My Most Honest Q&A Ever (in Iran) 🇮🇷

0:00 About 3 years ago, I made a video on a remote island in the Philippines answering some questions that I got asked on Instagram. Things regarding travel, content, business, life, kind of my philosophies in life. That was a few years ago. That was when I was 21 or 22 years old. I'm now [ __ ] almost turning 25. I'm getting getting old. But a lot has changed. I've changed. My beliefs have changed. My goals have changed. So, as I'm on a remote island in Iran, I've decided to do the same thing. I put up on Instagram last night a quick uh story saying, "Ask me some questions. I'm going to answer them." And here we are, guys. We got 50 or 60 questions that I'm going to be answering. We'll explore a little bit of this island. We'll answer some questions, move to another spot,

0:46 explore, and then you guys can get a bigger look into the life of travel, how I'm able to do this, why I'm doing this, what I'm doing this for, who I'm doing this for. So, let's find our first little spot kind of over here somewhere where we can enjoy the water. I will say this beach is super trashy. It's uh not the best spot to be doing. A lot of plastic going around. Greta Thunderberg would be ashamed. Here we go. Here we are. So, this video is going to be super slow and raw. We're not going to cut much out. It's just going

1:32 to be kind of like one take. I mean, as long as the batteries last, that's usually the main issues that I have with this camera, which is the GoPro, by the way. This is a GoPro 12 or 13. So many people ask me that. I film on the GoPro. I always have filmed on the GoPro. I might move to the DJI, though, cuz the overheating of batteries and a few other things is just such a pain in the ass on the GoPro. But let's uh make sure we're not flashing anyone out here in Iran. So the first question, what is an important life lesson you've learned through your travels that you can share with us? Yeah, we're going deep. I didn't have these planned in any

2:18 order. An important life lesson. I would say I've learned a lot like traveling and it may not just be traveling related, but just experiencing life. But I think when you're out on your own in these areas, you realize that everything in life is really just up to you. You're the only one that's going to save you. You're the only one that can take action on things that you want. Your family, your friends, they're all going to die. Even if you have a partner, you're going to die or they're going to die first. You're always going to end up alone. So, if you're not content and happy with you

3:05 and yourself, then you're never going to be content ever. If you're if you're seeking external kind of relationships to make your life work, it's not going to work. Like you got to love yourself before you can love someone else. And you're out in this world and you're not in the right headsp space and you're going to unfortunately fail. And especially when you solo travel and realize that every decision that you make, everything is your responsibility. That's when you you realize that the most. But there are so many lessons that I've learned. I mean,

3:51 this actually caught me off guard off the top of my head. That's the only one that I can think of. But travel is just the ultimate life hack to growth because you're experiencing so many different things. You're putting yourself in so many new situations that you're constantly learning from and you're always problem solving. If you want to get from this island to that island, you have to figure out how to get there. You have to ask the questions. You have to figure out what time the ferry leaves. You have to figure out how much it is. You have to communicate with the people. We have to make sure that you're on the right ferry. You are experiencing so many different things that it is just an infinite hack to to growth. I've used this before, maybe even in the previous Q&A video that if you're at home, like I'll just take my life in Sydney for

4:36 example, when I was younger. I'm 24 at the moment. I'm referencing maybe when I was like 18, but I'd work a full-time job. I'd eat the same breakfast. I'd drive my car down the same road to the same place where I work. I'd work for the 8 hours a day. Maybe I'd experience a few different things. I'd have different conversations, drive that same road back home, eat a very similar dinner. I'm not actually experiencing anything new. But here, when you travel, you experience literally everything. Like, if you're in a new country, literally everything is a new experience for you. and you're learning off of this. So, that's probably another big part of

5:22 a lesson that I've learned is how much growth there is in travel. But there's just so like there's so many and that's a [ __ ] deep question to start off with. What is the most important life lesson you've learned through your travels that you can share with us? There's so many, but we have like 80 more questions to go. What's the one thing you still don't understand about Pakistan? Even if you've visited multiple times, out of all the countries, all the Muslim countries I've been to, I'll never understand why specifically in Pakistan, everyone asks if you're Muslim and what they're expecting the answer to be and how that changes their interaction with you. Like I don't get asked that many times in Muslim countries. I've not been asked it once in Iran. I've always found

6:07 it fascinating like everyone in Pakistan asks, "Are you Muslim?" And I'm like, "No." And there are like a few religious questions in here guys that we'll go into. But that's one thing I don't understand why Pakistan specifically they're very obsessed with uh visiting not visiting. I just read that. Um they're very obsessed with knowing if you're Muslim or not. Like if I say yes or no, how is that going to change the interaction between us? We're just humans at the end of the day. Can someone do travel vlogging for life? I mean what happens after you get married and have kids and so on? If I really wanted to, I visit maybe like six or seven countries a year to like film specific videos. I can do all those videos on like one week trips and have content for the whole year. So

6:54 that's like six or seven weeks. So that's how I can personally do it. That's not what I do now. But if I wanted to like have a family and live somewhere and just do travel content, I could do like, you know, a trip every like few months for one or two weeks, spend time with the family. So, it's definitely possible. Maybe not when you're starting off because, you know, you just have to think that there's so many people that are hungry for living this life and being able to travel and do this that if you're only doing it a few weeks uh every couple of months, someone's out there doing it every day for the whole year. And that's how I was when I started. I was filming every single day. So, I think it is it is possible. Like, you can do it for life. I mean, personally, I don't know. I always question how much more I have in

7:42 this what is the end goal? And usually it's when I don't have countries that I'm excited to visit, that's where I'm like, oh, like this is kind of boring. But then when a a new country sparks my interest, then I'm like, [ __ ] yeah, this is sick. Like Iran, for example, I was super stoked to come here and it's an amazing place. I've loved every minute that I've had here. But for life, no, I don't think so. I think you just like naturally transition into different aspects of like a similar thing. Do you feel awkward or nervous blogging yourself in public when you first started? [ __ ] yeah. And I still do it now. I feel awkward as [ __ ] sometimes. Let's just make sure we're still filming. Yeah, we are.

