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Vagabrothers
Vagabrothers is a travel YouTube channel owned by brothers Marko and Alex Ayling. They are one of the biggest travel youtube channels with nearly 1 Million subscribers and averaging several hundred thousand views per video.

They post videos weekly, their content including videos from the Americas, Europe, Asia, Africa and the Middle East, as well as tips for general travelling. Their most popular videos tend to be about travel tips and travel affordability, their most popular being their video, 31 INSANELY AFFORDABLE Budget Travel Destinations to VISIT NOW, which has amassed nearly 8 million views since it was posted in June 2017. The brothers channel is best known for being adventurous, youthful, and money conscious, trying out trendy cultural experiences across the globe, such as going to a Sparty in Budapest, or wake boarding in Dublin. Their channel is also known to feature sections about specific kinds of travelling, or experiences such as travelling for World Festivals, for Outdoor Adventures, as well as travelling by continent.

Their videos have a specific appeal to the millennial generation being adventurous millennials themselves, however, they are also known as having a broader appeal to older generations, allowing them to "[relive] your glory days."

Background:
Brothers Mark Ayling born April 2nd, 1986, and Alexander M. Ayling born March 15th, 1988 were both born in San Diego, California. Their mother was a stewardess on PanAm airlines from Los Angelos, California when she met their father, a New Zealand expatriate, while lost on a train in Switzerland. Mark studied at the University of California, Los Angelos (UCLA) completing a BA in Economics and Political Science in 2008, and Alex studied at the University of Santa Barbra (UCSB) completing a BA in History & Cultural Anthropology in 2010.

In 2008, after college, Mark moved to Mumbai and did a five-month micro finance internship with the non-profit sector of the Somaiya Group. While he interned, he started a blog detailing his travels in India.

In September 2009, Mark applied for and received a grant at the Ministerio du Educacion in San Sebastian, Spain, to teach English to high school students. A year later, Alex got the same grant and in September 2010,  he started teaching high school students like his brother.

Teaching in the Basque Country
During the time they were in San Sebastian, both brothers started pursuing their travel-related hobbies.

Mark spent his free time pursuing travel writing and published a gastronomical guidebook for the Basque Country region of Spain, as well as several travel articles for several publications including MSN Travel UK, Matador Nights, and Off Track Planet.

Alex started pursuing photography and filmmaking. One summer while teaching, Alex was invited to participate in a documentary expedition to Ecuador, trying to find lost Inca Gold. On the trip, he got to experience adventure filmmaking and with the help of Ken Haynes, former British special forces officer turned BBC television presenter for the reality show Beyond Boundaries, he decided to try to pursue adventure filmmaking, starting when he was back in San Sebastian.

First Channel
In 2012, the brothers were living together in San Sebastian after having been apart for eight years pursuing college and internships. They visibly did not get along, and a family friend gave them the idea to create a travel television show that showed their different perspectives on travel. They decided to pursue making travel videos and started making videos of themselves exploring the Basque country and teaching English as a second language every week.

They attempted to submit their videos to production companies hoping to land a spot on a television show but they were promptly rejected after the producers saw their content. They continued to make videos, exploring their interests in travel production and journalism while teaching English in the Basque country.

The Contest
In March 2013, Mark’s Spain visa was expiring and he was preparing to leave the country when he encountered a tweet about a MyDestination contest called the Biggest Baddest Bucket List Trip. . The trip gave one team a six-month trip around the world, as well as $50,000 each to the winning team who submitted the best 3-minute video of any destination.

The brothers decided to enter the contest, submitting a video of where they were currently living, San Sebastian. A few months later, when Mark was back in the United States, they were informed that they won the contest. In June 2013 they started the trip, creating and uploading two videos a week for six months straight, all in all, creating 50 videos of the trip.

New Channel
In February 2014 after they came back from the trip, they launched their new and updated travel channel, the Vagabrothers which has since amassed 970,000 subscribers from around the world. The large following has allowed the brothers to expand their channel which now includes a wide variety of travel series around the world, as well as translated versions of some of their most popular videos. They also have since launched a website that organizes their videos by specific country and interest, as well as sells merchandise.

Recent Updates
In 2018, after posting content continuously for five years, the brothers secured a television show on YouTube TV for the Santa Monica video network Tastemade, called “Basic vs Baller”. The series had ten, twenty-two-minute episodes and premiered on YouTube TV May 2018.