March 22, 2023 • 55 mins
This week on the Nick Amp podcast, we sat down with Giselle & Stephen, adventure, travel couple, who are the faces behind the social media account: @theloverspassport.This episode, they dove deep into some of their backstory of how they got started in traveling, business tips for creators, what is next for their future, & their thoughts on being a travel creator.
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(00:00):
You're listening to the Nick Amp podcast, a podcast that dives into the lives and stories
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of creatives, entrepreneurs, and outdoor enthusiasts.
My name is Nick Amp and I'm a filmmaker and photographer best known for documenting stories
in the mountains.
We sit down with guests to uncover where they get inspiration from, dig into their experiences
in the outdoor industry, and find a ton of actionable inspiration from their adventures
in life.
Alright, welcome to episode 10.
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Today we have some special guests on.
Two actually this time.
They're recently engaged but they're mainly known for their travel photography.
Epic couple photos that they actually take themselves.
Started traveling here in California, road tripping all the way to now doing international
trips in Iceland, Finland, the islands, cruises everywhere now.
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And faces behind the lovers passport, Steven and Giselle.
So hey guys, appreciate you guys coming on.
How are you guys doing today?
Doing great.
Thanks for having us.
I know, we've been following each other since like we had like a thousand followers or something
like that.
Crazy.
I actually remember when you guys posted your first Big Sur YouTube video.
(01:15):
Oh God.
Yeah.
One of the OG ones.
I remember one of my coworkers had told me, go to Big Sur and I was like, what is a Big
Sur?
So your guys' video was the first one that came up on YouTube.
Oh, that's fun.
Yeah, so.
I had a clue.
Because I edited that, not Steven.
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And it was like a two minute short thing.
And I remember that's the first time we ever got a troll on YouTube because they were like,
what do you mean adventure?
You think this is an adventure photography account?
Like you're wearing a dress.
Like blah, blah, blah.
I was like, ah, so offended.
Oh, oh yeah.
I remember even you guys did the hats and then the dress.
(01:56):
Yeah, that, that lasted maybe a month.
I was not about it.
I said this on our podcast too.
I'm like, you know, the dress girlies love it for them.
They rock it.
I do not have that confidence at all.
I still get, I still get nervous taking photos in public and we've been doing this for three
years.
So, you know.
I feel that way.
I feel the same.
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I feel she takes red dress pictures and snow by tornadoes and things like that.
Oh my goodness.
That's just, that's just too much dedication.
It's commitment.
I remember I used to see Steven, he'd be like, go change into your dress.
I'm like, but it's 30 degrees outside.
Yeah.
So yeah.
So that's take me outfit repeat.
So for now, bring over again.
(02:39):
Now you guys are famous for the red and yellow jackets now.
I know.
It's just so funny.
We got those jackets like a year or two in advance of starting this whole page because
our other friend, Chris is a photographer.
You need a bright jacket and the rest of the friend group already had bright jackets and
I'd first met Steven.
So I went with yellow because it was a color that nobody else had yet.
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Enough.
So Steven, you're a Taekwondo teacher.
I was kind of curious about this because you're part of the Lovers Passport.
Do your students know that you're this big travel account person?
Some of them do.
It's quite funny.
Some of the people are like, oh yeah, I watched you on my TV from like their YouTube or something
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like that.
Yeah, it's quite, I feel like a lot of them are almost too young to be on the Instagram
TikTok because our like main demographic is like age three years old all the way up to
12 years old.
And I feel like 13, 14 is when they really start getting on TikTok and then even a little
bit older getting on Instagram.
So I feel like most of them don't have, but it's most of the parents.
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They're like, oh, your last trip looked really cool.
They're always chatting about it, but they understand when I'm gone a lot more.
Now they're like, oh, how was Australia?
I can't believe you're actually in the country now.
It's quite funny to hear what they have to say.
That's super awesome.
I can relate to that.
I am a wrestling coach where I was till I quit my job.
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So the kids would come up to me, show me my TikTok.
Oh, I follow you, hear all your cool videos, liking them all.
I coached elementary at the time and I was like, oh, it was kind of weird and stuff like
that.
So I was like the first thing that came to mind when I found out you were teaching Taekwondo.
Yeah, but it's pretty fun.
I'm not there as often anymore now because we, I'm not outsourcing, but I have a lot
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of other instructors that have been doing a great job taking care of it.
So it's given us a lot more freedom so we can grow the business a little bit more.
I remember your other instructors though, like the other people teaching, they are probably
all like around 15 to 20 and they were super stoked.
Anytime we popped up on their for you page or something.
I remember because I go to one of Steven's studios, but not the one he teaches that.
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I go to the other one because I'm stubborn and the instructor was like, yo, I saw you
on my for you page and you've hit 50k.
Like that's insane.
And then all the, once he said that, then all the other students were like, oh, okay.
Yeah, it was quite funny.
I feel like it's mostly the instructors that would, they were the people that like would
tell us when something was going viral.
(05:16):
I remember our first TikTok that went viral.
I was in the middle of a private lesson and one of my students walked in and was like,
yo, your video just hit 500k.
And I'm like, no, come on, you're joking.
He's like, no, no, look right here.
And I was like, oh shoot.
Like that's pretty cool.
I think the video that we had blow up was that one.
That was one of everyone was like, yo, I saw you on my for you page.
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Is this like what you're doing now?
Cause it was back then it was super new.
I feel like TikTok was still most people would either be like, no, that's for like kids or
they were like super amped on all the cat and dog videos on it.
We're already in.
Right.
It's not for kids.
It's for everyone.
So I listened to a couple of podcasts that you guys were on and I heard that you were
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doing some crazy outdoors experiences at such a young age, submitting Mount Whitney, right?
As a teenager?
Like 14 years old.
I was going to be climbing it.
My dad, I mean, like you were saying, you've met him in Death Valley.
He's just like, we call him Rambo.
Cause he, his idea of fun is like driving out for three or four months is his dream.
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He's like, my dream is to own a van road trip for a year and climb every single mountain
that there is in California.
I'm like every single one.
He's like, yeah.
And he would say the exact, he's like, there's 279 notable peaks that I want to climb.
And I'm like, how do you even know this?
Okay.
It's like, so then he's like, after I finished climbing every mountain in California, then
I want to go to Colorado.
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I'm going to climb every single 14 year.
I'm like, do you know how many 14 years are out there?
But his style of hiking and backpacking is no trail.
So he loves not seeing anyone for like four days and being just out of the boonies, summoning
all these epic peaks.
But yeah, I feel like that was what, or my first experience with like travel and camping
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and adventure was because we were super poor when I was a kid.
So we didn't have any money to go travel to other states.
So all of our travel was just like camping road trips and the California.
So we would start on little backpacking trips near home and then we worked up to eventually
doing Mount Weyden and a couple other 14 years in the Eastern Sierra.
Dude, what was that experience like being able to summit it at such a young age?
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Did your friends know about it?
I feel like I told my friends, but none of them understood what I was doing.
You'd be like, oh yeah, I just climbed the highest fountain in the lower 48.
And they were like, oh, okay.
I had a soccer game.
But like, no one really understood what that was back then.
But for me, it felt really cool.
I remember that I was the youngest person in 10 years to climb it when we went up, we
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looked through like the book and everyone writes like where they're from, how old they
are blah, blah, blah.
And the youngest person beside that was like a 16 year old.
So it was pretty cool seeing that I was like the youngest one in quite a few years that
had been up there.
That's awesome.
And Giselle, you studied abroad, right?
Yeah, I did it when I was in high school too, when I was 15.
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I decided that I wanted to go study abroad.
So that's why I got my first job actually when I was like 13 or 14.
I got my first job so I could save up for the summer program at Oxford in England and
worked for two years.
So I can do that because I mean, I was like a minor so I can only work so many hours a
week.
But yeah, I saved up for that.
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And then I paid for it myself.
And I went to Oxford for like two months as a 15 year old, flew unaccompanied minor on
over and took like college class at a sober there just for funsies and loves that experience.
And then I did it again in college.
I studied abroad in the Netherlands.
And that was a similar thing.
I was over there for like a summer semester and then was able to go and solo travel with
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some and I met some friends so they hopped on some trips too.
But I was the trip planner of the group.
So I was able to hit like 10 countries in that summer and then came back.
And then I think that was the last time I had really done any European travel before
I met Stephen.
But yeah, I've always loved traveling.
My family also wasn't like super rich in terms of like being able to travel just whenever.
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My mom was a travel agent though.
So she got really good discounts and deals.
Kind of like how we get fam trips as influencers.
She got like fam trips for being a travel agent.
So we got to do a lot of really cool trips for cheap.
So that's kind of what sparked the love of that.
And my dad's family is all from the UK.
Like he lives in London.
So I'd travel there and back pretty often as a kid.
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I think I was on my first flight when I was like three months old or something.
So I've been traveling since I was a baby.
Traveling's in your blood.
It's just dude, you got a job at 13 years old?
Oh yeah, I've been in the workforce for a while.
I mean, that's why it grinds my gears when people comment like, oh, you rich, trust-fund
baby.
I was like, I worked three jobs at once in college while taking a full load and being
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a sorority president just to pay for myself to get through that.
And like came out with so much debt and all this stuff.
So it grinds my gears because I've been working for so long to pay for everything myself.
Yeah.
So now I just drug them off.
Well that explains the dedication to this account and how you guys are able to keep
it up so much.
You have that discipline and motivation from a young age.
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Yeah.
That's amazing.
So what inspired you guys to take your own photos?
I mean, take selfies and things like that.
But how did you get the bright idea to get a remote?
I feel like a lot of people before you weren't doing the remote as much.
Yeah, they had that.
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And then you guys kind of spurred the remote.
So I think a lot of it came from, and Stephen can do more backstory on why we started taking
our own photos, but for the remote, I didn't like being really close to the camera.
I mean, most of our photos are still pretty far away or medium far away where you can
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still see your face, but it's not up close and personal, which I find a lot of people
are the same way just in terms of taking self-portraits and things in public.
It was just, like I said earlier, I was always super nervous to take photos in public.
So getting the remote, we were still able to take these crazy landscapes and put ourselves
in them without being restricted to the app or a self-timer.
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Because we'd done the self-timer or I don't think we ever actually used the Canon app,
but you only have like 10 seconds to sprint and run.
So you really can't put yourself in a crazy landscape like Death Valley, like when you're
sprinting out all the way to the sand, you really can't do that with a self-timer.
So we experimented with some remotes.
We went through a few before we found ones we actually liked, because most of them only
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would go up to like 20 feet away.
And then we found one that went up to 300 feet away and we're like, all right, yes,
let's push this thing.
And then since then, we just kind of always use the remote.
When I was a kid, my dad, we're still to this day, every six months, he takes a picture
ever since we were born.
So zero six months, one year, one year six months, all the way through until now I'm
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26.
He's still doing it every May and every November.
And the way he started taking those with it was with a remote.
With old camera, he didn't have a self-timer on it.
So we had always, every May, he'd pull out the remote, pull out his camera, set up his
tripod, we'd go in the backyard.
He uses remote to take his pictures.
And then I remember when we bought our first camera, I just thought like you had to have
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a camera, you had to have a tripod and you had to have a remote because my dad had been
taking all these pictures of us for years and years and years.
And he'd always use a remote.
So I thought it was like normal.
Like I thought every photographer had a remote at some point.
And then it just made sense whenever we did go to take our photos, I was like, oh, I've
been doing this since I was a kid using the remote.
Let's just keep on using it.
