Transcription
W it was a done. Is that a sign for the year? All right, all right, that's enough, that's enough. [Laughter]
2025, this is our fourth year in a row making a life update video to start out the year, and we love this tradition. It is one of my favorite videos of the year to make. I always look forward to it because I love getting to reflect back on the past year, pull all of the stats together, and then start making plans for the next year.
Thanks, I just shoved it a little further. This video is going to be broken up into four different parts. I've got my notes right here. I always like to write it out by hand; something about that just feels different than what we do all year, which is spend all of our time on our phones and computers.
The four categories are stats from last year, superlatives, then we've got behind the scenes, and then finally we're going to share our plans for next year. Usually, this is on a big calendar, and it's just the videos that we plan to film. This year's plans might be the biggest news we've ever shared on this channel.
You were planning on that. We have two massive life updates. This is going to be awesome! Stick around to the end. We're doing this!
Let's get into it with some travel stats. We need to give a big shout out to Spotify for the like RS them. I think we did our own version. Yeah, yeah, totally, definitely completely different. Yeah, 'cause there's this vertical on the phone, and ours are horizontal.
This year we flew on 28 different airlines. I think we flew 32 last year, so this is actually like we toned it down a bit.
Okay, miles flown. So does this include the flights we took separately? Yes, so this is maybe a little overinflated because like Cara flew Air France first to go to the Taylor Swift concert, and then I did an entire trip around the world on my own. All of those miles are in there.
Usually, we share the miles: 2,921 miles. This might be the most miles we've ever flown in a single year, which is pretty crazy because this year was the year we were supposed to be slowing down.
This year we visited a total of 21 countries. I don't know how many new countries we visited this year, but I do know that our total country count now comes to 110, which is a nice round number. I really like being there. I really like being at 110.
It's still really crazy to me that we went to 100 countries in four years. We've now completed four years of non-100 country journey. In four years, we've been to 10 countries, but after you visit 100 countries, it's hard not to go back.
So last year I started a new tradition where I keep count of how many beds we sleep in each year. This tradition started because I was really tired at the beginning of last year, and I thought, how many times do I have to put all my stuff in a bag, lug it somewhere, and then sleep in a new bed, and then do it all again, over and over, over and over again?
I am very happy to announce that our bed count is quite a bit lower. I wouldn't say significantly lower than it was in 2023, right? It's now 2025. This is 2024. Our 2024 bed count is 25 beds, which for the year that the goal was to slow down still sounds like a lot.
Bringing our average bed count per night, it is a leap year, so it was 125 beds over the course of 366 days. That makes our average bed 2.9 beds per—wait, 2.9 nights per bed. So nearly three nights in every bed that we slept in this year.
Our goal next year is to be above three. So while that sounds like a lot of moving, do you remember what we were at last year? 2.3 nights per bed. And I'm still proud of it. I still love that we travel this much and can't sleep in this many beds and that this is our life, but we are trying to take better care of ourselves and slow down a little more of it, you know, balance.
I feel like if you're watching this, you can probably just tell that we're in a much better spot than we were last year when we were filming this video. Like I feel like last year I was like, "Oh, we're so exhausted, I'm tired." I am a totally different person sitting here than I was at the beginning of 2024, which is nuts because in case you didn't know, the day after we filmed our 2024 Life Update, I had a massive seizure, and our lives were flipped upside down.
I thought it was going to be the worst year ever. There were a lot of lows and a lot of scary moments this year, and so to sit here and feel as happy and joyful and content and excited as I am right now feels really, really good.
Those hurting your—I feel like the hat is itching. Okay, now we're moving on to video stats. This year we posted 304 videos, which was the exact goal that we had for the year. We posted two videos in January and February and then three videos a month for the rest of the year.
Do you remember what you said when we announced our three videos per month goal last year? I'm not sure that we're going to be able to hold ourselves back for not posting more. My secret goal is 40 videos.
Our whole theme of last year was we're slowing down to create space. We don't know what we're creating space for, but we're ready to have a little bit of space for something extra, and that was doctor's appointments.
So I really am so proud that we even hit that goal. Like we could have easily just been like, "Let's just take the year off." Like it was crazy, and I feel like maybe that could come across the wrong way.
I think we kept filming videos because we wanted to film videos, not because we felt like we had to. I think that's a really important distinction to make. Like we really enjoyed ourselves this year, and I feel like we have a much healthier relationship with YouTube.
