16 Best YouTubers That Will Change The Way You Travel

Prospective travelers and tourists have been turning to travel shows for years for advice on how to best prepare and appreciate destinations all over the globe. In the age of online videos and social media posts, the advent of travel programming through YouTube has grown considerably in popularity, with several online personalities offering entertainingly informative content. With so many vloggers popping up to launch their own YouTube channels, here are the best shows offered by the digital platform to improve one's travel game and gain a wider perspective on the world and its diverse cultures.

The following vloggers are divided into subcategories based on the focus of their respective programming, including budget travel, solo female travel, couple/family travel, food-centric travel, and adventurous getaways. Programs are evaluated on the quality of the information provided, the level of cinematography employed in the videos, the variety of content offered on each channel, and how engaging the host(s) are with the audience.

English travel vlogger Aly Ford decided to embark on a life of international travel shortly after completing her degree in clinical psychology, relocating to Australia before launching her YouTube travel show "PsychoTraveller." More than simply showcasing destinations around the world, Ford offers the audience a look at her evolving life, from the emotional ups and downs of daily life to seeing the world from the road in her van. In addition to posting videos online, "PsychoTraveller" has also launched a blog, including a forum where contributors can share their own travel experiences.

Among the programming on "PsychoTraveller" are detailed breakdowns of how expensive specific destinations can be, hotel reviews (including stays at some of England's most poorly rated hotels), and easy-to-prepare recipes. Ford has compiled several of her videos into invaluable playlists, offering a fuller portrait of popular tourist destinations and how to best experience them on a budget. Both an invitation for viewers to follow in Ford's footsteps and a living document of Ford and the life changes she has experienced, "PsychoTraveller" gives online travel programming a more personal touch.

After studying abroad in Prague, followed by a stint teaching English in Seoul after college, Drew Goldberg decided to shift to traveling full-time, sharing social media posts of his exploits under his nom de plume – Drew Binsky. By 2017, with the help of his fiance Deanna Sallao, Binksy launched his own YouTube channel under the name "Drew Binsky", expanding his programming through the online platform. With an emphasis on budgeted international travel, Binsky has since visited all 197 United Nations-recognized countries, including trips to North Korea and Afghanistan.

From visiting some of the most intimidating and remote destinations in the world, Binsky shares how to best enjoy a given spot on a limited budget, sometimes with as little as $10. More than just offering travel advice, Binsky uses his platform to spotlight interesting local figures around the world, providing mini-bios to further highlight different cultures and the individuals that define them. Offering bite-sized videos perfect to maintain a restless audience's attention, Drew Binksy has positioned himself as one of the foremost travel vloggers in the social media age.

Couple Kristen Sarah and Siya Zarrabi have been traveling around the world since 2010, sharing their global odyssey online through their YouTube channel "Hopscotch the Globe." From traveling around North America in an RV and airstream to showcasing local cuisine, Sarah and Zarrabi offer an inviting and grounded look at international adventure. "Hopscotch the Globe" grew even bigger, with Sarah and Zarrabi welcoming a young daughter named Kai over the course of the show, as well as their dog, Atlas.

With a focus on sustainable living, global travel without breaking the bank, and authentic cuisine, "Hopscotch the Globe" highlights how couples and families can experience the joys the world has to offer together. Sarah and Zarrabi have produced tutorials on how prospective travelers can follow in their footsteps while launching a blog to help expand their platform and outreach. Ecologically conscious as it shares how easy and rewarding worldwide travel can be, "Hopscotch the Globe" is one of the more heartwarming travel shows available on YouTube.

Canadian vlogger Cailin O'Neil has been making movies for years, combining her love of filmmaking and international travel with her YouTube program "Travel Yourself." Beginning in 2009 with a visit to the annual La Tomatina Festival in Spain, O'Neil parlayed her keen eye for filming travel videos and her engaging personality to launch the popular show. From breezy road trips around Vancouver Island to scuba diving around the Great Barrier Reef, "Travel Yourself" finds joy in adventures big and small around the globe.