8:31 Sometimes like even on this trip, like sometimes it's just awkward. Sometimes you're not feeling the vibes. Sometimes you're just not as social as you usually are. Sometimes people you meet aren't as friendly. But it what I found with filming is that it really depends on the people that you interact with and the people that you meet. Like if you're on a I don't know, like a street for example, and everyone just keeps driving past you as they should, like there's no reason for them to stop. But if you have everyone pulling over to the side of the street and being like super highly energetic, it's such a vibe. But yeah, like at the start it's tough because you've not practiced it.

9:19 You've not done it. Like how can you be good at something you've not done? It is a skill to be able to talk to the camera. Like I'm really good at talking to the camera because I've done it for a lot of a lot of years. 6 years or so I've been doing this. Before I started traveling, I was doing this as well. But you know what [ __ ] scares me? Speaking in front of physical people because I've not done it. I'm scared of public speaking. But here right now, I can speak perfectly fine because I've done it for years. There could be hundreds of thousands of people that watch this video. I'm not worried. I'm just here chilling on the beach. But if I was to say the same thing or do the same thing on a stage in front of people, I' like my heart would literally be racing. But now I'm just chilling. and I'm super comfortable, that all just

10:05 comes down to practice. I've not done any speaking or public speaking or anything like that. But if you're at the very beginning like worried about being camera shy and being good on camera and how to interact with people, it just takes practice. Practice makes perfect. As with anything, the more you do it, the little things you pick up, you realize how you react in certain situations and what makes you perform better. So yeah, I feel I feel awkward even now sometimes, but I've learned little things that can help with the awkwardness and how I can get myself out of it. But I don't know, some people are just so um so extroverted and so just don't give a [ __ ] which is crazy. Like

10:52 yelling on buses and just doing like crazy things to get like clips and stuff like that. and props to them to be able to do that. But personally, I would feel awkward doing that kind of stuff. But that's the beauty of the human experience is that everyone's different. Everyone has different goals and different experiences and are willing to do different things. And ultimately that's what has made people uh do well on YouTube because you know so many people like want to be travel vloggers, right? But 99% of them have this mindset where they're awkward or nervous and will never make their first video. If you just make your first

11:39 video in public, you're already ahead of like 99% of people in the world if you want to become a YouTuber, which is crazy. You just actually have to do it. But like, and this isn't even just YouTube or travel related, but like starting your own business or doing this. Everyone has great ideas. Everybody can come up with an idea, but all of it is in the execution of the plan and actually doing it. So, if you really do want to be a YouTuber or whatever it is, just [ __ ] do it. And you're ahead of 99% of people. And then you'll learn along the way and you'll get better at it. Let's move up to the mountain. Yesterday when I came here on the island, all that was like quicksand. Someone got stuck on a bike. We had to help him out. I almost got trapped in the quicksand. But yeah, just a little

12:25 context. That is mainland Iran. Over there is Keshum Island, another island here in the southern parts of Iran. And then over that way, a couple hundred km is the UAE. You can actually catch a ferry from Bundur bus, which is over there, to the UAE. But yeah, this is Hormus Island. One of the most beautiful places I've been. And after I film this video, I'm going to go and actually explore the island all of today. I feel whenever I'm on these remote islands and like in nature, I feel very inspired to make these Q&A videos and kind of chat on life. Same thing happened with the Philippines when I was there. But look at this. This is cool.

13:11 we have so many opportunities to film. Like one thing that no one will understand unless you create videos is specifically like when I was walking just here, I was looking just immediately at where I can put the camera and where I can sit like looking for maybe it was like subconscious just looking for good spots to uh to film and also like lighting and stuff. But like this one's super flat so I can chuck up the tripod here like this. Make sure we're in cuz we change up. Um Oh, this is a perfect seat, guys. A sharp rock right up the ass. There we go. Hey, this is sick. What a vibe. If you enjoy these Q&A videos, uh

14:00 I have three channels on YouTube, guys. So, Travel with Luke Dement is the main YouTube channel. We have Luke Demand Vlogs, which is what you're seeing now. It's more like it's like still GoPro videos, but I'd say it's just more like [ __ ] videos, ones that I'm not super excited to post, but I still think are good content. And then we have the third channel, which is uh just Luke de Man, which is a more insight into kind of life business, how I run the business and the team behind these videos. Uh you know, health focus, more it's shot on like a Sony with my uh team member Alex who has moved out to Bali with me. So, I'd highly suggest checking out that channel. I've not promoted at all. We're

14:45 just seeing how it's going organically. I really enjoy those kinds of videos. Yeah, it's more like behind the scenes content focused like how like the the kind of logistics behind planning trips, traveling, managing team members, softwares, and stuff like that. You know, uh health focused and kind of more like philosophical. Is that even a word? Philosophical. Uh, all right. Let's get these questions going. Oh, the next question is, "How do you gain confidence facing the camera and deal with imposter syndrome?" I literally just answered it in the previous one. Is that you just have to do it? Like, you get better at it over time. If I've already answered a question, I'm not going to elaborate on things cuz we have a lot of questions and I don't know how long this video already is. Share the lowest point of your life

15:31 where you felt like giving up and do share what you kept going. or what kept you going? I've had a lot of low moments in life. I'm trying to point one specifically. I mean, obviously when I blew up my hand, that was [ __ ] [ __ ] But I've I've always felt that I deal with negative emotions and negative feelings pretty well. Oh, I lost the question. But I would say

16:17 that I deal with it well because I feel as though it's just part of the life. And you can't have the highs without the lows. The lows are what makes the highs great. And it's all about like I I think of it like as an equilibrium. You're going to be going up and down. You're gonna want to be going up and down, but you really want to just minimize the depth and the inclines of those ups and downs. You want to keep the equilibrium as flat as possible so that you're not super highly emotional when something amazing happens. And then when when something negative happens, you're not super emotional in that sense as well. But like the lowest point in my life, like honestly, it it's

