Weekend Life Update. Not even Weekend Update, just Life Update.

What's going on Vagabuddies?

It has been a long time since we've sat down and had a face-to-face.

There's a lot of new faces out there. We've had an

incredible couple of months. There's a ton of new Vagabuddies out there

So we figured we'd sit down and give you guys and girls a little bit of a life update.

Seriously, we need to catch up ..yes we do.

So first and foremost the channel has grown a lot.

About three months ago at the beginning of summer we were about

200,000 subscribers, and now we're counting it over 435,000.

It's crazy. We're almost at a half a million subscribers.

We really cannot thank you guys enough for checking out the channel,

liking it enough to subscribe, and even sharing with your friends.

We've gone through a lot of growth from the last couple months,

and it feels really rewarding. It's like..

we've been working at this channel for about five years. It's been five years?

Wow and it feels sometimes like there were periods where it felt like we're just working, working, working working and trying to make the best

content possible.

You know not getting as many views as we would like to see on the content,

but in the last couple months, it's kind of felt like viewership

and the recognition has kind of caught up with the effort that we've been putting in.

Honestly for me, it's not about the number of views;

it's not about the number of thumbs- up, as important as that is, it's about and it has always been about

telling the best stories and having the highest possible quality.

We have made it a point on our channel to always try to push the boundaries of what's possible

And to always try to deliver to all of you Vagabuddies out there the highest quality, most accurate

travel films on YouTube.

What has been really rewarding is the feeling that the content that we've been making seems to resonate.

I'm really happy that we're making videos that you guys find useful, that you find practical,

that are helping you save money, that are helping you find new places,

and that you're stoked on enough to share with your friends.

So if you guys have any other video ideas, any other questions or topics that you want us to address,

please put them in the comment section, and the more specific the better.

We'll try to address them in future videos. Basically, this is us

asking all of you out there to let us know

what type of videos you want us to make.

If you have an idea; if you have a pressing question that you need us to answer about

travel, please feel free to put it down there in the comments section, and we will do our best to address

those questions in future videos.

Something else that we're super excited about is

Buffer Festival. Buffer Festival is this really cool

YouTuber festival in Toronto. It's basically..."Torano"

"Torano." Toronto. It's in Toronto, Canada

And it's basically the Youtube version of the Toronto Film Festival, TIFF.

Yes

All of the YouTubers who are invited have to submit a film or a new video that has never been shown before.

We are very excited to be

premiering our new film East of Eden, which all of you guys and girls out there are going to get to see

right after it's premiered at Buffer Festival.

East of Eden is a big departure from what we've normally made; it's fictional,

I guess you could say, in the sense that it's not a vlog. We're playing two characters....acting.

We're acting and it's got a script with narration

It's something that we wanted to do but could not do on our own.

So we actually reached out to two friends of ours

Carlos Mason and Shelby Mincer.

They're behind Frosting Productions here in Los Angeles. So we teamed up.

We made a really really cool film.

We don't want to give away what it's about

You've got to come to Buffer Festival to see it. If you're interested

Thursday September 28th at 8 p.m.

This will be premiering at the Travel Festival or the travel screening at Buffer Festival in Toronto.

It's at the elegant theater in downtown,

and hopefully will premiere there and then also go on for the gala. Fingers crossed.

We'll see what happens. For all of you Vabuddies who will not be able to make it to the festival, do not worry.

You're all going to still be able to see the film.

We will be releasing it here on the YouTube channel

just after we show it to Buffer Festival.

It's really cool. It's a departure.

It's something that we're acting in that we produced, wrote, and directed.

We are extremely, extremely happy with the final product

and cannot wait to share it with all of you out there so stay tuned for that

It's going to be a two-hour screening

with a meet-up afterwards, and we're going to be joined with a lot of our friends

and super talented travel YouTubers like Sawyer Hartman,

Hey, Nadine, Raya Was Here, Exploring with Josh

And I'm pretty sure Eric Conover is going to be there too, among other people.

It's "gonna be dope". So if you want to buy tickets,

there's a link down below in the info box, as well as a link to

Carlos and Shelby's Instagrams, the two guys who helped us out. Could not have done this without their help., so thank you both

Another cool announcement: we have been accepted into the YouTube VR, Virtual Reality Creator Lab.

It's basically an incubator program that YouTube has put together for 11 channels to learn about virtual reality

filmmaking, 360 video from the best in the business....

which basically means that over the next few months,

we have been given a

production grant to go out and to tell the stories that we really want to tell and to take all of you out there with

us in an even more immersive, even more engaging way than our vlogs.

We will be creating four short VR films

that will take you to some of the most incredible places on this planet. We just finished a

intensive boot camp in which YouTube paired us up with the best

filmmakers in the virtual reality world. We've learned a ton.

We've learned a lot about this emerging platform

It really is the future. So if you can,

stay tuned for the videos. If you have a VR headset

they're going to be perfect for you. But if not you can watch them on your cell phone with headphones.

