9 minute read
Kinging-It
Kinging-It is a travel movement started by Craig and Aimee, a young Welsh couple from Barry with an urge to show the world what real travelling is like.
HI GUYS. TELL US ABOUT YOU. C: We’re Craig and Aimee and we run the Youtube channel Kinging-It, we’re full time content creators and we like to do challenges and travel videos. In summer 2018 we did the Mongol Rally where we drove a 1.2L Fiat Panda from Barry to Russia. A: We came across some of the most incredible countries that we didn’t even know existed, like Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan. That was one of our best challenges and we raised money for CLIC Sargent and Big Moose in Cardiff. C: After that we did a challenge where we drove a rickshaw over 4000 miles from the north to the south of India over 6 weeks. A: If you think it sounds crazy, you just have to do it! It was mental. We risked our lives every single day. We said that’s it we’re done with India, it took everything we had, but now I just can’t wait to go back. I miss the excitement! kingin-it
HOW DID YOU MEET? A: We’ve been together for 11 years now. We met on Craig’s leaving do, he was going on an around the world trip but we kept in contact on MSN. We met when I was diagnosed with Hodgkin Lymphoma and we always said when I got the all clear I would go out and meet him wherever in the world he was. When I was given the all clear I flew out with our mutual best friend and we travelled the East Coast of Australia for four weeks. It was amazing. C: That was our first time together travelling and I think that was the start of our addiction. I had an around the world ticket so after that I flew to New Zealand, but within a week I broke my neck. A: Can’t leave him anywhere! C: I miss timed a backflip on a trampoline and landed on the top of my head. I was a mm away from either being paraplegic or dying instantly. I had the surgery done in New Zealand by one of the best doctors, so that was a lucky escape and we both had brushes with death, but after that first hint of travel we always knew we wanted to travel for a long time. There was a huge gap between then and us actually doing our first Kinging-It trip, about 6 years. We did America, Hawaii, Japan and then South East Asia and then we eventually went to New Zealand and we had working visas.
WERE YOU DOING CONTENT BEFORE THEN? C: No, I was shooting music videos and weddings because I was a photographer to begin with and I honed my craft with video and did promos for gyms. While we were saving for this trip I came across travel vlogs. A few months later they brought out the first commercial drone that you can attach a GoPro to. We started the Youtube channel with the drone because no one had ever seen that content before. People said, ‘How did you get that shot’?!
A: They asked us if we threw our camera in the air! I didn’t really know what was going on, that wasn’t my area of expertise. Whenever he put the camera on me, I used to get really angry and say ‘get it out of my face!’ I didn’t know what to say and it was really uncomfortable. So we’ve worked at it for sure, I just went with it and it’s lucky we did!
C: I knew that if we did it well it could eventually be a career but that’s not why I started making videos. There was a lot of travel vlogs which were quite cheesy and false. I’ve travelled a bit and things definitely go wrong, people definitely get diarrhoea so our initial thing was ‘let’s make a travel vlog that’s real’. If we get sick or if we get robbed, we’ll film it. That’s why people were magnetised to our channel, because of the authenticity.
HOW DO YOU WORK WITH OTHER PEOPLE? C: There’s so many different avenues like Youtube ad revenue but our main one is collaborations with companies. What we tend to do is come up with an idea, like India, and then pitch it to companies who we think it would fit. Our India series was sponsored by Marco Polo because they did an India guide. That’s our main income, then we have merchandise and patreon.
A: It all first started going that way when we were in New Zealand but we never really thought of it as a career until the opportunity arose. We paired up with Queenstown.com and they gave us all of these activities to do for footage. It progressed from there and we started getting paid for things!
DID YOU DO LOTS OF THINGS FOR FREE AT THE BEGINNING? C: Loads. For us that was incredible because we were living in Queenstown and we could barely afford to live so having these activities was incredible. We were doing helicopter and bike rides and spa days, it was crazy.
HOW HAS IT CHANGED SINCE THEN? C: It depends. We get so many emails now and some of it’s good and some of it isn’t. I think when you get to a certain point, time is money. Although we might get to do a trip and it’s free which is amazing we could be taking on paid work. This is our job. Now we take the paid collaborations to fund the adventures that we want to do.
IS THERE ANYWHERE THAT’S ON YOUR LIST TO GO TO? A: China! I really want to go to China, and back to Japan. We went on the first round the world trip but we were babies and the way we edit things now is completely different to how we did it back then and we’ve grown so much.
C: I’d love to see South America and Africa, I’d love to go there and do a mad challenge through there. There’s not many places we wouldn’t go!
YOU’RE BOTH FROM BARRY ORIGINALLY?
C: Yep! A: I was born in Northern Ireland but I’m Barry and Wales through and through, I’ve always lived here. We love it! After working with Visit Wales and touring our country four times really well, it is INCREDIBLE. We’re so patriotic when we finish a Visit Wales campaign, we need to do more. We take for granted the beach in Barry and being so close to friends and family, it’s so up and coming and it’s an exciting time and a place to be at the moment.
HAVE YOU BEEN INVOLVED MUCH WITH THE GOODSHEDS?
A: We’ve been involved with the filming, we’re still filming it now. It’s a progression really, we’ve loved to document it. C: We’re filming everyone that’s going in there so that has been really cool to meet that community and everyone is so excited just to be in there as a group of independent people. It’s going to be amazing for Barry.
DO YOU HAVE ANY ADVICE FOR SOMEONE WHO WANTS TO START UP A YOUTUBE CHANNEL? C: If you’re going to do it, never start it to try and make money. If you do you’re definitely going to fail, money shouldn’t be the goal, you should have a positive message, something where you’re adding value to people. Our mantra has always been ‘rule your own world.’
A: And always be yourself. C: Authenticity is key A: Some people don’t care where we’re going travelling, they just watch it because it’s us. If you’re completely yourself people will buy into you as a person and not just your brand. You don’t have to put on this facade that you’re somebody else and the
more truthful you are the more people can relate to you and love your channel. They might be going through something you’re going through. C: Also don’t fall at the first hurdle. We were planting the seed for our business for 2 years before we actually made some decent money from it. We have messages all the time from young kids asking ‘how do we make money’ but they’re asking the wrong questions. A: We’re so fussy with the people we work with and if there’s a video and it’s not good enough we’ll do it again. That’s when you know you’ve got the pure passion for it. People think influencing is such an easy ride but if you do it properly it’s one of the toughest jobs. You eat sleep and breathe social media while thinking ‘how are we going to film this, who are we going to work with’.
SO WHAT ARE THE NEGATIVES? C: It’s very tiring. A: Trying to travel and edit and keep up this energy on video. Some people say ‘why don’t you film the arguments?!’ But we want you to tune in for happiness. We’re not trying to shy away from it but when we’re fighting we’re not going to film it.
C: I guess the tough part for us is when you travel and you have a sponsor you feel like you’ve got to keep up with the videos. Like in India, we got so ill and we went to the hospital. There’s times when you’re like, why am I doing this! A: We’re such perfectionists with our content. We say to ourselves we’ll film 5 days a week and take two off, but we work every single day. We want to put out the best content we can, there’s not a days rest.
WHAT ARE YOUR PLANS FOR THIS YEAR? A: We haven’t got any firm plans for this year. We think we know what we want to do next year. C: We’ve got a few weddings and we’ll probably do a few trips in the bus but we’re both writing books at the moment. We’re putting a lot of time into writing these books so it’s good that we haven’t got major plans because we need a lot of time to write them. Whenever I tell people about it, it gets me excited again!
