, we would have missed out on 70% of our audience who weren’t searching for our content.

Instead, we try to choose interesting topics that have a broad audience appeal. Then we create titles and thumbnails that are clickable (not clickbait – more on that below) so that a broader audience is inspired to click and watch.

It’s Ok to Copy Concepts

We often study successful channels in our niche and create videos on similar topics. The topic for our second most viewed video came directly from a top-performing video on The Nomadic Movement.

Their video was titled, “THE REAL REASONS WE LEFT THE USA and moved to Panama.” I titled our video, “THE REAL REASONS WE LEFT THE USA (and why we can’t move back).” I even created a similar thumbnail concept.

When I borrowed (stole?) the idea for that topic, their video had over 100K views, which was WAY more views than any video we had ever created. Their video now has 175K views as I write this. Our video has over 460K views and it’s 2 months younger.

They also had over 100K subscribers at the time. We only had 8,000. This video put us on the YouTube map, and the entire concept was copied from a more successful channel.

Why do you think our copied topic video did so much better than the original? Is the “(and why we can’t move back)” in the title more clickable than “and moved to Panama?” Let me know what you think in the comments.

Our “reverse culture shock” video is currently our most-watched video with over half a million views. Guess what? We stole that idea, too! But we’re not the only ones. It’s a popular video concept and lots of other YouTubers make the exact same video. And they all get viewed!

You don’t need to constantly reinvent the wheel. Look at bigger, more successful channels in your niche and copy the concepts from their best videos, but make them your own.

Engagement Increases Recommendations

Engagement typically refers to actions that users take on your videos, like clicking the like or dislike buttons, sharing, subscribing, or posting a comment. However, view duration, audience retention, and session duration are also forms of engagement.

Your goal should be to maximize all forms of engagement on your videos, which means you need to increase video quality to boost average view duration and return viewership, as well as inspire likes, subscribes, shares, and comments.

Remember to encourage your viewers to subscribe and engage with your videos, especially after a high-value part of your video, such as when you say something important or funny.

At the end of your video, use an End Screen Element to showcase a specific video and pitch it to the viewer to watch next. This will not only increase the views on your channel, but also increases viewer session duration, which increases recommendations.

Step 5: Monetize your channel with multiple income streams

Our first income stream was Patreon, which is a membership platform that allows your viewers to support your content creation in exchange for some exclusive benefits.

Patreon and other member platforms like Buy Me A Coffee have their own set of challenges and nuances, so I’ll write a different article about them later.

Over time, we enabled YouTube ads, and we added video sponsors, eCourse sales, and affiliate income to our revenue streams.

Here is the revenue percentage breakdown for each of our income streams (as of April 2023):

  • 45% – eCourse Sales
  • 20% – Patreon
  • 20% – YouTube Ad Revenue
  • 10% – Brand Sponsors
  • 5% – Affiliates

If we started a new channel today, we would prioritize affiliates, which is what we’re doing now. Some creators earn more than half of their income from affiliates. The key is choosing high-dollar items to recommend, or services with a recurring affiliate commission.

Other potential income sources include merchandise sales, coaching, and consulting services.

Step 6: Learn from your mistakes

You’re going to make a lot of mistakes as you learn how to record, edit, and publish videos on YouTube. The creators who succeed learn and adapt quickly from those mistakes.

Less Is More, Quality Is Better

Sticking to our initial posting schedule of three videos per week (Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday) was challenging. Reducing it to one video per week allowed us to better manage our time and create higher-quality content.

Video Editing Is a Necessary Evil

I despise video editing. It’s time-consuming and tedious, but it’s necessary.

Learning how to edit videos quickly without sacrificing quality was a significant hurdle. We started our YouTube channel with Camtasia Studio, but I found it very limiting.

Later, I switched to Adobe Premiere Pro, which is a much more robust editing package, but it has several of its own issues. The monthly license is also expensive.

If I had it to do over again, I would test out several other editing packages to see if any are better and/or cheaper. However, now that I’m used to Premiere, I don’t want to invest the time to learn a new system.

Clickbait vs. Legitbait

There’s a fine line between Legitbait and Clickbait, and creating clickable titles and thumbnails without resorting to clickbait is a challenge we still face.

Each time you post a video, it must compete with thousands of other videos for clicks. That means your title and thumbnail need to stand out and inspire people to click, but the video needs to deliver on the promise.

