We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Rustic Wanderer a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Rustic, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Let’s talk about social media – do you manage your own or do you have someone or a company that handles it for you? Why did you make the choice you did?

Since the day I decided to share my travel chronicles actively on social media, I’ve always managed all of my social channels myself. Though I must say, equally growing multiple channels simultaneously can get taxing given how the algorithmic landscape of various platforms changes ever so rapidly. So, I now selected one purpose/content type for each social platform and then build a community around it. This way, my community knows what to expect, I know what they expect, and it helps me stay connected with the viewers.

Rustic, 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 Kshitij and on social media I go by The Rustic Wanderer. As the social handle suggests, I like to travel to rustic places and I am a spontaneous solo traveler. I’ve been to over 30+ countries and have been an expat since 2010 relocating to a new country every couple of years. As time progressed, I decided I could document my journey and share it with the world along the way, motivating people that even if you travel part-time, you still can have a whole of memorable trips and you neither need to break your bank for it nor assemble a group of people to tag along.

While some people like to plan things out, nothing wrong with that, I’m more of a spontaneous traveler. While people argue that booking tickets and hotels last minute can get expensive, this is why I enjoy the flexibility in picking my next destination. If one destination looks pricy when booking last minute, there is always another country that I’m yet to visit.

When I pick a destination to travel, I don’t normally try to revisit the same place, though some of my friends prefer doing that as this allows them to explore every bit there is for that particular place. I like to leave some bits unexplored and pick a completely unexplored country instead so that I don’t already know what’s coming up and that’s exciting for me.

When I first started out making vlogs on my YouTube channel, it was mostly for my family back home to get an immersive experience of my travels so that I don’t have to send them stories, one pic at a time. At some point, I realized, not just my family, but there might be other people who could get inspired from my mission to explore part-time, spontaneously, and enjoying my life solo. So, I started taking my vlog channel seriously and invested in good gear- professional mic, high quality camera, and learnt the art of editing and making engaging vlogs.

Since then, within 2023 itself, I have garnered 120K views, and nearly 400 subscribers. It’s been a slow growth but steady at that and I am happy to see the stats grow with time. As I only travel part-time there is only so much travel content I can produce but that’s why I make it a point to rejoice this growth instead of this becoming a bottleneck pressuring me to travel.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

I still remember one question I was asked by a friend turned subscriber of my vlogs- “I see you put in so much effort in traveling, and making the vlogs but then when it only garners a couple dozen views, does it not hurt and make you feel disheartened?”

If I’m being honest, growing as a Vlogger in 2023 and beyond is not the same as say 20 years ago. There are a lot more creatives on YouTube now each with a knack for their art trying to compete to build their audience. But here is the thing- everybody starts somewhere and there is nothing called “overnight success”.

While it might sting a little to get just a couple of views on your vlogs you poured your heart and soul into, I always remind myself- if I stayed in the fight a day longer, I can beat the other person who decided to quit already and that keeps me going.

In hindsight, this has gotten me all this way and now some of my vlogs have started to take off where I now get 30X the views for the size of my channel. Also, now I know a lot more about Search Engine Optimization (SEO) for videos though for vlogs, I don’t fixate on it too much to stay true to my content and audience.

What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?

I have always been a believer in frugal innovation. What I mean by this is that I always set a lower bound for my investments (my vlog gear in this case) and until I’ve harnessed every ounce of it, I don’t start to pour in more money because in the early days it is all about upfront investment and there is no money to be made. Even when it does come to monetization, let’s be honest, the initial phase won’t let you pay your rent but might help you pay for your next meal. So, always stretch every dollar as far as it can go without compromising on your mission (content quality in my case) before you decide to put in an extra dollar. I learnt this from my Swimming coach, who always pushed me to extend my arm to the fullest on every stroke so that with minimal strokes I cover maximal distance and conserve as much energy per lap as I possibly can. I am on a mission to grow my YouTube channel slowly and steadily without namedropping and without using clickbaity black-hat tactics. Building a brand this way takes time but once it builds up, the momentum lasts a while as long as I keep putting in the work.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/therusticwanderer/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/RusticWanderer
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/rusticwanderer
• Youtube: https://youtube.com/c/therusticwanderer