Wolters World: The Secret to Their YouTube Success

If you’re an aspiring YouTuber or travel vlogger this is the episode for you! We’re joined by Jocelyn and Mark from Wolters World. One of the biggest names in travel on YouTube, they share secrets on how they built their channel from nothing to a million subs…you’re not gonna want to miss this!

Listen to new episodes of Travel with Jack and Kitty every day! Subscribe on your favorite podcast app.

Show Notes: Links to Stuff We Talk About

Wolters World on YouTube
If you’re looking for honest travel advice on YouTube, this is the channel for you! Mark and Jocelyn know their stuff!

Wolters World – Website
Mark and Jocelyn’s website is a helpful resources for travelers.

Jack and Kitty’s old PBS Kids show
A clip from our Nashville PBS Kids show, described by one reviewer as “Barney meets the Black Eyed Peas!”

Listen on YouTube

Show Transcription: Wolters World – The Secret to Their YouTube Success

Segment: Intro to Episode

Kitty: Have you ever gone on YouTube and typed in something related to travel? Chances are you’ve seen today’s guests in the search results. They are everywhere!

Jack: Yes, they are pretty much the biggest names in travel on YouTube. And no, we’re definitely not talking about Jack and Kitty.

Kitty: [Laughs] No, we’re talking about Mark and Jocelyn from the amazing YouTube channel Wolter’s World. Today, as part of our Special Guest Sundays series, Jack sits down with Wolters World to chat about finding success on YouTube.

Jack: If you’re an aspiring YouTuber, stay tuned because Jocelyn and Mark are about to share secrets on how they built their channel from nothing to a million subs…you’re not gonna want to miss this!

Segment: Intro to Hosts and Show

[Musical Theme with fade out]

Jack: Hi, I’m Jack

Kitty: and I’m Kitty

Jack: and we’re

Together: Jack and Kitty!

Kitty: And this is Travel with Jack and Kitty – where we highlight the best of the midwest.

Jack: We explore life in the heartland of America…with plenty of laughs and uff-da’s along the way.

Kitty: So join us as we give you a little slice of Minnesota nice, on today’s episode of Travel with Jack and Kitty!

Segment: Jack’s Intro to Wolters World

Kitty: I’m so excited to listen to your interview with Mark and Jocelyn, they are some of our favorite YouTubers.

Jack: Yup, and the neat thing about meeting them was that they are nice as nice can be.

Kitty: Well, maybe it’s because they’re from the Midwest.

Jack: [Chuckles] Probably. I was just relieved by how warm and friendly they were. 

Kitty: That’s awesome. Guys, remember, Jack and I have a daily podcast – Monday through Saturday, episodes are pretty short, usually about ten minutes.

Jack: Yup, we talk about the culture, history, places and faces of folks here in the Midwest.

Kitty: But on Sundays, we do a bit longer episodes where we invite guests to swing by the old studio to chat.

Jack: We thought it’d be helpful to invite creative folks who’ve found success in unique ways on to the show. And boy, oh boy, Wolters World sure fits the bill there!

Kitty: [Laughs] Absolutely. Well, let’s not keep our listeners waiting any longer. Take it away, Jack!

Jack: Well friends, I’m super excited because we are about to chat with one of the biggest names in travel on YouTube. Mark & Jocelyn run Wolters World and they are basically the Mr. Beast of travel. No, they are not hosting any ridiculous challenges or giving money away – although if they wanted to send me their YouTube Silver Play Button I would gladly pretend it’s my own.

No, when I say they are the Mr. Beast of travel, what I mean is that – like Mr. Beast – they are ubiquitous to the YouTube platform. You can not go on YouTube and search anything travel related without seeing Wolters World. 

As a baby YouTuber myself, it’s very inspiring. What I love about Mark & Jocelyn is that they give viewers helpful, practical, honest travel advice. There’s no long-drawn out intros to obnoxious rock music with slow motion footage of Jocelyn – or Mark for that matter – in a bikini, there’s no pretentious hipster vibe, there’s no epic drone footage. There’s just useful information told in a fun and honest way, and I love that. 

You know sometimes on the podcast I have the honor of interviewing people I am a true, true fan of. And believe me, I am a card carrying fan club member of Wolters World, so it gives me great pleasure to say…welcome to the show Jocelyn and Mark!

Segment: Interview with Wolters World

Mark: Thank you, Jack. That is the nicest intro I’ve ever heard.

Jack: It’s also the longest. I really appreciate you guys being here and I heard you’re about two subscribers away to that sweet sweet YouTube gold play button.

Mark: I know we’re almost there. I can almost taste it.

Jocelyn: I can taste it.

Of course it’s the end of the summer so the subscribers are going down because people aren’t traveling there. It’s like we’re almost there. Wait, wait. It’s like it’s like when you see the race the person falls right at the end. And they have like drag themselves.

Jocelyn: We’re tripping over our shoelaces.

Mark: Right now we’re going to the point where we have to drag ourselves kicking and screaming to that. Those last few.

Jack: I mean, I’m sure, but yeah, it’ll happen. I guarantee by the time this airs, you guys will be over the finish line and you’ll be there.

Mark: Thanks, Jack. I appreciate it, my friend.

Jack: What’s after gold? Is there one higher than gold? Is it God status or what happens?