This stat I think tells a big story: our average length of video this year, oh gosh, was 41 minutes and 45 seconds. Do you remember what last year's was? 32 minutes and 25 seconds. And how did you feel about last year's? I thought that was crazy.
Have I mentioned that I'm tired? And now they're even longer! I don't know how we made videos that long. I would just like to make it known that we have never set out to post a 50, a 60, a 70, or 80. We even have 90-minute videos out there this year.
We're never like, "All right, let's make it long." We just have a feeling when we've filmed a full story, and then we edit it the way we want it to be, and sometimes it's 25 minutes, sometimes it's 90 minutes.
And I don't really know how feeling somehow has continued to back up. Now a seven-day trip that would have been three videos in the past is one video. Do you want to unpack this now or later?
You're unpacking a lot of things. We used to make part one, part two, part three videos all the time of the same trip. This year, all of a sudden, part twos and especially part threes are gone. No one cares.
People have moved on. Yeah, I feel like people used to enjoy series, and I thought of it like a TV show, you know, like this is episode one, episode two, and it's a continuation of a story instead of us moving from one country to another.
But it was very obvious based on the views that those videos received that like it's like, "Okay, we get the gist in part one, and we don't care about part two." It was an ongoing theme, and so now we don't think we're making part twos anymore.
I'd love to know your thoughts in the comments, and we can talk specifics later, but for sure we would have done a part one and two Christmas markets. Yeah, last year we did three.
In 2024, we posted 1,420 minutes worth of long-form videos—23 hours and 40 minutes of videos. We only leave in the best parts. So much effort has gone into each minute of that 24 hours. Every minute counts.
Yeah, that's crazy. Nice work! Okay, this is just not going well for me. Our most viewed video for the third year in a row—are you serious?—was our Earth RoR video. Wow!
So three years in a row we've stayed in an Earth RoR and made a video about it, and each year that video has been the most watched on our channel. So guess what's coming in 2025?
And then I'll just kind of like follow that up just like I did top three. Our train trip that we did across Canada got 3.4 million views. That was number two. Wow!
And then our Amtrak train that we did across the US got 3 million views. So also consistently, you all still love trains, and we're happy to do more of that in 2025 as well.
Least viewed videos—these are like slightly skewed because they've been posted more recently, so they haven't had as much time to get views. True, but kind of like how strong a video starts out is a pretty good indication of how it's going to do.
And if we're being completely honest, the end of this year has been like a major slump for the channel. I don't know if it's just like overall our channel is in a slump or we just posted three really bad videos in a row.
Yeah, but it feels like especially one of these should not have been a least viewed video. It was just more of an overall indication of channel health. So our least viewed video of the year was the video we made about hitting 4 million subscribers.
Yeah, I'm okay with it. Like I'm really proud of all of our videos, and I want them all to do well. We put our life and soul into every single one, so obviously I can't help but feel a little sad when they don't perform well.
I have a theory. The video we posted the week before that was an ad for our company. It was a fun ad. We had a great time. We put tons of effort into it. We rented an entire airplane Hollywood movie set, so it was a real airplane, and we thought it was the coolest spot to promote our business.
That video, as expected, you know, didn't go viral because it was us talking about our company, but we were—I feel like people thought we tried too hard maybe. So, but we were like, while we have this very expensive hourly rate that we were paying for this plane, we might as well film our second video in there, which is our 4 million celebration video.
We wanted to just go through our entire journey, give some behind the scenes, but it was in the same plane. Maybe people saw it and thought it was the same ad they had already ignored. Gotcha!
Or maybe it was just super boring, and nobody wants to hear us talk, and maybe we'll never do that again because our 100 country video, which is basically the same thing where we recap going to 100 countries, has six million views now.
Well, that was totally different. My flying around the world video—that surprised me. Yeah, I had several feelings about that one. I just feel like I wasn't there.
I totally get it. I don't know. I don't feel like I need to defend that one. I'm fine if that's the least viewed video. Bringing up the number three spot—least viewed.
I'm scared. What is it? Polar bears? No, I think it's just a sign of overall channel health. So if y'all could like leave a few extra comments or thumbs up or subscribe.
Yeah, do that! Go watch the polar bears! Get us out of the slump! The longest video that we posted this year was the Leadville 100, yeah, at 1 hour and 36 minutes.
The shortest video of the year was flying Eddie Hods, The Residence, at 22 minutes and 49 seconds. That does it for stats. Wow!
You ready for superlatives? Stats were fun. Um, I think I needed a sip of water. Okay, got a lot to say. Sorry to interrupt.
