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Travel Mug Podcast
Travel Tips with Mark from Wolters World
We chat travel with professor and YouTuber Mark Wolters from Wolters World. He shares how his popular YouTube channel started, his love of travel, how he balances travel and work, his approach to filming content, and so much more. If you're a fan of Wolters World or if you're curious about starting a travel YouTube channel, this is the episode for you!
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We are travel enthusiasts who do not claim to be professionals! Instead, we are two Halifax, NS natives with travel blogs who somehow found one another on the internet, and now, we have a podcast!!
Join us every week as we talk about our favourite destinations, travel tips, travel fails, and all things travel!
We have a big passion for travelling and talking about travel, so we hope you will listen and join the conversation.
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Disclaimer: All episodes are based on our opinions and experiences. Always do your research and make travel plans based on your budget and comfort levels.
Hey everyone, and welcome back to the Travel Mug podcast. We are so excited this week to be joined by YouTuber, professor by day and world traveler Mark Wolters. So Mark, along with his wife Jocelyn, and often joined by their two sons, have traveled for many years, even living in various destinations around the world, they have their own travel YouTube channel, aply named Wolters World, uh, and they currently have 1.15 million subscribers and nearly 3000 videos. Their channel is filled with useful content such as travel dos and don'ts, videos about what to expect in certain destinations and common traveler mistakes, just to name a few. Mark, welcome to the show. We are so excited that you're here. I appreciate the invitation. Yeah. Yeah. And we wanna get it, uh, right off the bat. Your name is Mark and not Wolters.'cause I know that's confusing to people. Yeah, it's funny 'cause like literally every video I started, hey fellow travelers, it's Mark from Wolter's World. Like literally every video people are like, I want you gonna use forever. Walter. It's funny 'cause like I personally, I mean I've been called many things in my life, so Walter is totally fine. But uh, but it was funny 'cause like one time we were in New Orleans, I was there with a couple of buddies of mine and I'm just walking down the street and people were like, you are Walter. And of course then the entire weekend my buddies were just like, Hey, Walter, hey Sure. it's Walter. And so we, we had a good laugh with it. Like, I don't, I, it doesn't bother me now, Yeah. like when I was a kid I was, you know, when you're like in high school, everyone like calls everybody their last name, you know, like Walter, I'm like. Call, so I. Whatever works. Yeah, and, and just to clarify too, in terms of the spelling, it's not WAL, it's W-O-L-T-E-R as well, just in case for people checking out online. Yeah. Yeah. Awesome. So let's dive in. How did your, love of travel start? What was your first trip and what was that like? My first trip, oh, so my childhood was, uh, our summer vacations we're going from western Illinois all the way to Toledo, Ohio to see my grandfather. So we go see my grandfather. But luckily my parents had friends in Sandusky, Ohio where there was Cedar Point with some amusement park. So that was like the highlight of my summer. Every summer was, that was our one week trip. We'd leave. Friday? Yeah. No, we live Friday after work.'cause my parents wouldn't pay for the hotel room. So we leave Saturday morning bright and early and drive like the 11 hours to Ohio. Uh, to get to Toledo to see my grandfather and then do that. Like, that's, that's all we ever did. Like my real love of travel, I think it was when. I was in high school and I met this, this girl, this exchange student from South Africa, she's like, oh, you should try like be an exchange. It's really, really cool. And I talked to her quite a bit and everything. And like she was a Rotary Exchange student, so my mom knew her and so we had her over dinner and stuff and I was like, yeah, I guess I could try this. I don't know. She's like, well, they have summer programs. I'm like, oh, okay. I'll try this summer program thing. So I ended up going to Australia for a summer and I'm like, oh my God, I love this. And then from there it was like, I went for a year to Finland. When I was in college, I did a semester in Argentina. I did a summer in Austria that did my ma Masters's in Germany, my PhD in Portugal. I lived in Lithuania. Like I was like everywhere. And then it was like, that was the gateway drug right there that, that summer study abroad program.'cause I mean, honestly, my, my, uh, kind of like dream when I was like in high school, I be like, I'm gonna be the mayor of my town, the governer of my state, then I'll be president. Oh wow. like, I wanna travel the world. So things change over Yeah. Yeah. don't wanna be to be tied to Pennsylvania Avenue. No, thanks. Yeah. Um, so you just mentioned, you know, the amount of countries you've lived in. It sounds like a lot for education. Is it possible to pick a favorite country that you've lived in? So it's weird because like they all have special meanings for me. Like I lived in Finland and whenever I want to go and just like chill, like no, I wanna go to a destination and just relax. I. Like, decompress, like Finland. I love doing it for that, however, but if I wanna go, like for Christmas time fun, I want to go to Germany where I used to live. But then when I think about just crazy fun times, like Brazil is so great, like it's really hard for me to choose one i I love the most. Like, you know, Lisbon, my youngest son was born there and I lived there for five years. So it's, it's really hard to pick. Like I always go back. You know, that's why like this summer, we're going back to Finland and we're going back to Lisbon. You know, we got a trip for those, you know, because they're, they're right by each other. So close. Sure, why not? know if I have like a, like 100% favorite one, but the one, the ones I can always go back to, I can always go back to Finland and I always back, go back to Brazil. Like those are ones I never have a problem going back to. I actually knew an exchange student myself. She came to our, our small town. She was from Helsinki, and I still keep in touch with her and that, that's my goal someday to make it there to Finland to see her. It's, it's, it's worth it. I mean, but I would say like, they will not talk to you like you'll be alone Oh. they wanna talk to you. And they'll know a subject and they'll like literally start the, the topic and they'll start