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Yo, so you guys have taken some epic photos, pretty much everywhere.
I want to know what has been your craziest photo you've had to set up.
Because I know some of those photos aren't easy to set up and get down to an area to
pose.
Could you share an experience that was the craziest?
It's not like dudes first came to mind, but that was because you had to run for so long
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up and down the hills.
I mean, we run for so long, everyone.
And like when we were in Abu Dhabi, I feel like it's most of the places that there's
like up and downs, up and down.
Like what all the sand dudes we were taking pictures of in the UAE out in Jordan when
we were taking pictures of like Petra here when we were in California in the dune.
In Idaho, there were more dunes that we have to go back and forth.
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I feel like it's definitely a lot easier because we have a drone.
So if there is a place that's not in a national park, we can just fly up our drone, put our
drone where we would put the tripod and take our pictures.
So I feel like it's mostly in the national park.
Since you're not allowed to fly drone, it makes our life quite a bit more difficult
to have to walk all the way over somewhere in the national park, set up our tripod, walk
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all the way back.
Where I feel like most of the time we have like a little 10 or 15 foot gap between us.
But I feel like in national parks, that's when we really have to like run back.
So I feel like in almost every national park, I'm thinking, you know, 70, if we're taking
pictures up in Taft Point, I have to set it up 300 feet away, run all the way over,
take a picture, run all the way back in Sequoia National Park in the snow, set it up way far
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away, run all the way in the picture, run all the way back.
I feel like a drone has really made our life a lot easier because we can take those epic
photos far away and not necessarily have to run back and forth because I can just use
my drone to go where it goes.
I will say though, one like really hard experience was shooting the volcano in Guatemala, which
is like that photo behind us.
Oh, so nice.
You don't know when it's going to erupt and it only erupted at night.
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So like Steve literally had his tripod outside of our tent with the camera, but no camera
battery because it was so cold.
And so he'd have to like put it in, get the shot and hold the like long exposure.
And that was really, really difficult photo to get.
We maybe only got like what, less than 10 photos that night because it only erupted
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for like a minute.
And then, yes, and you'd miss your opportunity if you weren't ready.
So we'd be like sleeping.
It would start rumbling before it erupted.
So it just immediately pop up and then have to get everything and then hope for the best.
And that was very difficult.
I would love to go and like reshoot that again.
If there's any video.
We just had bad weather because I remember that it was cloudy and raining and thunderstorming
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on us the entire evening, like going into sunset time when we wanted to shoot.
And then that whole night and I woke up in the middle of the night and went, oh, there
are actually no clouds.
So then we pulled out the tripod and set up and started taking some photos.
But like G said, every eruption was different too.
It's just like every sunset, every sunset, some sunsets you get really good ones.
Some sunsets it's like tiny little burn.
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I feel like with the volcano is the same thing.
Every once in like 15 eruptions have this massive eruption and it'll look like the photo
behind us.
But most of them, it was just like little, it wasn't much of a funerary.
That's crazy.
Cause most people post the best photo of the eruption and they didn't realize that there's
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the ones that were going, like you said, barely anything coming out.
Yeah.
That's amazing, man.
So shameless plug for yourselves, I've been following along with your guys's new creator's
passport.
Oh yeah.
I have a lot of people who are in the creative industry, want to travel, do photography,
things like that.
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So if you wouldn't mind just sharing, who's it for and who's it not for, things like that.
What to expect coming up from you guys in that aspect.
I feel like we've taken quite a few courses in our days.
Like we've taken Club Life Design, we've taken Danny's course, we've taken blogging courses,
we've taken other Instagram courses.
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We've talked to people who've taken Lost Creator Academy.
There's so many courses out there, but I feel like most of them are like not very surface
level, but it's like-
They're for beginners.
They're for beginners.
Like what we're trying to achieve here is making a more high level course.
So our target audience, like not saying it's not for beginners, like we're definitely doing.
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So actually let me just backtrack and look into it.
We have three different mini courses basically in one.
So one's like photo video bootcamp.
Like you've never picked up a camera before in your entire life and you're going to learn
exactly what you need to know for photo video and drones.
Then we have growth, which is like every platform that we're on.
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How is it worth it?
YouTube, blog, TikTok, Instagram, podcasts, like we have so many different platforms and
streams of revenue.
I think that a big thing that we're going to talk about on it is you shouldn't only
be on like hope they grow on Instagram and not do anything else.
You need to be using every single platform.
Well, at least two.
And then the last one is running a business and it's going to be very marketing heavy,
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branding heavy things like that and very more like admin stuff, which is more of what I
do out of the two of us.
So like quick books and accounting and legal stuff and like the whole backside of things
that nobody ever talks about when you're doing it.
Like I didn't know how to establish an LLC when I was first starting.
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I didn't know what an LLC was.
What's the difference between an LLC and an S corporation and like business structures
and all that kind of stuff.
And how do you put together a marketing plan for a product that you're going to launch?
And so that's going to be more of the high level stuff.
And I would say we're doing it so you can either buy all of them or you can buy one
separately.
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So if you're already a pro photographer, you don't need that course, but you're on Instagram
or you're on Instagram and you're struggling to grow, then you can get the growth one.
Let's say you're growing, you have a huge audience, you're creating content, but you're
not making money.
Okay, take the business course.
So like it's kind of a three in one thing, but I would say that our audience for, or
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like our target audience for it is not beginners.
I would say it's more like intermediate to advanced people that are very serious about
making this a full time job and not just like dabbling, but you know, trying to really push
and get into the creative space so they can take it full time or if they are doing it
full time, make more money.
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So that's kind of where we're going with it.
We just started a production this last week because there's been a lot of like steps to
get to all the lessons and modules and things.
So it probably won't be ready for another like at least two months, but yeah, we're
really excited because hopefully there's nothing else out there like this so far.
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And we're also hoping to have it in Spanish too, which I've not seen another course too.
So yeah, we'll see how it goes.
Wow, way to close the gap there.
I agree with you a hundred percent.
There's not a lot of high level content courses that are teaching people how to run their
business.
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I recently quit my job three months ago and it's definitely been a learning process.
So many things I didn't know, things like that.
I think that's really good for so many people and then being able to do it in Spanish.
I mean, I've never ever, ever heard someone do it in Spanish.
So that's going to be super exciting.
We got the idea from MrBeast.
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I don't know if you know, I'm sure you know what MrBeast is, but he dubs everything in
different languages.
So he has all these viral videos, they get like 300 million views, but then he was like,
you know, only 10% of the entire world speak English.
So he can tap into other markets and let's say start talking to in Spanish.
And it's funny because he'll find actors in that language and then hire him.
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So like famous actors.
So for instance, in Spanish course is the person that plays Spider-Man in Marvel and
does the voiceover for Marvel, Spider-Man in Spanish.
He got that first bunch of comments on his videos like is Spider-Man MrBeast?
Like what is happening?
It was, it's quite funny.
But it's a genius move because if you only do it in English, you're isolating so many
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people.
I mean, you can automatically double the amount of audience you're trying to reach if you're
talking in Spanish now.
So I think-
We don't know Spanish, we know very minutiae Spanish.
We will have someone who is very good at translating, dubbing all of our materials.
So yeah, especially being in California.
I mean like 50% of people speak Spanish.
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Take the words right out of my mouth.
I was going to say just as your California audience, that's going to be huge.
Yeah.
We think that it will be up on the, and I feel like not a lot of people are focusing
on it.
So if we can offer something that maybe can change their life or help them out and grow
their audience, I mean, there's a whole market for that.
(22:12):
Amazing guys.
So you guys have been traveling both for quite a long time.
So you have a ton of experience traveling, going outdoors, hiking, things like that.
What advice would you share with someone who is thinking about entering into traveling
more?
How would you recommend them to start?
(22:33):
For example, your avatar is your nine to five guy.
You know anything about traveling?
I would start with doing an overnight trip somewhere nearby.
I think a lot of people think that travel's got to be some crazy long European vacation
or something.
But like when we were doing our nine to five, our form of travel was we drive like three
hours to Joshua Tree and we car camp for a night or two and then come back.
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So starting small, I feel like is the biggest thing because you learn a lot and you're not
too out of your comfort zone yet where if something really bad were to happen, like
it wouldn't be the end of the world.
Like for example, car camping in Joshua Tree, you can make sure you have like your full
camping set up and all this stuff.
(23:17):
And if you forget something, there's a store right there.
You know, it's not like you're going into a tree and you really need something and you
can't get it.
Yeah, I feel like most, even different countries or different state, every single one, I would
almost rate is like an easy medium travel type of destination.
You know how people rate hikes?
Like this hike is easy.
This hike is modern, strenuous hike.
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I feel like these people should almost rate destinations like that.
Like for instance, we're getting ready to go to Japan.
I would not rate that as like an easy for beginners level travel experience.
That is like an advanced, more strenuous type of experience because of the language barrier,
like the cultural differences.
Like there's such a big thing.
Even with like traveling within the U S for instance, if you're traveling to somewhere
(24:02):
that much less tourists, you're out on the boondocks or if you're traveling like Texas,
you have to realize that you're going to be driving like eight hours in between different
cities sometimes.
Whereas in California, you can drive 15, 20 minutes most of the time and hit another city.
So I think starting locally, like G said, is hands down the best way to start.
And then from there slowly, because the budget wise too, it's so much cheaper to travel near
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you and that way if you like, Oh, I want to start traveling and dabbling in it.
You're not buying a thousand dollar plane ticket to Iceland for your first trip.
You're spending $50 on gas there and back from a fun little weekend trip.
You know, that's amazing.
I know you guys grew super fast on social media and I remember you posting about a couple
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times in your stories, how you guys got recognized in public.
It happens all the time.
It happens all the time now.
That's awesome.
Is it weird or kind of like, does the people say like Giselle Steven?
Yeah, well, okay.
So it's different.
Like literally last week we were hiking for a gig in Canaingo Valley, which is like 30
minutes away from us and I grew up there and we were in a bagel shop and we're not like
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wearing a red and yellow jackets or anything.
Like we used to only get recognized when we were wearing our jackets.
Now it's like anywhere it can happen.
So we were just in a bagel shop ordering bagels and this one girl at high school nearby was
like, oh my God, I know you guys from Instagram.
You're the Lovers Passport, right?
And most of the time they say Lovers Passport, not Giselle Steven.
But yeah, it's cool too, like seeing the diverse amount of people that recognize us.
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Because she was like an 18 year or 17 year old in high school and then we get some adults
that recognize us and then we get people like we've gotten recognized everywhere from like
Amon, Jordan, Switzerland.
Like literally when he proposed to me there were two other people at the lake we were
at and they followed us and they knew who we were.
And they're like, oh look at Kraut's guys, like we follow you on Instagram.
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And then like, oh where else?
In Canav in Utah over by the Wave, I was with my mom, I wasn't even with Steven.
And I was with a group of four other adults like all over 60 and there was a couple in
the restaurant that recognized me as we were leaving and asked for a picture and my mom
was like stoked, she was like, you have groupies, like that's so cool.
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And she posted on Facebook, she was like wow.
But it's really cool, I mean I feel like we're just normal average Joes.
So I always love it when people ask to like take a picture or come say hi or something.
A lot of the times we end up like inviting them on trips with us or something.
People we've met in Yosemite just on the fly like took them out hiking with us or in Alley
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of Hills, we ran into a few people and all those people have gone on trips with us since.
So I promise we're friendly.
That's awesome.
No, I don't have as many followers as you guys, but I once was hiking in the back country
in Mammoth.