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Oh gosh, oh, that's a pretty good bed! I'm actually always got to squeeze that bed test in every video. It is time for my favorite part of the video every single year, and that is the superlatives confession.
You know, I didn't pick just one video. I think there's a couple things that we need to caveat before we start. One is that the Leadville 100 I probably could have put for every single superlative. It was a lifetime squeezed into 30 hours—everything, every emotion, anything that I could feel happened during that time.
Oh my God! So we've made a rule that we can only choose a specific video once. So like if we use it in one category, we can't use it again. Also, we both do these separately. Cara doesn't know what I've written down; I don't know what she's written down, and I think that's why I love this so much.
Yeah, okay, are you ready? No, I just need to think of which one I'm going to say first. Many months later.
Okay, scariest video to film. One, two, three—Leadville 100! Interesting! Funny that that was your answer. They both occurred in Leadville.
Let's start with yours. So at the beginning of this year, we learned how to build a survival ice cave. Some experts came in; they taught us how to do it. The next day we hiked up into the mountains, and we dug out and we built a snow cave. Insane!
So fun! One of the hardest things we did all year. Like that was physically so exhausting to build and freezing, but the scariest moment of the year in my head is we built it after one day of training, and then we get inside of it, and I get in my sleeping bag.
I stick my arms down in my sleeping bag, and I look up, and I realize how much snow is on top of us. I'm like, if we didn't build this right and this roof collapses, I'm going to be buried alive in my sleeping bag because there's no way I'm getting my arms out.
That was just like, it was the most claustrophobic feeling ever. It ended up being super sturdy. I jumped on the top of it before we left the next morning. Like it was strong; we built it well.
That was up there for me because not only was it physically terrifying and difficult, but it was also our first video we filmed in 2024 after my seizure, and it was just kind of the first time like leaving my hibernation and like, you know, starting our work again, and it just happened to be this really insane idea that we were excited to do.
I wanted to do it, but it was almost this like I had this big secret that I was carrying, and I didn't know if somehow could you tell that I was like not the same, and am I coming off differently? Like when something's wrong with your brain, you just question a lot of things.
And I don't know, I just remember being a little nervous. I hadn't had another seizure since it happened, so like I didn't think I was going to have one, but you know, fear was kind of a theme throughout the year.
And I don't know, I just remember feeling both emotionally and physically scared. So as I was scrubbing through our videos from the year, photos and stuff on my phone, I was reminded of probably the most scared I've been in my entire life.
What was scarier, swimming Alcatraz or this? This! Wow! I would not say that! While Nate was training for the Leadville 100, I thought maybe he was either in major trouble or dead on a mountain.
It was getting dark. CRI have walked over a mile now, still no sign of Nate. This is not fun. My gut is telling me to turn around. Gosh, I hate this! My watch died, which is what I was using to navigate, and my phone was dead, so I had to guess which trail to go on.
I chose the wrong one, so I was late showing up to where we were supposed to be. I didn't have any cell phone service, so even if his watch wasn't dead, there was no way I could find him. I spoke to a local who told me there was a really bad storm, and she was a little worried, and we found each other in the woods as it was getting dark.
Dehuh! Oh, I'm so TI! Where did you go? Most fun video to film this year. Okay, one, two, three—gorillas! That was a good one! That was good! That's a backup for me.
I had my Air France solo video as my backup. What? I went to Paris by myself with my best friend. We saw Taylor Swift, and then I—at first, see, Taylor Swift was, and I saw Chris Hemsworth at the airport.
I mean, I'm a little hurt that your favorite video of the year is without me, and you think it was gorillas. We got to go to both Uganda and Rwanda, and you never know what you're going to get with wildlife, and that's what I love about it.
We had such high expectations, and then I feel like those expectations were massively exceeded. There's something about staring in the eyes of a gorilla from 10 ft away. You could look at this as scary—the fact that like the Silverback Gorilla at any moment could have just decided to kill us.
That should have been my top scary moment, but something about that, it heightened the experience. It added to it, you know, knowing that like we are in their environment, and we're just hanging out, and they're making a choice to let us do that.
Yeah, it was wild—literally wild! Least fun video to film. One, two, three—that wasn't fun! Most underrated video of the year. I have to pick one of the five. One, okay, I'm just going to pick one.
Two, three—polar bears! Polar bears is probably in my top 10 videos we've ever filmed, and it was in our top three least watched videos this year. Really hoping it was just posted late in the year, and it hasn't found its audience yet.