talking, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk nonstop. And then they'll, the topic will end and they'll be like, okay, bye. It's very efficient, very efficient I love that. That's amazing. So you mentioned kind of what, uh, your original career choice was when you were young. Did your love of travel influence your actual career choice? What you do now? It definitely influenced the YouTube part of my Yeah. the, the, uh, professor part of it, I, I don't, I don't think it. I don't think it really influenced me going into it. It got it. It's helped me in terms of teaching, because I use my experiences abroad to talk about like marketing and businesses and how you don't have to understand the language to understand what's going on. Mm-hmm. You know, like I tell my students like, you know, my, my job is like when you finish, like it's a principles of marketing course, like intro marketing course. Like, look, when you come outta this class, I should be able to put you on any street corner in the world and you'll be able to tell me that's the high end store. That's the knockoff store. That's, you know, you should be able to tell without even knowing what's going on. You should be able to tell what's there. And so I use examples where I'm like, yeah, you can't read the words. It's Japanese, you have no idea, but you can tell what's going on here. And I think that's one of the things that it's been really fun. And then I film a lot of my . I have another channel, professor Wolters, where I make videos for like marketing education and stuff. And I'll film those around the world because I know with all the online education now where a lot of it is like. Oh, it's the, the the, you know, they have their PowerPoint slide and then their head's in the bottom corner. I'm like, no one likes to learn Yeah. No. I'll film it in different destinations and I'll have the words pop up and stuff and do that. And so that's been, it's funny 'cause that's been very helpful for me when I go to like professor conferences, like, they're like, Hey, I use your videos in class, which is nice. They use it, but it's like, oh yeah, I use it, my 600 student class, but they'll show my video one time for 600 people. I'm like. You know, if you had your students watch that individually, that would be better for my algorithm one. But, but it's funny 'cause I'll get, because I, I, I mean I've had probably 10,000 students, uh, 12,000 students just at Illinois where I teach over the last 15 years. And I'll have students that are like doing their m mba a someplace like I'd want it. He's at Rice down in Houston. He's like, mark, you been? Here. And he sends me a picture of like, they're watching my videos in their MBA class, you know, and I'm like, oh, cool. That's what I said. I'm like, would you ever see this? Are you write that down. Which is, which is kind of fun. Like when we get to like, right, right now it's exam season, so I get like a lot of random dms. Thank you so much. My professor sucked. I I needed your stuff. I'm like, glad I can help. That's awesome. That's good to have that kind of impact for sure. And in places you don't even realize it's gonna be shown, so that's cool. So let's talk about YouTube then. Back 16 years ago, uh, this has been your first video on your Wolters World channel was posted. I know. And it was called. It was called learn German accusative preposition. So quite a few of your early videos were about learning German. So talk to us about your time in Germany. What made you want to start posting on YouTube at that point? So those videos, so I actually had a channel before Wolters World, which was like best economics faculty, I think I called it because I had, uh. had, I was teaching in, in Lisbon and I asked the students, why do you choose this school? And they're like, oh, it's the best economics faculty in Portugal. Like word for word. Like every student. I, I didn't ask 'em out loud, it was like, yo, in the get to know you thing. And they all put it in. So I made a channel on that and I started, I started putting on these education videos on there. And then when I started doing the language stuff, um. I was like, well, well I like to travel. I like to know some of the language before I go someplace. I'm like, oh, we'll make language videos, because I like learning language, I like speaking languages. And so I started making these language videos and I noticed that it was, uh, like I did language, I knew well, so I did like learning German for English speakers, learning Spanish, learning Portuguese for English speakers. Did that, and then it's like, Hey, what if we go the other way? And I started making like, learn English for Germans, learn Portuguese for Germans. And I did it for Italian. I did it for Spanish speakers. And I realized actually the only people that watched like language videos were Germans.'cause the Germans wanted to know before they went. I was, I was like teaching English and Spanish and Italian and the Italian's like, nah, nah man, we're just speaking Italian. Forget it. So it was like, that's where it started out and that's when, it's funny 'cause I look at it back then I'm like, it was fun to make those, but I, I can see that it probably wasn't the best choice. I probably should have focused on something else sooner, like more travel focused stuff than the language one. But it's one of those things like. Because back then, I mean this is 16, 17 years ago, Yeah. Youtube was like, it was not what it is now. Like trying to explain to people what we were doing and even in 2015 versus 2007 versus now it's like so different, but we're just trying different things and see what worked. It didn't work. And for a while it was funny'cause like for a while Germans were like 60% of our audience. On our channel because they were watching the language videos. But then I kind of got through like the basic language stuff. Like there's not much more I can do in terms of learning language. So kind of, it's like finite, you know? It's like, well, you've learned the past tense and the future tense and the present tense and vocabulary okay, what's now? Gotcha. so then, so then it was kind of ran its course and then I really started to see is like, hey, it's better to put stuff in the travel things than the language Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. how that kind of got Yeah, YouTube's definitely changed a lot in the last like 16, 17 years. I'm recently watching a TV show that's set in like 2008, and one of the characters is like, what is YouTube? And it's like, oh yeah, that isn't like, I mean, 2008 doesn't feel like that long ago, but it's like a long time ago now, I guess. But. