Since 1994 - and most especially in the past decade & a half, it's become a near-annual tradition for me to emerge out of this shell of doing blog work like this in my Bay Area home and venture out on a 75-minute plane trip (or sometimes a 9-hour drive) to the playground that, if you're at least 21, you can treat as your own adult amusement park -- and lately I've referred to it as my happy place. The thing I refer to by the social media hashtag of #DCVegas has emerged from just the kid in me roaming the Circus Circus midway in that first trip into becoming my own Super Bowl: the biggest thing I look forward to and something I anticipate just as much as the Olympics, music awards shows, or a new season of an MTV reality TV show. It's always a huge deal for me to let my guard down in joining family and cousins for these vacations, and it is always a good time whenever I step foot in Southern Nevada.
The pandemic lockdown last year might've caused a lot of stress for many, but it afforded plenty of time at home to pursue another passion of mine: videography. Not being able to travel opened an opportunity for me to create plenty of escapable and enjoyable content from eight of those Vegas trips for the DC Vegas series on my YouTube channel which number in at over 180 videos. That total can be disputed a bit, as in truth it includes reposted versions of some of those due to having a faster internet speed and affording me the chance to reproduce them in higher definition. Just get a glimpse at the vlogs, and you can understand why I make my videos stand out from your usual Vegas YouTube videos in me taking greater steps to have it be just as nice as anything you see there but visually and sound-wise.
When the opportunity finally presented itself for me to safely travel to Vegas last month - and where conditions were favorable enough to also tackle my first big vacation since this world lost its mind, I will have been well-prepared to once again not only enjoy the experience of this amazing city, but also capturing it (thus defying the adage that "What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas"), Along with marking a belated birthday for me, a new goal coming into this trip was to also use this city -- the Strip and all -- as a canvas to creating great content for my digital channels, having watched a lot of Vegas-related content on YouTube during the pandemic. That, along with upgrading my technology to a new phone, gimbal and other gadgets since the last trip and gaining lots of experience in the last few years in videography and editing techniques, set the table for me to take my Vegas experience to the next level.
Tomorrow night before you gather either in person or virtually with your family and friends as I will for our holiday meet-up (no need to worry about all that's going on health wise for us, we'd rather save that chatter for another time), yours truly will be offering the perfect Christmas gift in "The Ultimate Escape" -- the DC VEGAS XI vlog series on YouTube. I have been working long and hard the past few weeks putting together an amazing array of videos that will help take your mind off of what's going on right now, and to make this an enjoyable experience that will bring the Vegas feeling into your homes and to your screens. But before the premiere of this year's videos, this blogger would like this opportunity to put a spotlight not on myself... but on those who I've gotten to enjoy watching during this time: the community who vlogs on everything Vegas.
If you visit YouTube for the sake of experiencing what it's like to go to your favorite travel destinations, then you have plenty of opportunities to do that without leaving that sofa. A key part of the Disney fandom has been of the many channels that devote themselves to visiting its theme parks, from superfans Josh, Jenna and Dale who go to Walt Disney World & Disneyland every week on their ResortTV1 channel, to so many others who have followed them in the field of live streaming theme park visits, which has brought those unable to travel that same Disney feeling in the comforts of home.
In a way, that culture of getting to do these "in real life" live streams that the ladder does has spread across the west coast but just up the I-15 from Southern California in Sin City. Vegas live streams are something that I now get to watch almost every single day whenever I'm not watching a sports event, a reality show or even a music event... same holds true for when I watch slot videos, hotel room tours and everything related to that city and its culture. I often have these streams in the background whenever I do blog & video work... and my parents have watched slot videos almost every day as well, since they love going to local casinos regularly in addition to tagging me along for these Vegas trips.
The Vegas vlogging community has exploded in the past few years, where there might have been only a small handful of those who post on YouTube their experiences in Sin City about a decade ago. But the need for so many to experience this playground from the comforts of home when most are not able to travel for various reasons gave reason for those who devote a portion of themselves to offering us plenty to content to enjoy has seen an explosion in the amount of channels and the thousands of videos devoted to various aspects of the Las Vegas experience.
A lot of us have benefited from this growing family: the millions of viewers who have watched their videos to take their mind off the pandemic, politics, protests and the panic of the past two years have enjoyed their company during this time. Their work has inspired many others to take up this art of doing vlogging on not just Vegas, but also doing travel videos to there, Disney and everywhere else... including me who has posted plenty of videos from my trips to Vegas and other places. Some are locals who live there in that growing community in the valley, others travel there much more often than I do from as far away as Great Britain... but one thing that they have in common: they have brought that Sin City feeling to all of us. And in no particular order, here's a sampling...
Prior to when I went up to Reno back in 2019 for my cousin's wedding day, I got to watch plenty of slot videos to get a feel for what to expect in taking on the one-armed bandit... little did I know that it would lead to me getting my first handpay. That caught the attention of my parents, where shortly after they were not only watching these same slot videos on a daily basis especially in the past year or so, but also even have borrowed the catch phrase of one of them which they now use almost every day as well.
All of these people, and so many others who I couldn't also single out in this post, are part of the reason why I now have Las Vegas as one of my now-four biggest passions along with sports, reality TV and music. It is a broad and growing YouTube community that has been through a lot in the space of the past few years when the city endured the several months' shutdown, grieved when the Route 99 festival shooting took place, and when Vegas opened its arms to both the Golden Knights and the Raiders. But nowhere is the feeling of togetherness in this Vegas YouTube circle became more prevalent than when after the town slowly began to open its doors to a trifecta of grand openings.
In October last year, the adults-only Circa Las Vegas on Fremont Street became the first major resort to open in town in over a decade, followed a few months later by the rechristening of the former Hard Rock Hotel into a Virgin Hotels property. And the big one came exactly six months ago when Resorts World became the first Strip hotel to open its doors since The Cosmopolitan down the street, and most of the aforementioned vloggers above converged on the northern part of the Strip on that historic June night for the grand occasion, even crashing the VIP party at the pool.
I speak on behalf of the entire YouTube community to say thanks to the Vegas vlogging family for giving us plenty of entertainment from the favorite city of mine and so many others during this time, when we all really needed this escape from the events of the past year.
Now to those who I have referred the link to, I've had the opportunity to enjoy the work that you all do.... now, the time has come to return the favor and invite you all to check out my work and DC VEGAS XI vlogs that premiere this Christmas. The videos I am putting together right now are inspired in part by the great product that these vloggers do, and we are all better for having Vegas in our lives because of them.
The DC VEGAS XI series will premiere tomorrow night at 8PM Eastern & 5PM Pacific with the first wave of videos covering my first night in Sin City. As a holiday treat to everyone, tonight the DC Coast to Coast spinoff series covering past non-Vegas trips will resume covering my 2008 trip to New York City... and still, we are also offering even more: a Christmas-themed mini-set featuring the WinterFest at California's Great America will be sprinkled in as well. Get set for a holiday feast ahead at YouTube.com/dc408dxtr.
- I AM DC #DCBLOG
#TheEscapeYouDeserve
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