But yeah, that was another one like gorillas. I had super high expectations going in. It felt really risky to fly to the super remote area and sit in one place for five days. We had no idea what to expect.
Like it could have been a really slow and boring four days, but it was the complete opposite, and we jumped in the ocean when it was frozen, and then we thought it couldn't get any better—the babies came! The babies! And then the Northern Lights!
Please go watch our polar bears video! What was yours? Mine was our Oman series. I'm hurt! I wouldn't say I'm hurt; I would say I am surprised. Normally, I feel like I have a pretty good internal compass of how a video is going to do.
Oman, I thought, had everything. There we were in a 1974 Unimog. Earth RoR has been our most watched video every year. This was like similar to an Earth RoR, and we were doing it in an epic location like Oman.
I thought it was going to crush from the center capital city of Muscat into the desert, alone, past camels. We saw bioluminescence on the beach. We slept on the edge of a cliff multiple times—some of the best campsites we've ever been in.
One of my favorite personal experiences the whole year. Totally agree! We made three videos 'cause we were just so amazed. We were like, "This is the coolest thing we've ever done!" We're self-driving all the way around Oman, and then, but they all just went like this.
I would say, yeah, more specifically, the most underrated out of the series is the third video because we got stuck in the desert, and we got saved by a local.
Bwin, I'm scared! It tipped! No, no, no! Go, go, go! That's one of those videos you can't plan, and one of those special moments that you just like you hope for those amazing interactions. It was like a movie!
Go watch part three of Oman if you don't want to watch part one and two. Oman was—we should still be out there! Most pinch-me moment of the year. One, two, three—B eyes!
Oh, we just swapped them! So you swapped most fun and most pinch-me moment of the year. Well, you said moment, and there is a specific moment in that gorillas video.
Give it to me! The first gorillas that we saw—it's actually one of the hardest I've laughed all year, which is another category. But our guide knew we were making a video and was being like really cool, like helping us set up shots, and she was narrating stuff for us.
And she said, "When we get there, you'll make the introduction." So you can first come for introduction. Okay, we do another intro when we see the gorillas, and we just thought it meant like meet the gorillas, basically.
We see the gorillas, and she puts me in the front, and she's like, "So who's to make the intro?" And I'm standing face to face with a mother and her cubs—or what do you call baby gorillas? She's holding a baby, and I'm like, they didn't tell us anything about like territorial moms.
Like is this even allowed? I know! And she's going, "Waiting for you to start the introduction." How do I introduce? And I thought she was talking about this noise that they described to us where you kind of make this throat-clearing noise, and it means like everything's okay, we're good.
Yeah, so I thought she was telling me to do that, and so I'm like—and this is all on camera! It's like three minutes of me being like—and then she's like, "Do the introduction!" And I said, "Hi!"
Hi! And I was three seconds away from saying, "My name is Cara," and actually introducing myself to a gorilla! Turns out she thought we like once we got to the gorillas that we would want to like set up an introduction for the video.
All of that aside, that pinch-me moment of just I'm standing here with wild gorillas—it's just I'll never forget that exact moment. Mine was Mosquito Island.
So in April, we had the opportunity to go stay on a billionaire's private island, and not only did we get to stay there, we got to bring our entire team. So everybody that works on the YouTube side of things and everybody who works for Daily Drop.
So I think we had 18—I think it was 18 people in total there. Our team was a massive pinch-me moment, and then the location that we were at on top of that and the experiences that they created for us.
Like we didn't really know what we were getting into going to that island. Like we can come to a billionaire's private island? Sure, won't ask too many questions, let's do it! But then they went over the top.
It felt like we were all a-list celebrities. This is what I imagine celebrities' vacations being like—that's how we were being treated. Honestly, my next pinch-me moment is coming out of that DJ booth.
Nobody knew I was down there. This DJ booth came out of the floor. I'm wearing a pink wig; there are lights. We're having a dance party, and then we all jump in the pool with our clothes on.
It felt like something you would see in a movie. We sang karaoke till 3:00 in the morning, and just—I almost get chills just thinking about that. That was such a pinch-me moment!
If you are a Cara and Nate or Daily Drop employee, I have no idea how we're going to top that this year. We've been trying to brainstorm, and yeah, I think we're just going to have to copy and paste.
Can I do some honorable mentions? The first night in Iceland with your parents and the Northern Lights. We just stopped on the side of the road and watched the Northern Lights for like an hour.
Oh, no way! The last day of our deepest, first highest hotel—we hadn't seen a thing in two full days. It was so cloudy, and we wake up on our last morning to clear, beautiful skies.