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Like when I, I look back, I'm like, because, I mean, I remember when I first started making videos. I mean, I would have like a Nikon cool pics, Mm-hmm. that. And I would literally put it on a rock. And so that's why even if you watch these really old video start, you're like, why is he squatting down? What is he sitting on? The place I found like a rock that was kind of sturdy that I could put the thing on because I didn't have a tripod. There wasn't no selfie sticks or anything like Right. that it was like, Hey, plop. Because if you had a tripod, you had to have like that big, huge one. I'm like, you can't travel with that. No. So Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. things are a little bit easier these days. Definitely easier. So there's obviously, there's a lot of travel content on YouTube, especially now. And so what made you go the route of offering advice instead of like, kind of the more like vlogger style, like documenting exactly where you are and what you're doing. Yeah, well, I think about it now. If I would've gone for the travel inspiration or the travel education, I probably had more views now. Because like, uh, but my thing is like, 'cause I have a day job, so like I don't have to get a million views on every video. I don't have to get a hundred. I, I can just make videos I think are gonna help people travel better. And All right. do. I wanna help people travel better.'cause that's how you make the world a better place. If we're good. Like we're representatives, we're ambassadors of our countries, our cultures, when we go someplace else, if we can be better when we go to those places, people have a better opinion of our country. You know, and it doesn't matter where you're from. And so I really focused on the travel education stuff to really help people like, you know, like. Have a better time, but also be more respectful. And so I really focused on that. And so it's funny 'cause like I'll have people that never subscribe. oh, we always watch your videos and we're gonna go someplace. So they don't, they don't subscribe, they don't watch random videos. What they'll do, it's like, oh, I'm going to Berlin. So, put Wolters World, Berlin, and they'll watch our Berlin videos 'cause that's their one trip they have this year and then until next year's trip and they come back a year later, oh, we're gonna Japan, Wolters World, Japan, and they'll watch our Japan videos. You know? So that was one of those things, and it was kind of a conscious decision that I'm like. I can't look at myself like a, like a other travel vloggers, which are more like, Hey, look at me.'cause I didn't want that. I'm like, look, I'm a, I'm a middle aged guy, you know, and I, I'm going on a, like, I got a job. I don't have time to watch 900 videos of people going, oh, before I show you what to see, let me talk about the coffee I had in my hotel room. Like, ah. I'm like, dude, just gimme what I need to know. So the Jones videos are really about, Hey, you don't have time to watch a hundred videos. Watch this. You're gonna be prepared for scams, food, everything you need, so you're gonna be a better tourist with one video. So that's what I really wanted to do. there are people that watch every video and then there's some that don't. And so it is, it's just the way it is. And luckily, like I said, I have the day job as a professor stuff, so I don't have to, you know, I don't have to do dance videos and I don't have to Right. trendy stuff like that. You don't, you probably won't see me in the AI sparkly suit thing that people are doing like Christmas last year, you know, that kind of stuff. You know, like That's a shame Yeah, I AI could do yeah, yeah, A full head of hair yeah, and. yeah. Yeah. And, and you're, and you're right, I think there's a probably a couple of different types of viewers. We, my husband actually is the one who found your channel. We just tune into every video 'cause we'd like to hear about the world. So we just sort of tune in. We always listen, but I bet there are people like you mentioned, who just are going somewhere. So they're like, let me go and research this one place. And we've done that as well and found things before we've went on trips. So I can see how that is the case. And. Going back to something you said because you are, uh, a professor,, at a university in Illinois. So talk to us about how you manage work and traveling. We assume you have the summers off, but that might not be the truth. So do fill us in, but are you fitting in it in during the school year? Whenever possible. Uh, and I know you've mentioned in your videos that you do get a chance to travel with students sometimes too, is that right? So sort of walk us through how that piece works. So I do get the summers off and you know, college professors get quite a good summer off. And then I also get the winters off because between semesters, so we're usually traveling most of the, that time, you know, and especially when the kids were little and we could take 'em outta school easy, like we were gone even more. You know, 'cause you, you got spring break and fall break, so there's another like two week trip we can throw in twice, you know, kind of thing. But now once the oldest one got into high school, it got a little more complicated. So then it was mostly then, then it started to be, Hey, you know what, I wanna take some trips on my own. My wife will do trips on her own, so she'll film some content too. But like usually most of the summer I'm gone traveling. Most of the winter break we're gone traveling. And then Thanksgiving break and spring break we're gone traveling. And then, um. And then what's nice is like how my classes, it depends how my classes are set up.'cause sometimes I'm only teaching like Tuesdays and Thursdays or Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, you know, so I might have Monday and Fri so I could leave, like if I get a Thursday night flight, I can go someplace, like I can go to Santa Fe or I can go to New York or I can go up to Chicago. Like I can do like relatively Toronto. I can do closer places on a long weekend.'cause you know, you, you get a lot in from Thursday night until, you know, Tuesday morning.'cause there's been times we've flown back and like flown in Indianapolis and 'cause it's an hour time change, be driving back and literally like my wife will drop me off at, at, at class. Like, I'll literally like leave my suitcase in the car, just go teach the class. You know? So it's, it, there's a lot of coordination that goes into it. Um, and I used to teach some online classes too, so when I was teaching online that it was, that was really easy.'cause you can feel you can do that anywhere. Uh, but I like, but you know, when I, I, I also know that like, face-to-face classes, I feel face-to-face classes work so much better. So I, I'm glad I have my face-to-face students now. