As someone who’s been on Youtube for many years and is a solid viewer, I’ll talk about one of my own pleasures: some couples who make informative videos about caravans — a topic I love watching — who talk about their dreams and who are travelers at the same time. Why did I say couples? Because I just realized that all of the channels I follow in this space were founded by couples. Without dragging it out, let’s get to the channels.
By the way, if it interests you, I’ll do a few analyses of the channels — covering things like which aspects make them appealing on Youtube. If you’d like to start this kind of channel, I want to pass the knowledge along too.
01 // Hello People
Youtube / Instagram / And Their Coffee
I met the Hello People channel when they landed on my Youtube explore page. If I remember correctly, they entered Youtube by documenting the build process of their caravan named Atlas. I watched all their videos within 2 days. On day 3, I learned they ran a cafe in Eskişehir, went to visit my friend there, and together we went to that cafe and I got to meet them. They’re genuinely very warm people. When we went to their cafe, we sat and chatted for about an hour.
To summarize their story briefly: they’re people with dreams. First they build a caravan named Atlas and share the whole process on Youtube. Then they continue traveling with it, and later, aiming for a bigger caravan, they sell both the cafe and Atlas and buy a Mercedes 508d. The vehicle they bought was technically already a caravan, but if you watch their videos you’ll see they completely gut the back and build a caravan from scratch. This caravan is first red, then they switch to matte light green, and they’re still on the road today.
Now for the analysis: what gets people to click this channel’s videos is the story of a caravan build and stories of caravan life. What then makes people subscribe and watch the next videos is that the couple, Hasibe and Ümit, carry their natural selves straight into their videos. In these kinds of videos, if you’re stiff and can’t fully convey your emotions, 1-2 videos might get high views from initial curiosity, but subscriber growth sadly won’t follow. Also, this couple talks about their dreams in such lovely language that people see traces of their own dreams in the videos, feel a closeness, and want to keep following.
About their content: the quality of their IG photos, reels and recent videos has started to rise. Their shooting style, video quality and storytelling have all begun reaching genuinely nice levels. I know they do both the filming and editing themselves, and I believe they’ll raise the quality even further.
Finally: they’re warmhearted, cheerful, they can be happy with small things — that is, content with what they have — and they love plants and animals. In short, people to love. May their road be open.
Footnote 1: They’ve also added a subtitle character named Güğüm in the last 2-3 videos. I think innovations like this keep a video alive. If they give this subtitle a personality, the team gains a new character, and lines they wanted to say but forgot during filming can reach people through this character. A feature like this sets you apart from other channels.
02 // Oralar Nereler
Oralar Nereler (“Where Are Those Places”) is the channel of a couple who would answer: “those places are the roads traveled with a Mercedes 302”. As far as I know, İdil is a clinical psychologist and Burak is a craftsman. I discovered this couple thanks to Hello People. Honestly, the first time I entered their channel I left without subscribing. That’s because I judged it like a regular Youtube viewer would — it gave the impression of being like the many other travel channels on Youtube.
Where did my opinion change? When I listened to the story of them buying the Mercedes 302, my addiction to this channel began. Along with that, I started going through their older videos — who they are, how they got married, their water fast — and ended up consuming quite a lot of their videos.
From what I understand, the story of Oralar Nereler goes like this: they start producing Youtube content as regular travelers. Alongside some videos about themselves and daily life, they later set out with a rented caravan and share a mini journey together with Hello People. Between the time spent with Hello People and their experience in the rented caravan, they burn their ships and decide to buy a new home — and that home is the Mercedes 302. My favorite video on this channel was, I believe, the one where they decide to buy the 302 and tell us about it. So yes, what first makes you watch channels like this is them buying that caravan — taking on something we hadn’t really seen before — but what keeps us watching is these fascinating stories. If they had never told us how this caravan came to be bought, it might not have had this much impact.
As far as I know, there are 2 — maybe even 3 — other channels that bought a 302 and converted it into a caravan. But the channel that has me under its spell right now is Oralar Nereler.
I’ve essentially done this channel’s analysis already. But to evaluate once more: what draws people in first is the Mercedes 302’s transformation into a caravan. What keeps people on the channel, just like with Hello People, is that they’re warm, friendly and natural. Burak comes across as someone rising fast on the positive side — someone with real faith in realizing his dream — and İdil, likewise, doesn’t hide her emotions, which is exactly how she touches people’s hearts.
