The brisk of YouTube walking tours
On the face of it, YouTube walking tours are one of the internet’s strangest success stories, but these slow-paced videos are part of a new trend in relaxed travel.
The world of content is a never-ending one; we’ve got a 24-hour news cycle and jump-cut heavy TikToks trying to grab our eyeballs while we’re doomscrolling. However, YouTube is awash with walking tours, where there is no narration, no plot and absolutely no personality. Just a camera recording footsteps and ambient sound over an unfolding cityscape. What began as a niche format has just grown in popularity to become a key pillar in digital travel media.
At their core, these videos are incredibly simple, with a content creator strapping themselves to a camera, hitting record and just walking, experiencing the landscape as they find it, and letting its sights and sounds wash over them. Generally clocking in at between 30 and 120 minutes, these videos, filmed at the best possible resolution, capture the streets in places like Tokyo or New York, offering pure, uninterrupted immersion, where nobody is telling us how the bagel they’re eating is the best in the city, nor are they filling our heads with history pilfered from Wikipedia.
Traditionally, travel content has always revolved around narrative, which came from history, then it spawned into a personality-led human-focus, thanks to people like Anthony Bourdain. Now, these walking tours strip us of all of that, not telling us about a place, but letting us experience it, without the airfare. With plane tickets only getting more and more expensive as the cost-of-living skyrockets, we’re only going to see continued growth for this format. We’d all love to see more of the world, but with financial and time pressures, this is an easy way to be a tourist in a city, without ever leaving your armchair.
A lot has been spoken about the invasion of technology into our private and personal lives, with increased screentime a growing concern, and despite these still requiring an internet connection and a screen, they act as an antidote to that. They’re slow and casual and without the visual hooks that are rife in modern content. The sounds, from cars driving by to birds tweeting, are almost ASMR-like, ambient soundscapes that are, in many ways, meditative. This is tourism without friction, where you’re not going to have to spend time in long queues at passport control, spend tons of cash, deal with the hustle and bustle of a street in Delhi, the rain in Berlin, or the phone robbers in London. You can just sit back, relax and take in your surroundings, echoing the healing feeling of sitting and looking out of the window on a long train journey or Uber ride.
Travel media has become increasingly clichéd, wherein we see the same viral hotspots, the same ‘unique’ experiences being offered, but this gives us something totally different, a real look at a place during an ordinary moment that feels spontaneous and organic rather than curated or faked. There’s something to enjoy, whether you’re watching somebody pound the streets in a city in which you used to live, one you’re planning to visit, or one that you’re unlikely to ever step foot in.
It’s easy to see why people have fallen in love with this content, but it’s also worth thinking about why the algorithm has pushed it. These faceless, narration-less videos can amass huge view counts, making successful accounts an attractive business model. There’s a very low cost for entry with a huge upside if you can get in the rankings for a major, popular city, and long video times also increase the possibility for adverts, only furthering the financial rewards at play.
We’ve seen a change in travel over the past decade, moving from consumption to experience, and the success of this form of content only proves that further. You don’t watch to be told about destinations or learn about them, you watch to feel them, and whether you’re watching to get ideas for your trip, or to avoid needing to make the trip altogether, you’re still getting to see something authentic and truthful, and watching life unfold.
YouTube walking tours might seem like a niche subculture, but they’re an indicator of a wider shift within travel and life, where, with life speeding up and our attention spans desparingly low, it marks a return to slow media, a reaction against the neck-break speed and attention-grabbing tricks of modern content. We’re all searching for something deeper, more truthful, as we value authenticity and immersion over curated highlights, so in a faster, louder, more hectic modern world, the idea of taking things slow and letting life creep past you is a powerful one.