Clickbait is a term used to indicate that a title and thumbnail are clickable, but the video is either not relevant or not good enough to keep the viewer watching.

This leads to a high click-through-rate (CTR), but a low average view duration (AVD). The YouTube algorithm is fast at figuring this out and will stop recommending your video if it has a high CTR and a low AVD.

Legitbait is a term used to indicate that a title and thumbnail are clickable, but also deliver a high-quality video that is relevant and keeps the viewer watching. This leads to a high or above-average CTR and a typical or higher than usual AVD. When this happens, the algorithm will recommend your video to even more people and that’s when it goes viral.

We constantly tweak and improve our titles and thumbnails to make them more clickable. I usually create 3 to 5 title/thumbnail concepts for each video and sometimes it takes more than 10 to find something that clicks (pardon the pun) with our audience.

Our reverse culture shock video took 11 title/thumbnail versions over the course of 9 days before the CTR reached a point that the algorithm started recommending it. On day 8, the video had 23,000 views or roughly 3,000 views per day. On day 9, it had 33,000 views (that’s 10,000 views in a single day!). I knew this video should go viral so I kept tweaking the title and thumbnail until it did.

Create Content Your Audience Wants to Watch

To achieve success, we focused on producing videos our audience wanted to watch, rather than videos we wanted to create.

This is a common mistake we see on a lot of small YouTube channels that never learn from this mistake. They let their egos or personal preferences dictate the content they create, rather than looking at the analytics to see what their audience wants to watch.

You can’t force your audience to watch something just because you think they should. Instead, create the content they are eager to watch.

If you’re not willing to do that, then your channel growth will be limited, as well as your income potential. If that’s ok with you, then by all means, continue creating content for yourself rather than your audience.

Viewer Requests May Not Get Views

You’ll often hear that you should create content based on viewer feedback. The gurus will recommend using polls to gauge topic interest or asking viewers to request topics for future videos in the comments.

This seems like good advice, but we’ve found that a loud minority of viewers request videos about topics that only a small percentage of our audience watches. That means we’ve put time, energy, and money into creating videos, based on solid viewer feedback, that didn’t get viewed.

Instead, it’s far better to base topic choices on previous videos that performed well on your channel, and on other channels. Base your content decisions on the analytics, not topic requests.

Step 7: Use YouTube Analytics to improve video views

Understanding your YouTube Analytics is key to growing your channel. Monitor CTR, views, and audience retention to identify areas for improvement. Use these insights to create more engaging content, optimize your video titles and thumbnails, and attract more viewers.

You may notice that I omitted subscribers as a valuable analytic. That’s because you’ll monitor it daily anyway, even though it’s a vanity metric and doesn’t offer much in terms of valuable insight.

The most important metrics are CTR, views, and audience retention. Your goal is to create titles and thumbnails that lead to a high CTR and views, while also creating videos that lead to high audience retention, mainly average percentage viewed (APV).

With that said, don’t spend a lot of time worrying about APV unless it’s REALLY bad and YouTube gives you a clickbait warning message. We try to create videos that get at least a 50% APV, but most of our top-performing videos have an average percentage viewed of less than 35%.

Step 8: Plan and maintain a consistent posting schedule

Some channels post daily or multiple times a week, while others find success with a weekly, biweekly, or monthly schedule.

The key is to find a balance between consistency and quality. Posting too often can lead to burnout and a drop in content quality while posting too infrequently can cause your channel to lose momentum.

We now post a video once per week on average. Sometimes we post videos for 3 weeks and host a live stream the 4th week just to give ourselves a break. We also use the gap to get ahead on our recordings or work on other streams of income for the business.

We plan our video posting schedule 4 to 8 weeks out using a shared Google calendar. This allows us to make recording plans and keep track of our upcoming videos.

Sometimes we make adjustments to our schedule to insert videos about trending topics from the news or on other YouTube channels. Having a plan is important, but so is being flexible to current events.

Posting consistently is crucial to the success of your channel because if you miss too many cycles, your audience will tune out and the YouTube algorithm will punish your recommendations.

We watched a channel that posted multiple videos per week and then decided to take 3 months off. Two years after they started posting again, their views still have not recovered from that hiatus. We’ve never taken more than 2 weeks off.