17:02 been recent moments typically when I'm sick. Like when I was in the Philippines, I had deni fever. I literally thought I was dying. And then I went to China, still recovering from deni, filmed some videos there and I was just like like I've taken a big focus on health in the past year or so and I do want to focus on that more. You know, doing activities, doing things that improve my health, but not everyone I mean I say that and I'm [ __ ] smoking cigarettes here in the Middle East. So, uh, not everyone's perfect. We all have have issues, right? We're all just people at the end of the day dealing with different things. I feel like the

17:49 lowest points have been when I don't know what I'm striving towards, when I don't have a purpose or I don't have a mission to strive towards for me. And I've realized that in the past year that it's super important to have a purpose, have a mission that you're working towards, have a bigger goal and bigger ambition that you're you're doing. And that just works for me personally. Like I would consider myself very I guess business focused or entrepreneurial or someone that wants to be working towards something. Like I get bored if I'm not actively working on something or

18:35 a project or making growth in different aspects of life. And that's just me. Like I don't know. A lot of my friends are very similar and that's why we're we're friends. We share the same interests. But I don't know what it is on like a a global level if that's a bad thing being like too career focused or whatever or money focused or focusing on different things. And some people just, you know, want to chill on a beach and just sip cocktails all day and are happy, not working towards anything. And I'm still trying to figure out there's never a right answer, but it's always going to be different and understanding the different views and stuff. So, I'd say the the lowest point like I really can't think of a specific thing right

19:21 now, but it has been not like a a one moment, but an extended period of time where you're thinking like, what the [ __ ] am I doing with my life? Why am I doing this? Like, what is the the overarching goal here? And sometimes on these solo trips, you really question it. You understand it a lot more. But with the lowest points, you gain a tremendous amount of experience and understanding with them. You're not going to have the highs without the lows. And during discomfort, that's when you learn the most. It's part of life. And that's why I don't I don't hate the lows. Like, it's just part of life. And it's like another battle that I'm working towards towards

20:07 beating. And then when you're at the top, you're like, "Fuck yeah, we did it." Like, think about like 5 years ago at the time that you had like a negative point where you just thought things were like so terrible, and then you got on top of it. You're back. You're enjoying life. You're living. All good. Are we still filming? That is the real question. Yes, we are. I really don't want to lose clips here. How do you deal with regret, if you have any? Does the traveling help you cope with it? First of all, that's a good question. I'm not sure if traveling is a cope or if it's me running away from something or maybe how do you deal with regret? I don't have any regret because I don't think that

20:52 regret is regret. I think that regret is something that you've experienced you learning that lesson and then understanding not to do it again. The only way you can regret something is if in the moment where you're actively making a decision, you know that you're going to regret it. You still make that decision and then you're like, why the [ __ ] did I do that? Regret is like a past thing where you have an experience and then you think back on that experience and realize, okay, I could have handled that differently. I could have done XY Z in that situation. And then you realize that like how can you regret it? It's just like you learning part of the human experience. But what [ __ ] pisses me off is when you learn from that mistake and then you do it again. That's when

21:38 when you get pissed off. That's when you should be like, "Bro, you've already done this once. Like, why are you making the same mistake?" Does traveling help you cope with it? Well, as I said, I don't have any regret. I have I guess just learning experiences that I've learned. Does the traveling help you cope with it? Not really. I think maybe there's other things that traveling helps me not focus on certain things, but I don't think regret is one of them. What made you decide to choose a life of travel? Do you or do you miss being I can't [ __ ] read. What am I dyslexic? I actually think I'm getting post uh adulthood dyslexia. Sometimes I

22:24 get like Z's and sevens mixed up. bit mixed up and S's and sevens. [ __ ] Maybe I'm dyslexic. That's crazy. What made you decide to choose a life of travel? Do you miss being back home at all? When I was like a teenager, 16 to 18 or so, I was doing a lot of exploring in Australia or in Sydney actually. And I realized that I'd seen a lot of things in Sydney and there was this whole world to explore and that there were so many new experiences. And even if I was traveling to different parts of Australia, which are beautiful, I'm not going to have the same experience because the culture is very similar, the landscapes, the food is very similar.

23:10 Like maybe if you're comparing like Sydney to, you know, Brisbane for example, like you're going to have a a pretty similar experience. But if you go across the world to a completely different culture, it is like 100% new experiences. So I was like, there's this whole world out there. I want to go and experience new things. Why should I be doing it in Australia? So I saved up or I finished school. I was making videos also shitty vlogs in Australia at the time and uh and jetted off and and filmed the journey. Do I miss being back home at all? Honestly, no. I have so few ties now to Australia and I'm

23:56 so, what's the right word here? Not demotivated, but so disinterested in the life there for where I'm at at the moment. It just doesn't serve me as a purpose of living there. It's [ __ ] way too expensive. Like, ridiculously expensive. The people there are nice. Like I love Australian culture and I obviously still have like really close friends there and family there. I love Australian culture, but you just meet different people in different parts of the world that are so much more aligned with what you want to do. And Australia just is just so, you know, you go there and you get wound up into the news and into the politics and all the [ __ ] [ __ ] there.

24:42 It's just a a much happier life traveling. And that's just for me. What I've learned a lot recently is that what works for me doesn't work for somebody else. And my opinions aren't going to be someone else's beliefs. We're all different and we have so many unique experiences that we've had around the world. Well, not even around the world, but unique experiences in our life that they shape us to who we are. And what works for me might not work for someone else. What I say may absolutely trigger someone to existence for whatever reason it is. And you're never going to make everyone happy. Like literally, you think about

25:28 the person that in your eyes is the most perfect human. There's people out there that hate them. And then when I came to that realization, I was like, "Well, I'm not going to [ __ ] please everyone. I'm just going to be me, do me, post me, and if people enjoy, they they can watch." But no, I don't miss going back home. I've not been back in Australia for about a year now. I'm actually going a few weeks time. I still have a car there that just been sitting on the street. But I am worried going back having visited Iran, having visited China, having visited Afghanistan, Myanmar, Pakistan. Since being back, I

