It's been a while!

WORDS WITH A WISEGUY 18 ...

Thanks to everyone who has recently signed up for this newsletter – we’re up to 454! If you want to read any of the previous posts, I usually put them on my website a couple weeks after I email them here. If you know anyone who might be interested, please have them visit TravelwithaWiseguy.com and sign-up!

WHERE HAS THIS BLOG BEEN?!?!

I apologize for those of you who really enjoy this written version of the YouTube channel. It’s been two months since my last email. The simple answer as to why I haven’t done these in a while is because I’ve been incredibly busy and something had to give. I try to get pretty detailed with what I write here, and it takes a while to put these together. Since my coaching duties for Wichita State Track & Field have ramped up, I’ve had basically zero free time on the weekends to dedicate to sitting down and typing this out. The reason I’m able to do this one is because we don’t have a track meet for three weeks between the indoor and outdoor season. I envision being able to resume these with more regularity in the summer when the coaching season is over. I really enjoy doing them, and I receive nice compliments from many of you each time I send a new one.

ALSO – at the top I mentioned we are up to 454 people here. I use “Mailchimp” for sign-ups and send the emails through that website. It’s free … until you get to 500 people, and then it costs more money than I feel comfortable spending. Does anyone know of a different way to send these that would continue to be free as we surpass 500 members? Worse case scenario I’ll just have people email me directly to sign-up, but it’s nice having it automated.

QUICK MEMBER PLUG – ZOOM CALL MARCH 23!

For anyone who is an Executive Producer or Producer, we will have a Zoom call Sunday, March 23 at 7pm Central. I have sent info on Patreon or the YouTube community section, depending on where you are a member. If you can’t find that, just reply to this email and I will get you the login/password info. If you want to participate you still have plenty of time to sign up!

JANUARY/FEBRUARY RECAP

The early months of the year can be a struggle for YouTube creators. Once the holiday season of December is over, the income earned from ad revenue goes down significantly in the first part of the new year. The expectation is always much lower. With that being said, January was one of the best months on this channel ever – go figure! January yielded almost 700k views and over 3,400 new subscribers. February was less than that but still very solid with 410k views and 2,000 subscribers. December and January was a terrific time of growth for the channel and what I like to pay attention to is how the channel performs after those peaks.

Here's a different way to explain look at it. Last year at this time a “bad day” would be around 3,000-5,000 views (all videos on the channel for one day). Now a bad day is around 9,000-10,000 views. In the first half of March, we’ve released 6 videos and none of the individual videos have had more than 12,000 views yet. And the worst day of total views has been just under 10,000. I’m really getting into the weeds here, but basically I feel like this shows people are watching a lot of different videos and I’m not relying on one video to go “viral” for the channel to continue to grow. It feels very grass roots and word of mouth – which is what I love. We are approaching 45,000 subscribers and I am some thankful for all of you!

BEST VIDEOS OF 2025 SO FAR

With all the being said, there have been some individual videos that have done much better than I would’ve thought. You might remember over the holidays, I did 4 weeks of exploring through KS, CO, NM, AZ, and TX, going all the way down to the border and into Mexico briefly. Here are the 5 most viewed videos from that trip so far in the new year:

New Mexico Road 9 – 90,847

5 Smallest Towns Arizona – 44,290

Terrell County, TX – 39,801

Colorado Ghost Towns – 38,614

Texas Border Roads – 23,887

I never expected so many people to watch the New Mexico video. It’s not like I have a lot of subscribers from that area, but it just goes to show you can never predict what people will enjoy watching. It’s fun to know I can sometimes venture away from my “base” in Kansas and still make videos that are “successful.”

TRACK AND FIELD

As I mentioned before, it’s been very busy with the track and field season. Most of my traveling has been on Saturdays or Sundays after a track meet, driving back to Wichita from wherever we were competing the previous day. The longest trip was from Birmingham, AL, where I spent 3 days driving through AL, TN, KY, and MO. I was able to film four videos from that quick drive and the first one is going to be released tomorrow. Once we start back up with the outdoor season I’ll be going to track meets in: Oregon (Eugene), Arkansas (Fayetteville), Texas (TCU), North Carolina (Charlotte), Texas (College Station), and hopefully Oregon again (Nationals). I have no idea what or how I will make YouTube videos, but you can look forward to something from these places. Especially for the Producer and Executive Producer members in the weekly behind-the-scenes videos.

FOR THE DIEHARDS (Spoiler alert)

I’ve not been very strategic in when I’m releasing videos lately, and I’m not even sure what videos I will release next week. But here are some that I have already filmed and should come out in the next month or so …

--Tennessee Ghost Towns and Cemeteries (coming out March 16)

--small town, USA – Caldwell, KS

--Lindsborg, KS – St Patty’s Day (filming this one today)

--Land Between the Lakes Scenic Drive (TN/KY)

--small town, USA – Ashland, KS

--Clark County, KS

--Gypsum Hills Scenic Drive

--small town, USA – Ardmore, AL/TN (border town)

--small town Downtown – Missouri Route 60

THAT’S ALL FOLKS!

Thanks for reading my ramblings!

If you enjoy my channel and want to help it grow, feel free to share videos to your friends and/or family! I also have Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter/X (Instagram is probably the best to follow). Oh yeah buy some merch! (but only if you want)

Thanks for all the support and we’ll see you down a backroad!

John Wise