Mark: So there’s the diamond play button, which is 10 million subscribers, which I would love to see that. Maybe Liam will get there if he takes this over. And then after that, if you get 100 million, then it’s the Ruby play button.

Jack: Oh my gosh.

Mark: I’ll be happy with Gold and then we’ll start focusing on some of the other channels and build them up, I think.

Jack: Yeah. Well, I want to talk about your other channels because I’m curious about that, but I don’t want to jump too far ahead. I mean, I touched on it in the introduction, but you guys, you do have a very distinct style and you always know immediately that you’re watching a Wolters World video because it’s so unique. Why do you, why are you guys, why do you shy away from such glossy production? Epic drones and all these crazy things. You guys are just like holding up a phone, talking to the camera. I mean, is that the secret sauce? Did we stumble upon it already? And is the interview over or what?

Mark: Honestly, that’s it.

Jocelyn: That’s it. Yeah. It’s honesty.

“Honestly, it was like, look, I want people to see what it’s like if you’re an actual traveler.”

Wolters World

Mark: Cause one of the things when I really start out occasionally you’ll see, you’ll see some drone footage occasionally nowadays, cause I do have editors that help me edit videos and some, Hey, if you see some nice stock footage, you can put that in, but most of the time, most of it is 100% stuff that we filmed, except if it’s a drone shot, then we’ll throw that in. But honestly, it was like, look, I want people to see what it’s like if you’re an actual traveler. That’s the thing, it’s not honest when people are doing their, look, I’m on the Great Wall of China all by myself. You’re never…

Jocelyn: That doesn’t happen.

Mark: It doesn’t happen. So we’re like, let’s use our actual footage, and we do that. And then the reason why I think we have the style we have is because I wanna go see the sites. You wanna go see the sites. So it’s kind of like, we literally walk around and the B-roll is…

Jocelyn: Just taking you with us.

Mark: Yeah, and it’s just like, hold on. You’ll notice there’s a lot of them walking away from me because it’s like, oh, this is a good shot. And I’ll be filming, you know, count to eight seconds to get my eight seconds of shot. And then I got to run and catch up to them, you know? Because it’s like, look, I want to actually see the things, not just make it, I mean, I don’t want to annoy other people when we’re traveling, like, oh, look at that camera crew. Look at all this. It’s just some dude talking, you know? When I film, it’s just like, you know, we have a tripod and the camera and me.

Jocelyn: Let’s be honest, I don’t want to travel with, you know, a team of people. Like, these are our trips. This is what we’re really doing and it’s not staged and we don’t have lighting people and you know, I mean, that could be fun maybe if somebody wanted to sponsor that.

Mark: Yes, maybe a makeup person making me look younger, I don’t know.

Jocelyn: But it’s just us doing our thing. And I think that everybody craves a little more honesty in the world. Yeah. So we’re giving it.

“I think that everybody craves a little more honesty in the world. So we’re giving it. We want to make sure we keep it honest and real. And that’s how it kind of comes out.”

Wolters World

Mark: And that’s one of the things that I’ve been taught. I mean, there’s a lot of us in the videos, there’s lots of b-rolls, there’s a lot of us too. And I think part of that, I think going forward, it will be more of a, I mean, there’s some of the B roll and stuff, but I want to make sure we’re in it because now there’s all this AI being created. There’s a lot of really bad AI travel advice stuff coming out on Tik Tok, Instagram, YouTube. I mean, it’s really frustrating. Like even like space channels too. There’s so much AI stuff that it’s like, they’re all saying the same thing. And it doesn’t actually have any insights. It’s just like, it’s scraped the internet to come up with stuff. So we want to make sure we keep it honest and real. And that’s how it kind of comes out. 

Jack: Well, I think people are really, I mean, they’re hungry for not overproduced content. I think there’s this, everything is so glossy and fast and crazy. I mean, I was just talking with another blogger earlier today and we were talking about how, can you attribute, she’s really successful only writing about Iowa. And can you attribute the attraction of Iowa? And a lot of her readers are from New York and LA. Is that because everybody looks at Iowa as this like kind of homespunny, quaint, fun kind of, it’s so anti-TikTok, anti Instagram. Not every influencer is racing to Iowa to get that cool pose. And it almost…

Jocelyn: I mean, there’s so many poses in front of the corn.

Mark: Hey, I was gonna say you got the corn palace, you got the corn and the pieces, yes.

Jack: Right. Well, tell me how you guys, how do you produce your videos? Is there is no crew? There is no, what are you filming on? What are you using to record audio? Folks are wanting to get into travel vlogging. 

“If you’re watching this on your phone, you already have everything you need to start your own YouTube channel. And I mean, some of our videos, it literally is just me holding my phone.”

Wolters World

Mark: So this is one thing you already have everything. If you’re watching this on your phone, you already have everything you need to start your own YouTube channel. And I mean, some of our videos, it literally is just me holding my phone. But a lot of once when you see me standing, you see me saying I’m using both hands, there’s not a phone. I literally have my tripod, my Manfrotto tripod, the fits in my backpack with a Sony Alpha 7000 camera. On top, I have a little microphone boom mic on there. Not the big, huge one, just a little one. It goes on top and I just talk to the camera right there. 

Jocelyn: And sometimes I get to be the tripod.

Mark: Yeah, yeah, but I try not to do that because she like holds it for like 30 seconds. She’s like, oh my God, it fits in my pocket.