That was an easy hike.
And this guy comes up to me and he says, are you the 100 Sunrises guy?
(27:11):
Because last year I was catching 100 Sunrises.
So I looked back and I don't think anyone recognizes me because I don't have that many
followers.
And he was like, dude I've been following you since 2020 is when I started too.
And it was just interesting to like people come up to you like that and you don't even
realize they think you're some person on social media.
But like to me, just a dude that takes photos.
(27:33):
Exactly.
You don't feel like you're a celebrity or anything.
But the greatest part is when they know so much about you.
Like sometimes, especially if you've been, some people have followed us for like three
years now.
So they've seen like us get a dog.
They've seen us get married now.
They've seen us buy a house together.
They've seen all the places we've gone.
They've seen like our favorite places to go when our anniversaries are like, they know
(27:58):
so much about you that.
And you don't know anything about them.
Exactly.
So they're like asking you all these questions and I don't know, sometimes it can like be
overwhelming to know so much about one person because I feel like it's very different than
like movie stars.
Like movie stars people ban, but most of the time people don't know too much about them.
It's like, oh, you're the guy from that one movie and they don't know anything about their
(28:18):
personal life.
Like they know quite a bit about our personal life going into.
To an extent.
We're like, we don't publish a lot of stuff on our personal life, like outside of surface
level stuff.
But we've done that for a reason because there is only like, I mean, some people are super
open about everything that happens in their life.
But we just, for the sake of relationship purposes and safety, I feel like we've been
(28:44):
pretty good about just sharing like on a need to know basis.
Yeah.
That's amazing.
So when, what would you guys be doing right now if you weren't running the Lover's Passport?
What would Giselle be doing?
What would you be doing Steven?
I really hope I wouldn't still be at my nine to five job.
I feel like I was like, anyways, where I would have found some other job doing marketing
(29:09):
or PR.
But yeah, probably, probably something in the social media sphere.
Like my previous job before this, I was running the influencer program and like pitching our
store to like CVS, Walmart, like all these retailers trying to get our products into
retail.
So something like that, I'd assume.
(29:31):
My top goal before we even started this was to work PR and marketing and entertainment.
So I really wanted to work for like Universal or Warner Brothers, like Paramount or something
like that and do a lot of their special events marketing and, and influencer marketing and
things like that.
So I feel like it probably would have been in that realm, hopefully, if that was my goal
(29:52):
still without Lover's Passport.
But I mean, we, we would definitely still be traveling.
We were, we've been traveling together since we first met.
So I don't think that would have changed.
I think it would have just been more, more weekend trips like we were doing and less
international stuff now.
But yeah, maybe have another dog.
(30:13):
More involved in Taekwondo because I, I feel like this weekend is one of the biggest Taekwondo
tournaments of the year.
It's nationals out in Texas.
And I think this is the first, one of the first nationals I've missed in like 20 years,
probably is now since I've started.
So I think I would just be going to a lot more of those events before every single weekend
(30:33):
was filled with training people.
Every single one was built on like traveling to these different tournaments and competing.
So just, I think I'd be a lot busier with my martial arts career.
So business person to business person, what are some of the biggest challenges or just
challenges that you've had to navigate through since quitting your job?
(30:56):
That's a good question.
I feel like the hardest one for, I think this is what, G tells me this like 10 times a week.
She's like, work, life, balance.
I feel like that is the hardest part.
For me, I don't find like any of this content creation stuff work.
Like I can sit there and like this morning I made seven different TikToks and I was like
(31:17):
super fun.
I had so much fun editing, going through footage, thinking of different ideas, looking at all
of our pillars, asking Gisele like, should I go with this one or this one?
Like I think that's super fun.
I would edit all day and then on the weekends go out and hike every day and go see it.
That's like the most fun thing in the world for me.
So for me, I feel like it's very, very, the work life balance is like, it's just regular
(31:40):
life.
But I feel like with G, she definitely gets, I feel like it's every girl that we've talked
to or even hung on our podcast, they get very furred out where every guy is like, no, I
can work all day.
This is great.
Like we're all we can grow.
Cause I feel like, especially when you own and run your own business, it is very, very
easy to see like, if I do this, I make more money.
Or if I do this business booms.
(32:02):
If I don't do this, then business tanks, you know?
So the back of my head, it's like we've posted, I think almost 500 days of reels now in a
row and with that and almost 500 days in a row.
Since November, November of 2020.
Yeah.
And with that, if you look at it, obviously we've, we've like quadrupled in size across
(32:24):
all platforms, income's gone up.
And I think a big part of that is because we've been so consistent and been putting
in so much work where is we did take more days off and did take more time to do like
our own things than we would have if it wasn't good.
So I think that that's the hardest part is just finding that work life boundary.
But yeah, I mean, I think I saw you post it the other day.
(32:47):
Like, I know you lead the 95 to work 24, some of them like that's, I mean, it's a realistic
statement in some ways, but I feel like we definitely gotten better about the work life
balance stuff too.
Like this week, especially like we're making time for the gym again and we're cutting things
off when it's 9pm instead of midnight.
(33:09):
Like little progress stuff, but we're both huge workaholics.
So which is great for like the business, but you know, otherwise, burnout is not great.
That's always, I've had burnout a few times in the past three years.
And then I'm trying to think otherwise.
I know a lot of people struggle with like consistency of income, but I feel like we've
been pretty good about our whatever eight or nine streams of income.
(33:33):
So that hasn't been a huge problem for us, luckily, which I definitely attribute to a
lot of building in the early stages of making sure not all our eggs are in one basket.
And then try to think of their like business barriers to entry.
Fire drone early and often.
(33:54):
That thing is literally.
I feel like, like, I don't know how well performed for other people, but for us, I feel like
the drone footage performs so well and it makes life so much easier.
I could hike up this massive mountain and try it and take like an iPhone pan, or I can
just turn on the drone, take the same thing like 30 seconds.
It just makes content creation so much easier, especially in the outdoor industry.
(34:19):
Cameras, tripods, what have you found that was your best travel adventure gear?
Because I'm sure you guys have been at instances where your gear has been under a lot of stress
and just in water, mud, everything that was the best for you.
(34:42):
Because people who follow this podcast are into the outdoors and photography.
So I'm sure they would like to listen to this.
I think the number one thing was getting that tripod of ours, the Pete Design travel tripod.
It's so exciting.
Let's see.
Like we were fully in the headspace of buy once, cry once when we were investing in our
camera gear and that thing has been stuck in rivers, oceans, cliffs, storms, never once
(35:10):
has fallen over with a camera on it.
Or even wobbled with a camera on it.
It did wobble once in Milford South.
Okay, but the camera was.
That was also like 60 or 70 mile per hour.
Not, not.
Yeah, it was really sweet.
But that thing has been awesome and it's lightweight.
So you can backpack with it if you're willing to carry a little extra weight, but it's not
(35:33):
like super heavy, especially for the type of content.
If you want to get stuff of yourself, it just, you're not going to find anything more versatile.
Like a good camera is awesome, but how often are you posting photos compared to the I like?
I think if you took all of the footage that we post online across every platform and then
(35:53):
you divide that per device, I think that our tripod and our iPhone hands down take the
most footage, whether we're like putting our iPhone on our camp on our tripod and sticking
it up in the air, or if we're putting our phone on the tripod and we're walking in front
of it for like an opening shot.
I don't even know the amount of times that we've used it.
I feel like it's necessary if you're trying to take content of yourself.
(36:17):
If you're like another landscape bro, or you're another person that takes photos of other
people, then I feel like you don't necessarily need a tripod.
But for us, since we like capturing content of ourselves, it's like a necessary piece
of gear.
Yeah.
And the iPhone honestly is so great right now.
Like I have the 14 Pro Max.
I just got it like a week or two ago and the camera quality on that's just crazy.
(36:39):
You know, if you're just starting out, we have like mentored people now that don't even
own a camera and they just hit 200k.
So you really, if you're like into content creation and stuff and still want to capture
really beautiful things, learn with an iPhone first and then you can upgrade to a camera
and things like that.
But really, I would say our tripod, the phone and the drone.
(37:00):
Like the drone has literally updated our like photo worthiness in all departments.
Like we deliver so many galleries with a lot of drone photos for like our tourism clients.
So that's been really, really nice to have.
Super great response.
I agree.
(37:21):
Tripod, drone, especially for travel tourism boards because when I've seen them in the
past, that was a part that was lacking is aerial shots of their, whether it was their
city or their location of the landscape.
That's definitely a gap.
So you guys are hitting it right there too.
(37:42):
I think if people are looking to get their drones though, I would highly recommend them
looking at like a part 107 license or just getting like information or taking some type
of course to learn about it.
Because I feel, cause now we're jumping into the whole FPV drone space and trying to get
better at that.
So that's like our new journey that we're super excited about.
(38:04):
But even with regular drones, there's so many people that don't know how to fly them properly.
They fly them in national parks.
I feel like it would just make, I mean, it's like the content creators now too, the more
people talk about pricing and negotiations, the more, the better it's getting for everyone.
And I feel like the more people would spend time researching it, the better it would get
(38:26):
for everyone.
Cause right now there's drone restrictions popping up faster than wildflowers in California.
It's like, it is actually ridiculous.
No, they're making it really hard, man.
So you guys ran a business together.
What's it like being able to separate work and life relationships?
(38:48):
What are some tips to other people who maybe are friends, significant others?
How would you tell them how to navigate through those types of things?
I would say firstly, it's not for everyone.
Like you have to be so honest and communicative if you're working with your partner or best
friend or something like that.
(39:10):
Like we don't hold grudges over each other over business stuff.
We don't like, you know, if we have date night, but we have a disagreement about a business
thing, it's not going to transfer into our date night.
You know?
I think the best thing that we did was just, we have two completely different jobs.
Like if we worked at a company, G would work a completely different position than what
(39:31):
I did.
In the beginning, we both edited photos, we both edited video, we both were responding
to emails, doing this and that.
And I feel like we were stepping on, yeah, we were stepping on each other's toes.
And now that we were in the beginning, we were like, okay, you take photo, I'll do video,
you do YouTube, I'll do blogging, you take negotiations, I'll do business admin.
(39:53):
Like we have very separate jobs.
So every day, no matter if I don't know what Giselle is doing or she doesn't know what
I do, we both trust each other that, okay, I know Stephen's going to get this, this,
this, and this done.
Or I know G is going to get this, this, and this done.
I think that it's helped our productivity and make it so we can do a lot of things faster
than other people are doing in the content creator sphere.
(40:15):
Because there are two of us that we can do almost two completely different jobs.
So I think that's like the biggest thing is in the beginning sitting down to me like,
all right, what are you really good at?
And what am I really good at?
And what you enjoy.
Exactly.
And then let's split it up.
Like before G was doing some comments, but then they started to get to her head with
all the like negativity that came to them.
So I think overall the comments, but for stories, for instance, none of my stories are pretty
(40:38):
enough.
So Giselle, all of our stories make them look...
Just that in there.
And with Monica, with blogging, for instance, I am not a good writer, but G is a way better
writer.
And then with picture taking and video taking, for instance, that way G doesn't have to run
up and down the things or go do all that.
I've taken over like the drone and the videography area.
(40:59):
So I feel like we both have very different spheres.
But if you could figure that out, I feel like early on, whether you're working with a best
friend or someone you're in a relationship with, I think it really clears up a lot of
arguments that can possibly happen.
That's some great advice.
