How do you run a successful Food and Travel YouTube Channel and still have time for your loved ones? In this episode, we talk about lifestyle balance, developing the right creator mindset, and tips & tricks to ace content creation on YouTube and social channels, with David Hoffman from the popular channel – DavidsBeenHere.
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The following is an extremely summarized version extracted from the transcript of the full conversation. I strongly recommend listening to the podcast for all the valuable insights. You will also hear more detailed and contextualized stories from the guest, as well as pointers from me in a two-way conversation.
Hey David! Please give an introduction of yourself and a backstory.
My name is David Hoffman, world traveler entrepreneur from Miami, Florida. I started travelling at a young age. I did like a six week trip with my sister and brother-in-law to Spain back in 2000, and that’s sort of where my love for travel started.
From there, I took a trip every chance I got, either visiting friends or family. Whenever there was a break, I always try to travel. My main goal after that first trip was to see as much as I can. In 2007, I did a four month solo trip hopping around Europe, and I had an idea to create a YouTube channel/website where I produce videos about different destinations showcasing food travel, attractions, just different places that are off the beaten path.
I didn’t want to dive into the big cities like Paris, London, Madrid, that everybody does. I wanted to discover way deeper, and showcasing these more uncommon destinations so people can be inspired to go there.
I made a business plan and raised money back then. When I graduated, I took off and travelled for around two years full time with a cameraman and assistant travelling the 22 countries. We created like 500 episodes, and I ran out of money.
I had to sort of figure out how to how to keep my my dream alive and make this actual profitable business. The hardest thing back then was how to monetize with YouTube. The monetization options were nothing compared to where it is today. Sponsorships were impossible. This way before influencers were a thing. I came home, and spent about a year trying to figure out different products and how to make this work.
Then in 2017, I started travel blogging with the filming technology we have today. 2017 is when you can actually start filming yourself, making a real movie without the boom mic, assistant, cameraman etc, You are able to do everything yourself and that changed everything for me. So from 2017 to now, I’ve been focused 100% on growing my YouTube audience, and just diving into more and more destinations.
How do you choose where to go? You seem to be visiting some unique destinations which are not as known for tourism or food.
Pre-COVID the way I did it was I have the map of the world. And I see where I’ve been and where I haven’t been. And then I strategize. What’s going to be the best in terms of food and travel content? I used to get the board and see what haven’t I done? Where haven’t I been?
My main thing is, I don’t usually repeat a country again; unless it’s India because every state is very different, and the market is huge. I really want to keep exploring more countries diversify my audience because obviously, the more countries you visit and produce content on, the more your audience grows in these different areas.
How difficult it is to plan your trips? Do you have detailed plans on the content, or do you take the risk and find stuff randomly?
No random, I’m very organized. I do have two kids at home and have limited time. My trips are usually 2 weeks. I lose 2 days travelling, so I have full 12 days where I have to produce the content.
I would take roughly about a day to plan a day of the trip. I look for breakfast, lunch, dinner spots, and then sort of organize my day around that because I do mix travel content. I’m not doing purely food. That’s one thing I always try to explain to people is the way I create my content, is the way I would travel myself.
If I wasn’t filming, I still want to go eat something traditional. That’s my thing. I don’t care what country I’m in the world. I want to eat their food for breakfast. And then, I’ll go and see attractions, discover the history of the place. I’m a big trip planner. That’s what I did before I had my company. Even though the internet was like primitive back then I would do my research thoroughly.
I film two videos minimum a day. Sometimes, three on the best days. A typical schedule like 7 to 11, I got a bunch of stuff, food, breakfast with other things included. And then from 11 to around 4, it could be either street route or one place with lots of food and, we hit up a few different, interesting attractions.
The third one is the bonus, depending on how lively the place is. Sometimes I’ll film at night, jumping around different spots to eat. I always like food places and try to do a tour. Sometimes we get to explore the kitchen. It’s an amazing place and I can do a whole video about the people – maybe preparing the food or if it’s a famous chef. It really depends on the destination, but always minimum two videos, three is great.
Talk to us about the “document, don’t create” content strategy.
I’ve even done four videos in a day where I do like that haircut video, that straight up for the views. I’m going to film it and make some content out of it. And it works sometimes in places like India. I did a video here in Miami, getting a haircut from my Barber, and it has 50,000 views today. It’s not really the finances but rather getting more people to see my face. If it turns out great. If it goes viral, great. If not, it’s out there. And it’s my legacy. I don’t really worry too much.
My main goal is to get a million views a day.
I never really get to up or down about videos. If it goes viral. I feel great. But at the same time, you got to create more content and can’t worry about that one video that maybe didn’t do well. Each video can change your life in different ways indirectly. For example, some people would say my Albania series didn’t do very well in terms of views. But at the end of the day, I now have many Albania and Kosovo audience, and they love me. With that, I have a dozen cities where I can easily do Albanian content, and get people from there, which is which is really cool.
