Kara and Nate: From Printing Shop to 4.5M Subscribers

Channel: Kara and Nate   Who: Kara and Nate, a husband and wife from Nashville, Tennessee   Subscribers: 4.55M (as of 29 October 2026)   Niche: travel vlogs

Kara and Nate meant to take one year off. In January 2016 the high school sweethearts from Nashville, Tennessee moved out of their apartment, sold their cars, put everything in storage and boarded a one-way flight to Tokyo. The plan was to see as much of the world as possible, then go home, "settle down, get serious about our careers, and start a family." Instead, one year became four, they reached their 100th country at the end of 2019, and as of 29 October 2026 their channel has 4.55 million subscribers, more than 1,000 videos and over 1 billion views.

A honeymoon paid for with points

Before YouTube, Kara was a preschool teacher and Nate ran a printing company. In his founder's letter for Daily Drop, Nate says it started with the honeymoon: "Back in 2014, I was getting married, and I had one job: To plan the honeymoon." He was "a recent college grad with very little money," so he taught himself miles and points. When the first flights booked on points worked, he remembers "looking around the plane thinking, 'I CANNOT BELIEVE IT ACTUALLY WORKED!'"

The trip to Belize gave them the travel bug. Over the next two years they saved up two million miles and points and about $35,000, and Nate sold his printing company before they left.

A channel started on a whim

They created the YouTube channel on 8 December 2015, a few weeks before the trip, mostly to keep friends and family up to date. On their website they admit they "knew very little about filming and editing videos" and "even less about growing a YouTube channel." Their channel description says they "started our YouTube channel on a whim when we decided to take a year off & go travel back in 2016."

Six months in, they decided to try to turn the channel into a business that could keep them travelling after the first year. Nate tracked every dollar and published regular income and expense reports. The first full report, for July 2016, showed "a grand total of $603.26," and, in his words, "we spent WAY more than we made."

Five income streams, and fans first

By 2017 they had built five income streams around the channel. YouTube ads were not the biggest. In a 2017 case study for The Professional Hobo, Nate said that in Q3 2017 the channel got 1.7 million views but only about 500,000 of them were monetized. That quarter they earned $10,439: $3,814 from Patreon, $3,224 from Nate's travel hacking course, $2,137.79 from YouTube ads, $739.26 from affiliate links and $578 from video licensing.

Fan support came first on that list, even though they nearly didn't ask for it. "Midway through 2016, we debated on whether or not we should start a Patreon page," Nate wrote. "On one hand, we felt like we were asking for a hand out to continue our travels. But on the other hand, we were working eight hours per day to produce high-quality videos that people really enjoyed watching." By then more than 90 patrons were paying them for each video. They also took viewers along in person, selling out four weeks of a Vespa tour through Le Marche, Italy.

100 countries, a van, and a newsletter

By 2018 they had published more than 500 videos, passed 225,000 subscribers and won a Shorty Award for travel. They reached their goal of 100 countries in December 2019, after nearly 700 videos and close to 1 million subscribers. When the pandemic stopped international travel, they converted a van and spent two years travelling around the U.S., then went back to living out of suitcases in 2022. That year Nate also founded Daily Drop, a daily miles-and-points newsletter built on the same travel hacking that paid for their honeymoon. Their latest series follows the Mongol Rally.

What other creators can take from it

Kara and Nate did not wait for ad money to make the channel work. Within months of starting they asked their most engaged viewers to support them directly, shared openly what that support paid for, and added products their audience wanted, like a course and a group trip. For a small travel or adventure channel, a few dozen paying supporters can matter more than the next 100,000 views.

You can set that up in minutes. On Yaff you can sell behind-the-scenes posts, photo dumps, travel videos and 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.

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Watch Kara and Nate on YouTube