Money & Travel: Your Questions Answered 💰

welcome to the first episode of Harold explains the most commonly asked questions on my channel the number one question by far is how can you afford to travel all the time all year that question is actually pretty dumb I'm sorry to start like this but I get millions of views per month do you think a channel that gets millions of views per month doesn't make any money a better question is how did I used to fund my travels because as you've seen I have videos dating back even from 2001 while they were filmed in 2001 I uploaded a year or two ago obviously there was no YouTube back then so how did I use to fund my travels and how can you save money to do the same or if you don't want to save money for travel let's say you want to save for a car or something like that well I'm gonna give you some tips right now first of all that those early trips my first round-the-world trips they were funded by student loans which I'm still paying off I'm just sweating sorry it was quite a trek up here I'm still paying off those student loans so that's how I funded my early travels but you say how can you afford to travel with student money that's supposed to go for school fees and housing and so on well yeah sure but if you live like a what's the word my sir if you live if you live like a poor man there's gonna be some Wow what about a bunch of you there's gonna be some some extra money for you to spend by the way I'm in Florence I'm gonna tour this this called Barty nice garden I saw answer these questions for you guys so here's a couple of tips I even wrote some notes for this one because I am when I start to ramble on like this I tend to forget forget things so here's some key words for you pants or jeans racers haircuts mortgage car there's been years of my life rap only owned one pair of pants there has been years of my life where I had not gotten haircuts I've cut my own hair haircuts cost a ridiculous amount of money especially in the West if you're in India and not so much but they're their savings to be had there I've never had a mortgage I've never owned a car I have owned a motorbike twice but that was as an investment because I used that to create videos that would make money hadn't if it had not been for that I would not have at least got my second motorbike so most people they spend their money on housing whether it's a mortgage or rent now when I was living in Australia as a student my rent per week was sixty-five dollars a week sixty-five dollars that's two hundred and sixty dollars a month I think we can agree that that's a Spartan living or as cheap as it gets I had a tiny he was 2 meter 2x3 that was it it was just the beds and then a shared bathroom with 8 people I also when there's another big one if you eat out never order drinks in a restaurant even if you're at McDonald's don't order coca-cola don't order the french fries you're gonna save shit loads of money doing that a coca-cola in Europe is $2 sometimes 3 even at the supermarket and in a restaurant it can be $5 or let's say you're at lunch you're eating lunch at work and every every day you are you eating lunch I mean you need food to sustain yourself after the break but let's say that you you have a sandwich and you order a drink and a drink is $3 well 3 times 5 is 15 now that's 60 bucks a month 10 months that's 600 that's over 700 a year you're spending on that one soda can at work or if you have two cans during you know you're well over 1,500 or let's say sorry 1400 or let's say that you go out on the piss on the weekend I mean that's it's so easy to there's so anyways that you can just cut your spending when I was at university I was friends because I didn't want to go out peoples like what's what's wrong with Harold you know why doesn't even come out well I was in saving mode I was living in my one pair of jeans in my cheap one dollar Bally t-shirts and not spending any money whatsoever that is how I could afford to travel three times a year even when I was a student beautiful church bells in in the background let me see here on my list if it's something I I missed another one is hotels I never spent much on hotels if you can avoid if you don't need the aircon don't stay in a hotel with aircon live as cheap as possible I remember when I used to go to Bali in 2001 I would spend my hotel room was six dollars I spent almost nothing on those holidays and that is how you have to think a recent example from Sri Lanka am i recording yes when I was in Sri Lanka hold on let me just check that I'm going the right way here I don't want to leave these Gardens right we can check this area here first I can sweat my way up these stairs to get the ultimate view when I was in Sri Lanka I wanted to do a motorbike tour of the country and the first shop I went to was a Royal Enfield shop hello Royal Enfield shop and they wanted to charge me $45 per day which is ridiculous for a Royal Enfield when I was in India I think I paid 20 when I was in my last India trip have to think about 20 or some 25 but it's not worth 45 a sorry do you speak English have you been up here is it worth it ah so you just came from up there and now you're walking down here okay I'm gonna backtrack then and go down and see it because nothing up there right I'll end it up there then Thank You girls thank you okay they just saved me a lot of time where was I yeah the Royal Enfield in Sri