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, it's, it's really about like maximizing the time that you have, like Meggan and I both work, you know, full-time jobs with, with regular time off, and so you do have to kind of find those little pockets where you can like get away. Yeah. And, and you know, we recently took trip to Toronto and we were, I think we were there like 47 hours from like touchdown to take off and like, it is amazing, like how much you can get done by like squeezing. you, if you plan it out, you can do so much. I mean that, that's what I always tell people. It's like, look, I'm not telling you to watch our videos because I want you to watch our videos. I'm telling you to watch videos.'cause then you can get the most outta your trip. Mm-hmm. Because I'll see people that literally, they'll go someplace like, I'm going to Paris. Like, what are you gonna see? I don't know. I'll figure out what I'm there. I'm like. means you're gonna waste hours trying to figure out where to go, where you could plan it out. Like, oh, I could hit these things next to each other, then hit these things here together. You know? It's like places like Tokyo. Like Tokyo is huge. You can't go, oh, I'm gonna just go, no, you gotta plan it out. Like, I'll go in this section, then I'm gonna go in this section, then I'm go on this the next day. Like, and then you can see a ton of stuff in a short period of time, you know? And it's, and it's also like with my filming, like I'll prep a lot of my stuff before. Then more stuff I'm learning when I'm there, but I'll prep like advice videos, like, you know, don'ts of renting a car in Europe or, you know, uh, unwritten rules of like train travel in Europe. Like, I'll have those things because I know those, like I travel enough, I can write those things up so I have those ready to go. So if I hit a spot, 'cause I can see the spots and then like, hey Jocelyn's, like, hey, I'm gonna grab a coffee. I'm like, oh, you gonna grab a coffee? Okay, I don't drink coffee. So you here grab a coffee. This is a great spot right over here. I'm gonna film a video real quick. So the 10 minutes, she's having her coffee, I'm filming a video that I already have prepped so I can fit it all in and then, hey, we're off to the next site and you can do it. But you're right. I'm like, you gotta plan it. And you can do a lot. You do a lot in 47 definitely can. And then on the flip side of that, I have made the mistake of definitely jam packing too much in and, and it's possible to do both of those things. Yes. And thing is like, and when you have depending on who you're traveling with, 'cause sometimes people can take it and sometimes they can't. Yes. Yes. So, especially when you got kids, like, it's funny, like when the kids were little and we were just carrying'em around, it was all kinds of stuff. But once they were like independently walking, then it's like, okay, we got one morning thing, then we've got lunch park time, then we have an afternoon thing, and that's Yeah. gotta have those things in there. But it's, it is kind of funny if you're like, yeah, or, or you know, you go to take your parents, your older parents, like, look, they aren't, you aren't 20 anymore, and they're not in their fifties Yeah. So, you know, everybody needs a bit more time and more bathroom breaks Yeah, yeah, yeah. Definitely traveling with other people and, and if you've never traveled with them before can be a challenge. I we're big, like theme park people, Disney people, and I remember the first time we traveled with our friends as like a, a two couples trip and we like got in the park. I get in the park, I don't need a map. I know where everything is, and I'm just, I'm gone. Like, I'm maneuvering through the crowds and I'm gone. And my friends are like. What just happened, and I'm like, you gotta keep up! And you're like, I don't wanna get upset with him. I don't wanna get upset with him, but just trust me. Just let's go. Yeah. Because here's one of the things I always find funny is like sometimes when you'll go places to see friends and you think they know their hometown Right. Yeah. I learned, I was in Stockholm and I, this is, I mean this is before, I think it was before I even started Wolter's World and I was going there and I was like, I did no research before. I mean, I'd been there before, so I knew a few things I wanted to see, but I didn't do any research at all. My friends excited to show me around. knew that. I'm like, didn't you grow up here? Like, it was like, all right. So since then, even if I wanna see fans or friends from places that wanna show, I'm like, I still do all my research so I, I know exactly, Hey, we should do this. Like, oh yeah.'cause you'd be surprised where people just don't know their hometown, which is normal. Like, I've never been to the county museum in the county I live in, you know? But I Right. it every day when I go to work. Yeah. Yeah, no, I, I can see that for sure. Although I think if you came to Halifax, we, we got you Yeah. Yeah. we know this, we know We know that city. Yeah. Yeah. So like we've mentioned, you have a, a lot of things. You've got the YouTube channel, uh, you also have social media and a full-time job. How does all of that get balanced? Does your wife help? Have you hired people? How does that work for you? Yeah. So until, I don't know, five or six, six years ago, seven years ago, I did everything. Like the kids were little, like we put'em down to bed like seven or eight. And then I would work from eight until two in the morning And you don't drink coffee. I, I was doing all without caveat would do. why all these bags in my eyes, this is, this isn't recent, this is from 20 years of this stuff. And, uh, and so I would do that and, and then, uh, and it was, it kind of like, uh, I think like people's, your videos are like your ideas. So like your baby, like I don't want anyone else to have my baby and it's hard to give it away. And then I finally agreed to like work with some editors, but I would just have them cut down my talking parts and I would put the B-roll in because I'm like, they won't know the difference between this food and that food. And so that was like two years of that. And I'm like, all right. I, I finally trusted them enough to like takeover, so and I type it up and then all of a sudden like, wait, I have all this free time now. And so once I let, let go and my editors help me because I like right now. So like, I dunno if, if you, like I have, I have my book with all my notes that I film, and so now I'm typing it up and putting like, Hey, this is the visuals I want, put this in here, you know, and put it all that together. Like once I do that, it's