Jocelyn: It’s not about heavy, it’s about being like this for like. Yeah. It’s never 30 seconds. It’s always longer.

Mark: It is 35 seconds.

Jocelyn: And when he’s my tripod, I can’t stand it because I have to look at his face and he’ll like wince when I say things or he’ll be like, oh, I’m not that, you know.

Mark: I do much better not making any faces anymore. I know it’s photo, or I’ll just hold the camera because I know when I’m just, I’ll hold the camera and I’ll just look away. I’m like, I’m not looking, I’m not looking.

Jocelyn: Like sometimes he gives me the giggles and then we have to cut all that out. 

Mark: But that’s honestly, there’s literally most of the time it’s just when it’s us talking, it’s just a tripod and a camera.

Jack: How are you keeping track of all your footage? Do you upload it to, I mean, you say you have an editor or is your hard drive just a disaster? What’s that process like? 

Mark:  Actually, I have a notebook that I write all of my scripts in.

Jocelyn: Paper!

Mark: Like I have dozens of, it’s just like a small notebook.

Jack: This is my planner. So you’re in good company.

Mark: Yeah! So I have that and I write all my scripts in there. And then, you know, I’ll, I have a little clip. I’ll clip that onto the top of the tripod. So it’s like cameras here, my notebook, like school notebook is here, clipped on, and that’s my kind of like, gives me the bullet points. What I want to talk about. And I write on there and that’s where I write all my scripts too. So I go through a whole book and it’s like, okay, all these videos are here. And when I send off my stuff to the editor…when I keep track of it in the back of the book, there’s a list, what did I film today? And so it’d be like the “Don’ts of Puerto Rico”, the “Don’ts of San Juan”, “10 Facts of San Juan” and then, oh, here’s an add-on I filmed with my phone for this. And it’s literally just notes in my phone and notes in the back of the book. And then when it comes time to send to the editors, I’ll go find the stuff, upload it, say here’s the file, put this in.

Jack: Same with you, Jocelyn?

Mark: I send them all the text to put in and stuff.

Jack: Okay, same with you, Jocelyn. I mean, are you doing similar work? Oh, I know you do together and solo.

Jocelyn: I do like a thousand times less than Mark but I have a little notebook where I also just write down everything I plan on doing. Like if it’s the “Don’ts of Travel with Kids” and I’m gonna do like a whole bunch of takes, like a bunch of shorts. I just write them all down and then I write the date next to them when I film them. So it’s all kind of in one place. 

Mark: Yeah, and this is anybody who wants to start one. You wanna keep track of all those things. Having track of your B-roll and then when I take everything off my phone or off my SD cards, I put it in by year and then within the year folders, I’ll have like the trip. So it’ll be like, 01, England, January, 02, Dominican Republic, and it’ll be like Sony and phone just so it’s easier for me to go back and find stuff.

Jack: Gotcha. You guys run several channels. I’m curious, because you said when I’m filming shorts, so clearly you are intentionally creating, you’re not just kind of throwing up verticals and cutting them down to shorts, but you’re running several channels. I think there’s six, right? You have the main Wolters World channel, which is going to have a million subs by the time this question is over. So you have Wolters World, you have Professor Wolters, you have Wolters World Eats, you have Wolters World Shorts, Destination Relaxation, and your son Liam has his own channel. So you guys are crazy. You’re non-stop busy at all times, I imagine. But tell me why six branded channels, why not one master one? And what was the thinking behind that? And do you, like, do you ever accidentally upload a short to an Eats or an Eats to a whatever? Who’s doing the actual like uploads of all that? And how do you keep track of all that?

Mark: So I do all the uploading, that’s all me.

Jack: Oh my gosh.

Mark: I do all those things. Basically what it is, originally when we first started, everything was on Wolters World. And then I realized that I can’t put, cause I’m a professor in my day job. And so I just was putting my, cause I was like back in the day, they were like, oh, you only have one channel. Why would I have more? And so I was putting like my business classes on Wolters World on YouTube as well. And then I don’t know about 2017, 2018, I’m like, look, I should just put all this on a designated channel so that my students can find that. And then people don’t get confused. Cause at that time the Wolters World travel stuff was taking off and I didn’t want to throw off people. So I started the professor one that was for the students. So that’s all like, if you want to learn about marketing, if you want to learn how to do YouTube, that goes on there. And then the next one was it started off as Simply Jocelyn is going to be Jocelyn’s channel. And that’s where she had all the drinks and everything. And then we started putting the sort of traveling with our food videos. And we saw that our food videos, our main channel weren’t doing as well anymore. Like they used to really well. But then it was like it was like YouTube only would show our…

Jocelyn: The travel stuff.

Mark: …the travel stuff in Europe and nothing else. So it’s like, well, they’re not going to do that well here, let’s go make a new channel that’s just about food. And so and then we started moving my food videos on her channel. That turned into Wolters World Eats.

Jocelyn: And that I was really pleased about, I don’t like my name being on the channel. It made me uncomfortable. So that worked out really well for me. Plus like the food thing, it’s, I admire anyone who can successfully like have a food channel where they cook because it is incredibly hard. Like there are no take backs, you know? You’ve gotta be doing it right. And the timing, like with a camera, try and do it by yourself. You’re like running around like Mad Hatter, burning things, you know?