Lanka they wanted to charge me $45 what I ended up doing instead of renting that one for $45 I which would have been 450 for ten days it would have been 500 for 12 days like I initially wanted to rent it for I rented one for $50 for 10 days a crappy motorbike that I had to kick-start it was it was a nightmare but I I drove across the country three times with that on that one and that enabled me to have $400 extra spending money you know that was the hundred dollars I gave to the avocado woman there's a couple of other times I did that I don't have that on film point being don't splurge if you don't have to and if you can't afford to hold on wow this still still only on point one so let's get to point number number two I have more but I think I'm gonna do a a Q&A live on YouTube soon where we can dive deeper into neck the question on how I used to fund travels well this is nice so number two how can you afford to give so much money away well what did I write did I have a lot on this point okay here's the good analogy I can use imagine that you have two jobs you work for Burger King and you work for McDonald's suddenly you get a pay rise at Burger King so you decide to give away your or you pledge to give away your McDonald's salary every month that is what I did for the first couple of years of my my youtube existence I had two salaries well the first year I had no salary I founded everything myself on savings but in 2018 2017 I had a youtube income and I had a patreon income and roughly ten months ago when I saw that if I continued to upload at a blistering pace I could I could survive on the YouTube income I told my patrons then listen I am gonna give away all the money I raised on patreon every month that's if you're wondering what that figure was in both 2017 and 2018 I averaged between one thousand three hundred and one thousand four hundred dollars on patreon every month so I pledge to give that away why because I wanted to and I am NOT gonna I mean the purpose of patreon was that I wasn't making enough on YouTube to sustain my travels now when all of a sudden I realized that I can make enough on YouTube I don't want to lie to people and still take patreon money now tons of people still told me that hey we still want to support you we still want to find you that that's that's fine but at least I wanted to be honest upfront and say all the money that comes in now I'm gonna give away so that answers another criticism Herald you are donating other people's money no I'm not I just took one of my salaries which was straight out of my pocket and would still be in my pocket today in fact I would make even more on patreon now then I did back then because my channel was small and I was still able to pull those figures when my channel was a fraction of the size in terms of traffic and subscribers that it is now so not only did I did I say no to $1,300 a month I probably said no to something like 2000 because that is money straight out of my pocket that I decided to give away now when I said that I lost something like almost 3/4 of my patrons and I knew that would happen because people sign up for patreon to support me not for that money to be given to others but that is that is fine I realized that that there will be a it will go down the amounts race there but eventually they will come up once people see the videos that and the joy that that the money creates and so on so that that answer the that answers the the question of how I can afford to give money away now let's answer I brought something there's a lot of criticism about that too people are saying like you're donating that money because the videos in blah blah blah and the first thing I can say about that is listen do you think the cares in the person the entrepreneur or the family for example in ahmedabad cares about motivation behind why they get money no they're happy for the money because it helps them so I kind of I also I also thought about that before I started that project should I just you know not give money away because there's just gonna be like another avenue for people to hate on but then I thought to myself no I mean if people want to if people want to question the motivation behind giving that is entirely their right and they can they can do so and actually it doesn't bother me at all let me see here then this list is really am yes at one more point some people are saying like wow you're spending that money and you're making more back only once possibly twice has a a donation video made more than the the amount I gave away and most in those most of those videos too I've given away far more than was raised on patreon I mean I didn't I made hundred that month on patreon and but that tea video for example he got eleven hundred so I had to add five hundred there from from from my savings to make that happen that you recently got that exact amount was because that was his loan if he had not told me about that loan I mean maybe it would have been a a a six hundred video or something hey guys what's it like up there what's it like up there interesting yes okay I will soldier on thanks yes it's just next time someone like comments on those videos all whatever just post this link you know that and then kind of the questions are answered here of one more point this is this what I was gonna say actually it costs a ridiculous amount of money to give away money I drove across the