26:16 posted videos and photos with the Taliban. The older I get and the more I travel, the more I'm worried about just being caught up in a big political mess. You know, obviously I know that I'm here traveling the world, not doing anything unjust or anything. I'm just literally sharing my experiences that people that in Australia are, you know, high up in positions of like security and stuff like that. They may think that I'm I'm doing something bad. You know, Australia considers the the Taliban as a terrorist organization and I'm over in Afghanistan meeting with them. You just never know how it's going to be played out. And in other countries as

27:01 well, how do you organize yourself when editing and scripting while you have hours of footage? This is a perfect uh time to again mention the third channel because we show a lot of this, a lot of the behind the scenes, but it really is about building the infrastructure and the systems in place to make it all work. So, obviously you guys see this YouTube video on the the second channel here. Like, there's a lot of things that go on behind the scenes to make it happen. Like, and there is a step-by-step process that happens. It's like I'll just take this YouTube video for example and try and break it down, but there's going to be offshoots that I miss. But, you know, you think of the video idea. You think of the country that you're filming in. That kind of comes into like the

27:48 planning of things. I then go and film the video. Uh, obviously has to be a good video. You upload the footage. We then have the the YouTube editor edit the video. It then goes through a review with my team member, Alex. They go back and forth and do the revisions until Alex is happy to send it to me. Then I review it, make sure it's all good, do any last changes. Then you have thumbnails, you have what are you going to title it, when are you going to post it, and that's just on one YouTube video. We're posting like 20 pieces of content a day now across the three YouTube channels, three Instagram accounts, three Tik Tok accounts. You need to have the systems and the team in place to be able to run that efficiently. As I mentioned though, this is a great question for if

28:33 someone's interested more into this is the uh the third channel. But yeah, I don't I don't edit the YouTube videos anymore or I haven't for a long time. I really don't enjoy editing YouTube videos. I like just filming them and seeing the final masterpiece um and posting it. But yeah, I'm not a fan of spending 5 or 6 hours editing a YouTube video. Let's move spots. So, this is all salt. All this white stuff. Yesterday, I was on a salt plane and I licked it. It was so salty. Let's try and make it up here. I literally feel like I'm on Mars over there. Super

29:20 red mountains. We got like the egg hotel that I'm staying at. All right, this is actually probably the perfect spot for the next set of questions. As much Oh, this is a sacrifice I'm having to make for you guys. You guys are going to get the view. I'm going to look at the dirt. Let's set this up. How about we go here? [ __ ] this is a sick shot. And it's so much more comfortable than sitting on Oh, this is

30:06 sick. Wow. I feel just so inspired on these islands when I when I visit them. Just out here exploring in nature here in the ocean. Is traveling solo fun or does it get boring or a group tour is more fun? Solo traveling is nowhere near as much fun as being with friends experiencing these things, but you learn so much more solo traveling to these places because it's totally up to you. You really get into your head and question everything when when you're solo traveling. you don't have anyone to communicate or speak with or share your

30:51 experiences with. So everything is up in your head. But I think you have to find the perfect hybrid. And I think I found a great way of doing solo trips and benefiting from the learning experience and experiencing these things and meeting new people. And then I have the other side when I'm when I'm traveling with friends and having an amazing time. Like some of the recent trips that I've had in Cambodia and China and Philippines, like it's just been so much fun just chatting [ __ ] with your boys. But that that's just like the the peak of life, the pinnacle, just sharing experiences. But I think his name is Chris um Chris Mandela. Chris McCindle or some [ __ ]

31:38 [ __ ] from Into the Wild. He says, "Happiness is never real unless shared." I think it it's true to a certain extent. But I believe that like solo traveling will put you so far out of your comfort zone that you don't even know what to learn. you're you're experiencing so many new and different experiences that it's just an abundance of growth. So the way I see it is like if you want to grow as an individual, if you want to learn things, you want to experience new things and put yourself in unique situations that kind of create your character, solo traveling for sure. But if you want to like just have fun, like being with your friends, traveling

32:24 to different places is like some of those moments like the highlights of my life in terms of like kind of entertainment value. But then you come in here solo and I have a lot of kind of growth moments, moments that are a lot more deep but from within where I'm thinking more about life and growing in that sense. What would I choose if I had to do one? I think it would be group tours. Cuz even on or group trips, even on group trips, like you still have time alone. You're still learning these experiences, but the human connection is

33:11 is super important and sharing those moments with people is super important and I would never want to lose that. What inspired you to choose a somewhat unconventional but super exciting profession? Just seeing other people on YouTube do it. In 2017, like 2018, when I was making shitty YouTube videos in Sydney, I was seeing all these people travel around the world. And my immediate thought was just like, if they can do it, I can do it. Like, why can't I do it? And I saved up my money. I started traveling. I started filming. And then pretty early on, my my YouTube channel was covering the expenses I had of travel. I wasn't spending much, maybe like $1,000 per month to travel around the world. But I also just wanted to do it. Like I've never been someone that takes no

33:57 for an answer. Like if I want to do something and travel or choose an unconventional career path or go against what society deems as normal, like I'm going to do it. Like why would I not do it if I want to just because people say I can't? And there were people that doubted me at the start that said, "Oh, you can't do that. How are you going to make money?" Blah, blah, blah. It also doesn't [ __ ] matter. Like if you fail at this, you just go back. Like what's the worst that can happen? You go back to your regular life and get a normal job and go to university. Like the risk versus reward, especially so young is so so stacked in your favor. The younger you are, the less responsibilities you have, the less societal pressure you

34:43 have, and the easier it is. the older you get, the more responsibilities you have. People are expecting you to get married or where are the kids, you know, buy a home, oh, you're getting older, health issues and stuff like that. But the the the main inspiring part was just seeing other people do it and just thinking to myself, why can't I do this myself? Like, why I want to do it? What are the differences in living in Australia versus Bali as a content creator? Costs, meeting people, etc. So I spend a good portion of the year in Indonesia in Bali. Uh again on the third channel I've mentioned that uh a lot and we show more kind of behind the scenes of that. A lot of the times when I finish these trips I go back to to Bali. I flew here from uh