Of course the main thing is the storyline, but in the long run, if the production quality rises they can reach more people. If they set a slightly faster pace in editing and cuts, it might be even better — but that’s only a suggestion, of course. What I write here isn’t a must; it’s of the “it’d be nicer if” kind. I mean, right now even a solid Sony a7 II — one body and lens — runs around 40,000 lira. So maybe better equipment would solve things, but with 40,000 lira they could also finish a quarter of the caravan. It’s like this: when I was in 8th grade, making free tutorial series for people, there were people swearing at me because my microphone sounded bad. “Then buy me a better one,” I’d tell them. I was a young kid — where would I find the money or the equipment? As I said, even if the equipment doesn’t jump a level, the video can be carried a level up through cuts and edits.
Overall they’re sincere people, so I follow this couple with love too. May your road be open.
Footnote 1: They named the caravan Göçebe (Nomad).
03 // Trail Of Us
Trail Of Us was the channel that said “there are people building caravans in Turkey too”. Actually, Trail Of Us was the first caravan channel I ever followed. You could even say that watching their caravan videos is what brought Hello People’s videos to my explore page — because once I watched caravan-based videos, Youtube laid every caravan video it had in front of me to keep me watching. That’s where I met Hello People, and later Oralar Nereler.
Now, Trail Of Us are quite good at filming and editing — their eye for design is strong. I even had the chance to tell them this to their faces: I attended a Youtube event in Turkey on behalf of my company, and Burçin and Erdi were there too. I went up and got to say I watch them with pleasure. This eye of theirs may come from having worked at an agency before, if I remember right — I’m not sure, just speculating. Their storytelling is also very natural, warm and sincere. You could say they make content with a bit of a documentary flavor. In fact, they shot an actual documentary — I’ll get to that.
Trail Of Us was founded by the couple Erdi and Burçin, who quit their jobs, left their home and switched fully to caravan life. The first time I watched them I said “good for them” — and I still say it. Speaking for myself, I feel like working somewhere is obligatory as a form of security, and I can’t defeat that mindset. So I genuinely respect this couple. Actually, I respect all these couples for that.
Then, of course, this couple also converts a Ford vehicle into a caravan and introduces us to Mars. Once again, what made this channel clickable at first, for me, was the caravan build process. Because even though caravan builds exploded with CoVid-19 and took over Youtube, back when I started watching this kind of content there weren’t this many videos landing in front of me. What kept me watching Trail Of Us afterwards: the couple’s warmth and sincerity, their above-standard production quality and their story-driven style.
Especially with their recently announced project — producing the documentary “Karavanın Seyir Defteri” (The Caravan’s Logbook) for beinConnect — you could call it proof they’ve moved up a level. To this couple too, we say: may your road be open.
04 // Kamp Rehberi
I haven’t fully gotten to know this couple yet, and I haven’t analyzed the channel. But they genuinely struck me as very knowledgeable on this subject, so I wanted them on this list. The thing is, I’ve only had the chance to watch 1-2 of their videos, and I can say they give truly detailed information about the parts to use in a caravan. From what I read on their Youtube about page, they’re a couple working in disaster response and healthcare, and they want to travel the world too. To them as well, we say: may your road be open.
05 // Wild We Roam
This couple actually raised the bar a bit and switched to a sailboat. But the caravan thing — the Van thing — I first learned through this couple. Our leads are Dana and Lou. Their aim is to tell people about their journeys and experiences in a creative way, and to inspire. I discovered this couple through their 7-day water fast. And back then, I can say I researched water fasting quite seriously, even reading academic theses. From what I understand, until 6-7 years ago they knew nothing about filming or editing. But right now, I think their content is top quality. And they’re a couple who have learned how to play the Youtube game. So — how to write a title, and if you want to produce content on caravans and making life better, you can draw inspiration from this couple’s channel.
CONCLUSION
In this post I tried to bring you together with channels that will make you happy, help you rest and let you dream. Some people always see the negative side of life. The people I’ve told you about here are more positive people who keep moving forward. I’m not telling you to go be a Pollyanna, but instead of whining, take a step and move forward — that’s what I want to say. That’s all from me. May everything turn out for the best, just as your heart wishes. See you soon. Stay healthy, may Allah protect you.