Mark: Yeah. So there’s that one. And then the Liam’s channel, cause Liam, he’s a kid, he wanted to start his own, have his own videos. So we do those and he makes one every few months he’ll put one together. But then he had one, he did a couple when we were in Italy. And he’s like, I want this one on the main channel. It’s like what kids should know for Italy, which is actually a really good video. I like, I was holding my phone when he was doing it. I’m like, whoa, this is really good, man. You should do this.

Jack: Yeah, it’s great.

Mark: Well, he’s like, nah. So we put that on my channel, then he had like some words in Italian, so that’s on his. And then the shorts channel, because I started to put the vertical videos on Wolters World and they did nothing. And then we had people that were complaining about it. And it got to the point I was like, YouTube is literally like, you have to do this. You have to do the shorts. You know, and I said, all right, we got to do the shorts. But then it was like, it wasn’t really working with the main channel. So I was like, you know what, let’s put it on…

Jocelyn: It’s own channel.

Mark: …let’s put its own channel. So we made its own channel and the, it’s probably going to evolve, but right now, a lot of it is, you know, we’ll have our old videos that’ll get chopped up and put the text over. And so, you know, instead of having all “10 Don’ts of Spain”, in one video, you get it in increments chopped up because that’s how people kind of find new channels and find new things. And once I started seeing all the really bad travel, Instagram posts, really bad.

Jocelyn: TikToks.

“I mean, people are going to get hurt. People are going to get like banned from airplanes. People are going to get in trouble. I mean, arrested because these people gave this horrible advice for travel.”

Wolters World

Mark: Yeah, I mean, people are going to get hurt. People are going to get like banned from airplanes. People are going to get in trouble. I mean, arrested because these people gave this horrible advice for travel. I’m like, okay, no. And so I have people that are just chopping up the videos and then we just putting those out.

Jocelyn: But we do a lot of shorts intentionally.

Jack: Yeah.

Jocelyn: Like why you should travel with your kids. I spent, I don’t know, 20 minutes in Vicenza, Italy, just with my phone doing shorts for, you know, one by one.

Mark: Yeah. And you’ll see, because I think, because right now, September, October, November are our dead months. Like no one’s traveling, no one’s thinking about traveling. So like once the first year come, you’ll literally see every day, there’ll be a designated vertical video that we filmed that was specific for that. Plus there’ll be a video, like one of the cut up videos, you know, cut up. So you’ll have, you know, two shorts, with like a good advice video, and then part of the, one of the other videos to kind of build it up.

Jack: Wow.

Mark: Cause you know, I’ve talked to YouTube and they’re like, hey, you can do that too, you can put that on your main channel too, but it’s also working here.

Jack: Wow. So you actually got a directive like from YouTube, make shorts. 

Mark: Yeah, they were, I mean, it wasn’t just for me. I mean, they were really pushing for everybody. Yeah. You gotta do shorts, you know, and they’ve never really done much for us. I mean, we’ve done way better on TikTok with our shorts than anywhere else, well we did. And then TikTok monetized us and all of a sudden we went from like 50,000 views a video to like 500. I’m like, huh.

Jack: Yeah, how does that work? That’s interesting. What a coincidence!

Mark: Yeah, so I’m like, yeah, all that for nine cents. Hmm, okay.

Jack: Are you guys, I mean, are you coming up with a content calendar months in advance? Are you just doing what feels fun?

Jocelyn: A lot of that’s just dictated by a travel schedule, right? For like what we’re filming and when and where. And then, you know, placing it out on the calendar is a whole separate beast.

Mark: Because sometimes like we were in Bethlehem in Israel. And so we actually filmed a “Don’ts of Bethlehem” video. But I’m like, well, this should become out of Christmas because it’s Bethlehem. You know, we’re at the Church of Nativity. So we did it as a, you know, Merry Christmas video. But it won’t come out to December, even though we filmed in July. So sometimes we’ll think of those things like ahead of time

Jocelyn: And all year long, we have this video that someday is gonna go viral. We do a parody of the “12 Days of Christmas”. And the first one we did, I didn’t really understand what he wanted. And as we got going through the year, we filmed that throughout the year, wherever we are with friends, family, whether we’re traveling apart or together, or like I did one yesterday, no, the day before yesterday with a bunch of friends in Savannah, just, you know to do that. So that one is one that takes an insane amount of planning and keeping track and it’s a headache.

Mark: That one I edit myself and it’s fun.

Jocelyn: It’s your favorite video. It’s my favorite video.

Mark: But it’s such a, it does like nothing. It does nothing.

Jocelyn: Nobody watches it.

Mark: But the thing is like, it’s, when I think back to all these videos, I see people doing things around the world. I’m like, it’s literally like every part of the song is in a different place. So it’s like seventy-two different destinations within the video. And so we’ll have some fun, we’ll do fun stuff with it. So for me, it’s now we send out.

Jocelyn: It’s our photo album of the 21st century.

Mark: Yeah, it’s our, it’s our, cause we’re doing, this will be the ninth year in a row we’ve done it. And it’s all we put out, like it’s on the thing I put on the Christmas card now, like, Hey, go watch our video.

Jocelyn: This is what we did all year.