35:30 Indonesia. But Australia verse Bali obviously cost of living to live the lifestyle that I live in Bali in Australia, man. It it would literally cost like 2 to 300k a year to eat out every day, live in a threetory villa, have food delivered every day, cleaning services, all that kind of stuff. It simply is just a much cheaper place to live. And the beauty of that is if you can earn an online income and then spend it somewhere where where it's cheaper to live, then you can basically, you know, double or triple your your spending power. Tim Ferrris, the 4-hour work week explains that like 20 years ago. It's a

36:16 beautiful book. I'd highly recommend watching it, reading it. But also the beauty in Bali vers Australia for example is that there are so many people on the island that are very similar to you. There are people that are creating content. There are people that are focused on health and fitness. There are people that are entrepreneurial, that are business, that are young, like-minded, sharing very similar philosophies. So in Australia, you know, maybe you meet like one or two people a month that you can really like build a connection with. In Bali, there's just so many people that you meet every single day that are really cool, just doing really cool stuff because a lot of people go there for like a community aspect. I know Bali gets a terrible rep and there are parts

37:04 of it that, you know, just do not uh like that I just don't agree with and certain things. But, you know, I see maybe 10 to 20 people there, super close people that I'm super tight-knit with. Uh, and we kind of stick to ourselves. We do a fun activities. We don't go and do all that woo woo stuff over there. Um, but yeah, it's it's a beautiful place to be. It's a beautiful place to spend time. And I really do think that the Indonesian people are the friendliest in the world. They're always smiling. They're they're always very happy. And I've been to other parts of Indonesia. It's very similar as well. But just purely from the abundance of people that you meet that are doing similar stuff and have similar interests

37:50 into I suppose what you're doing or I can take my example in what I'm doing of you know posting YouTube videos. Uh it's it's a game changer. I met so many people there. It's so amazing. uh and the focus on health and fitness, the ease of access to healthy foods, good foods at an affordable price. It it is one of the best places to live for me where I'm at in my life right now. That may change though. I don't know where the future the future leads. You started adding sponsors to your videos, which is new plus against what you used to do. In the last Q&A video when I was in the island on the Philippines, I said that I don't do sponsors because I don't want to be a sellout and promote stuff like

38:37 that. And when I started doing sponsorships, I had a few people mention that to me. And there's a few things that have changed in my opinion on that is that number one, the the social media industry is just changing rapidly so fast. And I believe that a genuine product that I actually use or that I think is useful for the audience is worth promoting. At the end of the day, this is a business for me. I make money. I spend money. I need to keep this business in profit to fund the lifestyle that I'm living. And about a year ago, I had a big issue on Facebook, which was around like 50 to 60% of the business's earnings where for about a year I was demonetized. Facebook wasn't paying me

39:24 out anything because of an error. And I realized as a business owner that it's irresponsible to have so many of my eggs in one basket where just overnight you can lose everything on a platform. 4 million followers useless. Payouts not being sent out. No longer being able to earn on the videos when we're earning X amount of dollars per month from that no matter what. It was a really scary time and I realized that it's irresponsible to have so much of a responsibility on one platform and that's where I decided to diversify. I think my opinions on promoting products

40:10 changed and at the end of the day I'm able to do this. I'm able to stay at interesting hotels with amazing views and experiencing these countries because I have money. The more money that I have from sponsorships or from YouTube, the more I can invest on better experiences. I can go to cooler places. I can do cooler things. So, it actually increases, I guess, the the production of the videos. It allows me to have more ease in kind of like emotional well-being because it's like, oh, we're not fighting for we're not staying afloat because we're we're able to take sponsorship money. But there are so many companies that we decline because of

40:57 this. They're not a good fit. They're just things that I wouldn't use. Like everything that I promoted, I either use or would genuinely recommend to like my friends and family. I'm not promoting mobile games or crypto or anything like that. Like they're legitimate companies that I use or would genuinely recommend. So honestly, like I understand people think I'm a sellout or whatever. I'll [ __ ] take the word sellout. If there's a a product that I use that I genuinely believe in that are willing to pay me money to promote it to my audience, I'll take that money. And I'm not ashamed to to say that. It's part of the business. It doesn't impact anyone if they watch the ad or not. If it suits them, they can purchase it. If

41:44 it doesn't, then that's well within their right to do so. As well, I want to change locations, but I don't think you can beat this view, guys. Are we still recording? When I usually when I'm filming, guys, I'm not checking if it's recording this much. Yes, we are. It's just because I can't see the face of the camera. Let's answer a few more up here. What's your biggest personal goal outside of travel and content creation? I'd say in the past year or so, the focus towards health and fitness and just overall well-being has become a lot. I saw an ant over there, a huge bullet ant, and I'm worried

42:32 though. They're over there. Look at this guy. All right, you can wait. question. Look at this guy. Look at him. He look He's carrying a huge crumb. Very lucky guy. You're going to be eating eaten good tonight. I'm hoping I'm not sat on the nest. Personal goals outside of travel and content creation. Yeah, definitely health and fitness, which I'm I'm still balancing and still managing and figuring out exactly what I want to do. But I

43:17 think this isn't the right way to set goals because you should have a specific figure and a specific date. Smart goals. Specific, measurable, actionable, relative, and something else. Put it up on screen. Smart goals. That's how you should set your goals. I'm not setting goals like that at the moment because a lot of them are are not measurable, but it's just general over well-being. Having genuine connections with people, sharing relationships with people, and being just overall happy and focusing on what I'm to do in life. In the past few years, I visited a lot of

44:02 [Music] countries and and filmed content that I wasn't exactly happy with. It wasn't exactly what I wanted to be filming just because I I knew it would perform well, especially on Facebook. It was so easy to just make a few minute video and make a,000 bucks there. And I kind of got caught in the loop of, you know, chasing that. And I think now the main goal I have is really just living my true and authentic self and being who I am and not being ashamed of that. There's so much negativity on on social media. Everyone has their own opinions. Everyone is so cranky in the comments, which doesn't bother me. Everyone's entitled to that. But I'm