Step 9: Learn from successful channels

Study channels that have already achieved success in your niche. Analyze their content, presentation style, and engagement strategies. Apply their best practices to your own channel to accelerate your growth.

We monitor about a dozen channels in our niche to see what videos perform well for them and which ones do not. We also use Socialblade.com to track views and subscribers on other channels, especially when our views are down.

In February and March of 2023, our views dropped significantly. At first, we were freaking out and wondering what we had done wrong. Then we checked the views on other channels in our niche and noticed they were all down about the same percentage as ours.

Knowing we were not the only channel experiencing a sharp decline made us feel better (misery loves company?) and helped us make more rational topic decisions.

Step 10: Engage with your audience

Respond to comments, answer questions, and ask your audience for feedback about the videos you’re creating. Engaging with your audience creates loyalty and community so they keep coming back to watch more of your videos.

Avoid getting defensive or disrespectful when engaging with your audience. Remember, not all feedback will be positive, but it’s crucial to remain professional and open-minded. Easier said than done, I know.

It’s okay to block users who are disrespectful or abusive. Building a loyal community requires maintaining a healthy environment for interaction and fostering a sense of connection with your viewers.

During our first several years of YouTubing, we tried to respond to every single comment. As our views and engagement increased, it became more difficult to respond to everyone. Plus, we started building a business around our YouTube channel so we have less time available to respond to comments.

Try to respond to every comment until your channel reaches a point where it takes more than 30 minutes a day to respond to everyone. At that point, you may decide to respond for the first hour or two after you post a new video, and then spot check the comments after that.

Step 11: Stay up-to-date with YouTube trends and updates

Keep yourself informed about YouTube’s latest trends, features, and best practices.

Stay up-to-date with YouTube’s Creator Academy, Creator Insider channel, and other resources to make the most of the platform and stay ahead of the competition.

Step 12: Experiment with new content ideas

Don’t be afraid to try new things and experiment with your content. Test different video formats, topics, and styles to see what resonates with your audience.

We’ve changed video formats several times over the years. Some worked and others didn’t. We adapted and moved on.

The topics we choose are a constant experiment to see what gets views. We do our best to choose topics based on what has worked well before, but sometimes even those fall flat and we pivot again.

By continually refining your content, you’ll keep your channel fresh and engaging.

Step 13: Invest in your channel’s growth and network with other creators

As your channel grows, consider investing in better equipment (especially lighting), software, and even hiring professionals like video editors and graphic designers.

We have a video editor now who works part-time for us. She also does a lot of other business and content tasks.

We also used VidChops for a while and we still recommend them for top 10 list-style videos. They didn’t do a great job on our vlogs, so we stopped using them before we changed to our current format.

Attending YouTube conferences and networking events can also be invaluable for forging connections with other creators, learning from their experiences, and staying updated on industry trends.

This is the biggest mistake we made during our early days on YouTube: We didn’t network with other content creators. I wrote an entire article about this mistake over on Medium: How Operating In a Vacuum Cost Us Thousands of Dollars per Month.

Step 14: Stay persistent and patient, like Mr. Beast

Growing a successful YouTube channel takes time and dedication. Be prepared for setbacks and challenges, and stay persistent in your efforts.

Remember that success won’t happen overnight. For example, Mr. Beast posted videos for several years before gaining significant attention and now he has millions of subscribers.

We posted 3 videos per week for 4 months before we got our first 100 subscribers. It took us 8 months to reach 1,000 subscribers. We made a lot of dumb mistakes that handicapped our growth, but we stuck with it and now we have a successful YouTube channel that generates 6 figures a year in income.

Most successful YouTubers just stuck with it longer than everyone else. Persistence and perseverance may be more important than talent.

Step 15: Achieve balance in your personal life

Taking time for personal growth and self-care is essential for maintaining a fresh perspective.

We read in the mornings, take long walks every day to discuss plans and ideas, and prioritize healthy eating and exercise.

We also try to take a vacation and turn off our devices for a week at least once per year.

It’s important to step back from the business to recharge and stay motivated so you think of new ideas and don’t burn out.

Final Thoughts

Building a successful YouTube channel to support your expat lifestyle isn’t easy, but with dedication, persistence, and the right strategies, you can certainly do it. If we can, so can you.

By following our step-by-step guide, you’ll be well on your way to creating a channel that supports your freedom lifestyle and allows you to share your unique experiences with the world.

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