Mark Wiens: From Food Blogger to 12M Subscribers

Channel: Mark Wiens   Who: Mark Wiens, an American food and travel YouTuber, blogger and author based in Bangkok   Subscribers: 12M (as of 2 November 2026)   Niche: Street food and food travel

Not long after starting a blog in 2009, Mark Wiens was teaching English in Bangkok because he had nearly run out of money. He didn't enjoy it, so he set himself a goal: he would never teach again, and he would find a way to earn a living online so he could keep travelling and eating. It took years of blogging after work, a frugal year living off his savings and a self-published ebook before it paid. As of 2 November 2026 his YouTube channel has 12 million subscribers, more than 1,600 videos and over 3.4 billion views.

A missionary kid who liked to eat

Mark was born in Phoenix, Arizona, on 26 February 1986 into a family of Christian missionaries. He did his first year of school in Albertville, France, was home-schooled for three years in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and spent eight years at an international school in Nairobi, Kenya. He credits his parents, who both love food, for his own appetite. In 2008 he graduated from Arizona State University with a degree in global studies and set off on a solo trip through South America, where he took a TESOL course and hiked in Patagonia.

A blog so he didn't have to write emails

Back in the US for his sister's wedding in early 2009, he started a blog. "I used to hate writing emails or even writing anything," he told Easyspace in 2014, so posting photos to a blog once a week seemed easier than writing to friends and family. He called it Migrationology, because he wanted to live in a place long enough to get to know it, "more like a migration than a vacation." Then he bought a one-way ticket to Bangkok and spent about six months eating his way around Southeast Asia, until he had spent nearly all his money and signed a contract to teach English for a year.

The ebook that changed everything

Every evening after teaching he worked on his blog, which was slowly picking up readers from search engines. A year later it still wasn't paying the bills, so he lived cheaply in Thailand on what he had saved from teaching and gave himself another full year to make it work. That was the year he published his first ebook, the Eating Thai Food Guide, which he calls his "online earnings turning point." It was the first product he had to sell. He told Easyspace he had put it off for years because he was afraid people wouldn't buy it: "So my advice is to just do it." By 2014 his biggest income streams were his food and travel ebook guides, affiliate commissions, YouTube ads and freelance work. "It took me about 2 years of intense work to make enough money to live off," he said.

From food photos to food videos

In 2012 he started wondering how to share more than photos could: "photographs of food are great, but how can I share more of the atmosphere and the emotion of eating?" His first street food videos were very simple and, in his words, he had no idea what he was doing. He kept posting anyway. By 2016 he had more than 300,000 subscribers and told writer Simon Stanley that growth had come from persistence and a frequent publishing schedule, not one big viral moment. He married Ying, whom he met in Thailand, in 2013, and the two travel and eat together. Since then he has co-authored a Thailand recipe book, opened the Phed Mark restaurant in Bangkok with friends in 2019, launched Bangkok food tours in 2020 and hosted the HBO Asia series Food Affair with Mark Wiens in 2022. His channel now posts two videos a week, and the video pinned to the top of it, a Kabul street food tour, has more than 2.4 million views.

"Very unreliable, and very unpredictable"

Even with millions of views, Mark has been open about how uncertain the money was. "Money, especially in previous years, was very unreliable, and very unpredictable," he said in 2016. There were projects that fell through and times when he didn't think he could support his wife as an independent entrepreneur. What steadied things was not relying on one source of income. His About page lists ads on videos, ebooks and t-shirts, and his YouTube channel links to his store and the camera gear he uses.

What other creators can take from it

Mark's turning point wasn't a viral video. It was the first time he had something of his own to sell to the readers he'd already won over with free, useful posts. You don't need 12 million subscribers for that to work. A guide, a set of recipes or a city food list that a few hundred fans pay for can buy you the time to keep making videos.

You can set that up in minutes. On Yaff you can sell ebooks and guides, share behind-the-scenes posts, photo dumps and extra videos behind monthly membership 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 Broke Waiter to 12M Subscribers: The Sonny Side Story, From English Teacher to 7.5M Subscribers: Drew Binsky, From Car Detailer to 4.3M Subscribers: Peter Santenello, From Accountant to 2M Subscribers: The Lost LeBlanc Story and From JET Teacher to 3.3M Subscribers: Abroad in Japan.

Watch Mark Wiens on YouTube