44:47 just going to live my authentic self. if I'm going to say my beliefs, say my opinions, and if people agree with me or not, then that's that's that's on them. They don't have to watch. But I think living my true and authentic self is a big belief that I have and a big goal that I'm working towards. And I think I'm doing a a pretty good job of it. like when you see the these this video like the Q&A video, it's probably the most authentic of me as as you can get. So that's the biggest goal and that's the issue is it's not measurable. You can't say by the 25th of December I want to be more authentic. Where's the specificness of

45:33 that? Where's the more? So, I think it's uh not the most effective way of choosing goals, but it's something that I'm working towards. We do have specific goals that aren't like super uh exciting, you know, obviously financial goals, individual goals. Yeah. Not not a whole lot of goals, but just working towards the mission of me being just my true authentic self. And people are going to [ __ ] hate me for it. people are going to love me for it. The one beautiful thing that I learned was that you're never going to be put down by someone that's doing better than you. So, if anyone's ever talking [ __ ] just

46:18 know that they're they're facing difficult times in life or insecurities or or something that is causing them to to do that. anyone that is high up in in business or high up in any career, like if they see someone that's lower than them, they they want to help them. They don't want to put them down. But the I don't know if it's just the travel space or just I guess like social media in general. So many people just chat [ __ ] I'm so beyond it, but I just want to be out there and just travel, share experiences with my loved ones, the people that are close to me,

47:03 and being able to do that. And I'm happy. We're good. These guys are having the time of their life out there. Look at these guys. They got a whole tuk tuk. They're probably like going around the corner wondering, "What am I doing on a on the cliff right here?" I really don't want to move spots. Should we walk? Hey, there's some huts up there. Let's go and uh check those out. But this is a beautiful view. Incredible. Let's go. So, those are the red mountains I was talking about. And those are also the salt planes. The white bits. It's all salt plains. And believe it or not, it's super salty.

47:50 But there's crazy formations here. Wow, we have a really good view up here. This is sick. All right, this is actually wild. I I still have internet and my accommodation is over there. It's still working. That's insane. But we made it to the huts that I was talking about. Oh, I I don't think anything is going to beat that view over there. That was incredible. And I think here there's too much traffic, too much noise. It is a shame how much plastic there is here. Like, how does that even come up? It's not like it's being washed up

48:37 ashore. That is just people littering, which is a shame out here. We'll answer a few questions here and then see what the vibe is. Is this made out of mud or concrete? That's concrete. That's crazy. This is just gross. Come on. What do you get up to between trips and travel? How do you spend your downtime? Again, the third channel shows a lot of this of what it's like traveling and then also the, you know, the reset periods. But what I like to do now and what I found is a good balance is kind of traveling in blocks of like 2 to 4 week trips, doing these trips, and

49:23 then settling down for a month, being able to get into a good routine where you can go to the gym, you can eat healthy food, you can focus on more things that you're you're passionate about in terms of like other hobbies, and then doing like another 2 to 4 week trip kind of in blocks like that. But very early on, I just was just continuously traveling, jumping between places every few days, and I got so burnt out. There was no routine. There was nowhere I could focus on fitness and health. And it just wasn't sustainable long term. With this new one month on, one month off system, I genuinely believe it could be done for, you know, very many years down the line. Whereas if I was constantly traveling, just jump in between places, I don't think I could I could last uh much longer. But a lot

50:12 of the time it's just managing the content, managing the team, making sure content's being published, getting uh reviewing videos, just kind of also focusing on like the creative front. What direction do I want to go on? When I'm here in countries, specifically filming, a lot of the time I'm thinking about video ideas. I'm obviously thinking about what I want to show, what I want to film. So there's not really much to kind of or much bandwidth I would say to spend on, you know, reviewing videos. So a lot of it is kind of scheduled in advance. Like previously when I was settled down for a week or two, it's been actually a pretty chaotic month doing this Iran trip. So last minute. Um, but when I'm back uh after this trip in in Indonesia, then I'll, you know, obviously go through the

50:58 content, make sure we have like the schedules out, see what content is performing well, what we want to focus on, and then the next trip, obviously planning for that, and then have everything scheduled for when I'm actually like on that next trip. But yeah, a lot more like backend business stuff. Sorting out the little [ __ ] of life and admin and taxes and accounting and all that, you know, garbage. Kind of just doing that and obviously spending a lot of time with with friends and family, playing uh playing sports, going to the gym, eating healthy food. That's mostly the the goal when I'm not traveling. Because when I'm traveling here, like, you know, how am I going to find a gym? How am I going to eat healthy food? I'm I'm I know it's possible if I really wanted to, but the

51:45 entry the barrier entry is uh is much more more difficult. It's not as accessible as you know big cities or other parts of the world that I spent time in. So yeah, mostly mostly those things. If you could relive your first visit to one place, which would it be and why? I'd love to go back to Sri Lanka on my very first trip there as a solo individual. That would be really interesting being able to relive that experience when I had a camera and I set off on this journey. It was the first country I ever traveled to solo and I was trying to make it on YouTube. It would be really interesting just to live that me again. Now that it's been like 6 years later almost yeah like 6 years ago I left on that first trip and started filming these videos that you see on these on

52:31 this YouTube channel which is crazy. But I remember like I used to I wouldn't say I still speak with an accent, but like I used to sound so Australian back then. Now I having spent so much time outside of Australia and being with different nationalities, I've neutralized a fair bit. I still had that Australian twang, especially when we [ __ ] swear like this and we speak really fast and all that [ __ ] but back then like I was like super bogan like mate. No, not like bogan, but just like Australian. So, a lot a lot has changed since then. So, I'd love to to relive those moments. Let's find a new spot. I

53:17 [ __ ] am not vibing with this one, mate. Everyone is exploring Horos. Look at that. Everyone's out and about. They're They're vibing. It's like maybe 9:30 or 10:00 a.m. I'm going to go down into the salt plains, guys. Look how interesting some of like the formations are of these rocks. It's like like it sounds like clay. Let's put you guys there. All right. Here we go. Found our new spot on