Your family don’t come along for filming trips, so how do you balance between family and work?
It’s not easy. For me, it’s very strange. People don’t get it, but I live one life when I’m travelling where it’s 100% the camera. She is my girlfriend and doesn’t leave me.
When I’m home, I have the post production and my kids. I usually plan to be on a two week trip every other month. That’s sort of my thing.
My kids usually wake up around 6:30. I drop them off at school between 8, 8:30. Then I am at the office until around noon, before picking my younger daughter up. We go home for lunch and then pick up my elder daughter later. Usually before 4:30pm I’m home.
The perception for an entrepreneur is to work like forever. I definitely try to but I also give time to my kids. They’re young, they need me and especially when I’m traveling, they don’t have me. Sometimes I take them to either my parents’ house or the park to do something. And then by eight, they’re usually in bed. On some nights I continue doing work stuff, answering emails, thumbnails, and metadata, etc. Or me and my wife will watch a movie or just relax. That’s sort of how I do it.
I try to give my kids as much time as possible because I never want to feel like I missed out on their life, especially vice versa. I see how it is for them when I’m gone for like 14 days. I’ve done a big trip before around 22 days, when my oldest daughter was 2. Halfway through the trip, I wanted to go home because I miss my kids. I’m always thinking about them.
Every night I dedicate time for them no matter what. Before I go to sleep, I’m on FaceTime with them for an hour at least. They can talk to me and know I’m alive. I want them to always know I’m here, I want to be really part of their lives.
One thing about young kids is that you have to be completely there. Even if they see you on the phone, they already feel like you’re not there. So when I’m with them, I’m with them. When I’m not with them, I’m working and building a future for them.
As a travel content creator, do you feel like you can’t really enjoy your travels because you always have to think about capturing the moment, or creating content?
I actually feel like I don’t know how I would do it without the camera. It’s just me, as a filmmaker, photographer, I really enjoyed capturing moments. I guess after doing it so long, I never had somebody asked me “how do you enjoy it?” I’m always filming anyway.
And without the filming, I don’t get the trip, so I never complain about that. Without I work, I don’t get to see this and experience this food and get to tell about it. I actually miss something when I don’t have the camera. I’m just very grateful that I can do it, that God gave me the ability to do it, and that I can keep doing it.
During these times, most people I know are not travelling. Some people can’t even move from their country. I’m very fortunate, we’re wide open here in Florida. I would never, ever complain about having to do more work. I always want to be the most hardworking person in any room. Wherever I am, I’m the one that’s grinding. People recognize that and they respect me more because of it.
You started YouTube many years ago, and your content has evolved along the way to the travel food niche today. Talk to us about this transformation.
With the evolution of technology, everything got a little easier. But I think the biggest thing for me was being able to do the filming yourself.
Once I started releasing more videos, where it was like titles about food or thumbnails about food, the viewership started skyrocketing. That was when I knew like food is an attractive topic. E.g. I can film an awesome day with richest man in the world but it will not do as well as eating food with the richest man in the world.
It just changes the way people think about it. And food has always been part of my experience of life. I used to separate videos way more, but now two videos a day, minimum , and food is always a part of it,
It’s always a mix of the destination with food. This is how I think about travel. That is always the first thing to have any conversation of travel destinations. Where and what should I eat? My niche is really independent travel. I’m a solo traveler. I organize it myself. But food obviously became bigger.
Are there any reasons that food worked for you but might not work for other content creators?
I think knowledge is a big thing. I was never a chef but I try so many different cuisines. I’ve tried over 1000 dishes because I eat like 10 or 15 a day. Besides being knowledgeable about food, it’s really about enjoying it. I’ve eaten better on the streets of freaking I don’t even know than in my own backyard. I’m a real foodie. I limit myself when I’m not filming to maintain my weight but I enjoy everything.
I have no limit with food, except I don’t eat anything that is still alive. I just want to try and see why, why is this thing famous here? There’s a reason for it.
Why do people like it? Let me try it.
Why not? And if I don’t like it, I say, it’s not for me. I would never bash something. That’s one thing I want to always say, you should never push negativity in any way.
What’s the weirdest food that you have ever eaten?
The recent weirdest when I was in Ghana. It’s been a while since I’ve been in Africa. The weirdest thing I ate on the trip, was when we went to a palm tree farm. They cut it down and they extract the sap. They distill it and then make gin.
When opening the tree to extract the sap, there are worms. They get it all out and put them on a stick, then they roast it under barbecue. It was weird because they look like super nasty, bad gooey worms. But once they’re cooked, it’s just crispy. If no one told me, I would have thought it was a crispy piece of like pork skin or something.