mountains of Sri Lanka three times on that shitty motorbike looking for someone like the tea entrepreneur but I couldn't I couldn't find any Hey and when I came across him I was so excited because I'd given up hope and it was just by chance that I found him because that actually just had a cup of coffee down the road I wasn't gonna stop I drove past it and I saw wow that it's so scenic look at this tea you know T store coffee whatever it was and I did a u-turn and that's when I started filming you know and then the rest is history as they say but it was so lucky I was supposed to fly out of Sri Lanka the next day which I did and but it cost me a ridiculous amount of money to find him you know okay renting the bike was cheap but all the hotels traveling around I had to make a ton of video in order to fund the tons of video I think I have 32 videos from Sri Lanka in order to fund that whole tour so that that's that's if people think that it's a lucrative thing that you can just walk around give money and it will be profitable you're wrong you are wrong my friends okay number three what is your favorite countries my favorite country by far by far far far far far it's the country I am in right now Italia numero uno as they say Italia numero uno and this is why you can just walk around everywhere in Italy and it's epic history where you guys from ah I was hoping you were Italian then I could ask you some questions about Italy do you like Italy better than France what's better what's worse more calm more chill more relaxed all right I enjoy your holiday guys thank you thanks yeah yeah Italy's by far my favourite country far far far in terms of and keep keeping I'm just talking I'm not talking for filming I'm not talking for for for videos or it's just it's always been my favourite country even when I was young and now that I've travelled across Italy it's just nothing like it's everywhere is great south north the centre the coasts it's unreal now that doesn't mean that there isn't other countries that I like in terms of number two after Italy you would have to be Russia India and America they share the the second spot third spot it would be Sri Lanka Vietnam Thailand even Germany and even England I actually had a lot of fun in England when I go to visit bald but that's just in first before that that doesn't mean that those are my favorite cars to filming this is just me my favourite countries to visit now hold on we are on number four wow it's gonna be hard to I have four five six okay how did you grow your channel the algorithm in the beginning was very very different than it is now now it is possible to get a lot of views on non clique baby titles and thumbnails that was not so easy or even possible back in a day unless you had a lot of subs now subs don't really matter at all which is which is why you've never heard me say hey sup to my channel I mean it doesn't really matter that's why my sub count is off I don't want people to sub simply because they see a high figure and they're like they want to jump on a bad back any people I want people to stop because they are interested in the channel and actually want to see the videos that's kind of that's my kind of sub but so how did I grow the channel then well back in the day I remember when I first uploaded my motorbike series of Thailand even up until like number four or five the fifth video got like two thousand views and then some guy wrote them in his like lists and just put a put so put a woman in the thumbnail it doesn't matter if she's really featured in the video just if you're buying something at some coffee shop you know do that and I wrote him back I was like well I want my videos to be legit and he said well it's your call you want to views what do you want to you know kind of revel in obscurity so I listened to him and boom I think that one of those videos now have have 10 million views the one where the woman comes tumbling down the waterfall simply because of that thumbnail now if you're thinking well now I'm gonna do this well they've changed the algorithm that doesn't work anymore thank God for that but I remember I I reluctantly did that but it was good advice and it's also how guys like that lost leblanc for example grew his channel he used to have a girlfriend and her ass was in every thumbnail and i was the only the only way so greetings i'm not sure where this list is at the end of it because i'm not done talking there's some kind of museum down here yes 'old our nails mattered greatly back in the day let me look for the whole street back who CT and quite sure how they say Exeter in Italian I think I come to the street tear and then we are see if that I run into the people that I just had a little little scuffle wit hold on in the street I'll start talking again and we are out where was I what was i rambling on about well how did I grow my channel yeah back in a day it was all about the thumbnail game and luckily though when people what's important if you want to have strong thumbnail game I mean that matters even now but if you want people to watch your videos I mean what matters is once they've clicked are they gonna click away or are they gonna stay with you because it's engaging its entertaining and so on I mean that's how I grew my channel by doing things that that that not necessarily everyone else would do by being having an interactive Channel being being engaging bringing