54:06 the salt plains. How has your perspective changed after all these years of traveling around the world? I'm not sure. Somebody's laughing at me. Hey, stop laughing at me. Did I say you could laugh? No. That's right. Drive away. You know, when I first started traveling at 18 and those first few years, everything was so new to me. And these experiences are so new and beautiful, but they're never going to be as shocking as they once were when I was an 18-year-old exploring the world for the first time. Everything back then was so new and so beautiful. And I've had so many experiences that have been amazing since traveling the world, seeing the most

54:52 amazing views that you can ever experience, being able to document it on YouTube. So many people following this journey where I become a little bit desensitized to I would say positive experiences just simply because it happens so much in my life. Like if you were to come to this island on one trip for your whole year vacation, you'd be amazed. You'd be super excited. And obviously like I'm I'm super happy to be here and super excited. But just because I travel so much, it's not as special as someone traveling for the first time or having that two week vacation once a year. Like I literally came from Bali, Indonesia where I spend majority of my time.

55:37 Before that, I'd come from Philippines, China, Cambodia. I can travel whenever I want to whatever country I want. So, it's not it's the buildup is not as special as it used to when even when I was on family trips. It's like, oh, we have a vacation in 6 months. Let's start uh you know, working towards that. And it's super exciting. You go on the vacation, you have an amazing time, and then you have the next one a year later. So, just simply because I travel so much, it's kind of lost the special touch, I would say. Not to say that I'm ungrateful for being able to do this or seeing these things, but I'm just simply stating it as a as a reality. If you keep eating the same

56:23 food the first time, it's going to be amazing. But if you just keep eating it, keep eating it, it's just the same experience. So, not that travel is always going to be the same experience, but that's just me being completely honest. But let me add in addition to that that I still love these moments. It just isn't the same as what it was when I was 18 experiencing them for the very first time. So, I think that has changed. I'm still doing it because I love it and I enjoy having these moments and seeing these things. If I didn't enjoy it, I wouldn't be doing it. I have a lot of freedom and ability to do really whatever I want. Like, I wouldn't be

57:08 doing [ __ ] that I hate or don't enjoy. Like, there's a reason I'm out here doing this cuz I actually enjoy it. Oh no, we lost our photos. This is the worst. Oh no, we lost connection. [ __ ] This is such a good spot as well. Oh man. All right, hang on, Randy. I got up to on the Google Drive 208 image number 2081. None of them are loading cuz I've lost internet. What I'm going to do is go back to the ones in my photo gallery. So now they'll be organized in file name. And I'm just going to go through them and choose ones I have or haven't

57:56 uh answered. That actually might be an interesting part to add to the video, Randy. And we would still be adding this part to it. That's how I actually communicate with my editors, guys. Like this is stuff that we go into on the third channel, which I highly like I really love making those videos. It's super cool. But um yeah, like a lot of the editing notes and stuff are actually like me mentioning this to Brandy, our team member who edits all the YouTube videos. So when I have a specific part that I want to show in a specific way or restructure something, I'll kind of give video notes along this cuz obviously Ry's going to be looking at this in the timeline and then uh he can kind of

58:42 match it up, mix, match it up, put it together, stitch it up. That's the word I was looking for. So, next question. Are you an atheist? I am not an atheist, but I as of now am not religious. I am considered agnostic. I believe that there is something higher than us, a greater power of some sort. What that is, I don't know. I I would say I lean more towards like spirituality but you know everybody thinks what happens when we die and people watching this will think oh well you have to you know convert to XY Z everyone thinks like religion religion is such a sticky topic it is something

59:27 that is so sensitive to people hey it is such a sensitive topic where it's so difficult to express your opinion because everyone thinks that they're right their belief is right? And they have the right to do that. But I get so many messages and comments just saying stupid stuff in regards to religion. But honestly, I'm not objected to being religious. It just hasn't happened. And whatever God is up there, he has the path written out for me. And maybe that day comes tomorrow where I have a life-changing experience and have

1:00:13 faith in whatever God that may be. Or maybe it's in 20 years from time. We're all all on our own journey, our own path, and God has it all laid out. But it is really interesting traveling to different countries and being able to see religion and the different religions around the world and how it plays a part in the [Music] society. Iran for example, I've not experienced anything really related to religion. People are just chilling. They don't ask me if I'm religious. They don't mention God or anything. You obviously see mosques around in Thran.

1:00:58 But it is really interesting traveling around the world and experiencing these different cultures and being able to see the beautiful things about religion and also the bad things about religion. There's a lot of conflicts in the world because of what god someone believes in or what belief someone has. What do you want to achieve in your traveling journey? I've come to the realization recently that I want to visit every country in the world, but not super fast. Like I want to do it over like a 5 to 10 to 20 year period. But I think the main achievement I want to have is I just want to have memories like amazing

1:01:45 stories and amazing memories that I can share with people. And you know what the most beautiful thing is traveling around the world is when you're in Australia or when you're in a different part and you meet someone and you ask them where you're from and they say Iran or Pakistan or Afghanistan and then you can say I was there. Where are you from? Oh, I'm from from Carbal. No way. I was there. And you can share experiences with these people. That is the most beautiful thing, especially these countries that not many people visit. So many times people have, you know, said they're from Lebanon or something like that. I'm like, "Oh, I've been all around Lebanon and they're like, "Oh, I'm from this part." I was like, "Yo, I was there." Like, "I went to here. I went to here." And you have like a common interest and it's one of

1:02:30 the most beautiful things about traveling. So, I would love to Hey, there are so many people that are just waving at me. I have no idea what you're saying. I I would love to get to the point where I can make anyone they can say their country and I can say, "Oh, I was there. I did this." Like, I think it's a beautiful thing. And you're able to share so much insight into each other and you also have a better background as to who they are. you understand their culture and you understand what they believe in and stuff. So, I think that's the beautiful thing about traveling to these places and having those random moments like that. Got to move this back a bit. There

