What do I think about Drew Binsky's videos?

Hi there guys, a reader commented that I do travel a lot and he pointed out to me that there's this Youtuber called Drew Binsky who makes a good living in his quest to visit every single country in the world. Currently, as I am writing this, he has about 20 left to go in some of the more obscure places which are hard to get a visa for. So I was asked the following questions: do I intend to visit every country in the world? Would I like to make videos for Youtube like Drew Binsky? What do I think of Drew Binsky's videos and also where I am off to for the next few trips? So, let's deal with the first question.

Q: Do I intend to visit every country in the world?

No, I don't see the point at all, it's becomes just a box ticking exercise. There are parts of the world that are more beautiful than others and my priority is to visit those parts - now my holiday destinations can be either places which are culturally vibrant and interesting to me, or they could be of areas of outstanding natural beauty. There are parts of the world which have neither culture that is interesting to me nor great natural beauty. You also have to take into account of the fact that I grew up in Singapore - I went to a primary school (that no longer exists) which was walking distance from Lower Pierce Reservoir and then I saw a lot of jungle when I served national service. So when white people rave about somewhere like the Ulu Temburong National Park in Brunei, for me it's just another piece of steamy, hot tropical jungle full of nasty insects and that holds no appeal for me at all. But if you're a white person who grew up in a city like Montreal, Copenhagen or Moscow, then a tropical jungle may seem mysterious, exotic and full of wonder. By that token, that pretty much excludes a lot of smaller countries in central America, Africa and the many island nations in the Pacific and Indian ocean. So take the topical island nation of Nauru for example - it's in the Pacific Ocean and very expensive to get to, but once you have arrived in Nauru, there's really nothing to see or do. The locals are so desperate for jobs and money they have opened an internment camp there for the Australian government to house refugees, as a means to deter refugees from trying to reach Australia. I think it is pointless to try to go to places like that - no thanks. Some countries have absolutely nothing for tourists. My friend Abel went to Fiji which is more touristy than Nauru but he came away extremely disappointed as well, he said it was extremely boring with so little to see and do there. Well Abel is from Singapore, therefore Fiji's tropical beaches don't really appeal to him in a way it might appeal to a tourist from Helsinki. 

Now let's take Italy and Spain in contrast - I've lost count of how many times I've been to both of these wonderful countries but each time I go back there, I can always find something new to discover, a new city to visit, a town or city I had never explored before or a different ski resort to go to. Furthermore, I speak both Italian and Spanish and I love the culture there. I know I will enjoy myself a lot more going to Italy and Spain than to spend so much more money getting to Nauru or Fiji. So by that token, a lot of my future trips will be to countries that I love and have been to quite a few times already, but that's a strategic decision because my priority is to have a good holiday, rather than visit a country simply for the sake of being able to say, "been there, done that, tick the box." Sure these countries like Italy and Spain that I return to time and again may not be exotic at all but it depends on what kind of experience you want from your holidays and having traveled so much over the years, I have a very good idea of what my ideal holiday is and it extends way beyond the thrill of being in a new country for the first time. Therefore I do try to have a good balance between exploring new countries I have never ever been to before and revisiting old favourites - there are of course still quite a few countries which I have yet to visit and have plenty to offer me. So on the top ten countries list would be countries would be Iran, Ukraine, Peru, South Korea, Kazakhstan, Serbia, Armenia, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon and Greenland. Okay, I know Greenland is still technically a part of Denmark so if I were to have to pick another country then it would be North Korea.

