Channel: Lost LeBlanc Who: Christian LeBlanc, Canadian travel filmmaker Subscribers: 2.29M (as of 27 October 2026) Niche: travel films and adventure series
Lost LeBlanc's channel description starts with three words in capitals: "QUIT my job to travel the world." Christian LeBlanc was an accountant in Vancouver with what he called the "dream" job. He walked away from it with a GoPro, a laptop that kept crashing and, by his own account, no skills as a content creator. As of 27 October 2026 his channel has 2.29 million subscribers and 905 videos.
Christian's plan was to finish business school and work for one of Canada's biggest accounting firms. In his last year of university he did an exchange in Bangkok, Thailand. "I fell into YouTube by accident," he told Epidemic Sound. "I started off by filming my school exchange in Bangkok, Thailand and the best investment I ever made was buying a GoPro." He was filming for himself, his friends and his family, because he assumed a 9-to-5 job would soon end that kind of trip for good.
The job came. He went to work at EY in Vancouver, putting in long hours and plenty of weekends, as VICE reported. "I was incredibly unhappy and unmotivated," he later wrote in Resorts Magazine. In a 2021 event description he put it more bluntly: he had "found myself depressed and drained."
At 22 he quit, sold everything he owned and scraped together "just enough money for a one-way ticket" back to Bangkok, VICE reported. He lived like a "broke backpacker" for a year. "When I started, I didn't have a single photography bone in my body," he wrote. "I used to be terrified of speaking to the camera! When the camera turned on, my brain turned off."
He taught himself. "It started with very basic editing. I had a GoPro and a laptop that would crash every now and then," he told VICE. "I taught myself by consuming videos and editing my own videos every single day." His first breakout came on Instagram rather than YouTube. An elephant took a selfie of him with his GoPro, and he says the photo was shared by ABC, the BBC and CNN. It took him from 3,000 Instagram followers to 15,000 overnight, and a news syndication company paid him "a couple grand" for the image rights.
He had given himself two years just to break even. "But I was able to hit break-even in two months," he told VICE in 2019. "In year one I made a little over $20,000. The second year was six figures and it's only increased from there." By then the channel had passed one million subscribers and he was posting a weekly travel video from his base in Bali.
He was open about where the money came from. Brand deals were the main source. Second were the courses he sold through his own storefront, video editing and travel guides, with what he called "exclusive, behind-the-scenes content." Third was affiliate links, and only fourth was YouTube ad revenue. Writing for Epidemic Sound in 2022, he said ads made up about 10% of his income. By then he had also built Lost Creator Academy, an online course for creators that he called "a second seven-figure business."
His most useful advice for smaller creators is about owning the relationship with your audience. "When it comes to sales and marketing, a follower or subscriber virtually means nothing," he wrote. "What really matters is how many people you are actually able to connect with and reach." His next tip is to build a product your core audience wants, which he calls "the most rewarding income source." Ads paid him the least. Selling directly to the people who cared paid him the most.
You don't need a seven-figure course to start. On Yaff you can sell behind-the-scenes posts, photo dumps, travel videos and ebook guides behind monthly tiers, take tips, and talk to supporters in group chats and DMs. Starter is free with a 5% platform fee, and payouts go to your bank daily via Stripe. Start your free Yaff page and publish your first post, see pricing, or read how to fund your expedition or adventure with memberships and add Yaff to your YouTube channel.
More origin stories: From English Teacher to 7.5M Subscribers: Drew Binsky, From Project 30 to 10M Subscribers: The Yes Theory Story, From Oil Rigs to 2M Subscribers: Sailing La Vagabonde, From Plumber to 13M Subscribers: The Colin Furze Story and From Crashed Audi to 7 Million Subscribers: The Mat Armstrong Story.
Latest videos
Follow Lost LeBlanc's unofficial fan page
Canadian travel filmmaker Christian LeBlanc quit his accounting job at EY in Vancouver, flew one-way to Thailand with a GoPro and built Lost LeBlanc into a travel channel. 2.29M subscribers as of 27 October 2026.
See latest videos and updatesSee what fans think of Lost LeBlanc on Fan Town.
Lost LeBlanc is the YouTube channel of Christian LeBlanc, a Canadian travel filmmaker. He worked as an accountant at EY in Vancouver before quitting at 22 to travel and make videos full time.
He started filming with a GoPro during a university exchange in Bangkok, Thailand. After returning to an accounting job he disliked, he sold everything he owned, bought a one-way ticket back to Bangkok and lived like a broke backpacker for a year while teaching himself to film and edit.
The channel, youtube.com/@lostleblanc, had 2.29 million subscribers and 905 videos as of 27 October 2026.
In 2019 he told VICE his income came from brand deals first, then courses and behind-the-scenes content sold through his own storefront, then affiliate links, then YouTube ads. In 2022 he wrote that ads were about 10% of his income and that his course, Lost Creator Academy, had become a second seven-figure business.
Yes. On Yaff you can sell behind-the-scenes posts, photo dumps, videos and ebooks behind monthly tiers, take tips, and chat with supporters. Starter is free with a 5% platform fee. Optional Creator ($19/mo) and Pro ($99/mo) plans drop the platform fee to 0%. Payouts are daily via Stripe.
Written by Nicole Fougere
Welcome to my Yaff page! I am a Co-Founder here at Yaff where our goal is to help you fund your sporting journey and adventures with Yaff to make your dreams...