Jack: Yeah, that’s awesome. Kitty and I watched your, it’s on your website. I think it’s the “Shocks” or “What You’ll Love and Hate About Wolters World”. I think it was like, nine years ago, a video that you made. And we were like, Oh my God, okay, so he’s here. And now she’s here. And now they’re there. And it’s like, it’s not just, I mean, there was a lot, it’s like we talked about at the beginning. I mean, it, it at first glance, I think a viewer relates to it because it’s like, oh, it’s like a guy and his camera and his wife is standing there and this is great. But actually it was very thought out. Like you guys did really think through all the locations and make sure that, I mean, it’s a, I think, I feel like there’s a lot more to your secret sauce. I think you guys are the master chefs that you’re not letting on. That’s what I’m getting from this.

Mark: I don’t know, like, well, sometimes, you know, like we’ll think about like, cause we come up with a new…it’s not like: “On the first day of Christmas”, it’s not “a partridge in a pear tree”, it’s “a traveling family”. And then, you know, then the fifth one is something else. So every time we’re trying to think about it, I’m like, so we said like the, I think I have the 10th day left. We haven’t figured it out yet. I know we, what trips are coming up. So I’m like, okay, what’s gonna work? Is it ten Germans drinking or something because we’re going to Germany? What’s it gonna be? So then we have to kind of like plan it out or whatever. So I guess it would be some plan, especially if it’s one where I’m not gonna be with my tripod, if I’m just gonna have my phone, then I have to think it out a little bit more.

Jack: Well, speaking of drinking, my wife is a fan of your mixology videos. And Kitty writes most of my scripts and the Q and A’s and stuff. And she wanted me to ask for more cocktail videos. So like, are we going to get more cocktail videos? Was that just a fad? Actually the parenting videos were super cool that you did too. So specifically from you, Jocelyn, what, what can fans and my wife expect from you?

Jocelyn: So as to the cocktail videos, there’s an issue with that. My best friend Sandra did most of those with me, like 99%, right? And we filmed, you know, it was one a week. So we filmed 52 in two days.

Jack: Wow. Well that sounds like a lot of fun!

Mark: Three days.

Jocelyn: Three days.

Mark: Three days.

Jocelyn: Three days. If you watch the videos, you’ll see which ones are filmed at the end of the day. That’s the problem. I mean, I was intoxicated by the end of every day and we’re schlepping the rest of the drink. I’m like just taking sips, right? So we’re giving the rest of the drinks to Sandra’s husband and to Mark. So by the end of the day, all four of us are tanked. I mean, it’s like, you can tell too.

Mark: Yeah, there’s just a couple of them like, yeah, I wanna redo that one.

Jack: And so this is a problem you’re saying? I can’t see…

Mark: It’s not a problem.

Jocelyn: I mean, you gotta really set aside time and we’re parents, so we can’t really do that, you know? Like

Mark: They don’t like people drinking in the pickup line.

Jocelyn: Oh, yeah. Oh my gosh. We did that during a Christmas or…

Mark: No, we did it during, one was in summer and one was during C.

Jocelyn: Yes. So anyway, you have to plan that kind of irresponsibility. So there will be more though videos from me on like why you should travel with your kids and things like that in the short series.

Mark: Next spring there’s going to be a big, we’re going to have a big thing where all the shorts are going to be travel family related. I think March, February or March, we’re going to have an entire month of like, “Don’ts of Traveling With Kids”, “Don’ts of Flying With Kids”, “Don’ts of Train Travel”, a new series on dad advice for traveling. Because there’s a lot of things we’ve, because we do a lot of videos, and we’ve seen there’s a lot of things missing, and a lot of people aren’t really helping out groups, so we’re trying to…

“We see the issues just at the airport or something. Parents struggling, and I’m like, man, I know how that is, I can totally help you out. Because traveling with your kids is hugely enriching for them, for us, for the rest of the world. When you’ve got kids who understand stuff, you know, it’s a really good thing.”

Wolters World

Jocelyn: We see the issues just at the airport or something. Parents struggling, and I’m like, man, I know how that is, I can totally help you out. And instead of just going up to somebody and going, hey, would you like me to tie your kid’s shoe for you so you don’t have to juggle 50 things? And I do do that, but like, how can we help people ease that burden? Because traveling with your kids is hugely enriching for them, for us, for the rest of the world. When you’ve got kids who understand stuff, you know, it’s a really good thing. So we wanna try to help people. So that’s what we’re doing. And I’ve sort of been toying with this book. It’s been a long time coming. Mark has fussed at me for years. It might’ve been a little problem. He wanted me to write this book on like how to, and I just couldn’t get inspired to do it. It just was so bland to me. And he’s like, well, just put our stories in there. And then one day we were having dinner with my cousin and her kids and her daughter, who’s like the most chill person ever, has like tears running down her face, laughing at the stories. And she said, you have to write a book. And I was like, oh God, that’s what the book is supposed to be.

Mark: As every husband knows, it doesn’t matter how you say it.

Jocelyn: Well, but you know, our vision is different about that. And so what I can…I’m doing what I need to do.

Mark: You do you, baby. I love you no matter what.

Jack: I think that’s great. No, I mean, Kitty and I have, before we really focused on travel, we did a lot of writing. And she’s done a ton of, especially, we were both musicians for 20 years and traveled the world. And then P hit and we lost 300 shows in a week. And right at the height of it. And she really focused and doubled down. And she did a ton of romance and like, even smutty romance…

Jocelyn: That’s awesome!

