The last two years have seen many frustrations as well all try to get to grips with the ‘new normal’, but for me one of the biggest frustrations was the impact the pandemic was having on the Aviation and Travel industries. Not only do half of my family work within the Aviation world, I had also just reached a point in my life where I could afford to board planes and jet off across the world on adventures, expanding my horizons and embracing new opportunities.

Stuck in my flat, and only able to walk around the local area, I dreamed of travelling again, obsessively looking back over pictures from previous holiday’s and dreaming of where I would go once I could travel again (Italy).

But the question was how to fill that travel itch in the meantime?

The answer it turned out was simple… YouTube. As a site filled with content creators, many of them turned out to travel vloggers, and it wasn’t long until I stumbled across Kara & Nate.

Clearly I was late to the party, their channel already had over a million subscribers when I first came across it in mid 2020 and currently sits at the at the 2.74 million mark.

The reason for this success, their personalities, their relateability and their willingness to show both the good and the bad moments from their journey. All of this makes them eminently watchable, which combined with the focus and intention behind their every video made them the perfect travelling companions for me… even if I was stuck on my sofa.

Kara & Nate starting vlogging their travels back in 2016, when they made the decision to take a year out from their lives, fly to Japan and see how far they could get before their money ran out. But once they started, they were hooked and five years later they are still embarking on new adventures.

A year of travelling, became a goal to visit 100 countries, and when the pandemic hit and their international adventures were temporarily halted they joined Van Life and set themselves the challenge of visiting all 50 states in the US.

When I first came across Kara & Nate’s channel, I made the decision to go back to the beginning and watch from the start. Yes, those initial videos are a little ropey, in comparison to their more recent efforts (i think they would agree) but honestly it’s worth it, just to follow their journey and live vicariously as they embrace new cultures, try new foods and embark on insane adventures (who climbs to Everest base camp?).

And in the past year, as the have taken on more and more crazy challenges, I have been encouraged by their attitude, their belief that we can all do anything, as long as remain positive and give it our best. Who knows, maybe one day I’ll fly out to States and cycle 450 miles across Iowa!

Check out their adventures for yourselves at https://youtube.com/c/KaraandNate

E

P.S. Thanks to Kara & Nate’s videos, I’ve added the following countries to my list of intended destinations: Slovenia, Croatia, The Netherlands, Latvia, Egypt, Canada, Cape Town and the Mekong River.