bringing in people and so on and um people like to see that and I mean that's what I still do I could probably make a separate video on this but the number one thing I've done is experiment I mean I try to all kind of done drone videos I've done financial videos I've done monologues I've done politics I have done travel I've just experimented I've spent tens of thousands of dollars experimenting taking risks very often you fail when you do that but occasionally you will stumble upon a formula that works and then you probably have three to six months to play around with that formula before copycats come come on and start to copy you with the titles with uh with your style of video even to how you even to how you introduce your videos from doing this for example hello guys as opposed to standing like this hello guys so okay so when you see it doesn't a saying go something like flatteries to see know how is it sincerest imitation is the sincerest form of flattery that's how it goes so it's nothing really we can do about that you just got a milk your style and your uniqueness for what it's worth whilst you can because in due time it won't be very unique but lucky for me I have a pretty decent brain I can always in innovate I can invent and cry and do new things so I don't really worry about people copying me so number five the future of the channel Mir 22 minutes let's see if we can end this at the 30 minute mark the future of the channel let's just stop here so we don't stumble into it's embarrassing this will be the third time I walk past okay the camera the future of the channel you know what every time I leave a country it's the same complaints I like that country you know Fu and your channel you sold out you used to be entertaining these country sucks I mean I hear the same time okay I leave I'll leave the Philippines like la your channels gonna die I leave Sri Lanka then it's like your channels gonna die Ally Vietnam I hear the same thing every time I leave the country so now I mean Italy the greatest country in the world it's the same things people's like whoa people are angry Europe is boring fuck you and your channel it's like the future of my channel is whatever I want it to be and I've done this before I used to get a lot of views in 2017 and then in 2018 I decided to just do my own thing you know after views at any given moment that I feel like that's what I want to do that's what I will do I don't necessarily care about mega views I mean of course you want to use up to a certain extent but but I can make videos that get millions of views every single one of them but I'm not willing to do what that would take when I could for example make some leisurely videos about history which is really what my channel has been about from the start my first videos were history videos just so happens to be the history videos don't pay the bill so I experimented and and came up with other videos that eventually did help me fund some of these travels but so so I mean needless to say I have to in order to make this financially viable I have to make a lot of videos because you can't just make a couple of videos from a place and expect to make money but I also have to make cover you know it just happens to be people are interested in food they are interested in hotel rooms so I know a lot of people's like well I want to see drunk people I want to see crazy people I wanna see I want to see funny funny individuals well yeah sure but a lot of people also want to see there's more views in for example food and hotel rooms so and if I want to be found and make this financially viable I can't ignore entirely what the market wants now III ignore what winters you know whiners what they want but I'm not gonna I'm not gonna ignore I'm not gonna ignore what what it's kind of the staple that makes the channel take over financially and it just happens to be that what a lot of people find boring tends to be the most videos the video started the most rewarding financially speaking because they do well with ads you know there's no swearing there's no alcohol and so on so so the future of my channel that I dry maybe this is a better question like what do I enjoy the most my absolute favorite thing right now is that my channel is actually able to impact lives in a positive manner seriously impact people like the tea guy or that that that family in Ahmedabad who was just so nice and they've had me for dinner and so on and then you know I'm not sure they knew already because it's inter culture but you're nice to someone the karma comes back they already believe that but it kind of was truly confirmed to the whole family I believe and it probably had a very positive impact on them then there's D the hairdresser in Ahmedabad who was in the paper and now pp even foreigners go there to get haircuts from him and his famous he was just so happy with his fame that was mainly because of the newspapers wrote about him though same with that with the tea entrepreneur both of those guys I mean it wasn't it wasn't necessarily what I did I got the ball rolling maybe but it's because they got newspaper attention that it really blew up the way it did but anyway I played a part in it Wow look at this I played a part in it and that is what gives me the greatest happiness that is what I enjoy the most to help out people who take the risk to risk their savings you know when I look at a restaurant