WOW Travel Guide

Ready to take on the WOW world

This summer two WOW travel guides will move to Iceland and then travel to several WOW destinations. By creating awesome videos, photos and articles, they hope to enlighten, entertain and inspire others to travel. Their videos, articles and photos will be shared through WOW air’s social media all summer.

Early this spring WOW air advertised the position of the WOW travel guide, a three month paid summer job where applicants would get to travel the world with their best friend. To apply, the hopeful travel guides needed to create and upload a short video travel guide from their hometown. Needless to say, this was a dream job for many and over 13,000 applications were received and reviewed. Most were pretty decent, some were cringe worthy and others were way out there, such as traveling dogs, traveling cats and a travel guide video from Antarctica.

THE FINAL PICK

Eventually, two friends, Rob and Brad, were chosen after sending in their budget-friendly and fast-paced video from New York. “We watched thousands of videos and it was hard to choose just one but Brad and Rob just really nailed it. They didn’t go the traditional way and that’s one of the things we really liked about them. They were resourceful, funny and they kept our attention for the full two minutes. After watching thousands of videos we always came back to them,” says Birna Erlingsdottir, project manager at WOW air.

So let’s meet Rob and Brad. Who are they and what do they plan to do to WOW our audience this summer?

“Brad is a comedian with a very fancy degree in Engineering—Is your pop still upset about that Brad? I meant to ask—and Rob is a filmmaker slash travel writer slash professional eater of food who likes to write in the third person. We have worked together for a long time on comedy and filmmaking,” Rob wrote to us, “and since we travel so much, it was a natural fit to combine the two.”

Why do you think WOW air picked you?

“Honestly, it was the first question we asked WOW air because there were so many incredible entries, we couldn’t understand how they could ever boil it down to just one film. We hope they picked us because they honestly saw how much we love to travel. Both of us live and breathe travel and we tried to make that excitement and passion come across in what we do. That and the fact that Rob has some decent filmmaking chops and Brad isn’t afraid to look like an idiot, diving into dumpsters and such.”

ROB AND BRAD GO NUTS

The duo brainstormed a lot and say that at first they approached it like a commercial pitch—targeting what would be the most effective way to telescope their message to their main demographic while adhering to WOW air’s branding and current messaging. “Then we got bored with that idea so we decided to take the camera out and go nuts around the city. We knew that WOW air was budget-minded, so we targeted anything we thought was cool that didn’t cost an arm and a leg, while still offering some lesser known tips (like you can sleep in a real NYC taxi for 39 bucks). It took us two solid days of filming, and a few days to edit it all together.”

How do you plan to keep the WOW audience captive this summer?

“Mostly by channeling Ingrid Bergman or perhaps the early work of Michael Haneke; excruciatingly long shots of darkness, minimal dialogue, and a vague sense of story we think is what travelers really want to see. Nothing says “Paris” like 4 minutes of blackness and the remote sound of a cat in heat. Truly, we hope that the WOW audience is us, and we’re going to explore each destination as if they came along on the trip, doing the things that we would want to do if no one was watching. So expect more of the unexpected finds, local spots and new attractions, and less of the common tourist sites that anyone with the internet is familiar with. Also, Brad is really interested in finding out what foreign dumpsters taste like. Should be exciting."

LET’S GET THIS SHOW IN THE AIR

The traveling duo is excited to take on the world this summer but reluctant to mention any specific destination they’re looking forward to visiting. (Except for Pittsburg; they say they really love bridges.) “We just want to take a moment to seriously thank WOW air and all the other fantastic people that entered along with us, because it’s been unbelievably inspiring to see so many people come together for the common love of travel, something for which we are truly indebted. We really do appreciate the opportunity, and can’t wait to share the WOW world with everyone out there. I don’t think we’ve even fully accepted mentally that this is really happening. It’s a dream come true.”

Stay tuned on WOW air’s social media this summer to catch Rob and Brad’s travel guides and insights. And if you see them in Reykjavik, don’t forget to say hi!

Watch as Brad and Rob take over some of WOW air's destinations this summer at travelguide.wowair.com