You could see what was it like over a hundred mountain peaks? Probably the best view of the entire year! We've added a new category this year, which is hardest.
We laughed, so not a specific video, but a moment. The first thing that popped into my mind was when you peed behind the snow cave.
Oh my gosh, Cara! You see the yellow line right there? Did you pee behind the shelter? Yeah, no, it seeped through! No way! There's a big yellow line!
Oh no! I'm sorry, you were not present for mine, but when my mom boarded our Amtrak, I got just as much joy watching that when she laid eyes on our room for the first time.
I have never seen her in this state before. She didn't know what to feel like. I think it was this nervous laugh of, "Is this really happening? A p—a chair? Can I go sit out there? You going to be okay?"
And then the marshals boarded our train because there was a one and fugitive on board. It was really serious, but somehow that turned into—I thought you were actually going to say that that was the scariest video that you filmed all year.
You know, I felt oddly not that scared. I think 'cause my mom was just so like, "Oh, this is exciting!" Like she didn't find it scary; she was more like, "Let's go see what's going on."
I really loved when we were in the Joshua Tree Airbnb that was like one big mirror building, and we bought those big floaties, and we thought it'd be so fun to watch a movie in the indoor pool, but instead we couldn't stop.
Floats just kept turning away from the TV or floating. Watch the movie! I would throw a lot of effort for those floats! Okay, oh no! Now we're both going! Final superlative—the video that we're most proud of.
And I love that we both saved this for the end. The Leadville 100! The Leadville 100! Seriously, I could have put it for like scariest to film, most fun, underrated.
It did well! I was very happy with people watched it. It should be our most viewed video on our channel. Most pinch-me moment—crossing the finish line!
Without a doubt, the proudest I've ever been to have it published on the video, both for what I accomplished, what we accomplished as a team, but then also the way that the edit came together.
I thought it was going to be impossible to like truly capture how special that was, and you all crushed it! Your determination and training and insanely good attitude—that probably is the craziest part—is just how much fun you had during the whole thing.
You never complained! And then the way that our people—our people—came together. It was so much more than just like a run. I did not realize like the team effort that goes into it, like what a special bond that would create, how much everybody else would have to sacrifice to make it happen.
And so many people came out with signs, signs and gifts. I'm wearing earrings from a girl who just found me, and she made these earrings. We wear our bracelets from another.
Like it was just—also, I'm going to go ahead, I'm going to go and do this. No, it's January 1st. I've been wearing this bracelet since the Leadville 100, and it's time to pick a new accomplishment for the year.
No, I'll wear it! I think we go on and on about the Leadville 100, but there's 96 minutes where you can go watch it if you missed it.
Okay, so I have a few more. I wrote my most challenging moment of the year. If we just remove the whole epilepsy thing, the four-day march—holy cow!
If people weren't weird on the internet, we would show you Cara's foot right now, but she is still—no, no, no, don't do that! She is still—follow me on Instagram—missing a toenail!
You know, I thought it'd be hard, but it wrecked me. I may or may not have cried myself to sleep last night. I think you might have pushed through more pain to finish that walk than I did to finish the Leadville 100.
There's no way! Let me tell you why. I did it in 29 hours. We walked for 12 hours every single day, so we walked for 48 hours, and you were in a lot of pain going into day two.
Like you almost quit before day two even started. This might be the worst pain I've ever experienced. So you did 36 hours of pain, and my pain didn't even start until hour 10, so I did like 19 hours of pain.
Yeah, and you did like 36. It was awful! At the same time, I am so glad that I did it. One of the coolest events that exist.
It's definitely the absolute best way to experience the Netherlands. It's a weird thing making a movie about doing something hard when you're really, really, really struggling to push yourself because so much of the Leadville 100 and the four-day march is mental.
We're trying to capture the reality of what we're experiencing, but at the same time, I can't just sit there all day every day talking about how much pain I'm in and how much I want to quit because that would mess with my head.
So I was putting on a face—not to be fake, but like because that was the only way I could keep going. I labeled this one the most fun spur-of-the-moment adventure—flying to Tunisia for you to run a marathon with Russ.
That was so much fun and so unexpected! That video, I bet some people skipped because they thought, "I don't want to watch a running video." It was so much more than that!
You being in that video made it so good because the video is almost more of like you supporting the race, and then all of a sudden you end up with like a car full of people that you've just like randomly picked up, and then y'all are working as like a team to film me.