1:03:16 we go. How do you budget your spending money while traveling? So, at the very start, I had a strict budget that I was sticking to because I wasn't making any money from YouTube videos. So, I was just trying to live as cheap as possible because I knew if I spent $10 a day, I could live here for $300 a month or whatever. And any money that I saved was more days on the road, which allowed me to create more videos, which gave me the better chance of being able to make money from these videos. So, I was going super cheap, staying in host, eating pretty shitty food. Uh, a lot of the costs that are involved actually like the transport. If you stay in a place for a long time, it's a lot easier to to save money. But if you're flying around from different parts of the world, that's when it all adds up. But

1:04:02 fortunately now, like in Iran, you know, this trip, including flights, is probably going to be like maybe like three grand, no more. Like the flight just to get here was like a G. Uh, and I bought like 2 to 3k cash. Like it'll probably end up being like 4K or something. Uh I'm in a fortunate position now where I don't have to worry about the budget of traveling. For me when I visit a country the content that I'm creating it it is a business like I am investing money to come here to have these experiences to stay at hotels to meet cool people to rent drivers to buy things. And ultimately, I'm able to make that money back through the YouTube videos and Facebook videos and Tik Tok videos that

1:04:48 we make. So, I mean, in the past like 5 years, I've not been to a country, spent money, and not made that money back from the content I've created, unless I specifically wasn't going there to create content. So, I'm in a very fortunate position that uh I don't really have to worry about that. Now, to an extent, I can do that. like I'm I'm not flying private or even business or first class to any of these countries. Maybe then we'd have an issue. I'm not renting helicopters here. I don't have like VIP transport. Like I'm still traveling kind of at a a reasonable level. But yeah, I just don't have to worry too much about the budget side of things

1:05:34 anymore and I can still have these amazing experiences. But definitely early on like now it was strict like I knew that with the money that I had saved up. I'd done the calculations many times over. I have old sheets, old pieces of paper of me calculating exactly how much money I had uh in different accounts, how long that would last if I was spending like $1,200 a month. Uh what countries I could spend that $1,200 a month in. Uh, I was very, you know, specific about that because I knew that the more time I could spend on the road, the better chances I've had of being able to make it a full-time gig. So, that's how I did it early on. Now, it's not too much of an issue. Which country is not beginner friendly? Cool. I'd say the main thing

1:06:21 is just the tourism infrastructure for these countries. Like, Afghanistan is not beginner friendly. It's difficult to travel there. I definitely wouldn't recommend it as a beginner country. It's just difficult. There's a lot of uh little niche things that are difficult about traveling. They're super safe and and I had an amazing experience there, but it's was difficult in the little kind of bure bureaucracy of things. [ __ ] Egypt, one of the worst countries on the planet, is not beginner friendly, but people go there as a beginner. Mostly, it's not beginner friendly because of like the scams and just the aggressiveness of the people in Cairo at the pyramids, man. Like, if you don't

1:07:07 know how to bargain or like be stern and you still have that mindset in your home country that everyone is kind of trying to be nice with you, you're going to get taken advantage of there. So yeah, they are those are countries that are probably not beginner friendly, but should definitely visit them because personally I didn't like it my experience in Egypt, but I had friends there also uh enjoyed their experience but for the most part everyone hates it. That's a general uh consensus. How do you earn and travel at the same time? A lot of people are not aware that this makes me money. A lot of people are saying like, "How

1:07:53 are you able to travel so much?" Like, blah blah. Like, I I make money from these videos and I'm able to sustain this as a business. I'm not sure if it's because they just simply don't don't have the understanding of it or it's because it's just become so basic and common knowledge for me because I've been in it for so long and know so many people. But this is like earns me money. And the big YouTubers like they make good money. Like it's not like we're we're we're getting by on like one or 2K a month. Uh I post on on YouTube on three channels. We have the Facebook page, the Tik Tok pages earn me money. We have

1:08:38 sponsorships, a variety of other things as well. And fortunately, I'm in a position now where, you know, through the past 5 years of like hard work and travel, hard work and travel. Oh, such hard work. Through the past few years of um you know, traveling and creating content and earning money, I've been able to invest a lot of that. So, I'm not too worried. about kind of the uh the earning part of things anymore with that. Obviously, uh I have to stick to to certain budgets if I was to wrap everything up now, but I'm in a very fortunate position where I don't have to worry about that too much anymore. What equipment do you have always packed when traveling?

1:09:24 This is the This trip is the perfect example of what is absolutely necessary because I've been doing carry-on only. And I've gotten my bag down to about 9 kg. Five of which I two of which is just my laptop. Another three or four is electronics and stuff. But we obviously got the camera, uh, six batteries, chargers for these batteries, power bank, two SD, um, big SSDs, a ton of micro SSDs, not SSDs, micro SDs. Um, obviously laptop, their chargers, and a few USBC cables and stuff like that. I'll do a little video actually at the end just showing all of that. But uh yeah, that's the bare minimum. I'm

1:10:11 not sure if I could travel for like one or two months straight on this cuz I left a fair bit of things back at home. Uh and then clothes, you know, clothes can always be washed. I just pair travel with a pair of shoes now. Sometimes I take runners. This trip I've realized I can actually do carry-on only quite easily. For the past year or so, I've always been checking bags in just for the ease of uh convenience, but I've been able to to do this pretty pretty comfortably on this trip with the way that I pack things. Another question I get asked so much are, what are your marriage plans? I don't know why people are so obsessed with it. Like, how do you plan for marriage? Like maybe if you're in a relationship, you have like an

1:10:57 idea. But no, no, no plans for marriage yet. Inshallah, as they say. Uh yeah, I don't know. I think growing up, I always had the the the goal of definitely getting married. I do want to have a family and kids, but I really just don't know if marriage is uh for me anymore. I'm going through constant changes of my life and my beliefs are changing. So, I'm not entirely sure that's going to be the same belief that I have down the line. But all I can say that, you know, right now if I was to get married, [ __ ] no. How did you increase your

1:11:43 testosterone? So, one of the things on the third channel that I mentioned was uh we got testosterone tests. Not that this is the be all or end all, but did it like 8 months ago and I think I was like 864 nanogs per deciliter which is pretty high and that was during a period of quite a lot of stress and not the best

…