I follow a lot of leadership podcasts and one of the first things they say to do in
(41:20):
business is to delegate and separate responsibilities so that one, productivity, two, there's no
questions between who's doing what.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
I think that's the biggest thing.
We talked to a lot of other couples about it and it seems that most people do something
similar.
(41:40):
I mean, not exactly like, oh, there's like a Steven image is all of each relating, but
like most of them that we find that are super successful are also completely delegating
something with maybe like one or two overlaps.
You're like, we both do emails and we both like do scheduling and calls and stuff.
But outside of that, there's really minimal overlap.
(42:02):
So being in a creator industry, I mean, that's a huge industry nowadays.
What are some misconceptions or myths that you guys think that are floating around that
you could possibly debunk for the people who are listening?
There's a few.
The first one that came to mind was shadow banning.
That's not a thing.
Like that's a whole lot of things.
(42:24):
I think people blame the algorithm for a lot and they're not-
There was a quote we heard that said every time you say algorithm, replace it with audience
and it'll change your thought process.
You're like, oh, the algorithm is not showing any of my stuff to anyone.
Be like, well, the audience isn't seeing any of my stuff.
It's not that the algorithm is going to show the stuff that is doing the best.
(42:46):
It doesn't matter.
If you think that your content is the best.
I think that one thing we sat down with this other couple, Trent and Sarah from Rio Travelers,
and they think that one of the most important things you can do as a creator is know when
a video sucks or know what it's like-
Take responsibility when it sucks.
It's okay.
It's not always going to have great content.
(43:09):
Take that and look at your analytics.
Where are they dropping off in your video?
Maybe that hook wasn't strong enough.
Maybe I need to get rid of text.
Maybe I need to add text.
If we're doing an ad for a company and we post it and it doesn't hit a certain minimum,
we immediately delete it, ask the company, like, hey, can we change the hook for it?
(43:29):
It didn't perform.
We'll change the hook or the structure or something like that and it'll perform better.
It's just knowing that everything's going to hit, but don't necessarily place all the
blame in the algorithm.
I think that's probably the biggest one that I can think of.
A lot of people won't, in other courses of things like that, a lot of people won't tell
(43:52):
people that because they're afraid to hurt people's feelings.
We do occasional, if people reach out to us and say, hey, can you look at my account,
we'll do audits for them.
We're very straight up.
We're very blunt.
We'll travel with Dalton.
We met up with him last February.
First year.
But we hopped on a one-on-one with him and he was like, all right, let's analyze.
(44:16):
We went through 25 reels and I was like, okay, this part was terrible.
You need to switch this.
Your text is too big.
You make it smaller.
You're covering the pretty stuff.
Very helpful if you have someone that's been in it for a while or just other friends look
at your video and be like, honestly, what do you think of this video?
Because there definitely are some videos even that we put out there.
(44:38):
Look back and I'm like, yeah, I probably could have put a little bit more effort in.
Yeah, I would have scrolled past that.
You have to make it so it is a show stopper.
People want to watch your video.
Mic drop.
I preached that so much with so many people.
I worked at a marketing agency before I quit my job.
(45:01):
So we worked with other businesses, helping them grow their social media, their website,
things like that.
And not just working with them, but telling other people, I'm like, dude, if it didn't
do good, you literally didn't catch their eye.
It doesn't necessarily mean you're a bad videographer, a bad photographer.
You just didn't make eye catching content for the app.
(45:24):
Right.
And I mean, posting something that doesn't do well isn't necessarily a bad thing.
You can learn from that and then change strategy.
All data is good data, whether it's a post not performing well or a post that does really
well.
You can examine it and totally adjust your strategy.
So 100% agree.
(45:48):
That's amazing stuff.
I'm glad you guys spoke on that.
So 2023 travel industry, travel creation, travel photography.
It's a lot more saturated than it was in 2020.
What are some tips that you could give people who are thinking about entering the industry?
Should they?
(46:09):
Is it too late?
What are your guys' thoughts on that?
I think my biggest tip would just be don't be someone else.
They'll copy other people.
There are so many copycats that we see that are us just like exact same text or exact
same videos and exact same.
Which happens to term culture, regardless of who is us or not.
We do trends too, but when you're trying to make an establishing name for yourself, no
(46:34):
one's going to do the lover's passport better than the lover's passport.
You can't just try and emulate someone exactly and hope that that's going to take you all
the way.
You need to figure out your own style and your own unique perspectives and things like
that.
I know Stephen talks about it a lot, like what makes you different than anyone else
in the space because nobody else has your story.
(46:57):
I think that adding that to it is a big part of it.
I think that's why we grew so much in the beginning was our photos were not nearly as
good as all the landscape bros are.
We weren't showing our booties as much as all the wander babes.
We're not trying to be anyone else.
We're just walking around like my girlfriend asked me to go on this road trip.
(47:17):
This is what it looked like.
POV, you woke up at 5 a.m. and this is the sunrise you saw.
You can still travel at a 9 to 5 drop.
We were trying to be as relatable as possible and just tell our story of this is how we
started doing this.
It's not that hard to do it.
You can do it too.
I know that we've not transitioned away from a lot of our road trip, hiking, backpacking
(47:41):
stuff in the beginning.
We've added in a lot more travel and I think it's healthy to like you're obviously pivoting
a little bit.
I think when people are first starting, it's super important to not people are like niche
down, niche down as much as you can, but you want to niche down and then kind of find your
own area.
For instance, let's say you want to be in the hiking industry or the outdoor travel
(48:05):
industry.
So do hiking, do road trips, do camping, do all of it.
But let's say your one video that goes absolute bananas and goes super viral is you doing
Washington content and you're from California.
If you start doing a bunch of California content, but you got 25,000 followers from a Washington
content, your stuff isn't going to perform as well.
(48:26):
So I think looking at what is taking off in your account and then just kind of running
with that is super, super important, especially when you're first starting.
Yeah.
And it's constantly changing too.
When you're first starting out, like we started with outdoor, like Stephen was saying, and
we slowly have added a few more content pillars as the world's opened up.
Naturally, you're going to grow as a human and as an account.
(48:47):
So just staying in one, I love hiking, don't get me wrong, but doing a hike every single
day of my life is not, I'm not just one dimensional, I'm multifaceted.
So I have other interests that grow along with it.
So that's just one thing.
People want to rebrand themselves a little bit and add a few more things, like Go For
It, because I know a lot of people are scared to do that.
And we were a little scared too, but we were like, it's been very well received, all the
(49:10):
international travel stuff.
Oh God, I forgot where I was going with that though.
I think that's like the best thing is just throwing it and then being super consistent.
Like we said, we've posted for almost 500 days and we're going to try some new strategies
because we literally just started a new account.
I think it has like 450 followers on my creator passport.
(49:33):
So our goal is in three months, seeing if we can get it up to 50 or 100K.
So we're going to try and push that account as hard as we can, see how much we can grow
it and show that it, people like think it's super saturated, but there's still people
that we are massive creators that we find today.
And we're like, oh, we haven't seen this person's content in three years.
(49:55):
And we're on the app every single day.
So if we're still finding new accounts, there's going to be tons and tons of accounts.
And I don't know if you've looked, but if you look at big creators accounts like Renee
Roming, Angela Liggs, our account, like all three of us, none of us, we have like maybe
what 10, 15, 20, out of 300, 400, 500, all the way up to 800,000.
(50:19):
Like that's crazy that only 10 people, I mean, most normal people aren't going to follow
a ton of travel creators, right?
You're going to follow like two or three travel creators, two or three like people with dogs.
Yeah, they don't want their whole feed to be travel.
So I think if you can find your own audience, you can make it no matter what.
It's not nowhere near as saturated as a lot of the market.
(50:40):
I remember what I was going to say.
With content analytics and things like that too, like looking back, we do it every three
months and see what perform well and what hasn't and run with it like Stephen was saying.
So right now our funny entertaining content is doing so stupid well.
Like it almost bothers me that it does so well because we put in so much effort for
(51:02):
these beautiful photos and gorgeous drone video.
Make a meme and it gets 10 times more viewed.
It's like what are you doing?
So like right now, like all of our really funny, relatable, sound like our boyfriend's
travel training or our like dancing the elevator on our cruise ship, like those are all like
hitting multi-million or like a POV of Stephen running shirtless through the cruise to go
(51:24):
get a sunrise shot.
Like that stuff is doing so well for us and we would have normally never posted stuff
like that if you were to tell us like three years ago that we were posting that right
now.
But since it's doing really, really well and we're getting a ton of reach from it, we're
going to keep running with it until something else pops up, you know?
And that's just one of our 10 content categories that we post, but it's going to be more prominent
(51:46):
because it is doing so well.
So just knowing your analytics and truly running with what is working and ditch what's not
working.
Stephen, you just crushed so many people's limiting beliefs.
First of all, just by what you said about mutual people who are following each other.
(52:07):
That's an amazing thing you touched on and Giselle, getting deep in the analytics.
I just ran a content audit on myself for the first time ever.
I knew how to do it, but I just never did it for myself.
It takes some time.
Yeah.
It's detailed in everything in my Google Sheets from calculations to graphs, doing all kinds
(52:30):
of different things, which one did good, not followers, followers, things like that.
So the fact that you touched on digging deep in the analytics, running what's doing good
is something that I think everybody needs to hear because people tend to not always
look at the facts.
End of the day.
Yeah.
We can love our pretty pans all that we want, but if they're not, well, wait.
(52:56):
So what can the people expect from Stephen and Giselle in 2023?
What's next?
We're doing like a bucket list year is what we're saying.
So next up we have, we're hopefully going to be going to see the cherry blossoms in
Japan.
So we're leaving for Japan next week.
(53:17):
And then from there, we've got some fun little adventures planned for the rest of the year.
And obviously we got our course coming out, so we'll have a lot of work to do on that
front.
But outside of that, we've been doing a lot of international stuff in the first half of
this year.
We've done Finland because we wanted to go see the Northern Lights and then Australia.
(53:37):
We did the Great Barrier Reef.
So that kind of all goes with the bucket list series.
But in the summertime, I think we're going to be doing a lot of USA travel again and
road trips and kind of go back to our roots a little bit.
So that should be really fun.
But yeah, lots of exciting things coming.
We're getting married this year.
We're moving into our, we get a new house or condo in like a week and a half, our first
(54:00):
place together.
So certainly big changes, but all good things.
Congratulations guys on getting engaged in the big wedding coming up.
That's super exciting.
For the people who want to learn more about you guys, where can they find you on the social
media platforms?
You can find us basically everywhere.
If you look up Unfiltered Adventures and you want to listen to some fun behind the scenes
(54:23):
content, you can listen to our podcast.
If you want to see all of our beautiful horizontal content and tips, you can check out our YouTube.
If you want to see funny memes, you can check out TikTok.
If you want to see more beautiful stuff and more occasional memes, check out Instagram.
Or the lovers passport on there.
Yeah.
And if you want to see all of our blogs and our photography ebook, any of our guides,
(54:48):
all of our long form content, that is all going to be on our blog, the lovers passport
dot com.
So tons of different options to check stuff out and all of them are just a little bit
different.
Awesome guys.
If you guys didn't catch that, it's the lovers passport on everything and highly, highly
recommend following these guys.
I've been following these two since they had under a thousand followers and it's been awesome
(55:09):
to see them grow into their awesome brand they have now.
If you guys want to follow my podcast, it's Nick Gamp podcasts on TikTok, Instagram, YouTube.
If you want to follow me, photography, video, it's at the Nick Gamp on Instagram, TikTok,
Facebook, YouTube, everything.