Besides that I’ve eaten a lot of bugs, crickets. I’ve eaten turtle before, unfortunately. because I’m a big turtle person. It was like a delicacy stew in Colombia.
How do you see the transition of YouTube from how it was 10 years ago to today?
Way more competition for sure. But again, I think we are just starting. Streaming services like Netflix, Disney+, are all still in the primitive stage. Although YouTube has been around for like 16 years, I still believe that it’s going to expand so much more.
Everyone I know watch YouTube, Netflix and Disney+ on their TV. If they don’t have TV anymore, they watch it on their phone. That is the biggest shift
People are just going on to the YouTube app, searching or getting recommendations. Then they let it run. I think there’s way more competition, but I still think it’s a lot of opportunity to grow, just depends on what your niche is.
I think the biggest thing is about personality, quantity of content. The more content, the better for you. The more you will grow the more eyeballs, more numbers, more finances, etc. You have to release as much quality content as possible. My current stage is that I release every other day. And my goal is that by the end of the year, I can get to a point where I can release something every day.
That having another full time guy just cranking out the content. Basically grind all day like I do to be able to release the stuff we’re releasing every day. I already had two channels, and looking to start a few more. It’s all repurposed material for more evergreen content.
Tell us more about your monetization model.
My main bread and butter used to be sponsorships, it was the one that would pay the most.
Two years ago, I know how much I spend a month between my rent and life insurance etc. I wanted to get to a point where I can make that much via video views. That was my main goal and I got there.
Once I got there, the next thing was how do I double or triple this? The only way to double or triple is to double down on the videos that make you the most money and already gained the most virality. I want the views to cover my life. Everything else is all extra.
I never want to depend solely on sponsors, coz they’re not always easy to work with. I know some YouTubers that only do sponsor stuff but it’s like, then why would anybody follow you? You’re not organic. 99.9% of my stuff is me. I wanted to film it, that’s why the content exists.
For me, the breakdown is like views and sponsorships. Sponsorship could be two forms, it could be the product or it could be production of content for a specific location. There is also affiliate links which are mainly on my website.
This is a long game. You need to release near 100 episodes straight before you make $1. Videos have to be of quality, but again also quantity. This channel that I just started, we’re at 700 subscribers and we still need like 3500 hours to get monetized. And I already know I’m not getting monetize my channel for at least 90 more days unless a few videos go viral.
Just keep putting it out there. A lot of people get confused with the monetization of YouTube, over how much it pays? I know people who have only about 1000 or 2000 subscribers, but they have an E book and all those people that are subscribed to them are actually buying that. For them the real money is through the product not the views, so it depends.
Apart from YouTube, how do you use social media and website to complement like your main YouTube channel?
For me, it’s like, what’s this trip about and what am I doing. With the video content, we also create articles. On my website, I usually create an article per destination, whatever I actually spent time doing there. The videos is how my ghost writer puts together articles. I’m always looking at evergreen titles where people are still searching for in 10 years. And it’s never a list that’s completely copied from trip advisor because it’s really the stuff that I did when I was there.
And then Instagram, I post my life and random stuff. I play around with IG TV and reels, but I’m always there. I try never to like completely disappear. I need to talk to my audience daily, or they just forget about you.
What would be your best tip for YouTubers if they want to pursue like a long lasting career in filmmaking?
First thing is, no one should ever believe they can have online success overnight. You have to build this. Don’t worry what anybody else thinks. The hardest thing is the circle around you, your parents, brothers, sister, your friends, everybody who’s gonna tell you it can’t be done. It can always be done. It does not matter what they think, it can be done if you switch it in your head that it will be done.
For YouTube specifically. or anything you do, try to have a real focus. There’s niches in travel, what do you focus on, what are you’re going to be telling, what are you doing? Try to have a sort of a clear vision on what it is that you do. For me it’s independent travel with food.
And then know it’s a long game. This is not an overnight thing. A lot of patience is involved here. Things will happen as you keep creating. That’s how this works. The longer you do it, the more you grow, internally as a person, but also outside.
I don’t really care too much about numbers anymore. Obviously you want that million views, you want that next thing but it’s more about enjoying what you do.
One more thing. For people that want to get into YouTube and have a full time job or another business, the main thing is that you have to carve out the time to make this happen. You might have kids, you’ll have a full time job. At night, on the weekends, whenever you can, you have to make the extra effort to make these videos so you can actually move forward.
Videos are a lot of work to make, it’s like a motion picture. It’s not going to be as efficient. The efficiency is knocking it out five pieces a day, via documenting. It can be just you talking and recording. Any piece of content can blow up, you can’t really worry about every video getting a million views. You have to worry about just getting it out there. And hopefully it works. If it doesn’t work, next one.
