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Live YouTube Q&A: Is The World Really As Bad As We Think?

This week’s live YouTube Q&A session.

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I did another live YouTube Q&A on Monday tackling questions about things like what I feared as a kid that didn’t happen, what’s going on in China’s new cities and along the Belt and Road, as well as some basic questions about perpetual travel and managing time as a traveling content creator.

The problem with the archived version of this Q&A session is that YouTube’s internal transcoding mechanisms are messed up and the audio and video are not synced properly and both are of atrocious quality. I don’t understand what’s causing this, as the audio and video are coming in through the same feed and they are properly synced and high-quality coming into my laptop and,I believe, during the live version as well. So keep this in mind if you decide to watch. Next Monday I will transmit a signal at a lower bit rate to check if that helps.

If you have any questions for next week’s live Q&A, which will take place on Monday at 10 am eastern time USA on my YouTube channel here, feel free to ask them in the comments below or email them to me.

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Filed under: Vlog

About the Author:

I am the founder and editor of Vagabond Journey. I’ve been traveling the world since 1999, through 91 countries. I am the author of the book, Ghost Cities of China and have written for The Guardian, Forbes, Bloomberg, The Diplomat, the South China Morning Post, and other publications. has written 3723 posts on Vagabond Journey. Contact the author.

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VBJ is currently in: New York City

7 comments… add one

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  • Trevor March 4, 2019, 8:50 pm

    Thanks for the mentions on your latest Qs and As..

    The Q about ‘ how much’ was really to myself… but hell, was good to hear you opinions/answers..

    yup i am mail man . lol… each hour i work is a days budget on the road.

    and i do amass an insane amount compared to the figures you quoted cos i am job less for upto 4 years ( last trip) whilst backpacking. (2 months in Korea -free bed, some free food, bonus and 2x 5 months in Kyrgyzstan as a hostel dogs body -free bed, free food excepted)..

    am 5k short of what i had last time. and am now pretty much decompressed from the 1423 day trip … so im waiting a while longer, hoping the overtime keeps coming… cos the only way to go one better than a 1423 day trip is go to 2000.. or 5 years…. @25$ a day inc all visas flights.. do the maths. an insane amount but no need to think about work for a long long time….

    why?? i guess as i class myself as old now, working as a hostel volunteer to keep average daily spend down aint gonna happen, 1 place in KGZ aside, and if i go through Europe, i cant hack dorm rooms any more.. my daily budget will be higher than before.. but i travel slower.. and each trip i do less ‘things’ .. more content to just be… with a new view from the window every week.. or a different lake to look out over drinking my morning tea…

    gotta watch the rest of the Qs and As vid..

    take care man

    fyi 89 countries and territories, massive fan of long insane overland trips… how… why… i dt have anyone, i dt get home sick.. and backpacking pretty much non stop since 2000… plans/ideas for my next trip are taking shape.. 24 new countries 7 revisits.. and thats just for starters…

    regards Trevor

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    • Wade Shepard March 5, 2019, 10:09 am

      Right on about being too old for volunteering or dorm rooms. Yes, you get to a point in life where saving such small amounts of money isn’t worth working for free or listening to a room of Chinese dudes fart all night. Saving money becomes not the wise thing it once seemed.

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    • Wade Shepard March 5, 2019, 10:10 am

      24 new countries? You’re going to Africa, right? That’s about the only way that’s going to happen with the amount of coverage you already have. Or the Caribbean – – lots of countries there.

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      • Trevor March 5, 2019, 6:05 pm

        hmmm Africa right.. 12+/- there.. plus. the one west of Burma, the one uve got projects in….near UAE, east of Kupang, the land of the midnight sun and sushi, 4 ex Yugoslavian countries, the one just south of Sicily… the one next to HK,
        how manys that ?

        im not country counting, just that im fully awhere of how many i have been too. i clocked up 10 seperate trips in Malaysia over the years so had i dedicated my energies into country hunting, id be on 150. but that does not interest me other than the experience, knowledge and delight that visiting so many countries gives me.

        bucket list: boat down Tanganyka, steam boat from Dhaka to Barisal, EBC.. a loop of Borneo… and so the list goes on… the journey is the buzz.. a bit like blogging or my attempts at it…. tweaking SEO and coding to get on page 1 of Google/ getting it all looking good…
        im an info junkie… i love timings, planning, visa research, finding illusive local buses, Google maps is my favourite app.

        yup its true.. i have not even been to central or south america…. may be i should.. but im not convinced yet.

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      • Wade Shepard March 6, 2019, 8:47 am

        Sounds incredible, and you still have an entire continent and a half to go!

        No problem with country counting — you learn something with every border you cross and it’s possible spend a lifetime in a place and never really know anything about it. Keeping the traveler mind is what really counts.

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  • Wendy March 6, 2019, 1:55 pm

    I guess you’ve seen what you’re talking about but I don’t know……am i going to believe you or everybody else in media?

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    • Wade Shepard March 6, 2019, 2:03 pm

      Believe whatever you want.

      Link Reply