(55:30):
And Steven and Giselle, I really appreciate you guys taking the time today to come on
here with me.
So if you guys are following them, give them a follow.
We're having it.
Thanks for having us.
You're listening to the Nick Amp podcast, a podcast that dives into the lives and stories
(00:05):
of creatives, entrepreneurs, and outdoor enthusiasts.
My name is Nick Amp and I'm a filmmaker and photographer best known for documenting stories
in the mountains.
We sit down with guests to uncover where they get inspiration from, dig into their experiences
in the outdoor industry, and find a ton of actionable inspiration from their adventures
in life.
Alright, welcome to episode 10.
(00:30):
Today we have some special guests on.
Two actually this time.
They're recently engaged but they're mainly known for their travel photography.
Epic couple photos that they actually take themselves.
Started traveling here in California, road tripping all the way to now doing international
trips in Iceland, Finland, the islands, cruises everywhere now.
(00:54):
And faces behind the lovers passport, Steven and Giselle.
So hey guys, appreciate you guys coming on.
How are you guys doing today?
Doing great.
Thanks for having us.
I know, we've been following each other since like we had like a thousand followers or something
like that.
Crazy.
I actually remember when you guys posted your first Big Sur YouTube video.
(01:15):
Oh God.
Yeah.
One of the OG ones.
I remember one of my coworkers had told me, go to Big Sur and I was like, what is a Big
Sur?
So your guys' video was the first one that came up on YouTube.
Oh, that's fun.
Yeah, so.
I had a clue.
Because I edited that, not Steven.
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And it was like a two minute short thing.
And I remember that's the first time we ever got a troll on YouTube because they were like,
what do you mean adventure?
You think this is an adventure photography account?
Like you're wearing a dress.
Like blah, blah, blah.
I was like, ah, so offended.
Oh, oh yeah.
I remember even you guys did the hats and then the dress.
(01:56):
Yeah, that, that lasted maybe a month.
I was not about it.
I said this on our podcast too.
I'm like, you know, the dress girlies love it for them.
They rock it.
I do not have that confidence at all.
I still get, I still get nervous taking photos in public and we've been doing this for three
years.
So, you know.
I feel that way.
I feel the same.
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I feel she takes red dress pictures and snow by tornadoes and things like that.
Oh my goodness.
That's just, that's just too much dedication.
It's commitment.
I remember I used to see Steven, he'd be like, go change into your dress.
I'm like, but it's 30 degrees outside.
Yeah.
So yeah.
So that's take me outfit repeat.
So for now, bring over again.
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Now you guys are famous for the red and yellow jackets now.
I know.
It's just so funny.
We got those jackets like a year or two in advance of starting this whole page because
our other friend, Chris is a photographer.
You need a bright jacket and the rest of the friend group already had bright jackets and
I'd first met Steven.
So I went with yellow because it was a color that nobody else had yet.
(03:02):
Enough.
So Steven, you're a Taekwondo teacher.
I was kind of curious about this because you're part of the Lovers Passport.
Do your students know that you're this big travel account person?
Some of them do.
It's quite funny.
Some of the people are like, oh yeah, I watched you on my TV from like their YouTube or something
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like that.
Yeah, it's quite, I feel like a lot of them are almost too young to be on the Instagram
TikTok because our like main demographic is like age three years old all the way up to
12 years old.
And I feel like 13, 14 is when they really start getting on TikTok and then even a little
bit older getting on Instagram.
So I feel like most of them don't have, but it's most of the parents.
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They're like, oh, your last trip looked really cool.
They're always chatting about it, but they understand when I'm gone a lot more.
Now they're like, oh, how was Australia?
I can't believe you're actually in the country now.
It's quite funny to hear what they have to say.
That's super awesome.
I can relate to that.
I am a wrestling coach where I was till I quit my job.
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So the kids would come up to me, show me my TikTok.
Oh, I follow you, hear all your cool videos, liking them all.
I coached elementary at the time and I was like, oh, it was kind of weird and stuff like
that.
So I was like the first thing that came to mind when I found out you were teaching Taekwondo.
Yeah, but it's pretty fun.
I'm not there as often anymore now because we, I'm not outsourcing, but I have a lot
(04:32):
of other instructors that have been doing a great job taking care of it.
So it's given us a lot more freedom so we can grow the business a little bit more.
I remember your other instructors though, like the other people teaching, they are probably
all like around 15 to 20 and they were super stoked.
Anytime we popped up on their for you page or something.
I remember because I go to one of Steven's studios, but not the one he teaches that.
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I go to the other one because I'm stubborn and the instructor was like, yo, I saw you
on my for you page and you've hit 50k.
Like that's insane.
And then all the, once he said that, then all the other students were like, oh, okay.
Yeah, it was quite funny.
I feel like it's mostly the instructors that would, they were the people that like would
tell us when something was going viral.
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I remember our first TikTok that went viral.
I was in the middle of a private lesson and one of my students walked in and was like,
yo, your video just hit 500k.
And I'm like, no, come on, you're joking.
He's like, no, no, look right here.
And I was like, oh shoot.
Like that's pretty cool.
I think the video that we had blow up was that one.
That was one of everyone was like, yo, I saw you on my for you page.
(05:38):
Is this like what you're doing now?
Cause it was back then it was super new.
I feel like TikTok was still most people would either be like, no, that's for like kids or
they were like super amped on all the cat and dog videos on it.
We're already in.
Right.
It's not for kids.
It's for everyone.
So I listened to a couple of podcasts that you guys were on and I heard that you were
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doing some crazy outdoors experiences at such a young age, submitting Mount Whitney, right?
As a teenager?
Like 14 years old.
I was going to be climbing it.
My dad, I mean, like you were saying, you've met him in Death Valley.
He's just like, we call him Rambo.
Cause he, his idea of fun is like driving out for three or four months is his dream.
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He's like, my dream is to own a van road trip for a year and climb every single mountain
that there is in California.
I'm like every single one.
He's like, yeah.
And he would say the exact, he's like, there's 279 notable peaks that I want to climb.
And I'm like, how do you even know this?
Okay.
It's like, so then he's like, after I finished climbing every mountain in California, then
I want to go to Colorado.
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I'm going to climb every single 14 year.
I'm like, do you know how many 14 years are out there?
But his style of hiking and backpacking is no trail.
So he loves not seeing anyone for like four days and being just out of the boonies, summoning
all these epic peaks.
But yeah, I feel like that was what, or my first experience with like travel and camping
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and adventure was because we were super poor when I was a kid.
So we didn't have any money to go travel to other states.
So all of our travel was just like camping road trips and the California.
So we would start on little backpacking trips near home and then we worked up to eventually
doing Mount Weyden and a couple other 14 years in the Eastern Sierra.
Dude, what was that experience like being able to summit it at such a young age?
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Did your friends know about it?
I feel like I told my friends, but none of them understood what I was doing.
You'd be like, oh yeah, I just climbed the highest fountain in the lower 48.
And they were like, oh, okay.
I had a soccer game.
But like, no one really understood what that was back then.
But for me, it felt really cool.
I remember that I was the youngest person in 10 years to climb it when we went up, we
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looked through like the book and everyone writes like where they're from, how old they
are blah, blah, blah.
And the youngest person beside that was like a 16 year old.
So it was pretty cool seeing that I was like the youngest one in quite a few years that
had been up there.
That's awesome.
And Giselle, you studied abroad, right?
Yeah, I did it when I was in high school too, when I was 15.
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I decided that I wanted to go study abroad.
So that's why I got my first job actually when I was like 13 or 14.
I got my first job so I could save up for the summer program at Oxford in England and
worked for two years.
So I can do that because I mean, I was like a minor so I can only work so many hours a
week.
But yeah, I saved up for that.
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And then I paid for it myself.
And I went to Oxford for like two months as a 15 year old, flew unaccompanied minor on
over and took like college class at a sober there just for funsies and loves that experience.
And then I did it again in college.
I studied abroad in the Netherlands.
And that was a similar thing.
I was over there for like a summer semester and then was able to go and solo travel with
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some and I met some friends so they hopped on some trips too.
But I was the trip planner of the group.
So I was able to hit like 10 countries in that summer and then came back.
And then I think that was the last time I had really done any European travel before
I met Stephen.
But yeah, I've always loved traveling.
My family also wasn't like super rich in terms of like being able to travel just whenever.
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My mom was a travel agent though.
So she got really good discounts and deals.
Kind of like how we get fam trips as influencers.
She got like fam trips for being a travel agent.
So we got to do a lot of really cool trips for cheap.
So that's kind of what sparked the love of that.
And my dad's family is all from the UK.
Like he lives in London.
So I'd travel there and back pretty often as a kid.
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I think I was on my first flight when I was like three months old or something.
So I've been traveling since I was a baby.
Traveling's in your blood.
It's just dude, you got a job at 13 years old?
Oh yeah, I've been in the workforce for a while.
I mean, that's why it grinds my gears when people comment like, oh, you rich, trust-fund
baby.
I was like, I worked three jobs at once in college while taking a full load and being
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a sorority president just to pay for myself to get through that.
And like came out with so much debt and all this stuff.
So it grinds my gears because I've been working for so long to pay for everything myself.
Yeah.
So now I just drug them off.
Well that explains the dedication to this account and how you guys are able to keep
it up so much.
You have that discipline and motivation from a young age.
(10:30):
Yeah.
That's amazing.
So what inspired you guys to take your own photos?
I mean, take selfies and things like that.
But how did you get the bright idea to get a remote?
I feel like a lot of people before you weren't doing the remote as much.
Yeah, they had that.
(10:50):
And then you guys kind of spurred the remote.
So I think a lot of it came from, and Stephen can do more backstory on why we started taking
our own photos, but for the remote, I didn't like being really close to the camera.
I mean, most of our photos are still pretty far away or medium far away where you can
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still see your face, but it's not up close and personal, which I find a lot of people
are the same way just in terms of taking self-portraits and things in public.
It was just, like I said earlier, I was always super nervous to take photos in public.
So getting the remote, we were still able to take these crazy landscapes and put ourselves
in them without being restricted to the app or a self-timer.
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Because we'd done the self-timer or I don't think we ever actually used the Canon app,
but you only have like 10 seconds to sprint and run.
So you really can't put yourself in a crazy landscape like Death Valley, like when you're
sprinting out all the way to the sand, you really can't do that with a self-timer.
So we experimented with some remotes.
We went through a few before we found ones we actually liked, because most of them only
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would go up to like 20 feet away.
And then we found one that went up to 300 feet away and we're like, all right, yes,
let's push this thing.
And then since then, we just kind of always use the remote.
When I was a kid, my dad, we're still to this day, every six months, he takes a picture
ever since we were born.
So zero six months, one year, one year six months, all the way through until now I'm
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26.
He's still doing it every May and every November.
And the way he started taking those with it was with a remote.
With old camera, he didn't have a self-timer on it.
So we had always, every May, he'd pull out the remote, pull out his camera, set up his
tripod, we'd go in the backyard.
He uses remote to take his pictures.
And then I remember when we bought our first camera, I just thought like you had to have
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a camera, you had to have a tripod and you had to have a remote because my dad had been
taking all these pictures of us for years and years and years.
And he'd always use a remote.
So I thought it was like normal.
Like I thought every photographer had a remote at some point.
And then it just made sense whenever we did go to take our photos, I was like, oh, I've
been doing this since I was a kid using the remote.
Let's just keep on using it.
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Yo, so you guys have taken some epic photos, pretty much everywhere.
I want to know what has been your craziest photo you've had to set up.
