We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Jay Jay Maniquis. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Jay Jay below.
Jay Jay, appreciate you joining us today. How did you learn to do what you do? Knowing what you know now, what could you have done to speed up your learning process? What skills do you think were most essential? What obstacles stood in the way of learning more?
Learning how to become a Youtuber is an evolving process. My journey with Jaycation started off as a passion project, a creative outlet for me to brush up on my editing skills and knowledge I learned from being a Television, Film and New Media Minor at San Diego State University. I posted my first video in the Summer of 2015, a travel guide on a trip to Santorini, Greece. After posting, I was worried about what people would think of me sharing my personal travel journeys online that I stopped posting after that 1 video. At the time, I had a full-time job and didn’t want any of my co-workers to find out that I had started a youtube channel. If I knew then what I knew now, I would’ve just started creating and not worry about what others at the time would think. If I just learned to focus in more and drown out the outside noise, I would have been more persistent at the beginning. Eventually, I got back to filming travel videos and started posting more of my travels in 2016. Once I quit my job and moved to Barcelona, Spain, I began the real learning curve of how to become a successful youtuber. What I learned is that you need to be able to tell a captivating story, provide useful information to your audience and understand that this needs to be done on a consistent basis.
Jay Jay, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
I’m Filipino-American and born and raised in San Diego with a background in Professional Sports and Public Relations. I always had aspirations to become a TV Host growing up. I loved sports talk radio and aspired to be a sports anchor on the news. When youtube videos were in it’s early years, my interested shifted into the travel genre. I watched the likes of the late Anthony Bourdain and comedian Zane Lamprey, both who had TV Shows where they traveled the world and documented their experiences with food, culture and life. In 2013, my first trip to Spain, I came up with the idea of Jaycation. I let it manifest in my brain for a year or two and I slowly started filming my travels more and coming out of my shyness. In 2014, I started traveling solo. On my first trip to Ireland, I never pressed record and I regretted it. Half a year later, I traveled to Greece and decided now was the time to give filming a real try. So I learned to film around others, attempted to get used to talking to the camera and blocked out all the exterior noise. Like anything, it took a while to get used to it. A couple years later, I decided I needed a change in my life and moved to Barcelona, Spain. After living in San Diego my entire life, I felt the need to breakaway from it and learn and grow in a whole different culture. In the two years I lived in Barcelona, I grew to 10,000 subscribers and got better at being a youtuber. I became consistent, was willing to learn and adjust while enjoying the craft. When the pandemic hit in 2020, I had about 12,000 subscribers and had some traction with my travel videos in Barcelona. When the shutdown began, I happened to be traveling through Romania and ended up being on lockdown in Barcelona and eventually had to return home. March and April of 2020 were my darkest days on youtube. I couldn’t post my travels in fear of being judged and misinterpreted and basically went dark for 2 months. Once I gathered my thoughts, I had decided that since I would not be leaving San Diego at the time, that I would start filming videos about my hometown while safely doing it outside away from people. I started filming a video for each beach community in San Diego county and slowly started to realize viewership increase and people being more engaged in the comments. It turned out, being born and raised in San Diego and my knowledge of my hometown was informative and captivating to my growing viewership. Eventually, I filmed a video focused on San Diego Hidden Gems and it went viral! My channel grew almost 7K subscribers in a month and I became known as the San Diego Travel Youtuber. Currently, I have almost 68,000 subscribers and am a co-host of a TV Show which I co-created on KPBS called “Out of the Boondocks” The show focuses on Filipino Creatives in San Diego and their passion for the art and what it’s like being Filipino-American. Along with that, my youtube channel has evolved into not only San Diego content, but Las Vegas as well. I am learning how to adjust with the ever-changing social media landscape and aspire to reach the Youtube milestone of 100,000 Subscribers.
What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?
Experiencing viewers and supporters appreciating the content. Whether they learn something new, had a positive experience from a recommendation or simply got entertainment from one of more of my videos. When people approach me asking for a picture and telling me how they relate to my story and discovered my channel is always fulfilling and I am grateful to have this forum to express myself via my youtube channel and tv show.
How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?
When the pandemic hit, my intentions for Jaycation was to focus on Barcelona videos and traveling Europe more. After being locked down for a couple months and realizing that Travel was indefinitely suspended in 2020, I had to pivot and gave it great thought. Once I decided that featuring my hometown of San Diego as a series, I started getting out of the house and discovering my city which I had mostly been away from for a couple of years. Once my videos broke through in San DIego and my channel really started to grow, it gave me the opportunity and courage to pursue this creative outlet even more after a few years of slow growth and progress. There is still growth to be accomplished but I am learning how to pivot from day to day in order to flourish in this creative space.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://jaycationtravel.com
- Instagram: https://instagram.com/jaycationtv
- Facebook: https://facebook.com/jaycation
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jay-jay-maniquis-5b77107
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/jaycationtv
- Youtube: https://youtube.com/jaycation
- Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/ser_details?userid=HWlMvdhbG-ePPIbvl5O1OQ
- Other: https://tiktok.com/jaycationtv
Image Credits
Jay Jay Maniquis