There's another factor that influences my choice of holiday: I truly hate hot weather. In some of Drew Binsky's videos, he is visiting places when the temperature is well over 40 degrees and that's just insanely hot. I may have been born in Singapore but for the record, I have spent more of my life in Europe than in Singapore. Right now, it is 12 degrees outside and about 21 degrees in my room - that's the kind of temperature I am used to. I remember fainting in the streets of San Juan in Puerto Rico when it was 35 degrees and extremely humid - ironically, my Irish partner who grew up in Birmingham was perfectly okay with the intense tropical heat and just as well there was someone to help me when I fainted - that was a horrible experience, I felt so incredibly sick.  I am useless when it comes to putting up with the intense heat - I hate it, it is not fun, it is torture, it is not my idea of a fun holiday. In contrast, when I was in Northern Finland last year, I came out of the sauna and rolled around naked in the snow when it was -40 degrees. I have absolutely no problem with the cold and I really enjoy extreme winter weather - that it why I have a real desire to visit Greenland whilst I will gladly avoid most of Africa and central America for that reason. I get very uncomfortable the moment the temperature creeps towards 30 degrees - I don't sleep well, I lose my appetite, I get loads of insect bites, I fall sick and I generally feel miserable and the hotter it gets, the worse it is for me. I grew up in Singapore - we were a poor family that didn't travel much so I would go to the library and read books about glaciers, mountains and winter weather: so from that young age, I knew what I hated and what I yearned for and that has shaped my perception since.

Then there's the practical consideration of which countries are safe to travel to and which are not - fortunately most countries in the world are fairly safe, but firstly there are some countries which are active war zones or at least experiencing a lot of instability, hence it would be foolhardy to even set foot in those countries because you are stepping into a war zone. Even if you get kidnapped or robbed, your government is unlikely to be able to help you in such a situation because you shouldn't have even been there in the first place. So there are loads of places you shouldn't try to visit as a tourist today like Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Venezuela, Central African Republic, Somalia, DR Congo and South Sudan. Then there are some countries where some parts are okay to visit whilst other parts are very dangerous - such is Tunisia for example, I have been there and was warned not to stray beyond the 'safe zone' or my life would be in danger. On this issue, there is a sliding scale between very safe and totally dangerous - most places are somewhere in between and it is not like it should deter you from visiting a beautiful country, but just be aware of the amount of effort you would need to protect yourself in a country where you're not that safe. An example would be Indonesia - I have had some of my worst experiences as a traveler in Indonesia because of the way the locals see that I am Chinese and go out of their way to try to extract/extort money from me. Even the police are extremely corrupt and involving them often makes matters so much worse - so it's not like you shouldn't visit Indonesia, but if you do decide to go, you need to be aware of the dangers when dealing with the dishonest and corrupt locals and that often ruins the experience for me. Now, contrast that to a country like Japan, where I don't have to worry about things like that as I know I can trust completely the locals.

There's also a question of cost: some of the most expensive countries in the world are Africa - yup, that's right, more expensive than Switzerland, Denmark, USA or Norway. They usually charge foreigners an arm and a leg to get in, for example: a tourist visa for DR Congo is US$200, for Nigeria it is US$180 and for Algeria and Sierra Leone it is US$160. Ouch. Obviously, that would deter tourists from visiting your country - in November, I am going to Morocco which is right next to Algeria and I don't need a visa to enter Morocco. Many of these countries don't realize just how much tourism can help their local economies and it is only a small number of government officials who are benefiting from charging such ludicrous prices for visas whilst wrecking havoc for tourism in their countries. Furthermore, in Djibouti, the large number of foreign military bases there means that demand far outstrips supplies when it comes to decent hotel rooms, causing prices to skyrocket. The same thing happens in Angola - whereby oil companies have flooded in to extract the country's vast oil reserves, making their capital city Luanda one of the most expensive in the world. The problem is that Luanda isn't that special or beautiful, it's just that you have a small number of expatriate oil workers all competing for a limited supply of high end accommodation and hotel rooms, artificially driving the prices up to make it far more expensive than New York or Tokyo. Thus by that token, there are no tourists who will go to a place like Luanda given how there are much nicer and cheaper alternatives elsewhere in Africa. Thus I certainly have no desire to go to Luanda even if I can afford it.