Because I know some of those photos aren't easy to set up and get down to an area to
pose.
Could you share an experience that was the craziest?
It's not like dudes first came to mind, but that was because you had to run for so long
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up and down the hills.
I mean, we run for so long, everyone.
And like when we were in Abu Dhabi, I feel like it's most of the places that there's
like up and downs, up and down.
Like what all the sand dudes we were taking pictures of in the UAE out in Jordan when
we were taking pictures of like Petra here when we were in California in the dune.
In Idaho, there were more dunes that we have to go back and forth.
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I feel like it's definitely a lot easier because we have a drone.
So if there is a place that's not in a national park, we can just fly up our drone, put our
drone where we would put the tripod and take our pictures.
So I feel like it's mostly in the national park.
Since you're not allowed to fly drone, it makes our life quite a bit more difficult
to have to walk all the way over somewhere in the national park, set up our tripod, walk
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all the way back.
Where I feel like most of the time we have like a little 10 or 15 foot gap between us.
But I feel like in national parks, that's when we really have to like run back.
So I feel like in almost every national park, I'm thinking, you know, 70, if we're taking
pictures up in Taft Point, I have to set it up 300 feet away, run all the way over,
take a picture, run all the way back in Sequoia National Park in the snow, set it up way far
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away, run all the way in the picture, run all the way back.
I feel like a drone has really made our life a lot easier because we can take those epic
photos far away and not necessarily have to run back and forth because I can just use
my drone to go where it goes.
I will say though, one like really hard experience was shooting the volcano in Guatemala, which
is like that photo behind us.
Oh, so nice.
You don't know when it's going to erupt and it only erupted at night.
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So like Steve literally had his tripod outside of our tent with the camera, but no camera
battery because it was so cold.
And so he'd have to like put it in, get the shot and hold the like long exposure.
And that was really, really difficult photo to get.
We maybe only got like what, less than 10 photos that night because it only erupted
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for like a minute.
And then, yes, and you'd miss your opportunity if you weren't ready.
So we'd be like sleeping.
It would start rumbling before it erupted.
So it just immediately pop up and then have to get everything and then hope for the best.
And that was very difficult.
I would love to go and like reshoot that again.
If there's any video.
We just had bad weather because I remember that it was cloudy and raining and thunderstorming
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on us the entire evening, like going into sunset time when we wanted to shoot.
And then that whole night and I woke up in the middle of the night and went, oh, there
are actually no clouds.
So then we pulled out the tripod and set up and started taking some photos.
But like G said, every eruption was different too.
It's just like every sunset, every sunset, some sunsets you get really good ones.
Some sunsets it's like tiny little burn.
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I feel like with the volcano is the same thing.
Every once in like 15 eruptions have this massive eruption and it'll look like the photo
behind us.
But most of them, it was just like little, it wasn't much of a funerary.
That's crazy.
Cause most people post the best photo of the eruption and they didn't realize that there's
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the ones that were going, like you said, barely anything coming out.
Yeah.
That's amazing, man.
So shameless plug for yourselves, I've been following along with your guys's new creator's
passport.
Oh yeah.
I have a lot of people who are in the creative industry, want to travel, do photography,
things like that.
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So if you wouldn't mind just sharing, who's it for and who's it not for, things like that.
What to expect coming up from you guys in that aspect.
I feel like we've taken quite a few courses in our days.
Like we've taken Club Life Design, we've taken Danny's course, we've taken blogging courses,
we've taken other Instagram courses.
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We've talked to people who've taken Lost Creator Academy.
There's so many courses out there, but I feel like most of them are like not very surface
level, but it's like-
They're for beginners.
They're for beginners.
Like what we're trying to achieve here is making a more high level course.
So our target audience, like not saying it's not for beginners, like we're definitely doing.
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So actually let me just backtrack and look into it.
We have three different mini courses basically in one.
So one's like photo video bootcamp.
Like you've never picked up a camera before in your entire life and you're going to learn
exactly what you need to know for photo video and drones.
Then we have growth, which is like every platform that we're on.
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How is it worth it?
YouTube, blog, TikTok, Instagram, podcasts, like we have so many different platforms and
streams of revenue.
I think that a big thing that we're going to talk about on it is you shouldn't only
be on like hope they grow on Instagram and not do anything else.
You need to be using every single platform.
Well, at least two.
And then the last one is running a business and it's going to be very marketing heavy,
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branding heavy things like that and very more like admin stuff, which is more of what I
do out of the two of us.
So like quick books and accounting and legal stuff and like the whole backside of things
that nobody ever talks about when you're doing it.
Like I didn't know how to establish an LLC when I was first starting.
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I didn't know what an LLC was.
What's the difference between an LLC and an S corporation and like business structures
and all that kind of stuff.
And how do you put together a marketing plan for a product that you're going to launch?
And so that's going to be more of the high level stuff.
And I would say we're doing it so you can either buy all of them or you can buy one
separately.
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So if you're already a pro photographer, you don't need that course, but you're on Instagram
or you're on Instagram and you're struggling to grow, then you can get the growth one.
Let's say you're growing, you have a huge audience, you're creating content, but you're
not making money.
Okay, take the business course.
So like it's kind of a three in one thing, but I would say that our audience for, or
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like our target audience for it is not beginners.
I would say it's more like intermediate to advanced people that are very serious about
making this a full time job and not just like dabbling, but you know, trying to really push
and get into the creative space so they can take it full time or if they are doing it
full time, make more money.
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So that's kind of where we're going with it.
We just started a production this last week because there's been a lot of like steps to
get to all the lessons and modules and things.
So it probably won't be ready for another like at least two months, but yeah, we're
really excited because hopefully there's nothing else out there like this so far.
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And we're also hoping to have it in Spanish too, which I've not seen another course too.
So yeah, we'll see how it goes.
Wow, way to close the gap there.
I agree with you a hundred percent.
There's not a lot of high level content courses that are teaching people how to run their
business.
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I recently quit my job three months ago and it's definitely been a learning process.
So many things I didn't know, things like that.
I think that's really good for so many people and then being able to do it in Spanish.
I mean, I've never ever, ever heard someone do it in Spanish.
So that's going to be super exciting.
We got the idea from MrBeast.
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I don't know if you know, I'm sure you know what MrBeast is, but he dubs everything in
different languages.
So he has all these viral videos, they get like 300 million views, but then he was like,
you know, only 10% of the entire world speak English.
So he can tap into other markets and let's say start talking to in Spanish.
And it's funny because he'll find actors in that language and then hire him.
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So like famous actors.
So for instance, in Spanish course is the person that plays Spider-Man in Marvel and
does the voiceover for Marvel, Spider-Man in Spanish.
He got that first bunch of comments on his videos like is Spider-Man MrBeast?
Like what is happening?
It was, it's quite funny.
But it's a genius move because if you only do it in English, you're isolating so many
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people.
I mean, you can automatically double the amount of audience you're trying to reach if you're
talking in Spanish now.
So I think-
We don't know Spanish, we know very minutiae Spanish.
We will have someone who is very good at translating, dubbing all of our materials.
So yeah, especially being in California.
I mean like 50% of people speak Spanish.
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Take the words right out of my mouth.
I was going to say just as your California audience, that's going to be huge.
Yeah.
We think that it will be up on the, and I feel like not a lot of people are focusing
on it.
So if we can offer something that maybe can change their life or help them out and grow
their audience, I mean, there's a whole market for that.
(22:12):
Amazing guys.
So you guys have been traveling both for quite a long time.
So you have a ton of experience traveling, going outdoors, hiking, things like that.
What advice would you share with someone who is thinking about entering into traveling
more?
How would you recommend them to start?
(22:33):
For example, your avatar is your nine to five guy.
You know anything about traveling?
I would start with doing an overnight trip somewhere nearby.
I think a lot of people think that travel's got to be some crazy long European vacation
or something.
But like when we were doing our nine to five, our form of travel was we drive like three
hours to Joshua Tree and we car camp for a night or two and then come back.
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So starting small, I feel like is the biggest thing because you learn a lot and you're not
too out of your comfort zone yet where if something really bad were to happen, like
it wouldn't be the end of the world.
Like for example, car camping in Joshua Tree, you can make sure you have like your full
camping set up and all this stuff.
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And if you forget something, there's a store right there.
You know, it's not like you're going into a tree and you really need something and you
can't get it.
Yeah, I feel like most, even different countries or different state, every single one, I would
almost rate is like an easy medium travel type of destination.
You know how people rate hikes?
Like this hike is easy.
This hike is modern, strenuous hike.
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I feel like these people should almost rate destinations like that.
Like for instance, we're getting ready to go to Japan.
I would not rate that as like an easy for beginners level travel experience.
That is like an advanced, more strenuous type of experience because of the language barrier,
like the cultural differences.
Like there's such a big thing.
Even with like traveling within the U S for instance, if you're traveling to somewhere
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that much less tourists, you're out on the boondocks or if you're traveling like Texas,
you have to realize that you're going to be driving like eight hours in between different
cities sometimes.
Whereas in California, you can drive 15, 20 minutes most of the time and hit another city.
So I think starting locally, like G said, is hands down the best way to start.
And then from there slowly, because the budget wise too, it's so much cheaper to travel near
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you and that way if you like, Oh, I want to start traveling and dabbling in it.
You're not buying a thousand dollar plane ticket to Iceland for your first trip.
You're spending $50 on gas there and back from a fun little weekend trip.
You know, that's amazing.
I know you guys grew super fast on social media and I remember you posting about a couple
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times in your stories, how you guys got recognized in public.
It happens all the time.
It happens all the time now.
That's awesome.
Is it weird or kind of like, does the people say like Giselle Steven?
Yeah, well, okay.
So it's different.
Like literally last week we were hiking for a gig in Canaingo Valley, which is like 30
minutes away from us and I grew up there and we were in a bagel shop and we're not like
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wearing a red and yellow jackets or anything.
Like we used to only get recognized when we were wearing our jackets.
Now it's like anywhere it can happen.
So we were just in a bagel shop ordering bagels and this one girl at high school nearby was
like, oh my God, I know you guys from Instagram.
You're the Lovers Passport, right?
And most of the time they say Lovers Passport, not Giselle Steven.
But yeah, it's cool too, like seeing the diverse amount of people that recognize us.
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Because she was like an 18 year or 17 year old in high school and then we get some adults
that recognize us and then we get people like we've gotten recognized everywhere from like
Amon, Jordan, Switzerland.
Like literally when he proposed to me there were two other people at the lake we were
at and they followed us and they knew who we were.
And they're like, oh look at Kraut's guys, like we follow you on Instagram.
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And then like, oh where else?
In Canav in Utah over by the Wave, I was with my mom, I wasn't even with Steven.
And I was with a group of four other adults like all over 60 and there was a couple in
the restaurant that recognized me as we were leaving and asked for a picture and my mom
was like stoked, she was like, you have groupies, like that's so cool.
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And she posted on Facebook, she was like wow.
But it's really cool, I mean I feel like we're just normal average Joes.
So I always love it when people ask to like take a picture or come say hi or something.
A lot of the times we end up like inviting them on trips with us or something.
People we've met in Yosemite just on the fly like took them out hiking with us or in Alley
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of Hills, we ran into a few people and all those people have gone on trips with us since.
So I promise we're friendly.
That's awesome.
No, I don't have as many followers as you guys, but I once was hiking in the back country
in Mammoth.
That was an easy hike.
And this guy comes up to me and he says, are you the 100 Sunrises guy?
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Because last year I was catching 100 Sunrises.
