Isaac Explores

Words by Sadie Pitcher

Photos by Toby Shaw

With travel photos supplied by Isaac Elam

“My university was going out in the real world” 22-year old travel content creator on building a platform, community and breaking taboos.

Isaac Elam known online as Isaacexploress, grew up in Hastings but has found friends, freedom and a career documenting his travels to dangerous and unexpected places.

Scrolling through Isaac’s social media feeds is a world tour of under the radar and often perceived to be dangerous travel destinations. Most recently, he’s captured wild horses grazing in the meadows of Kyrgyzstan and the markets, beaches and streets of Pakistan with a confidence beyond his 22 years.

Having reached 20,000 subscribers on YouTube in just two months 58.4K followers on Instagram and 112.7K followers on TikTok with over 6 million views on one of his videos, you’d be forgiven for thinking Isaac had become an overnight success. But it’s been years of hard work to have got to where he is. “It was trial and error, posting every day for a year, year and a half without anything really happening. I realised the only way I was going to get better is if I kept making all these errors and kept learning and then when it finally clicked it was even more fulfilling. You have to just go out, explore, find out and learn for yourself” Isaac explains.

It all started when Isaac moved to the other side of the world with a one way ticket rather than do a more traditional route;

“I watched YouTube all the time, religiously, and there are all these people living and filming themselves travelling and I was like how come they can do it and why can’t I,” says Isaac. Continuing, “I was encouraged to travel by my parents rather than go to university, so I’m very lucky in that respect, because a lot of people’s parents encourage the opposite. But my university was going out in the real world and I feel like I’ve learned so much more.”

Spurred on by trying to find similarly adventurous and curious people, Isaac headed to Bali; “I had no idea, I had no confidence and I had no direction. But I was around a lot of like-minded people that were well established in creating content online and they were already well known. And I ended up picking little bits and pieces from everyone and started creating content in my own style” he says.

One of Isaac’s most viewed videos on Youtube, with over 453K views, shows Islamabad, the capital city of Pakistan, as a green and beautiful city. In another video Isaac is shown round the best street food in Karachi by some of his subscribers, dipping fresh paratha in chai and tasting mango lassis. The comments section of many YouTube videos can be a scary place but the comments under Isaac’s videos are gracious, thanking him for showing the world the true nature of the places he visits and the kindness of the people he encounters.

“I feel like I’m in a position where I can literally just go on the ground and meet these people and show how amazing and generous they actually are,” Isaac explains.

From Bali to plans to travel to Afghanistan, Lebanon and Syria, Isaac isn’t afraid of travelling to places that are perceived as dangerous and has realised there is an audience in the travel content creator space to document these places and he aims to continue showcasing these places to his growing audience. “You go there and you completely flip the script and show that it’s not actually the case, that has quite a big impact” he explains.

unexpected places, but he’s now able to self fund his travels and is giving others advice on how to do the same, having recently hosted a live free masterclass on how to earn money as a travel content creator with fellow creator Sarah Rosenberg.

“I initially started funding my travels with just my savings because I didn’t know how to make money through my content. But now I make money directly from my YouTube videos. I also make money from sponsorships, brand deals, affiliates, user generator content, there’s many, many ways to monetise in this sector. It’s not just like from one thing” Issac explains. But like anything, there is no shortcut,

“there’s no make money quick scheme” Isaac cautions, “you have to do it because you love it not for money.”

Whilst it may look like Isaac is living the dream, there are challenges to this nomadic existence, “it’s an intense lifestyle, you’re never settled. You’re always on the move and people can think that it’s a dream lifestyle, but it can take its toll,” says Isaac. “You don’t have a solid friendship group because you’re always on the move, you miss birthdays. I look at it as a sacrifice because on the other hand, I have the opportunity to explore the world and document it, which is the best thing ever” he continues. “You just have to go out there and find and connect with people because everyone isn’t going to be in your one town. There’s a whole world to explore and your people are probably not going to be where you grew up. It’s the truth. And if you want to grow and evolve and build and do something that’s different, you have to push yourself out there to explore” Isaac says.

Chatting whilst Isaac is briefly back in Hastings and in the midst of planning his upcoming trips and with no signs of slowing down, I ask him what his plans for the future are;

“What I want to do more of, is to tell stories from countries that are misrepresented to the Western world and where there is a negative perception. By going there and showing the reality of these places, people can’t believe this is what this country looks like. They’re seeing it through my eyes and through my experience, meeting local people and travelling around. And I think that’s a bit more unique because a lot of people these days just go to the popular destinations and I’m enjoying going to places that are more off the beaten track.”

Follow Isaac on his adventures and travel on YouTube, TikTok and Instagram

@isaacexploress