Don't forget, I am still working in corporate finance of course, whilst someone like Drew Binsky is traveling as a living, making these Youtube videos. So I have a limited amount of time I can spend each year for traveling. I know I have spent more time traveling and on holidays than most people, just in 2019 alone, I have counted a total of 12 weeks of traveling - still, even with that much time traveling, there are a lot of days spent traveling to airports, waiting for flights or trains, taking long bus journeys etc - so I think I'm actually doing pretty well for what it is worth, prioritizing the destinations that I can visit within that time and making sure that I do have a reasonably good time visiting those places whilst still actually holding down my job in London. After all, Drew Binsky has made his life all about traveling whilst enjoying nice holidays in beautiful places is only one part of my life. Don't get me wrong, I love the fact that I can afford to travel now - I came from a poor family in Singapore and we didn't get to leave the country much, money was always an issue for us. I am already spending 20 - 25% of my time on holiday and if I may be honest, that's already pushing the limits of what I can do whilst still holding down a job. It's not that money is an issue here - it's just that I have to actually do some work every now and then to justify my presence in the company, I can't constantly be on holiday traveling. The compromise is that thanks to the internet, I often spend like an hour a day still dealing with my clients even when I am on holiday - but that's not always easy such as if I am in a remote location in the mountains and without access to Wifi or even a phone signal.

Then of course, another factor I have to consider whenever I want to go on my next holiday is whether or not I can drag my partner along. Most of the time I do go traveling with him for a number of reasons: firstly, he enjoys it as much as I do of course and he finds it very convenient to travel with someone like me who will always be able to speak the local language, so he can rock up in somewhere like Georgia or Argentina and just let me do the talking. It is also far safer for two of us to travel together than for us to travel alone - by the same token, it is also cheaper when it comes accommodation. I paid about £66 for quite a decent room in Brussels on my trip there last week and there was a double bed in a spacious room - it could have easily slept two people and had my partner decided to come to Belgium with me, then it would have been £33 each instead of £66 for me alone. That's why we have been able to stay in some pretty amazing AirBNB places on our travels because we travel together. He's not retired - he works harder than me running his own company and so trying to persuade him to come traveling with me for up to 12 weeks a year is a challenge of course, even when we are on holiday, he often has to spend two hours each evening answering emails, dealing with clients and colleagues and taking conferences calls. But of course, since he is the boss of his own company, he has the luxury to do what the hell he wants and he is most certainly happy to take advantage of that luxury! Hence I always need to make my plans with his availability in mind but we're both pretty happy with the situation. Thus with our 10 - 12 weeks a year, we want to maximize our fun whilst traveling to places that I know we will truly like and simply picking an arbitrary list like "every country in the world" would force us to visit some pretty nasty, very hot and unsafe places - no thank you!

Q: Would I like to make videos for Youtube like Drew Binsky?

Actually no, I used to make videos for Youtube and it is a very frustrating process if I may be honest. Some videos get more views than others but it almost seems random which videos become popular and which ones get very few views. I have tried a variety of different formats and I failed to stumble upon a winning formula - the problem perhaps then lies with me, maybe I don't have a face for Youtube. For the amount of time I put into editing just one video for Youtube, I got very poor results. It just wasn't sustainable especially when I have a day job in finance that paid a lot more money. When I switched over to Instagram, I found that I could get far more attention on social media for a lot less effort - so I am now quite content posting on Instagram instead and not doing Youtube anymore. I actually have loads of people messaging me on Instagram after they have seen my content and like what I do - it's actually pretty friendly and social, quite unlike Youtube where people don't hesitate to leave really quite nasty comments if they don't like one tiny aspect of your video. Besides, Drew Binsky has managed to corporate sponsors for his video making business, that's how he makes the bulk of his video because it is pretty hard to make any decent money solely based on getting a lot of hits on Youtube. Hats off to him for his success and good luck to him in his quest, but it's not for me, no thanks - I shall stick to Instagram for now.

Q: What do I think of Drew Binsky's videos compared to other travel vloggers?

There are aspects of it which I like and some aspects which I dislike. Firstly, I like the length of it - he understands the Youtube generation, I don't want to watch a 45 minute in-depth documentary on Ethiopian history even if I am interested in Ethiopia. However, if you have a three minute video that is well-edited and focuses on just one aspect of life in Ethiopia, then yeah I'll watch it. So that's part of his winning formula in order to attract viewers like myself: the videos and short, succinct and rarely exceed 5 minutes with some coming under 2 minutes. However, I am not a part of his key audience which would be Americans who don't have the means or opportunity to travel and hence are seeing the world through his videos - I actually have both the means and the opportunity to travel and I've been to every single continent on earth except Antarctica. I also have a degree in geography - so when he starts a video by saying, "I bet most of you have never even heard of this country", I'm like, don't be so fucking condescending, I have not only been there but I also know a lot more than you about this country.  But then again, that statement is probably true if most of his audience are Americans who will never travel the world like him and I. That just makes me think that clearly, I'm not in his target audience - his message is also very simple, almost to the point where it feels like he is avoiding using big words to make his videos accessible to children. Now let's contrast that to another video journalist Johnny Harris from Vox who has a far more intellectual approach - yes he can be quite verbose but at least I feel like he's talking to me as a well educated adult and not a 7 year old kid. Thus Johnny Harris is alienating many younger viewers but you simply can't appeal to everyone.

