When Itinerant Fan began more than a decade ago, I had no designs on making videos for YouTube, Instagram, TikTok or any other medium — I was a writer, I enjoyed writing, and I wanted to write about my passion, sports travel.

Fast forward to the beginning of this year, and my desire to make videos had reached a fever pitch. That’s why I started the Itinerant Fan channel on YouTube.

Yes, it is quite the sea change for me, as I really had no desire to put myself on camera back then. Even now, it’s not something I really enjoy doing, if I’m being perfectly honest.

But I fully understand how content consumption has changed over the years. As much as I enjoy the challenge of describing to the reader what my experiences of traveling for sports and visiting stadiums are like, there’s no way it can beat being able to show someone what you saw and did on video.

This change in my thinking mirrors the way I consume content, as well. I’m a voracious reader online, and I like to read as much as I can about a planned destination before I take the trip. But in the last five years, I’ve found myself going to YouTube just as much to find videos from sports and travel content creators — that way I can actually SEE what I’m potentially going to experience.

I’ve spent the last few years making reels on Instagram, and those 60- to 90-minute snippets have increasingly become more fun for me to produce. It taps into a level of creativity that’s just different from writing, as I’m now tasked with choosing music and writing captions that both fit my personality and engage the viewer.

And what I’ve really discovered is that, whether it’s through writing or producing video, it’s the storytelling that matters. Because I’ve found that I don’t have to change my approach to storytelling when making these videos, launching a YouTube channel about sports and travel was a natural complement to the work I’m already doing on this site.

What you’ll find on the Itinerant Fan YouTube channel

The content on the Itinerant Fan YouTube channel will largely mirror what you already find on this website — that is, we’ll largely be producing video guides to major stadiums and cities, while looking to shed light on top sports and travel experiences.

The channel was soft-launched in February with a handful of stadium guides, and since then I’ve added to the library with a glimpse of the major cities I’ve visited this year.

At the time of this post’s publishing, the most viewed YouTube video we’ve put out so far is a look at how the Delta Center in Salt Lake City was reconfigured to accommodate the Utah Hockey Club (since rebranded as the Utah Mammoth).

Sure, the number of subscribers and video views the channel has gained in the first few months is modest at best, but I got into this endeavor knowing that traffic and popularity isn’t built overnight. There are countless successful YouTube creators who can attest to this, and many I have talked to about starting this channel have had the same piece of advice: Once you start, don’t quit.

That won’t be an issue for me, at least in the early going. I have several ambitious trips planned in the next year, and I’ve incorporated video creation into the planning for each one of them.

And believe it or not, I’ve had fun doing so. That’s not something I would have expected to say even a few years ago.

What my future holds on YouTube

Though all the content on the Itinerant Fan YouTube channel currently consists of video guides to stadiums and cities for the sports-minded traveler, I expect to expand in the near future to include more personal travel experiences.

First-person views of long international airline flights are in the works, as well as videos about non-sports related travel experiences, such as unique journeys by train and boat. I also intend to make a few trips to destinations that have nothing to do with sports, and I plan to make video content around those.

In short, everything’s on the table. When you’re just starting out with something, it helps to to be open-minded and try lots of things. And hey, if some of these videos don’t resonate, that’s cool. At its essence this is a channel about sports travel, after all.

Though producing videos for the YouTube channel will now take up a significant amount of my time, the ethos of this website will not change. I expect to continue writing posts about top sports travel experiences at the same pace as before. Hopefully, I can write a little more, actually — it’ll help to have more content to work with, which the YouTube channel affords me in spades.

Above all, making YouTube videos is just another way for me to convey my passion for sports travel, and to inspire others to get out there and take their own trip. If I’m able to inspire you in some way, I’ve done my job!

If you enjoy the content on this site, please check out the Itinerant Fan YouTube channel and consider subscribing. It would mean a lot and help me continue to produce strong content. And if you have any thoughts or suggestions, feel free to leave a comment below or drop me a line at [email protected].