I struggled so hard to finish that marathon, and then I ran 100 miles later that year. That actually kind of like gave me a little bit of a kick in the butt, and I was like, "Wow, I've really like not stayed on top of it," and that was like really motivating for me to get back in good running shape.
So you have Russ to thank for doing the Leadville 100! Do you have a favorite food or culinary experience from the year? I had not thought about this at all.
You want to know the first thing that popped into my head? Yes! All of the hummus that we ate in the Middle East, like all during our Oman trip. But I have a feeling you have a better answer.
I do! Okay, everything that Chef Mack made! Oh my God! In the British Virgin Islands! Here she goes again! Here we go again!
Because there was a joke in that video that she was in love with him, and still am! Still thinking about Chef! It was like having my own personal professional chef who was cooking to my food preferences.
Like he took down our food preferences and cooked exactly what we wanted. All right, we're moving on! Woo, we're moving on!
Oh gosh, this hat! Take it off! No, I like it! I feel like we have been really long-winded. Nah, okay, moving on to the behind-the-scenes category.
One, I would just like to say thank you for watching the videos that we film with my parents. I would say that's been a really special part of this year for me is getting to do more travel with my parents.
They came to Leadville, we did Iceland together, and then we just did the Christmas Market Cruise. They're both fully retired now, but are also still like young enough to do cool things and have fun in their travel YOLO era.
My parents, especially my mom, love to travel, so that's been really special. Thanks for letting us introduce some new characters to the video! It's a fun behind-the-scenes emotion.
You know me—emotional guy! That's right! Also, this year we hit 1 million followers on Instagram! Woohoo!
But the fun part about that was we had our first Instagram reel hit 100 million views! Like this is out of nowhere! Most viral thing we've ever posted! It was the one of the underwater hotel in the Maldives.
It basically took us eight years to get to 700,000, and then right after we posted the Maldives video, we posted the Canadian train video that also went viral and got 57 million views.
And between those two videos, we got 250,000 followers basically over the course of like two weeks, which has never happened. We've never had that big of a jump.
Okay, a few more behind-the-scenes things that didn't make the YouTube videos that I just feel like are worth noting. We spilled the beans on a few of these on our podcast with AMB.
We went on a proper spring break to Cancun in our 30s with our besties, and it was so fun because none of us pulled out the camera a single time. It was very spur of the moment.
We all just ended up at an all-inclusive in Mexico together, and it was so life-giving, and that was a direct result of stepping back our posting this year.
Like we never could have made that work if we were still trying to post every single week. Shortly after, Nate and I crashed a wedding in Las Vegas with ANC.
We crashed not one but two weddings this year! Then this summer we went to one of our favorite places in the whole world—a little town in Italy where our friends Bob and Gina live.
We hosted a tour there in 2018, and it holds such a special place in our hearts. We had the coolest full circle moment. Someone who came on the tour, Kevin, we love you, decided to have his wedding where the tour was.
We were invited the year before, but we weren't sure if we were going to make it, and we just happened to be in Italy, and we just showed up! One of my favorite surprises of my life!
I love surprises! And to just show up and see the shock on their faces was the best! We went to Dollywood with our nieces. Once again, these are all things that we couldn't have done if we were still posting every single week, so they just felt extra special.
Obviously, a huge theme of 2024 for me was navigating life with epilepsy. This was obviously unexpected, and we didn't know how the year was going to go, but like I said earlier, it ended up being one of the best years we've ever had for so many reasons.
But that doesn't mean it wasn't a roller coaster. When I really zoom out and look at this year, I'm so grateful for 2024 for so many reasons. I have so much to be thankful for, but it doesn't mean it doesn't take some work to feel this way.
Like we did not let this define our life this year, and I'm really proud of that. I'm proud of you, proud of us. I think we all have you to thank for all the videos that went up on the channel this year.
Why? Because had you have said, "I just don't want to do YouTube right now, and I just want to stop and deal with this epilepsy stuff," I would have been fine with that, and we just wouldn't have posted on YouTube all year.
I don't know if this is healthy, but in a way, continuing life as usual felt really good and better than just sitting around and thinking about it. There wasn't like one moment where we made the decision like, "We're going to post 34 videos this year."
Still, it was like, right, we took it one week at a time. Exactly! And so I'm glad to see that we ended up here at the end of the year.
I have one last behind-the-scenes update, and that just has to do with Daily Drop. I think two big updates here. First, our big goal last year was for Daily Drop to hit 1 million subscribers, and we did that at the very end of last year.
