Filming, editing and running a YouTube channel
The channel started in 2020, thirteen years after the motorhoming did. What we film with and what the creator life honestly pays.
Can you earn a living from a motorhome YouTube channel?
The honest picture: advertising revenue alone is not a living. Urban Motorhomes, a similar channel to ours, are open about their ad revenue being in the region of £400 to £800 a month, which gives you a feel for the scale. We do not disclose our own figures, but the shape is the same for everyone: the real money is in brand partnerships, not the ads, and those take years of consistent output and a real audience to earn. Start a channel because you want the record of your trips. If income follows, treat it as the bonus.
What do you film and edit with?
Less than people expect. Steve films on kit that fits in a rucksack: a camera, a Rode microphone, and a drone for the shots that sell a landscape, then edits on a MacBook in Final Cut Pro, usually at the table of the van somewhere with a view. The honest lesson from six hundred plus videos is that consistency and storytelling grow a channel; the gear just needs to be good enough to not get in the way.
Would you recommend starting a YouTube channel?
Yes, with honest expectations. Even if nobody watched, you would end up with a filmed record of your family's trips that becomes genuinely precious with the years. Publish consistently, learn as you go and give it time before judging the numbers. What we would not recommend is starting one for the money: do it for the trips and the record, and let anything else be upside.
How long have you been doing this?
The motorhoming since 2007, the channel since 2020, and the gap between those dates matters: we had thirteen years of trips, vans and mistakes behind us before we pointed a camera at any of it. Roaming Radfords is the main family channel, and there are two smaller ones besides, Steve and Lynds and Steve's solo channel. The touring came first and it still does; the channel is the record of it, not the reason for it.