like, whew, it's gone. Like, and all of a sudden I had all this free time. So when I started like three or four more channels I would've had more free time in my life if I, but I just started like, every time you get more free time, you know, you just put more Oh my gosh. Yeah, I, I recently started a learn to curl program, like the sport curling. Um, and my friend, I, I'm all the time, like I have too many things on my plate. I have too much going on, and so I texted my friend, I'm learning to curl, and she's like, do you hate free time? What is wrong with you? Yeah, Like. it's painful. Like I, for me, like I've, I've started to force myself, so this, uh, American football season, I force myself Sunday afternoons. I will sit and watch it. I don't even like watching football that much, but I just force myself to lay on the couch. I'm like, I just, the game is on and I've like played video games on my phone or something like that. Like just to, just to like, Hey, no, Hmm. Yeah. No, you gotta stop. You know?'cause like I've spent, so I got up like six this morning. It's 10 30 and we're recording this like from six until 10 I was writing up scripts to send off to editors. When I get off this call, I'll be writing for an hour and then I got another radio call with a station in Chicago and then I'll do some more. Then it's like, all right, it's like dinner time, like come back, I'm back on it. It's like you gotta get, it's, it's funny 'cause like. put anything off with these things, it just, it piles up Yeah. Mm-hmm. in own business. Yeah. like, the things I'm writing up are things that were from like, you know, the second half of this year of 22, second half of 2025, All. you know, so it's like, wait, I gotta get these things done. I gotta get these things out, you know? Yeah, yeah. definitely. And I think that that's important too. Like it is important to take that you time, but if you're used to being busy, you might as well keep on keeping on, if that's the, if that's the train you're on. Yeah. And the thing is, like there, two summers ago, um, two summers ago, I actually, I mean, I had years of videos I had not put out because I, I saw looking at how videos would go if I put like three videos on the same country, same city out in a row, that third video never did anything. So like, okay, I gotta mix this up more. So then if I'm doing like Paris, I'm gonna do like seven or eight videos about different things in Paris. I'm like, all right. And then it would get kind of spread out. And the next thing I knew, like. I would have videos I never got back to. So I had these videos from like Spain from like two years before. I'm like, ah. So I finally got all the old videos typed up, written up. Like literally there was 150 videos. Wow. literally, I spent two weeks just grinding through, send 'em off to editors and then, because I'm like, wow, I'm finally caught up not learning my lesson. I literally did not send anything new to my editors for like seven months and. Oh, look what I've done to myself. I'm gonna get these things. Get these things Yeah. No, that's, that's a good point. Now this is a selfish question for me, but I have a trip to Portugal planned in May. You mentioned going, you mentioned gonna school there, living there for five years. One of your sons is born there. Seems like a special place for you. So talk to us a bit about your time there and in your opinion, maybe do's and don'ts or some must-see places for when, uh, people visit or I visit. Talk to us about Portugal. when you go there, I will say if you look at cities that have been impacted the most by like over tourism and the Airbnb taking over people's homes. Lisbon is, I mean, when I lived in Lisbon, I lived there from oh five to uh two, no, 2006 to 2011, no, five to 11, 2005, 2006 to 2011. then it was like, I mean, a few tourists, like we had some Italian tourists, so would be there and some Spanish, but not much else. Like in the very south there was some English that retired there, and then Port like Lisbon won like best like weekend destination Europe, like 3 years Oh no. in a row. And then, and then it like I, I'll be honest with like when I go back now, like the only friends of mine that still live in the town, because they can, because they still have their place before 'cause they couldn't afford the rent 'cause it went up so much. They are the ones that live where there's not a metro stop Hmm. Okay. And unlucky for them. They've announced they're gonna build a metro to where they live. And so I'm Oh. man. I mean, it's got, it's, it's incredible like how, how expensive things have got. But you know, like when you look at how people make money, how much money they make, they're like, yeah, like the Airbnb people make a month's rent in one weekend Sure. it's a weekend place. So they just, you know, and it's really bad 'cause it just got bought out. I mean, my friends were got bought out, their grandparents were getting bought out. I mean, it was just. It's just sad because that's why I was like, and, and the thing was though, in Lisbon, it didn't help themselves either because back in the day they didn't have really that many hotels or any like that many good hotels. And so therefore the Airbnb was the, the really the way to go, Right. And so they kind of drove the thing that way. Now there's a lot of really good hostels there now, and the hotels have gotten better, so they're trying to do something, but that, that's a side thing, but that's something to talk about. But going there, I think if you're gonna go, how long are you gonna go for Uh, two weeks. two weeks? Oh, perfect. So I'd do like five days in Lisbon and when you, because there's plenty, like the, the Museum of Ancient Art is really cool to go see. Uh, the Gulbenkian Museum is good to see the zoo. I really love the zoo. Like we had like yearly pass to the zoo, we would just go to the zoo and go, go around to the zoo. Like they have a nice little zoo there to enjoy the oceanarium about where they have the expos worth going to see. So you have that day trips from there. Um, Sintra is probably the most famous one 'cause there's castles there, palaces you can Yep. you're there. But my favorite is to go to Óbidos. Óbidos like, you go and it's like this old city, walled city that you drink, like cherry liquor out of chocolate cups. It's really nice. But if you're gonna go, usually it's a tour that'll hit up a few other places as well. You can do that. Then you're gonna go to Porto and you're gonna do, like, I would do four days in Porto, 'cause you're gonna do two day trips when you're there. Porto, you're gonna do the port wine caves and do that. But then, uh, Guimarães is the, like the birthplace of Portugal. So it's the Stone City. Super cool. Then you