O'Neil keeps the programming on "Travel Yourself" fresh and varied, from spotlights on local cuisine to streamlined videos that highlight the sights within a given destination in a little over a minute. O'Neil is acutely aware of how to keep an audience's attention in the age of timed social media posts and uses those conventional constraints as a creative strength in filming and editing her videos. O'Neil complements her YouTube channel with a regularly updated blog and active social media presence for those looking to go beyond the main "Travel Yourself" series.

Australian vlogger and travel author Brooke Saward has been living her life regularly on the road for years, sharing her adventures with the world through her eponymous YouTube show "Brooke Saward." With over 70 countries visited, Saward provides a wealth of information on how to travel solo as a woman around the world, offering smart tips and detailed expenses for specific destinations. In addition to her YouTube channel, Saward also keeps an actively updated blog offering even more travel information and hotel reviews.

With a wealth of firsthand experience, Saward concisely and effectively leads each episode while maintaining a dry sense of humor about the sometimes chaotic nature of international travel. During the pandemic, Saward used her channel to share a number of stay-home tutorials and cooking recipes before resuming overseas travel at the beginning of 2022. With most videos featuring easily digestible runtimes and beautiful cinematography, Saward has brought her carefully curated expertise to the masses.

Launching his own YouTube channel in 2013, Trevor James shared videos online of himself sampling street food from around the world before graduating from college in Vancouver in 2014. Shortly after college, James relocated to Chengdu, China, and continued to produce food travel videos, under the title "The Food Ranger," with a heightened focus on Asian street food. Nearly a decade into his career as a culinary documentarian, James has since moved to Kuala Lumpur while expanding the international scope of "The Food Ranger."

While initially focusing on street food in Asia, beginning with China, Thailand, and Singapore, James has broadened "The Food Ranger" to include episodes in places like Iran and Italy. The YouTube series provides full, in-depth tours of the street food scenes in each of its destinations along with the occasional extreme eating challenge. Entertainingly presented, "The Food Ranger" provides a window into different cultures worldwide through the types of street food that are popular in a given region and how each is traditionally prepared.

Host Mike Corey takes international adventure to the next level with his YouTube series "Fearless and Far," living up to the title by traveling to the ends of the Earth to experience harrowing thrills. The Canadian backpacker not only undertakes extreme challenges but undergoes local customs that may make squeamish outsiders wince. For Corey, the goal is to highlight some of the most conventionally terrifying parts of the world to mitigate the stigma and invite others to face their fears on the road, too.

From spending extended periods with remote indigenous tribes in Africa and Indonesia to participating in an exploding hammer festival in Mexico, Corey shines a light on the few unexplored global cultures. Corey's challenges also extend to him putting his body on the line, from suspending himself by hooks through his skin to cleaning his liver with leeches in Poland. Not always for the faint of heart, "Fearless and Far" provides a more extreme and firsthand look at the more challenging cultural customs worldwide.

Canadian travel vlogger Sam Kolder has been sharing his international exploits through his magnificently shot YouTube series "Kold." In addition to the extreme lengths that Kolder goes through to deliver truly breathtaking vistas and shots, "Kold" has an all-around emphasis on grippingly gorgeous cinematography. Utilizing everything from drone cameras to slick edits, "Kold" is a show that invites the audience to dive into the sweeping landscapes and immersive destinations that are off the beaten path worldwide.

From spelunking in Cuba to numerous death-defying acrobatic feats of Kolder diving and flipping off tall points into water below, "Kold" showcases how to travel across impossibly beautiful destinations like Bali and Santorini. More than simply sharing these expertly shot faraway locales, Kolder provides tutorials through "Kold" for aspiring photographers and videographers to follow while examining the latest in video and photography gear. The perfect travel show for the Instagram generation, "Kold" captures the sheer majesty of nature and everyday beauty in remote destinations all over the world.