Mark: Harlequin romance, Jack, Harlequin.

Jocelyn: Everybody needed that, they needed happiness.

Jack: But I mean, you know, I see you guys as being a, I mean, you know, there’s a lot of money to be made, you know, from publishing. And I think that’d be awesome. I mean, I’ll line it. We’re actually interviewing tomorrow. Joanna Penn, do you listen to her podcast? You know, The Creative Penn, you should look her up. I mean, one of the top 10 podcasts in the world or something, and it’s all indie publishing. And if you want a crash course on actually making money, how do you do it? I mean, she’s super successful and really awesome. 

Jocelyn: I’ll go binge.

Jack: Yeah, yeah, you need to. She’s awesome. But that leads me to another question. Is travel blogging? I know you guys have a website, there’s a blog. Is that something you focus on? Is it something that’s kind of an afterthought? Is it?

Mark: It’s there’s an afterthought then there’s like an after afterthought and then there’s an after after afterthought. Right now it’s at that because like there’s like the parenting, the husbanding, the teaching, the other channels, the YouTube and those things all come first.

Jocelyn: You mean life?

Mark: Life and then blogging is like at the very end and I know if we I mean what I really should do is every time a new video comes out what I should do is like put that as a blog and then eventually to get to the writing part of it, cause I have all the notes already. It’s just like the blogs we have up are just basically summaries of the videos with just the main topics from there, just because I find it like, hey, that could be something that would be fine cause not everybody has time to watch videos and go through it. But I do need to like, we need to redo our blog so it’s a lot more user friendly cause it crashed a few months ago and it’s still on the like, hey, to get it uncrashed we put it on this website, like thing. So I’m like, I really need to work on that.

Jocelyn: Well, and also, I mean, you know, as a writer, you understand how hard it is to like take something that is one way, changing it to something else. It takes a lot of time and you know…

Mark: Time is not something we have! 

Jocelyn: No, I, you know, my friends are like, hey, can we get together for a weekend? And I’m like, going through my calendar. And I’m like, holy cow, between our kids and our travel, it’s hard to even just see your friends sometimes, you know? So that…

Mark: Well, we get to see each other’s.

Jocelyn: You’re not my only friend.

Mark: I don’t have friends, I only have you.

Jocelyn: Such a lie. Yeah, it’s like we schedule trips so we can see our friends.

Jack: Yeah, yeah, I know that makes sense. Yeah, yeah, no I hear that. Well, what do you guys see as the future of travel content creation? I mean, do you see yourself as YouTubers? Or are you looking at yourself as content creators? I mean, when you are creating a piece of content, obviously you’re mega YouTubers, but I mean, are you thinking in terms of how to repurpose this everywhere? Is TikTok and Instagram and shorts and all that? Or are you long-form YouTube first and everything else comes second?

“And on TikTok it’s tens of millions of views, but they don’t make any money. Like literally, you don’t make any money.”

Wolters World

Mark: Long-term’s first, first and foremost by far. The shorts and verticals, I think like I made a bunch. And we’ve, I mean, they’ve got a couple million views, maybe two or three million views on our shorts channel. And on TikTok it’s tens of millions of views, but it does, there’s, what people have to realize is those shorts and the reels and the TikToks, they don’t make any money. Like literally, you don’t make any money.

Jocelyn: And we gotta pay for this travel, man.

Mark: And you gotta pay, and so like, it’s cool to make and they’re fun to watch. I think longer term, they’re not gonna survive because creators will not be able to live off that. Even if you can get your sponsorships and stuff. You know, like not every company is going to want to sponsor every single person. And so it’s, it’s not sustainable. Like I know right now looking at our shorts, we’re doing the shorts because we want to help people. It’s not about making money. You know, like that Wolters World Shorts channel, I know it will never pay for itself because of how shorts are. But you know what, if I can help people travel, get to the main show, watch long video, that’s fine, but I could see like YouTube are starting out thinking that those shorts are going to get them like, unless you get something like sponsorships or.

Jocelyn: I mean, I view the shorts and stuff for us. And I think it will come to this for other people as supplement for the big content, the really big stuff. But I like doing shorts better simply because it doesn’t give me the time to get nervous. And when you’re filming a 15 minute video, I have a lot of bits and starts. Whereas if I’m doing a short, I can just zip through this one thing and be done with that. I am personally, I like doing them more, but I don’t think they get out. They don’t give as much to people. It’s like too short.

Mark: Yeah. Cause you only get so much. And that’s where some of these, the new travel, TikTok stuff and travel Instagram. I mean, there’s some really good, it’s good for inspiration, but like they can’t, there’s not enough time for them to go in depth to explain something, which makes it easier if you don’t have any background.

Jocelyn: Like when somebody tells you to wear all your clothes on a plane, they don’t then have the time to say, oh, but this can get you banned from the plane. You know?

Mark: Yeah. Yeah.

Jocelyn: You don’t, you don’t, you don’t want that. You won’t want to be able to give like the good and the bad.

Mark: Yeah. It’s like the skip lagging people. Oh yeah. I’m skip lagging all the time. Nope. 

Jocelyn: I’m like, no, you’ll get banned from four airlines.