However, Johnny Harris makes so few videos - the few he has made are all of very high quality and I like the fact that he is totally fluent in Spanish after having lived and worked in Peru. Okay, so he's bilingual whilst Drew Binsky claims to speak Spanish but it is really, really basic, as basic as what a child may know after a few weeks of lessons. And that's my other gripe with Drew Binsky, to all intents and purposes he is a monolingual American who only knows a tiny bit of Spanish; he's going to all these places without understanding the local language and I'm not sure he actually makes that much effort to speak the local language. Likewise, there's another travel vlogger Nick Fisher aka the Indigo Traveler who is from New Zealand, now he has been to some pretty scary places like Somalia and Venezuela this year - his editing quality pales in comparison to Harris and Binsky, he isn't speaking to the audience as if they are kids but being a Kiwi, good grief, once again he's so hopelessly and pathetically monolingual again. Note that my favourite Youtubers are usually bilingual (Abroad in Japan) or multilingual (Simon & Martina: they are Canadian but Simon speaks Polish, Korean and Japanese, whilst Martina manages Korean and Japanese - even though her Japanese is much better than Simon's). But I digress - Drew Binsky is able to reach a massive audience because his videos are simple and accessible even for young children, unlike John Harris' videos which would tend to appeal to more intelligent people. But in business the proof is in the pudding and Drew Binsky is able to make quite a lot of money whilst making these videos, that shows that he is doing something right even if I am not in his target market and that seems to be a very deliberate marketing choice.

Q: Where am I off to for my next few trips? 

In November, I'm off to Fez in Morocco for a break - I'll be chilling in a 5-star traditional Moroccan Riad in Fez, those are guest houses which are built in a very traditional manner, rather than flashy Western-style hotels. Morocco is so big and I've never explored that part of Morocco before so I will be doing Fez justice along with the nearby town of Meknes. Then in mid-December, I will be off to Estonia for a bit of team bonding with my colleagues there - there's a tiny ski center just outside Tallinn and I hope to be able to ski there if the snow is adequate. Then at the very end of the year, I'm traveling to Spain, Portugal and possibly Andorra with my partner, my sister, my brother in law and my nephew for a road trip. Then at the end of January or the beginning of February, I intend to go to Kiev as I've always wanted to go to Kiev in the winter when it is very cold, like -30 and experience a proper, bitterly cold winter. The winters in London kinda suck - it is not that cold, it stays above freezing and rains a lot. It is thus just wet, grey and gloomy whereas in Kiev everything will be frozen solid and covered in snow/ice, I can dance through the streets singing "let it go, let it go". And of course, I will visit Chernobyl - that's a bucket list trip for me! And beyond that, I imagine I'll want to do one more skiing trip somewhere in Europe before the end of March though I've not planned that far ahead. I will avoid all travel during the 2020 Tokyo Olympics (24 July to 9 August) as I want to stay at home and watch loads of sports on the internet. But given that I have four trips already in the diary, I've not planned any further ahead and I don't want to buy air tickets like 6 months in advance for a trip in April, just in case work requires me to change the dates - we'll cross that bridge sometime next year.

That was a quick post from me - what do you think of Drew Binsky's style of videos? I like the content of course but his style is certainly not for me. I much prefer Johnny Harris' style - but then again, not everyone is a geography graduate who spends 12 weeks a year traveling the world and speaks 20 languages. There are a lot of dumb kids out there who are now a little bit less dumb because they had watched Drew Binsky's videos and these same kids would never watch any of Johnny Harris' videos as they just won't understand his work. Which style do you prefer? And would you ever want to visit every country in the world? Do leave a message below and let me know what you think, many thanks for reading.