So I looked back and I don't think anyone recognizes me because I don't have that many
followers.
And he was like, dude I've been following you since 2020 is when I started too.
And it was just interesting to like people come up to you like that and you don't even
realize they think you're some person on social media.
But like to me, just a dude that takes photos.
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Exactly.
You don't feel like you're a celebrity or anything.
But the greatest part is when they know so much about you.
Like sometimes, especially if you've been, some people have followed us for like three
years now.
So they've seen like us get a dog.
They've seen us get married now.
They've seen us buy a house together.
They've seen all the places we've gone.
They've seen like our favorite places to go when our anniversaries are like, they know
(27:58):
so much about you that.
And you don't know anything about them.
Exactly.
So they're like asking you all these questions and I don't know, sometimes it can like be
overwhelming to know so much about one person because I feel like it's very different than
like movie stars.
Like movie stars people ban, but most of the time people don't know too much about them.
It's like, oh, you're the guy from that one movie and they don't know anything about their
(28:18):
personal life.
Like they know quite a bit about our personal life going into.
To an extent.
We're like, we don't publish a lot of stuff on our personal life, like outside of surface
level stuff.
But we've done that for a reason because there is only like, I mean, some people are super
open about everything that happens in their life.
But we just, for the sake of relationship purposes and safety, I feel like we've been
(28:44):
pretty good about just sharing like on a need to know basis.
Yeah.
That's amazing.
So when, what would you guys be doing right now if you weren't running the Lover's Passport?
What would Giselle be doing?
What would you be doing Steven?
I really hope I wouldn't still be at my nine to five job.
I feel like I was like, anyways, where I would have found some other job doing marketing
(29:09):
or PR.
But yeah, probably, probably something in the social media sphere.
Like my previous job before this, I was running the influencer program and like pitching our
store to like CVS, Walmart, like all these retailers trying to get our products into
retail.
So something like that, I'd assume.
(29:31):
My top goal before we even started this was to work PR and marketing and entertainment.
So I really wanted to work for like Universal or Warner Brothers, like Paramount or something
like that and do a lot of their special events marketing and, and influencer marketing and
things like that.
So I feel like it probably would have been in that realm, hopefully, if that was my goal
(29:52):
still without Lover's Passport.
But I mean, we, we would definitely still be traveling.
We were, we've been traveling together since we first met.
So I don't think that would have changed.
I think it would have just been more, more weekend trips like we were doing and less
international stuff now.
But yeah, maybe have another dog.
(30:13):
More involved in Taekwondo because I, I feel like this weekend is one of the biggest Taekwondo
tournaments of the year.
It's nationals out in Texas.
And I think this is the first, one of the first nationals I've missed in like 20 years,
probably is now since I've started.
So I think I would just be going to a lot more of those events before every single weekend
(30:33):
was filled with training people.
Every single one was built on like traveling to these different tournaments and competing.
So just, I think I'd be a lot busier with my martial arts career.
So business person to business person, what are some of the biggest challenges or just
challenges that you've had to navigate through since quitting your job?
(30:56):
That's a good question.
I feel like the hardest one for, I think this is what, G tells me this like 10 times a week.
She's like, work, life, balance.
I feel like that is the hardest part.
For me, I don't find like any of this content creation stuff work.
Like I can sit there and like this morning I made seven different TikToks and I was like
(31:17):
super fun.
I had so much fun editing, going through footage, thinking of different ideas, looking at all
of our pillars, asking Gisele like, should I go with this one or this one?
Like I think that's super fun.
I would edit all day and then on the weekends go out and hike every day and go see it.
That's like the most fun thing in the world for me.
So for me, I feel like it's very, very, the work life balance is like, it's just regular
(31:40):
life.
But I feel like with G, she definitely gets, I feel like it's every girl that we've talked
to or even hung on our podcast, they get very furred out where every guy is like, no, I
can work all day.
This is great.
Like we're all we can grow.
Cause I feel like, especially when you own and run your own business, it is very, very
easy to see like, if I do this, I make more money.
Or if I do this business booms.
(32:02):
If I don't do this, then business tanks, you know?
So the back of my head, it's like we've posted, I think almost 500 days of reels now in a
row and with that and almost 500 days in a row.
Since November, November of 2020.
Yeah.
And with that, if you look at it, obviously we've, we've like quadrupled in size across
(32:24):
all platforms, income's gone up.
And I think a big part of that is because we've been so consistent and been putting
in so much work where is we did take more days off and did take more time to do like
our own things than we would have if it wasn't good.
So I think that that's the hardest part is just finding that work life boundary.
But yeah, I mean, I think I saw you post it the other day.
(32:47):
Like, I know you lead the 95 to work 24, some of them like that's, I mean, it's a realistic
statement in some ways, but I feel like we definitely gotten better about the work life
balance stuff too.
Like this week, especially like we're making time for the gym again and we're cutting things
off when it's 9pm instead of midnight.
(33:09):
Like little progress stuff, but we're both huge workaholics.
So which is great for like the business, but you know, otherwise, burnout is not great.
That's always, I've had burnout a few times in the past three years.
And then I'm trying to think otherwise.
I know a lot of people struggle with like consistency of income, but I feel like we've
been pretty good about our whatever eight or nine streams of income.
(33:33):
So that hasn't been a huge problem for us, luckily, which I definitely attribute to a
lot of building in the early stages of making sure not all our eggs are in one basket.
And then try to think of their like business barriers to entry.
Fire drone early and often.
(33:54):
That thing is literally.
I feel like, like, I don't know how well performed for other people, but for us, I feel like
the drone footage performs so well and it makes life so much easier.
I could hike up this massive mountain and try it and take like an iPhone pan, or I can
just turn on the drone, take the same thing like 30 seconds.
It just makes content creation so much easier, especially in the outdoor industry.
(34:19):
Cameras, tripods, what have you found that was your best travel adventure gear?
Because I'm sure you guys have been at instances where your gear has been under a lot of stress
and just in water, mud, everything that was the best for you.
(34:42):
Because people who follow this podcast are into the outdoors and photography.
So I'm sure they would like to listen to this.
I think the number one thing was getting that tripod of ours, the Pete Design travel tripod.
It's so exciting.
Let's see.
Like we were fully in the headspace of buy once, cry once when we were investing in our
camera gear and that thing has been stuck in rivers, oceans, cliffs, storms, never once
(35:10):
has fallen over with a camera on it.
Or even wobbled with a camera on it.
It did wobble once in Milford South.
Okay, but the camera was.
That was also like 60 or 70 mile per hour.
Not, not.
Yeah, it was really sweet.
But that thing has been awesome and it's lightweight.
So you can backpack with it if you're willing to carry a little extra weight, but it's not
(35:33):
like super heavy, especially for the type of content.
If you want to get stuff of yourself, it just, you're not going to find anything more versatile.
Like a good camera is awesome, but how often are you posting photos compared to the I like?
I think if you took all of the footage that we post online across every platform and then
(35:53):
you divide that per device, I think that our tripod and our iPhone hands down take the
most footage, whether we're like putting our iPhone on our camp on our tripod and sticking
it up in the air, or if we're putting our phone on the tripod and we're walking in front
of it for like an opening shot.
I don't even know the amount of times that we've used it.
I feel like it's necessary if you're trying to take content of yourself.
(36:17):
If you're like another landscape bro, or you're another person that takes photos of other
people, then I feel like you don't necessarily need a tripod.
But for us, since we like capturing content of ourselves, it's like a necessary piece
of gear.
Yeah.
And the iPhone honestly is so great right now.
Like I have the 14 Pro Max.
I just got it like a week or two ago and the camera quality on that's just crazy.
(36:39):
You know, if you're just starting out, we have like mentored people now that don't even
own a camera and they just hit 200k.
So you really, if you're like into content creation and stuff and still want to capture
really beautiful things, learn with an iPhone first and then you can upgrade to a camera
and things like that.
But really, I would say our tripod, the phone and the drone.
(37:00):
Like the drone has literally updated our like photo worthiness in all departments.
Like we deliver so many galleries with a lot of drone photos for like our tourism clients.
So that's been really, really nice to have.
Super great response.
I agree.
(37:21):
Tripod, drone, especially for travel tourism boards because when I've seen them in the
past, that was a part that was lacking is aerial shots of their, whether it was their
city or their location of the landscape.
That's definitely a gap.
So you guys are hitting it right there too.
(37:42):
I think if people are looking to get their drones though, I would highly recommend them
looking at like a part 107 license or just getting like information or taking some type
of course to learn about it.
Because I feel, cause now we're jumping into the whole FPV drone space and trying to get
better at that.
So that's like our new journey that we're super excited about.
(38:04):
But even with regular drones, there's so many people that don't know how to fly them properly.
They fly them in national parks.
I feel like it would just make, I mean, it's like the content creators now too, the more
people talk about pricing and negotiations, the more, the better it's getting for everyone.
And I feel like the more people would spend time researching it, the better it would get
(38:26):
for everyone.
Cause right now there's drone restrictions popping up faster than wildflowers in California.
It's like, it is actually ridiculous.
No, they're making it really hard, man.
So you guys ran a business together.
What's it like being able to separate work and life relationships?
(38:48):
What are some tips to other people who maybe are friends, significant others?
How would you tell them how to navigate through those types of things?
I would say firstly, it's not for everyone.
Like you have to be so honest and communicative if you're working with your partner or best
friend or something like that.
(39:10):
Like we don't hold grudges over each other over business stuff.
We don't like, you know, if we have date night, but we have a disagreement about a business
thing, it's not going to transfer into our date night.
You know?
I think the best thing that we did was just, we have two completely different jobs.
Like if we worked at a company, G would work a completely different position than what
(39:31):
I did.
In the beginning, we both edited photos, we both edited video, we both were responding
to emails, doing this and that.
And I feel like we were stepping on, yeah, we were stepping on each other's toes.
And now that we were in the beginning, we were like, okay, you take photo, I'll do video,
you do YouTube, I'll do blogging, you take negotiations, I'll do business admin.
(39:53):
Like we have very separate jobs.
So every day, no matter if I don't know what Giselle is doing or she doesn't know what
I do, we both trust each other that, okay, I know Stephen's going to get this, this,
this, and this done.
Or I know G is going to get this, this, and this done.
I think that it's helped our productivity and make it so we can do a lot of things faster
than other people are doing in the content creator sphere.
(40:15):
Because there are two of us that we can do almost two completely different jobs.
So I think that's like the biggest thing is in the beginning sitting down to me like,
all right, what are you really good at?
And what am I really good at?
And what you enjoy.
Exactly.
And then let's split it up.
Like before G was doing some comments, but then they started to get to her head with
all the like negativity that came to them.
So I think overall the comments, but for stories, for instance, none of my stories are pretty
(40:38):
enough.
So Giselle, all of our stories make them look...
Just that in there.
And with Monica, with blogging, for instance, I am not a good writer, but G is a way better
writer.
And then with picture taking and video taking, for instance, that way G doesn't have to run
up and down the things or go do all that.
I've taken over like the drone and the videography area.
(40:59):
So I feel like we both have very different spheres.
But if you could figure that out, I feel like early on, whether you're working with a best
friend or someone you're in a relationship with, I think it really clears up a lot of
arguments that can possibly happen.
That's some great advice.
I follow a lot of leadership podcasts and one of the first things they say to do in
(41:20):
business is to delegate and separate responsibilities so that one, productivity, two, there's no
questions between who's doing what.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
I think that's the biggest thing.
We talked to a lot of other couples about it and it seems that most people do something
similar.