We had just crossed the million subscriber mark. This year we took a look at those million people and at like the open rate of the newsletter, and the open rate had dropped to like 40%, which is actually like in the email world is still decent, but it had dropped quite a bit as we tried to like add more people to the list quickly.
So this year we had a focus on quality over quantity. So the list has still grown; it's now at 1.3 million, but we've taken all the people that weren't reading it, unsubscribed them from the newsletter, and then we brought in way more good people.
So now we have 1.3 million people on the list with a 60% open rate, which is like industry standards. That's amazing! And for those of you who didn't watch that airplane video update from a couple months ago, we have created a whole new side of Daily Drop called Daily Drop Pro, which are all of these tools that are super awesome that help you book hotels and flights with points.
We are so proud of it! Daily Drop is still our free travel newsletter that you can sign up for anytime, and it teaches you all of these things, but Daily Drop Pro, it's like the paid upgrade that will pay for itself 10 times over if you actually use it.
And that's one of the big goals for next year is just to make that way better. We're very, very, very excited! This is just the beginning!
Moving on to plans for next year. This section we need to like resettle. Should we get a snack? This is big! Yeah, okay, can I get one snack?
Oh, you were being serious? Yeah, okay, just real quick! Okay, I don't know if I'm more nervous or excited for this. Oh, I'm so excited!
This is usually the part of the video where we have a massive calendar, and we put a bunch of Post-it notes on it. Unfortunately, we were not able to get a calendar in time to film this video this year.
Arrive in time! Sorry! We're going to make it worth your time! Last year we went from posting every week to posting three videos a month. This year we're going to continue the trend of slightly cutting back—just slightly.
We will be posting new videos every other week. I think it sounds like a bigger cut back than it actually is because this year we posted 34 videos. A video every other week is 26 videos, so eight less videos next year while we continue to try to find a little better balance.
Also, I think when we share the two other life updates with you at the end and you see what else is going on behind the scenes, you'll understand why we're cutting back a little bit more.
But first, let's go through our plans for the year. Some of this is new news to me! I can't wait to hear what we're doing next year! This is kind of my role in the relationship. I come up with a lot of the ideas for the adventures.
I pitch them to Cara, and most of the time she goes along with them. So I basically have one fun big thing for each month. So we've already filmed some other videos that will be posted this one in January and then a couple more in January and February.
So we're taking January and February off like we did last year—sitting still in one place. That was a really strong reset for the beginning of the year. We love that, and we're going to do it again.
So starting in March, in the town of Leadville, there's this thing called ski-joring. You basically water ski behind a horse, but it's so skis. Does that paint the right picture?
And there are jumps you go over, ramps, you collect rings like you're playing a video game. It's high speed; it is absolutely terrifying! I never thought I would do this, but me and Rick and Dusty have been chatting, and I'm easily Ted into things.
Wish him luck! You're not going to do it? No? You sure? Positive? You're such a good skier!
No, April—Marathon des Sables! Oh yeah, totally! So I knew about that one! So there's going to be a lot of running this year, assuming I can stay healthy. My knee did give me a lot of problems after the 100, so I think I need more proper training this year.
It's kind of hard actually to do the Leadville 100 because it's like, what am I going to do to top that? Yeah, I mean this one is so different. Marathon des Sables is basically six marathons in six days in the Sahara Desert.
I get more scared about this when I talk about it out loud. May—tone it down a little bit! We really love renting vehicles in other countries, and I feel like the top of our bucket list for renting a vehicle and doing something is doing a self-drive safari, and specifically I think Botswana is going to be the perfect destination to do that.
June, I'm going to keep a secret because this is a video I've never seen anybody else make. Oh, why? Oh, okay! So video Cara's super excited to film in June, and it's improved! That's all I'm going to tell you!
In July, I feel like this year we really fell in love with wildlife. Oh yeah! So I think July is the best time to see grizzlies in Alaska or Canada. We've never been to Alaska, and I've never seen a grizzly!
I want to do another 100-mile race in September. UTMB is at the top of my list because I think it's the biggest, probably the most prestigious 100-mile race in the world. It happens in Europe, goes through multiple countries.
I'm not sure that I'm going to be able to get into that this year, but I'll come up with something fun. November potentially could be in Nepal. Oh, I skipped October! I skipped my favorite month of the entire year!
The big thing that I want to work up to this year—like if I had to put one thing on my goals, I was going to say a poster or something—but the Moab 240! I did the Leadville 100, which was 100 miles. The Moab 240 is 240 miles!