Mark: There’s only like four major airlines in the U S that will take you over to Europe. I’m like, you got an issue. You get banned on one, you know? And they don’t ever talk about that. That’s why we had a video on digital nomad life. And I mean, I’ve done it. We’ve done it. Like it’s, I have no problem with it, but I was like, no one ever talks about the tough parts, like the loneliness and the, you know, and so I made this video. It’s done, it’s done pretty well, but it’s funny how there’s people like, yeah, this is really good. And then there’s few like, they’re like two weeks into…or a week into their digital nomad life, like, this is great. You don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m like, try for 12 years, pal. 

Jocelyn: Right.

Mark: Try for 12 years and then come talk to me.

Jack: Absolutely. What do you guys see as far as the future of, you know, travel content creation? I mean, obviously, AI is a huge thing. What do you, I mean, where do you see it going? What are your predictions and how are you going to, are you utilizing AI in any way right now? Will you be? Where are you at with this?

Mark: I’ve had people reach out and I’ve seen some stuff where they like had the AI watch our videos and they’re like, hey, ask you questions. And, you know, it’s 70% is helpful, 30% is really totally wrong. It’s like, I can’t use this because I would never give people this advice. But I mean, I think it could be helpful when you’re trying to get some basic ideas, but for in-depth stuff, you don’t want that because it’s like AI doesn’t check. AI is basically just going through the Google search.

Jocelyn: Yeah, there’s no fact checking.

Mark: It’s putting all the Google search together and you know, there’s good Google search, like how many times you could go to a website and leave right away because it’s wrong. They are including that. And that’s why you’ll see like, you know, if you look at like the top sites to visit sometimes, you’re like, why is that on the list? Oh, just because people actually walked by it. So therefore it checks and counts. And that’s why it’s the best number one site. No, just because the most people walk by it doesn’t mean it’s the best site or the number one site. So I think that’s gonna be an issue. But I think in content creation, you’re gonna see a lot more of those “10 Facts”, or the “10 Things You Never Knew About This”…with no face and with that deep voice they always use. You’re gonna notice those voices. France actually has made the law that you have to say, it’s like for French people, it’s like you have to say if it’s AI if you’re using filters. Um, because that’s one of those things, like I’m so frustrated with YouTube right now because there’s so many, just it’s AI. You can tell someone just put in ChatGPT spit it out and they just have the thing read it. And that’s it. You’re like, this is going to hurt YouTube until they figure out how to make sure. I mean, cause somebody has stuff’s fine… 

“It’s like when you write a paper. You need to cite it. You need to, you need to make sure that you have the right information and that that’s not getting out there. I’m scared about like some of the stuff that’s going to be coming because nobody’s looking to see if it’s really authentic.”

Wolters World

Jocelyn: It’s like when you write a paper. You need to cite it. You need to, you need to make sure that you have the right information and that that’s not getting out there. I’m scared about like some of the stuff that’s going to be coming because nobody’s looking to see if it’s really, authentic.

Jack: Yeah.

Mark: This is why like, you know, there’s a study that’s like something like almost half of 25 and unders use TikTok as their main search engine. And like you’re not going to get the right information.

Jack: That’s terrifying.

Mark: Like it’s too, you know, it’s like, unless it’s like, this is from the American Medical Association, their official TikTok, but like Bob’s TikTok.

Jack: Yeah, it’s terrifying.

Mark: Yeah, no, I mean, and like YouTube just came out with a new update on their policy for videos like health related, you know, because of this kind of stuff, because they’re like, look, we don’t people like…

Jocelyn: Dying?

Mark: I know the the chicken thing. Like, no, yeah, don’t. So I think it’s gonna be interesting.

Jack: Yeah, absolutely. No, that’s crazy. And you guys, you’re traveling all the time, but you are in Illinois or Indiana or where you’re home base.

Mark: Illinois. Yeah.

Jack: You get around the Midwest. We’re primarily Midwest focused. I know you, I love your guys Duluth video. You love Duluth, right?

Jocelyn: I love Duluth. I spent a lot of summers as a kid at my aunt and uncles and they were just north of Duluth, between two harbors and Knife River. So yeah, I used to play in the Knife River as a kid, playing in the mud. So yeah, Minnesota’s got a place in my heart. 

“So yeah, Minnesota’s got a place in my heart.”

Wolters World

Jack: Good, good. You guys don’t have a ton of content on Minnesota though. I mean, are you waiting for Jack and Kitty to do it or…? When are you coming on vacation to Minnesota?

Jocelyn: Well, we have talked about doing like a northern Midwest sort of trip with the kids because we just haven’t had, we just haven’t done it. And it’s kind of rough sometimes trying to squeeze so much in. Like, you know, our kids are older now and they want to be home more of the summer. It used to be, we could go for eight, nine, ten weeks. And now they’re like, it’s like three and a half weeks and they’re like, get me home or I’m going to explode.

Jack: Wow.

Mark: That’s why Jocelyn is doing a bunch more trips on our own now.

Jocelyn: Yeah, you’ll see more.

Mark: I’ll go for a month and you’ll go for like three weeks and then we’ll go with the family for two and a half weeks, three weeks, three and a half weeks.

Jocelyn: Yeah, the face of our travel has really changed for us as a family, we’re still doing it together. 

Jack: Yeah.

Jocelyn: It’s, you know, smaller amounts of time, more frequently though. More frequently though, yeah. Yeah.