got Braga, which is like a, there's a church there. You gotta go see. So you have those things there. And then if you wanna do your, your beachy stuff, you go the Algarve, you go down the very south, the very south Algarve, Yep. down there, but really nice. Um, you won't have any problem. You don't speak Portuguese 'cause they, their English is fantastic there. Um, but just remember obrigado, which would be Thank you Yes. that, that goes a long way. Yes. yeah. Like, they, like when you go into places, like they'll be very happy with that.'Cause there's so many tourists there that don't even try or they'll just speak Spanish to them. Like, dude, this is Portugal, not Yeah. not, not the No. No. Um, oh, food wise, one of the big things, now they make it more prominent, but back in the day they, you never saw where it was like the bread and butter and cheese and all those things. You had to pay every single one differently. So it was like 50 cents for every pad of butter. And so like, yeah. Yeah. So when, so make sure you look and see like if you don't want the olives, like no thanks, I don't need the olives. Don't even touch 'em. Just like put 'em the side. they'll charge you. And the thing is that's really expensive is like the cheese and the ham they'll bring up, that's the ones that'll nail you.'cause I've seen tourists literally get like up in arms 'cause they're like, wait, we came with this cheap meal. It's like twice as much we thought it's like, yeah, you ate the cheese and the ham. Like, and I've, I've reached over like, Hey, yo, you gotta pay for that. Just so you know. Now there's been such a uproar about it, Lisbon, now it's like on the menu, like they'll have it on the menu, Hey look, you gotta pay for this stuff. But like, for a long time wasn't, but do be aware Yeah. of that. Um, but yeah, like when you go there, you're gonna go in May. So Sardinia will start to be in season and like sardines, but they're like big grilled sardines like this. Yes. have to gut them yourself, so That's gonna be a no. But don't be afraid to ask Hey, could you show me how to do this? Then you have it once. Uh, black pork, pork capri is really good, but there's a lot of really good food. Like I'm excited. portions there too, and they eat a long time. And if you go and eat with Portuguese people, everybody's dish is everybody's dish. So like, they'll be surprised if your friend reaches over for a bite. Okay. So as long as I'm prepared anything goes, that's fine. like, once you know that you're not like, dude, smack the hand away. Exactly. Exactly. Excellent. Thank you so Yeah. No problem. You have a great time. Thank you. we're actually going back again this year for the, the Ferus, the, the June festivals. Oh, excellent. I'm curious, are there any trips that you take where you like never film any content or is there always something Yeah. I try and I fail every time, like. I remember my wife's like, why don't we just go like, 'cause like we go to Savannah a lot. My, my son goes to school down there and um, well our son goes to school down there and my wife used to live there and so it's like, I've been there like a thousand times. Like there's really no reason for me to film there, but I'm like, I'll be there like. But you know, we could do a video on the different types of barbecue in the south and then we'll, you know, we'll, we'll do that. So like, it, it's funny, like the, the kids are like, could you just not sometimes. So that's why actually, like, that's why I started filming in the morning. Like, I would get up in the morning and go film because to be quieter. And then I'd get all most of my big filming done, and then I picked, and then at 10 o'clock we'd like go out for the day. So they had their time to wake up and do their own thing, you know, and have breakfast. And then I got the big stuff out of the way. And then I would just like use my phone the rest of the day to take a few like candid kind of videos Yeah. Yeah, I think it's like really important. I, I mean, for me at least, like, I kind of started as a, a travel blogger and then Meggan and I started this podcast and I try to be really cognizant that I don't want all of my trips to just be content. Like I don't want it to be unenjoyable because I am like working the whole time Oh yeah, and I think that that is an issue. it. So you, you'll love this. Um, where I was, I had a, uh, I, I just wrote up my, yeah, hard truths for travel vloggers. That's one of the videos I filmed. I filled it in Skopje, north Macedonia, and I was writing this up. And that's one of those things like the, uh, digital nomad life gets lonely, gets you get burnout, but it's not always. It's not like what you see is not always what's there. And so that's where like there's sometimes we've gone on trips from like, I'm gonna really try not to do anything. Like, we were in The Bahamas, uh, last year for my birthday. And so I was like, yeah, I'm not gonna, I, I'll film like a video, Mm-hmm. you know, I'll, I'll do like a Dont's of The Bahamas and maybe I'll do the hotel. Like, I'm like. Feeling like to temper Yeah. there, and then the dos of Bahamas, how to stay safe in The Bahamas. Um, what the Bahamians want you to know, like I had, but, but it wasn't because I was planning, it was 'cause like when I was there I was inspired Yeah. I was like, I wasn't pla I was like, look, I'm sure the basics will be done, but I just had such a nice time there. The people were so friendly. I'm like, I feel like I need to do more to show off more. You know? And that's where you get things. Like, we were in Macedonia last summer and I, you know, I was, you know, we were, we were there and I'm like, I, you know, I'll do a dont's of Macedonia needs some, like, we'll just chill, you know, it's gonna be, it was like 106 degrees when we were there too. So I'm like, camera will not survive out in this heat. And I ended up loving Skopje so much. I'm like, I must film more. And so I'm like trying to come up, like I had all these like kind of like advice, you know, the advice videos that could be filmed anywhere. I'm like, we're gonna do a bunch here. So that's where it's like, Hey, travel vlogger, you might wanna know this. Or hey, All right. all these ones.'cause I'm like, I want to show off this place more. And so it's funny like people be like, well, you always say you like places and the people are nice. I'm like, no, no. I don't mention the people, you know, I did not like, Right. if Read between the lines. Filming this in Macedonia? Not like in like France or someplace like, like, because no one's gonna watch a video on Macedonia so if I can show off Macedonia in a video they will watch, even better. Right. Exactly. Now, you mentioned this a few times in terms of like sort of filming