If you don't have a headset, you're not going to be out of luck.

Still watch the content.

But if you have a headset,

make sure that you do watch it in that with headphones on because

we are going to try to make the most immersive content we've ever created before.

We're going to be traveling around the world for the four videos,

and we're going to make some behind the scenes films for that.

So stay tuned on Instagram.

If you're not following us on Instagram, do that now and that will give you a few

behind-the-scenes looks over the next couple months as we travel the world to make those films.

We're not going to give away too much

But we are going to say that we will be coming to India

this fall to create a virtual reality film and an accompanying vlog series.

Stay tuned for that. We're super excited.

I literally cannot wait because India has been number one on my bucket list for so long,

and I'm super excited to get there, to take a bunch of photos, to film,

to create an immersive virtual reality video for all you guys and girls

out there to enjoy, and yeah, I'm so stoked.

For that trip, we're going to be going through Mumbai.

We plan to collaborate with local Indian YouTubers.

If you have anyone whom you think we should meet up with, make sure that you comment below with their names and also

Tweet them and us together so that we can start a conversation and

Stay tuned because we're probably going to do a a meet-up in Mumbai

If we have some time. So that'll be great to see all of our Indian fans out there in Bollywood. I can't wait.

Another good piece of news is that we are looking for people to join the Vagabrothers team. We have a couple different

opportunities that are available right now. First and foremost,

we're looking for someone to come with us as a shooter and an editor on some of our trips...

Preferably somebody who has been to film school. If you've just graduated film school,

please send us your CV with a reel. If you have

experience with camera operating and editing, feel free to send us an email as well.

You don't have to have gone to film school.

We didn't go to film school.

But we are really looking for somebody who has extensive practice and is a skilled videographer and editor

Also, preferably in the United States. Get creative with your entry.

Please make a video; show yourself to us on camera and tell us a bit about yourself.

Tell us why you're excited about working with us.

Tell us what your goals are for editing and filmmaking, a little bit about your background....

All that sort of stuff will help us make a decision.

We're also looking for an editor here in the Los Angeles area.

This is someone that would not be travelling with us, does not need to know how to film, but would be

editing. Those are the two positions: shooter editor to come with us on trips and an editor

locally here in Los Angeles. If you know anyone, make sure you forward this to them and also

have them email us or email us yourself at info@vagabrothers.com

Lastly we have one big announcement to make to you guys.

We are going to be releasing "merch,"

new merchandise again.

We have a couple of really cool t-shirt designs.

They're going to be limited editions.

We haven't made merch in a couple of years,

but it's back by popular demand.

A lot of you have been asking for merch

And we are happy to say that we have new designs coming at you, the first of which

should be released within the next couple of weeks.

Yeah, it's going to be about four different designs.

We're going to do one at a time, and we'll see how the first one goes. If you guys like it hopefully

we'll come back with some more. So stay tuned for that. There'll be a separate video

that's showing you the new designs, but for now just know merch is coming.

Let's finish with a little nice story.

The other day we were sitting here working away when suddenly a visitor came by our house.

Guys, you're not going to believe this...

There's a hawk in the tree.

I see that this hawk is not really able to fly.

It's jumping around and our neighbor has cats

My spirit animal.. what what are you doing? That's our house? Don't go in there. Don't go in there.

It's okay. You're okay. You're okay

Long story short, the hawk had a broken wing; it couldn't fly, so I jumped over our neighbor's fence with a

with a little sheet, and I

captured the hawk very gently, brought him back into our house, put him into my laundry bin, and this is what happened

Morning little guy.

Hi. We're going to get you out of here, ok?

Now we are driving to the California Wildlife Center.

It's up in the mountains in Malibu.

Just arrived to the California Wildlife Center.

Really beautiful property up here in Malibu.

Our little hawk buddy is in the back.

I'm going to go inside and see if there's anyone here who can help.

He fell into our other neighbor's yard, and then the cat came out and was about to get him.

I scared the cat off, and then I wrapped him up.

Well ladies and gentlemen our little friend

was a Cooper's hawk and his intake number is 3,073

Rehab usually takes anywhere between a couple of days to a couple of months depending on how severe that break is

But he's in good hands, and

hopefully soon he'll be back up

in the skies flying and being a hawk.

So that was our brief tenure of

taking care of a hawk. Let us know in the comment section what your spirit animal is and

how you might have reacted to a similar situation.

I think my brother handled that quite heroically.

You know, many people don't know this about him..here's another fact about Alex.

He used to want to be a veterinarian.

Still kind of do. Still kinda did. Took care of that hawk,

and now it is healthy.

And all I want to do right now is just leave you with this little clip of beauty.

They're ducks. They're little baby ducks.

Quack....quack.

Thank you for watching Vagabrothers.

If you liked the video, give it a thumbs-up.

share it with your friends, and subscribe

to Vagabrothers for more travel videos every single week.

What Marko the duck just said if you didn't understand was thank you for watching.