Leadville was a 30-hour cut-off; the Moab 240 is a 117-hour cut-off! So like I will take short naps! Do I get to nap? Sure, of course! When you shouldn't have!
And then December, I feel like the one like massive iconic thing that we haven't ticked off the bucket list yet is the South Pole. We've been to all the continents; we've been to the North Pole; we haven't been to the South Pole.
It's time! I don't really have a plan for how we say this. All right, I'll see if I can start off, try to lead into it. Ready?
I feel like for the past nine years, I think we really prided ourselves on being full-time travelers, but I think that ends in 2025. While we are in Colorado, January and February, we have all intentions of buying a house in Colorado to make our home base.
Who are we? I really wanted to make it to year 10 of being homeless. Like that was a nice round number for me, but it's just the right time in our life.
We know that this is not that crazy of an update, but for us, it feels extremely crazy. I do want to say, though, this is still a travel channel. We are not buying and renovating a cabin in the woods.
We will never do that, and we do not have intentions of filming content in or about the house. The question is, that was a big update. Do you think that we can top that update?
Gosh, is this too much? I'm just kidding! Cara is not! But if all goes as planned, then she will be! We think we're in towards the end of the year, we will start trying to have a kid.
I don't think we will have a child by the end of this year. Also, we talked to several close friends and family members over the holidays, and they were like, "Do not share this on the internet."
But here's my thinking: if things don't go as planned, like if it's hard to have kids, I think we'll openly share that. And we've been extremely open with our feelings for the last several years, like since the beginning of whether or not we want to have kids, and it's been a roller coaster.
And you know, maybe the roller coaster continues, or maybe everything goes as planned. I would say don't start checking in or worrying about us with kids until after our life update video next year, 'cause the plan is to not start trying to have kids until the end of the year.
For the last eight years, I feel like we've been moving so quickly that we couldn't think about anything else, which we absolutely loved. That season had a time and place; it was awesome.
This year, slowing down a bit, being forced to slow down, I feel like finally just gave us the time to think about it. I thought when we shared this news, if we ever did, that I would feel like disappointed, like a little bit like to share it.
I feel like I have really prided myself on living a very abnormal life, yeah, and these two things are very normal things. Not saying they're bad; they're just normal. It's like what most people do, and I've loved that we've lived a life that most people haven't up until now.
But I know that it's the right time because I feel excited about it, and I didn't think I would ever get to that point. Like I thought we'd probably do it; I thought I would do it more. It would be more like we're settling begrudgingly.
Yes! Wow, there you go! It's out there! Do we have anything else? That's it! Can't stop that!
I have created a playlist of all the videos we posted in 2024. It's going to be linked below if there's anything that we talked about that you missed that you want to catch up on. It will be there for you!
If you have like an idea or like if you know something that lives up to like polar bears or gorillas or something like that that's just like not on my radar, leave it in the comments!
In a way, it feels like this is kind of like our last year of freedom, so like send me the big ideas! I mean, I know life doesn't stop when you have kids, but also like it will be different.
Let's view this year as like the least kid-friendly things that we could do, or you know what? Sign up for the Sunday summary! That'll be linked below. That's our email newsletter that we send out occasionally, and just respond to one of those emails 'cause I do read all the responses to those emails.
Wow! I feel like we're just going into 2025 so much healthier and better than we were going into 2024. I feel so much better! I look back at that video, and I'm like sad for that.
Well, I was like ending on a positive note! No, it is positive! Love you! Love you! I love you! Hope you're excited to follow along in 2025! Thanks for watching! Thanks for being here! Let us know your thoughts and emotions in the comments!
Nice work! That was fun! Now, once again, the third time this year to pick up confetti! I was going to say, should I post my toe update right now on Instagram?
No, don't post your toe! Wait, wait, wait! I've got to back up! [Applause]
I think you look great in red glasses, by the way! I think you need a pair of red glasses! Well, I have mine; I just need to tighten it because my nephew tried to eat it on New Year's Eve!
So when I start crying, should I wipe my tears underneath the frame, or it's going to be a fun video, not an emotional video? This is the first life update that I wasn't wearing all black with you! I'm wearing all white!
Wow! It's like a sign! My mom got me this! Freshly going into the New Year! Yes! I know for sure that this is the exact same shirt that I wore last year!
For sure! At the beginning of this video, we talked about how our videos are getting longer, and it will be interesting to look at our life update videos and see if they progressively got longer as well.
We just have more to say these days! I think that's what happens when you age as well!