content here and there and everywhere. So is that how you planned it out? So like recently there was obviously Christmas markets and you came out with a video on Christmas markets. So was that, was that filmed the year prior and it came out this year? Yeah, so like, yeah, so like I've already filmed some Christmas market videos for next year Oh. I was there last week and so therefore, well, I was there in December when, when we were doing this, and so therefore it's like, well, I can't, there's no point in putting out a Christmas market video on the 23rd of December. Right. And so I'll save that for them. It's kind like I was in Ireland and you know, I have some Ireland videos, but I'm like, wait, I'm not gonna put out the Ireland videos in October. I'll put those out in March when people were thinking about Ireland. You know, it is some things you kind of have to plan out because like I see on our channel, like we get like starting from December 26th, our views take off through like the 10th of January because everyone's like, oh, holiday's over. I'm tired of my family. Get me outta here. They start thinking about travel and it slows down again. Then once we get to like late March, then the summer prep comes and it's from late March through July. We're like videos getting watched all the time, and so I'm like, okay, like I have a video on like. You know, Hey, how do you decide on souvenirs? There's no point in me putting that in November because no one's thinking about souvenir shopping. Then I'm like, you do that. You put that in June. You're like, oh, I'm heading on my trip. Oh, yeah, souvenirs. That's when you're thinking about it. So you kind of plan it out that way, Yeah. sometimes, like I did one on renting a car in Europe, like don'ts of renting a car in Europe. And I was like, well, this would be better if I'm in different destinations.'cause we were on a road trip, we drove from Poland to Albania. So I'm like, so I, I, I plan it out. So parts in like Romania, parts in Bulgaria, parts in Albania, you know, so it's like, kind of goes through, so it kind of works into the story. Yeah, I'll plan those out, and then other times I'm just like, I, I'll film a video. Then I'll remember something later like, oh dang, I forgot to mention that. And I'm in a different country. I'm like, here's a little add-on from here in Croatia. Whatever works. Yeah, I love that. That is your marketing brain for sure. That is like planning all of that out.'cause a lot of people probably wouldn't think about necessarily when people are searching for the content, so. Oh, that's right. Yeah, for sure. So what is your hope for the future of Wolters world? Do you plan to become a full-time YouTuber, or, uh, what are, what is your dream? So my dream is we can keep helping people travel better. Like if I can grow the channel and get it out there more.'cause the, the thing is like a lot of people will comment, the people that need that, they'll be like, Hey Mark, I love your video, but the people that need to watch your videos aren't watching your videos'cause they're making those mistakes. Hmm. if I can get out to more people and like really help, but we're trying to do that, like we're doing a lot more, um, those vertical shorts, like on Instagram and TikTok and YouTube shorts, like those aren't really like. I feel I can't get enough information'cause I wanna give people so much information, but I know I, I gotta get that gateway drug to get them Right. so we're, we're, we're putting our ourself on all the platforms we can. So like, we're on MSN, we're on, you know, YouTube, TikTok, like we're on everything because we never know how we're gonna help people. So. just try to put out the content that works on those and like blogs and stuff just to see what we can do. So my hope is we can get to be helping as many people as we can, um, and then be one of those things where people think, oh, I'm gonna go travel. Hey, let's check out Wolters world first because I want the honest advice, you know, and not, I mean, and I can understand people that watch for entertainment, for people that do go with the floppy hats and the flowy dresses and like the, the, the fan, you know, the staged pictures and stuff, but that's not me. Yeah, Yeah. yeah. I think so. For like context, I guess I work in like SEO content marketing, and so the the interesting trend in, you know, AI overviews and like zero click searches now. And, and what is the future, uh, you know, for people like us who, who create content to help people and, and how is that gonna change? Like it is really interesting. You know, you, I see it with my own like travel blog. Like of course like clicks are down. People are, you know, what should I do in X City? And AI overviews is like, here you go, here's all the information. Yeah. Think it's really important and, and I've noticed myself doing this to like go find the people who are actually doing it because, Yeah. I think that will become even more important, uh, in the future. It's like, okay, but this person was actually there and I trust this person Yeah. me. yeah, and that's one thing is like you're in the travel, you guys are in the travel space. You see all the AI travel Yeah, out there now. Like I've seen it. Like they'll literally take our videos and just change the voice. yeah, yeah. Like you, you can, I mean, you can tell they just got the transcript from YouTube, put it into ChatGPT and say, Hey, summarize this into a thing, and then use this British voice. It's always way British voice. If I had a British accent, I would've twice as many views, you know, and, and it'd beyond there. And there's one, it's like, and then they could still start with, Hey there fellow travelers. I'm like, huh, that interesting concept, which is fine. Yeah. People can say that, but then they're like, oh yeah, we're in Lisbon and we had a baby, and my wife was on bed rest for four months. I'm like. What a Hmm. You know, you can tell when they're just like it in mass bulk. Like I Yeah. Yeah. like they were putting out like, like literally like 400 videos a month. But it's all, you can tell it's just all AI generated. And I've seen ones from friends of mine's channels that they will take and mimic their thumbnail, basically her stuff. They'll take her stuff, do the, do the AI version of it, put it in a guy's voice. They'll do that. I Wow. I mean this is one of those things and there's not much you can do about it 'cause it's been altered, it's Yeah. But it is one of those things I tell people, it's like, look, make sure you're getting it from actual people that go places Yeah. the AI stuff, I mean, don't get me wrong, some of the AI stuff is very helpful. Yep. Yeah. I can't say it's not helpful'cause it, but the thing is, if you want