(41:40):
I mean, not exactly like, oh, there's like a Steven image is all of each relating, but
like most of them that we find that are super successful are also completely delegating
something with maybe like one or two overlaps.
You're like, we both do emails and we both like do scheduling and calls and stuff.
But outside of that, there's really minimal overlap.
(42:02):
So being in a creator industry, I mean, that's a huge industry nowadays.
What are some misconceptions or myths that you guys think that are floating around that
you could possibly debunk for the people who are listening?
There's a few.
The first one that came to mind was shadow banning.
That's not a thing.
Like that's a whole lot of things.
(42:24):
I think people blame the algorithm for a lot and they're not-
There was a quote we heard that said every time you say algorithm, replace it with audience
and it'll change your thought process.
You're like, oh, the algorithm is not showing any of my stuff to anyone.
Be like, well, the audience isn't seeing any of my stuff.
It's not that the algorithm is going to show the stuff that is doing the best.
(42:46):
It doesn't matter.
If you think that your content is the best.
I think that one thing we sat down with this other couple, Trent and Sarah from Rio Travelers,
and they think that one of the most important things you can do as a creator is know when
a video sucks or know what it's like-
Take responsibility when it sucks.
It's okay.
It's not always going to have great content.
(43:09):
Take that and look at your analytics.
Where are they dropping off in your video?
Maybe that hook wasn't strong enough.
Maybe I need to get rid of text.
Maybe I need to add text.
If we're doing an ad for a company and we post it and it doesn't hit a certain minimum,
we immediately delete it, ask the company, like, hey, can we change the hook for it?
(43:29):
It didn't perform.
We'll change the hook or the structure or something like that and it'll perform better.
It's just knowing that everything's going to hit, but don't necessarily place all the
blame in the algorithm.
I think that's probably the biggest one that I can think of.
A lot of people won't, in other courses of things like that, a lot of people won't tell
(43:52):
people that because they're afraid to hurt people's feelings.
We do occasional, if people reach out to us and say, hey, can you look at my account,
we'll do audits for them.
We're very straight up.
We're very blunt.
We'll travel with Dalton.
We met up with him last February.
First year.
But we hopped on a one-on-one with him and he was like, all right, let's analyze.
(44:16):
We went through 25 reels and I was like, okay, this part was terrible.
You need to switch this.
Your text is too big.
You make it smaller.
You're covering the pretty stuff.
Very helpful if you have someone that's been in it for a while or just other friends look
at your video and be like, honestly, what do you think of this video?
Because there definitely are some videos even that we put out there.
(44:38):
Look back and I'm like, yeah, I probably could have put a little bit more effort in.
Yeah, I would have scrolled past that.
You have to make it so it is a show stopper.
People want to watch your video.
Mic drop.
I preached that so much with so many people.
I worked at a marketing agency before I quit my job.
(45:01):
So we worked with other businesses, helping them grow their social media, their website,
things like that.
And not just working with them, but telling other people, I'm like, dude, if it didn't
do good, you literally didn't catch their eye.
It doesn't necessarily mean you're a bad videographer, a bad photographer.
You just didn't make eye catching content for the app.
(45:24):
Right.
And I mean, posting something that doesn't do well isn't necessarily a bad thing.
You can learn from that and then change strategy.
All data is good data, whether it's a post not performing well or a post that does really
well.
You can examine it and totally adjust your strategy.
So 100% agree.
(45:48):
That's amazing stuff.
I'm glad you guys spoke on that.
So 2023 travel industry, travel creation, travel photography.
It's a lot more saturated than it was in 2020.
What are some tips that you could give people who are thinking about entering the industry?
Should they?
(46:09):
Is it too late?
What are your guys' thoughts on that?
I think my biggest tip would just be don't be someone else.
They'll copy other people.
There are so many copycats that we see that are us just like exact same text or exact
same videos and exact same.
Which happens to term culture, regardless of who is us or not.
We do trends too, but when you're trying to make an establishing name for yourself, no
(46:34):
one's going to do the lover's passport better than the lover's passport.
You can't just try and emulate someone exactly and hope that that's going to take you all
the way.
You need to figure out your own style and your own unique perspectives and things like
that.
I know Stephen talks about it a lot, like what makes you different than anyone else
in the space because nobody else has your story.
(46:57):
I think that adding that to it is a big part of it.
I think that's why we grew so much in the beginning was our photos were not nearly as
good as all the landscape bros are.
We weren't showing our booties as much as all the wander babes.
We're not trying to be anyone else.
We're just walking around like my girlfriend asked me to go on this road trip.
(47:17):
This is what it looked like.
POV, you woke up at 5 a.m. and this is the sunrise you saw.
You can still travel at a 9 to 5 drop.
We were trying to be as relatable as possible and just tell our story of this is how we
started doing this.
It's not that hard to do it.
You can do it too.
I know that we've not transitioned away from a lot of our road trip, hiking, backpacking
(47:41):
stuff in the beginning.
We've added in a lot more travel and I think it's healthy to like you're obviously pivoting
a little bit.
I think when people are first starting, it's super important to not people are like niche
down, niche down as much as you can, but you want to niche down and then kind of find your
own area.
For instance, let's say you want to be in the hiking industry or the outdoor travel
(48:05):
industry.
So do hiking, do road trips, do camping, do all of it.
But let's say your one video that goes absolute bananas and goes super viral is you doing
Washington content and you're from California.
If you start doing a bunch of California content, but you got 25,000 followers from a Washington
content, your stuff isn't going to perform as well.
(48:26):
So I think looking at what is taking off in your account and then just kind of running
with that is super, super important, especially when you're first starting.
Yeah.
And it's constantly changing too.
When you're first starting out, like we started with outdoor, like Stephen was saying, and
we slowly have added a few more content pillars as the world's opened up.
Naturally, you're going to grow as a human and as an account.
(48:47):
So just staying in one, I love hiking, don't get me wrong, but doing a hike every single
day of my life is not, I'm not just one dimensional, I'm multifaceted.
So I have other interests that grow along with it.
So that's just one thing.
People want to rebrand themselves a little bit and add a few more things, like Go For
It, because I know a lot of people are scared to do that.
And we were a little scared too, but we were like, it's been very well received, all the
(49:10):
international travel stuff.
Oh God, I forgot where I was going with that though.
I think that's like the best thing is just throwing it and then being super consistent.
Like we said, we've posted for almost 500 days and we're going to try some new strategies
because we literally just started a new account.
I think it has like 450 followers on my creator passport.
(49:33):
So our goal is in three months, seeing if we can get it up to 50 or 100K.
So we're going to try and push that account as hard as we can, see how much we can grow
it and show that it, people like think it's super saturated, but there's still people
that we are massive creators that we find today.
And we're like, oh, we haven't seen this person's content in three years.
(49:55):
And we're on the app every single day.
So if we're still finding new accounts, there's going to be tons and tons of accounts.
And I don't know if you've looked, but if you look at big creators accounts like Renee
Roming, Angela Liggs, our account, like all three of us, none of us, we have like maybe
what 10, 15, 20, out of 300, 400, 500, all the way up to 800,000.
(50:19):
Like that's crazy that only 10 people, I mean, most normal people aren't going to follow
a ton of travel creators, right?
You're going to follow like two or three travel creators, two or three like people with dogs.
Yeah, they don't want their whole feed to be travel.
So I think if you can find your own audience, you can make it no matter what.
It's not nowhere near as saturated as a lot of the market.
(50:40):
I remember what I was going to say.
With content analytics and things like that too, like looking back, we do it every three
months and see what perform well and what hasn't and run with it like Stephen was saying.
So right now our funny entertaining content is doing so stupid well.
Like it almost bothers me that it does so well because we put in so much effort for
(51:02):
these beautiful photos and gorgeous drone video.
Make a meme and it gets 10 times more viewed.
It's like what are you doing?
So like right now, like all of our really funny, relatable, sound like our boyfriend's
travel training or our like dancing the elevator on our cruise ship, like those are all like
hitting multi-million or like a POV of Stephen running shirtless through the cruise to go
(51:24):
get a sunrise shot.
Like that stuff is doing so well for us and we would have normally never posted stuff
like that if you were to tell us like three years ago that we were posting that right
now.
But since it's doing really, really well and we're getting a ton of reach from it, we're
going to keep running with it until something else pops up, you know?
And that's just one of our 10 content categories that we post, but it's going to be more prominent
(51:46):
because it is doing so well.
So just knowing your analytics and truly running with what is working and ditch what's not
working.
Stephen, you just crushed so many people's limiting beliefs.
First of all, just by what you said about mutual people who are following each other.
(52:07):
That's an amazing thing you touched on and Giselle, getting deep in the analytics.
I just ran a content audit on myself for the first time ever.
I knew how to do it, but I just never did it for myself.
It takes some time.
Yeah.
It's detailed in everything in my Google Sheets from calculations to graphs, doing all kinds
(52:30):
of different things, which one did good, not followers, followers, things like that.
So the fact that you touched on digging deep in the analytics, running what's doing good
is something that I think everybody needs to hear because people tend to not always
look at the facts.
End of the day.
Yeah.
We can love our pretty pans all that we want, but if they're not, well, wait.
(52:56):
So what can the people expect from Stephen and Giselle in 2023?
What's next?
We're doing like a bucket list year is what we're saying.
So next up we have, we're hopefully going to be going to see the cherry blossoms in
Japan.
So we're leaving for Japan next week.
(53:17):
And then from there, we've got some fun little adventures planned for the rest of the year.
And obviously we got our course coming out, so we'll have a lot of work to do on that
front.
But outside of that, we've been doing a lot of international stuff in the first half of
this year.
We've done Finland because we wanted to go see the Northern Lights and then Australia.
(53:37):
We did the Great Barrier Reef.
So that kind of all goes with the bucket list series.
But in the summertime, I think we're going to be doing a lot of USA travel again and
road trips and kind of go back to our roots a little bit.
So that should be really fun.
But yeah, lots of exciting things coming.
We're getting married this year.
We're moving into our, we get a new house or condo in like a week and a half, our first
(54:00):
place together.
So certainly big changes, but all good things.
Congratulations guys on getting engaged in the big wedding coming up.
That's super exciting.
For the people who want to learn more about you guys, where can they find you on the social
media platforms?
You can find us basically everywhere.
If you look up Unfiltered Adventures and you want to listen to some fun behind the scenes
(54:23):
content, you can listen to our podcast.
If you want to see all of our beautiful horizontal content and tips, you can check out our YouTube.
If you want to see funny memes, you can check out TikTok.
If you want to see more beautiful stuff and more occasional memes, check out Instagram.
Or the lovers passport on there.
Yeah.
And if you want to see all of our blogs and our photography ebook, any of our guides,
(54:48):
all of our long form content, that is all going to be on our blog, the lovers passport
dot com.
So tons of different options to check stuff out and all of them are just a little bit
different.
Awesome guys.
If you guys didn't catch that, it's the lovers passport on everything and highly, highly
recommend following these guys.
I've been following these two since they had under a thousand followers and it's been awesome
(55:09):
to see them grow into their awesome brand they have now.
If you guys want to follow my podcast, it's Nick Gamp podcasts on TikTok, Instagram, YouTube.
If you want to follow me, photography, video, it's at the Nick Gamp on Instagram, TikTok,
Facebook, YouTube, everything.
(55:30):
And Steven and Giselle, I really appreciate you guys taking the time today to come on
here with me.
So if you guys are following them, give them a follow.
We're having it.
Thanks for having us.
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