A globetrotting Greenwood family is sharing their travel experiences with a growing audience.
When people think of YouTubers who post their travel adventures online, they might think of single 20-somethings.
Adam Clarkson and Lindsay Clarkson are flipping that script. The parents travel the world with their three daughters Lily, Cora and Harper, all while working remotely, homeschooling their daughters and making YouTube videos.
For years, the family observed the lives of their favorite YouTubers, watching them taste new foods, travel to exotic locations and leave their everyday lives behind.
“We watched these people as like, an escape. It was always [us thinking] ‘Yeah, that’s cool for them, that’s fun for them but not other people,’” Adam Clarkson said. “But then, we decided to just do it.”
The couple realized during the pandemic that they could easily work from home, and that got them thinking, ‘Why not travel and work at the same time?’
They packed up all their things, sold their home, and left everything they couldn’t take with them in a storage unit before embarking on their travel journey. On their first adventure, they documented their trip on the Queen Mary II cruise ship over a year ago in May 2022, and they haven’t stopped traveling since.
Sharing their adventures
The family posts about their travels on YouTube and TikTok under @adamandlinds. They’ve been posting since the beginning of their journey and have garnered over 12,500 subscribers and earned over 1.5 million views.
On their channel, they post video blogs, or vlogs, and advice for potential new travelers. Posting at least twice a week, they’ve made over 250 videos on their travels to 19 countries and places around the United States.
They said a lot of their video creation started out as a way to document their travels for their children to look back on, but in the process, they’ve also grown a small community. They often get repeat viewers who check up on their travels, mixed in with newcomers.
They interact with fans and answer questions on a wide range of topics including safe places to stay, which homeschool program the Clarksons use and everything in between.
The couple said they’ve been lucky as far as safety goes, even when traveling to exotic places like Thailand, Malaysia and Saudi Arabia.
“We’ve never really been anywhere where we felt unsafe,” Lindsay Clarkson said.
“Just like when you’re at home, you need to be smart. Be a smart traveler and keep your wits about you,” Adam Clarkson added. “And don’t get drunk in public! If you hear about something [bad] that happened to a tourist, almost always you can trace it back to that they weren’t in the right state of mind.”
A balancing act
Despite traveling for over a year, the Clarksons say they still haven’t completely perfected how to balance homeschooling their kids, working, editing their content and having time to explore each new location.
Adam Clarkson is a software engineer, and he said that for that kind of job, he likes to get ‘in the zone.’ That’s something that can be hard to do in a small apartment in Thailand, where the family was visiting when they talked to the Daily Journal via Zoom last week.
Despite this, they said they love what they’re doing.
The best part of all is watching their daughters explore new things every day, making the world their school.
The girls usually enjoy theme parks, according to their parents. When they were in the U.K., they got to visit Peppa Pig Land, which was a major hit for them.
“It’s cool and it’s rewarding when you see them get excited about something. Sometimes [their excitement] is just due to them learning something new or discovering something for the first time,” Adam Clarkson said with a big smile. “It’s just amazing.”
Another of their favorite things is soaking up the culture in all of their destinations.
“I lose myself in the noises and the smells and the sights; it’s like an assault of your senses. Sometimes it’s so overwhelming, but in a good way,” Adam Clarkson said.
What’s next
Right now, the family is exploring Thailand. Next up, they’re considering visiting the Philippines or Indonesia.
They plan on continuing to document their travels, growing their social media presence even more. They post their adventures on YouTube and TikTok under the handles @adamandlinds.