that is failing I'm sad some people might look at us like a little corner store like let's say if you saw a restaurant here and you said like you know the closed I'm sad because that's some person who who took a risk everyone around him told him you know you can't run a restaurant or like you can't run a clothing store you are not an entrepreneur you're not good enough and he did it anyway but he failed I mean a lot of businesses failed and that's sad when you when you kind of know the backstory and all the you know the sweat and tears that go into running a business so that when I'm able to impact people in a positive way and and give them a lifeline that that kind that really makes me happy there's no there's no point in elaborating more upon that I think oh yeah last but not least I do like to promote individual freedom because the world is just becoming a tyrannical place where independent thoughts are are just too dangerous to the powers that be so hopefully with my life and everything that I do people hopefully some people see that listen it's possible you can make it on your own and you don't have to be this this PC pandering to whatever is the flavor of the day of whether it's media or or you kind of get my point I'm not gonna make this into political video but that is that is one of the main goals so my endeavor here is to promote individual freedom everywhere I go people toil under tyrannical governments everywhere doesn't matter where if it's in Western Europe if it's in in South America if it's in Asia there's of course degrees of tyranny but pretty much every place I've ever been could would to be a hell of a lot better off with less government less elites regulating economic growth out of existence and so on so are we out 2029 we have one minute left the sixth point people ask me what is it like to be famous now I'm not so sure that I am famous I was at an ice cream store a couple of days ago over David Beckham had had had the ice cream and nobody they recognized me but everyone's talking about David Beckham when I walk around like this filming people look at me because I'm holding the camera but very very few people recognize me but when I am in countries where I am recognized I am very happy that people come up and say hello and want to talk to me and recognize me you know I enjoy that aspect of things the only time that it can be problematic is when I film in a place that I am well known and I want a natural reaction from people people don't have a you know a natural reaction and I don't care whether it's skepticism or kind of like who's this tool with the camera I just want a natural reaction whether it's negative or positive there's kind of that raw realness that that people enjoy about my videos now that is becoming increasingly difficult in places where I am known so that's the only time it can be problematic but I mean it's as you see when it happens I just panned the camera and I say hello guys you know when and so on so let me see if I have anything else here oh there's one last point another thing that I really love a good thing I put that here on the list for example in Sri Lanka when I filmed a lot before I knew kind of it would eventually kick off but you never know which video it is like I made 32 videos there and you one video would really kick off things so damn it where's my mind where is my mind oh yeah so for example when I filmed that video on the train I was taking selfies with people there and filming and so on and what I love is that those guys were young at some stage they probably come across my videos from Sri Lanka and then realised like holy F you know that's the guy that we have selfies with from the train and that is just awesome for me to think about so again they were nice to me you know they're friendly and so on and then suddenly they can see that later on camera that they're nice you know that they're kind act and behavior is is advertised for the world to see you know some a lot of this a lot of people have said you know that their perception of India for example changed with the videos that me and and and bald made their I've heard the same about Sri Lanka everyone kind of knows what what Europe is and so on but when I go to these countries that aren't as well known I guess also that the power of this little stick that I'm holding in my hand it's incredible it can actually it can lead to a little spike in in in tourism it can give people a different perception of of the place and so on so I think that's that's it now we're at Wow 32 minutes hello I'm gonna go home and upload this video as for the video I'm also going to look at that footage with a little scuffle outside the church and see how that turned out if it's good I'll upload it if it's if it's horrible I guess I'll just go to the police station and and help them have those guys ID'd and arrested signing off from greatest country in the world and possibly the greatest city in the world if we can get those scammers with their pictures of of the pavements outside a tourist attraction Florence

Channel: undefined

Views: 583,576

Rating: 4.9092307 out of 5

Keywords: Cheap Travel, Money Advice, Q & A, Money and travel

Id: 205q9Xa2Qng

Length: 32min 59sec (1979 seconds)

Published: Sun Aug 25 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/YOUREABOT]

Harald what about the Philippine thats the country i start wacthing u fromfor u