Monetizing Van Life, getting sponsorships for living in a camper van, and being a #vanlife influencer and making money on Instagram are all highly misunderstood topics. We get asked pretty often about how we get sponsorships for living in a camper van and we would like to share some insight about how that all works.
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We built a 100% DIY Campervan so we could travel full-time and take adventures around North America. Want to see how we built it? Check out this playlist: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zprH-U07sg&list=PLmvhcyi4n0TUIwAx8FQ06xsgvY8dxOXCH
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Thanks so much for watching this video, it truly means the world to us. One of the most difficult things we face is not getting feedback from those who watch our stuff, so if you watch it, let us know! Even a few simple words or thoughts gives us extreme motivation to keep on making videos. Fuel our fire, leave a comment!
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Nate and Steph are a couple of crazy adventurers who decided that life was too short to spend their time and money accumulating “stuff.” So, they set out in an RV in January 2016 to travel North America and replace their stuff with experiences. In March 2017, they sold their RV and bought a Sprinter Van, which they built out into a campervan to continue their travels and adventures in #vanlife style.
Both originally from the small town of Blanchard, Oklahoma, Nate and Steph enjoy learning about new cultures and experiencing different ways of life across the world. They like to meet new people from all walks of life and just sit and have a beer with whoever shows up. It’s all about spontaneity in this life!
They travel with their two pups, Pyros and Sparta, who have become great travelers and adventure pups as well.
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Backup camera & Kit lenses: http://amzn.to/2wFc26f
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Want to work/collaborate with us? Email Nate@Adventureinabackpack.com
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Hey guys we appreciate your honesty and your integrity thats what makes you guys special and that is why we are interested in following you because you are real people and we appreciate you not going for companies like luxury watches to sponsor because you are right it wouldnt make sense. If i saw that you were selling luxury watches it would be very weird and i would loose trust for you guys thats the honest truth so yeah integrity and trust are for me very important as it seems it is for you guys to, as there so few real people out there these days! So good on you we appreciate it! I would say i am interested in all products that you guys use when you travel and are part of your vehicle thats what i would be interested in and stuff that works and is of good quality!
We own a couple companies and would like to work with you, please check us out at:
http://www.cdasports.com and
http://www.stillwateroutdoors.com
We are a small paddleboard sports company that started as a rental company is Spokane WA.
Thank you for this in depth video guys. We 100% agree about maintaining our integrity and ethics and wouldn't promote something we didn't use ourselves and love. Btw, Matt and I love our luna sandals (heard about them before this) and totally get lots of questions when we wear them too!
Amazing tips! Really brilliant idea to get a hand with the finances.
I searched for yr inflatable paddle board when I watched your vid on full van walk through and storage. 🙂 🙂 🙂
Great job – protect your brand – honest credible good people, in my eyes!
Nate, what is that black thing under your front solar panels ?
Stop be hating on the kettle chips #VanChips
I was expecting that I'd be flaming you guys before the end of the video, but you resisted the money grab. Stay transparent, stay independent and you'll keep your vanlife viewers. Your videos have helped me in the past.
The subject of monetization, sponsorship and product placement leaves me feeling icky. Your video helped me decide one thing… I'm turning off monetization (not that I've reached that magical milestone anyway).
What begins as a niche topic can become big enough to sell goods.
I see a car dweller go from sleeping at Walmart for months to enthusing about the DJI drone they just got sent and now they're climbing a mountain to show it off??? When I see channels that profess to care about my health and wellbeing now appearing in my sponsored suggestions and they just want to sell me some bull supplement???
Very cool guys. We aren't even as big as you and we have been getting some funny brands contacting us for sponsorship. We have to turn them down because they have nothing to do with our brand, and what it represents.
I can't understand why this channel hasn't grown much larger than it has. 13k subscribers?? Out of all the Van Life channels I watch, this is by far my favorite. You guys are great and make really good content, and as others have said, give totally honest opinions on different products.
love u guys for being so open. pardon my ignorance but what's ur stance on diet. do you eat anything that poops?
The contrast is with the people who work the sugar beet harvest for 10 days and make $3000 and then they can travel for a while. Or the older folks working the Amazon warehouses. The watch company clearly has zero respect for what you are doing.
If you really want to be a 'brand', build a rep and a channel over 5 years, I think you should be you. It should be entirely about you. I wouldn't do anything that smacked of commercial backing, wouldn't do the affiliate stuff. I'm less troubled by the Patreon thing, where people say they want your videos enough to pay for them.
At some point, the #vanlife channels have to work down to a manageable number, and then it's content and someone should be paying for quality content. It's ludicrous to think that really great content will just be donated to YouTube. They are such arrogant bastards. But you still want to be ethical, honest, articulate people with a solid point of view.
These are great anecdotes, but they are scary. There is a war on journalists in the US, but the standards of journalists are worth noting and following. There are so many issues revolving around public land. In some ways it is less a playground than a circus. I think you are trying to convey something about your relationship to nature.
Great content, and good for you guys. They don't teach "business ethics" in college anymore. Iv purchased keens, tents, bags, etc.. based on ethical content and those are all my favorite things. If you wear a luminox I might buy it, but if you pushed Rolex I might quit watching your channel.
Thanks so much for the info Nate and Steph. Your transparency and honesty is refreshing. You two definitely have a lot of integrity and are very consistent in word/deed. Safe travels and looking forward to seeing more adventures!
Thanks for the information guys! Definitely always looking for other people's opinions on gear before we make our purchases. Thanks for sharing 🙂
Kettle Chips are the future. Huge missed opportunity like buying Apple in 1996. Would you consider promoting Humus R Us? People smile just thinking about humus with Kettle Chips.
great topic here you two. i kinda do the,same thing on my channel. i buy and use products and sometimes mention what i used. i will mention here that i bought a heart freedom inverter. barely used it. it fried the control board when it was plugged into power and i started the motorhome at the same time
they would not sale me a new control board and forced me to ship it to there service center costing me over $450 to fix. so one question to ask companies is do they stand behind there products and are there repair parts available to the consumer. would've taken me 5 min. to put this board in myself for probably $60 part you know
I was waiting to see if you did what most people don't, and right at the end you did it .You said if you buy something from anything that is sold through your name and you have trouble LET YOU KNOW. That deserves at least 5 thumbs up .Keep the Vlogs coming
Keep your integrity guys, good work.
Subscribed yesterday and I'm so glad I turned my notifications on, great video!
Thanks for explaining your ad ethics/way of thinking and for always producing high quality content!