anything more in depth, you want culture, you want the. It's not Yeah. No. top 30% is great 'cause it's that, that top level, you wanna think deeper. That's where it really skews and that's where you get really big issues. I mean, just ask, when they ask them for like the 20 things you need to know about going to Chile and what'll pop up is, oh, get travel insurance. Because they've read so many Yeah, bloggers always put travel insurance 'cause one of their big money makers and it shows up. You're like, oh, that's not really an advice, that's a, yeah, but if you don't know, you don't yeah, No. where like I'll see AI stuff. I'll be like, that's wrong. yeah. that is straight wrong. It's kinda like, and you can tell when people make, like you see a lot on TikTok where there'll be travel advice. It'll get you in trouble. You know, a lot of those like hacks, they'll be like, oh, buy three seats, then cancel two at the last minute. Yeah. get, you know, poor man's first class. I'm like, if you had the money to buy three tickets, the first place you ain't Yeah, know, and, and at the air, and the airlines catch you doing yeah, they're gonna ban you. yeah, There's not a lot of airlines out yeah. No, you don't wanna do that. all like, oh, I do this all the time. Like, no, you don't, like, you're like, shut up. You know? Like I, there's, there's one specific one that I, I've seen his stuff so many times. He is got millions of followers, millions of views, and I'm just like, half the time I'm like, you're getting people Yeah. Yeah. people banned, you Yeah. They don't care as long as they're making money, unfortunately. Exactly. And that, that's what makes me sick. I'm like, I wanna help people. I don't, I don't do just to travel, I don't do it just to like make money. I do it 'cause I wanna help people travel better, you Right, but that's me. But I know I can understand people doing, hey, it's a easy way to make money, so, oh, whatever, if it's Yeah, that's right. everyone, everyone is, it is not easy to make money online. Everyone's like all those things. Like, oh, we can make you a thousand dollars a month on a YouTube channel. No time. That's a bunch of yeah. Yeah, such a bunch of bs. Yeah. agreed. it's amazing what you can, like, AI will create fake, you know, fake plaques and fake, you True clients and look at all these comments. I'm like, oh, John Smith from London, England. That sounds like a real person. Right? Yeah. So, So what, um, what destinations do you still have on your list that you're hoping to get to? so place I wanna go that I haven't been to yet. Egypt. Okay. New Zealand and Bhutan would probably be the top three are the ones I haven't been to. Uh, pretty much I've been to everywhere else I want to go like the, the top Yeah. I know there's those, uh, why I know my wife wants to go to Ethiopia that's on her list and she Bhutan's her big one. Okay. Um, so there's, there's those, but there's, I mean, there's a place I'd still, I love to go back to and there's, there's all kinds of ways I love to go, but those are the ones that I have not, I have not been to that I do wanna get to. New, makes sense. new Zealand's high on our list too. I'm just, I'm in intimidated by the flight, but I will, I will get there. Yes, the, I, I remember my first, my first international flight was to Australia. And, uh, it started off with me flying from my small town of Quincy, Illinois to Chicago on one of those puddle jumpers. And a dude threw up on me. Great. Oh. like, yeah, it was in the summer, so I had shorts on and he's like, oh, I didn't get any on myself. And I just have a leg covered, like my leg is covered in puke. And, and a high schooler going to study abroad. And so of course they had a, this is back in the day when you could meet people at the gates, you know? And so like the, the person meets me at the gate like, oh, we gotta get you your next flight to LA to, to then on to Sydney. And I'm like, can I go in the bathroom to clean this puke off my leg? And he is like, oh, oh yeah, yeah, that's okay. like, please. And then I flew over. I like, I had a middle seat, 60, like 16, I dunno, 16 hours, whatever. But it was funny 'cause it was a Chicago direct flight to Sydney, but it, but you flew Chicago to LA then we sat in LA for two and a half hours and boarded and then it went from there. But like when I got into Chicago, there's nobody on planes. I'm like, oh, I have a whole row of myself. So I'm like laying in the four person one. And then we get there and it was like, oh. And then I'm like, you know, it's like, and that I literally like, I'd flown to like Washington, DC in my eighth grade trip and that was the only other flight I ever took in my life. Oh wow. I'm like, the guy next to me is asleep on the aisle. I have to pee and I don't know what to do. And the guy next to me is obviously a seasoned travel. Like he literally climbed over both of us to get out. I'm like, oh, that's how that goes. So I like climb over the guy while he is sleeping to go pee too. See you were, you were getting advice from others early on, and now you're passing it along. And that's the thing, it's like you could get advice from anybody. Like it not like Wolter's World. Like there's so many. That's why when people say, oh, I should start a channel, I'm like, go do it. Start it. Make the videos.'cause we need as many voices out Mm-hmm. for all the different experiences so people can learn how to travel better, learn the experiences, they can have a better time. Agreed. Yeah. So we've talked about Wolter's world, but our listeners, where do you want people to find you? Where can people find you online? easiest place to find is on YouTube. You can look up Wolter's world or Um. the don'ts of visiting Germany or the Don's of visiting France, and you'll see this bearded bald, ponytailed fat guy. That will be me. And uh, you can check us out there. Also, you can find us at Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, Pinterest at Wolters World, or you can go to Wolters world.com and you can read some of the blogs, which are just the summaries of the videos. So if you don't wanna hear my voice anymore, 'cause it gives you nightmares, you can read the blogs instead. Yay. Awesome. Well, thank you so much for joining us today, Mark. This was such a fun conversation. We'll leave all of the links to your content in our show notes for our listeners. thank You're welcome. As for us listeners, you can find us on social media at Travel Mug Podcast on our website, travel mug podcast.com. And as always, we'd appreciate it if you left us a review on Apple Podcasts. Or Spotify, uh, shared the show with a travel loving pal or supported the show through Buy me a Coffee and until next time. Bye everyone. Bye. Thanks again, mark.