Jack: Yeah, I love your guys’ videos to Savannah. I love that part of the country. It’s so much fun.

Jocelyn: I just got home from there last night.

Jack: Did you?

Jocelyn: Yeah.

Jack: We actually got hired years ago by the Savannah Public Libraries and Kitty and I did a series of kids shows, but we got to be in Savannah and we played like every library and then they sent us out to like Tybee Island and all around.

Jocelyn: Cool like cooler so you’re part of like the Live Oak Public Library system? 

Jack: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Jocelyn: Cool. It’s huge. Yeah, it’s not just the city.

Jack: It’s crazy. Yeah, they all over the place but it was we had years and years ago we had a PBS Kids show in Nashville and that got us into a bunch of different libraries, gigs and festivals and stuff, but we…

Jocelyn: What was that? Can you tell us?

Jack: Yeah, sure, yeah. It’s called the Zinghoppers, Z-I-N-G-H-O-P-P-E-R-S, Zinghoppers Show. I’ll send you a goofy video, but I was a rapping train conductor. She was a DJ and then we had a donkey and a possum and a kangaroo. And it was like preschool. At the time, Black Eyed Peas was really popular, you know, and somebody called us Barney Meets the Black Eyed Peas. So it was like…

Mark: That’s a compliment. I find that as a compliment right there!

Jack: Yeah, I’ll send you a video. It was really goofy, but it was like, yeah, just fun. But cool. Well, you guys are awesome. I really appreciate it. I know you’re super busy. And I know this is like a crazy…Mark and I were talking before it went on…and this is like, start of school week here for you. So it’s probably the busiest time of the year for you. And I really appreciate you taking the time and where can folks find you? Please tell me. Tell listeners where to find Wolters World.

Mark: Of course. So if you really want to find us, the easiest way is to go on YouTube and put in Wolters World, W-O-L-T-E-R-S, world, and we’ll just put in the Don’ts of any destination you want to go to in the world, and we’ll probably show up.

Jack: You will show up. Or just go on YouTube. You don’t even have to be logged in, just like go on YouTube!

Mark: Yeah, go on YouTube and just start looking up, we’ll pop up on there. Our website is woltersworld.com, if you want to learn about marketing, you want to learn about business, how to start a YouTube channel, you can go to YouTube at Professor Wolters. So we have that out there. If you want to see about food, Wolters World Eats is out there as well. So all kinds of fun places you can find us at. All the social media sites at Wolters World. At Wolters World…

Jocelyn: …then at Jocelyn Wolters World.

Mark: At Jocelyn Wolters World on Instagram for Jocelyn. So that’s where you can find us. 

Jack: Awesome. You guys are the best. I appreciate you so much. Before we leave the final question, using only three words, maybe I can get an answer from both of you.

Jocelyn: Oh, great.

Jack: Or not. 

Jocelyn: Does it have to be different?

Jack: Yeah, you can copy them off of Mark’s paper if you want. Three words, describe Wolters World for us.

Jocelyn: Honest…

Mark: Travel…Advice.

Jack: That was fantastic. Let’s call it there. That was so good.

Jocelyn: That was fine. 

Mark: Honest Travel Advice.

Jack: Thank you guys so much for all your advice.

Mark: Thanks, Jack. Thanks Kitty in the background!

Jack: Thank you.

Mark: Thank you.

Jocelyn: Bye y’all.

Jack: Thank you.

Make the most out of your trip to the Midwest! Click here to download for free.

Segment: Closer 

[Musical Theme with fade out and underscore]

Kitty: Well, that was an awesome interview, I want to thank Mark and Jocelyn for taking the time to chat with us. Certainly gave me a ton of things to think about!

Jack: Absolutely. Kitty, as little baby YouTubers, we have got our work cut out for us!

Kitty: [Laughs] We sure do. 

Jack: Say, Kitty, that reminds me: why did the YouTuber get kicked out of the movie theater?

Kitty: I dunno, why did the YouTuber get kicked out of the movie theater?

Jack: Because they couldn’t stop saying “Don’t forget to like and subscribe!” before the film started.

[SFX: drum]

Jack: Kitty, how many YouTubers does it take to change a light bulb?

Kitty: I dunno, how many YouTubers does it take to change a light bulb? 

Jack: One to change the bulb and five more to react to it.

[SFX: drum]

Jack: Finally, Kitty, why did the YouTuber cross the road?

Kitty: I dunno, why did the YouTuber cross the road?

Jack: To vlog it from a different angle!

[SFX: trombone]

Kitty: Oh boy, those are bad. Well, we better wrap this up. Guys, as a special thank you for listening today, visit JackAndKitty.com to download our free guidebook called, “Best in the Midwest: Your Guide To Epic Fun”. Again, that’s JackAndKitty.com. It’s our way of thanking you for listening today.

Jack: Speaking of thank yous, we want to give a very special shout-out to all our patrons on Patreon.

Kitty: Yes, thanks for your support.

Jack: And finally, if you’d like to talk with other listeners about today’s show, visit our Facebook page to chat and share your thoughts.

Kitty: All of these links can be found in the show notes, along with a transcription of today’s episode. Find that at JackAndKitty.com. Thanks for listening!

Jack: And on behalf of my better half, have a super day!

[Musical Theme with fade in]