 Let's do this! Okay so let's start with the resetting the room. I won't be surprised if you're not familiar with the the phrase or the term because it's kind of new. If you guys don't know about Clubhouse it's a new social media platform and it's audio only. So basically just another social media like Facebook or Instagram you go in and you have to be using your audio to engage with other people and there are rooms about all type of topics that you can imagine and you go in just some sort of conference you go in there are some moderators and people attending and you can join the chat or ask questions and it's really fun and I've been hanging out on this app for for quite some time and they have their own lingo and one of the phrases that they use is resetting the room and resetting the room is basically whenever you are whenever there are new people joining a room on Clubhouse the moderator would talk about what is the topic of the day set expectation what this room is about and so on so that's what we're gonna do today we're going to reset the room I have been creating on this YouTube channel since August 2019 and for those of you who don't know me or you're just watching this video for the first time my name is Habiba I am an amateur hiker and backpacker and I love everything that has to do with adventure traveling and alongside with my partner Alex we travel here in the US and beyond and we share content on this YouTube channel about all of our adventures with a goal to make it easier for other people to go out and explore the outdoors in a responsible way but anyway so that's a little bit about us in this video today I wanted to kind of celebrate some milestones with you guys I wanted to share some thank yous and some shout outs and I also want to share with you some updates about the channel and the future of the channel as well as some travel related updates for 2021 I wanted to do this during new years but as you guys know I was traveling in Morocco to see family and then came back for new years and then it's been just busy between January February up until March right now so really happy that I found the time to do this today we'll talk first of all about our big milestone that we were so excited to reach and that is getting to 1000 subscribers on our YouTube channel I can't thank you enough especially for people who's been following us for a very long time right now some of you guys were so very supportive I loved reading your comments and getting your messages on on Instagram and so on so it's been really really nice obviously with getting to 1000 subscribers and reaching or exceeding 4000 hours of watch time on YouTube you have the opportunity to get monetized if you choose to so we got to that milestone and then on top of the monetization there is something called YouTube community and with the YouTube community you will have the option to share content with the with your audience on YouTube you can go in you can share photos on your timeline you can ask questions and just interact with the audience here on YouTube in a very easy way instead of having to use either Facebook or Instagram to stay connected with the with the community so I was really excited for the community tab and I've been sharing for a couple of weeks right now and interacting with some of you so it's really nice to to see some of your comments there and if you guys remember back when we reached 100 subscribers how excited we both were me and Alex and we we threw a celebration at home and then we made a whole video about it and it doesn't mean that we were not very excited for 1000 subscribers I was extremely beyond beyond happy and excited it's just a question of time we didn't find the time to to sit down and celebrate it but hopefully this video is a way for me to to say thank you and we'll try to have the celebration down the line we did promise a giveaway for the 1000 subscribers it's something that we're still working on so I will let you guys know once that's going to be up we will share that here on YouTube we will share it on Instagram as well so yeah that's for the the milestone that we wanted to celebrate with you now I want to talk a little bit more about the the future of the channel or the direction the channel is going if you've been with us since August of 2019 which our audience was very very tiny but we loved everyone and we felt like we connected with a lot of people back then it was just easy to connect with people when when it was kind of small I mean we still connect with people but it's just different when you only have 20 30 people on your channel but we started and then the goal was in the beginning just to focus on not really to focus but I just wanted to document our adventures whenever we go hiking and backpacking and I used to share some long content with 20 up to 40 minutes just over the hiking hiking hiking and I really enjoyed it and I know some of you enjoyed it too but if you if you've been just seeing the type of videos that we've been sharing lately things have been changing a little bit to move from just hiking and backpacking to a larger umbrella and talk more about adventure traveling with the focus on hiking and backpacking so we used to say we will share adventures about hiking and backpacking and right now it's adventure travel with the focus on hiking and backpacking so that's just to kind of share with you that we're not going to to stop sharing content about hiking and backpacking but it's going to be a little bit broad it's going to be hiking here in the US internationally so wherever we go we will be sharing our adventures with you and those adventures are going to be focused on hiking and backpacking I hope that makes sense so obviously some of our plans for 2020 had to be changed in one way or the other and we felt like between 2020-2021 we've been exploring more national parks here in the US so we've been sharing guides to to help you and help other people plan for their own adventures so our content started moving from you know just look at us we are hiking on the trail to more of okay here are all of the places we went to here here what here's where we spend the night here is where we camp here's what we ate so that if you want to plan something similar you have the tools and resources to to do so so that's that that's the main shift I just try to to focus more on bringing value and this way I can share with you a lot what I love to do and at the same time bring some some value in in in the content but I have a lot of videos that are still in the works from way where we were still in in Alaska we spent one month up in Alaska working from there and we've done some epic hikes and there are a lot of guides that I'm still putting together in case you you want to go to Alaska because I feel like most people when you talk about traveling to Alaska they're just a little bit intimidated because Alaska is big and it's not easy to navigate and you don't really have to go on a cruise or you spend three weeks or a month up there but just with the with the little that you have and with the even with limited resources you can you can make it happen and you can make a trip up there especially at a time during the pandemic where tickets were really cheap so anyway so a lot of guides that we are trying to to put together and share with with you guys and then you might also have noticed that we shared some guides and videos about traveling during the pandemic so what do you expect if you are traveling to Alaska during the pandemic what to expect if you are traveling to national parks during the pandemic you're traveling to Morocco during the pandemic just because I feel like there's a lot of ambiguity around these type of topics when I was going to Morocco there are a lot of things that I didn't know and so I couldn't find any content online to help me out so I'm sure that someone if there's anyone out there who's traveling to Morocco or Alaska or anywhere else they're going to find some value in it so you will see that the focus is going to to shift more to guides video guides traveling during the pandemic tips for for hiking and backpacking and all all that type of videos now let's talk about our travel plans for 2021 we have some very very exciting news that we've been impatiently waiting to share with you because today we just finalized the booking and this year summer 2021 we will be I'm excited we are going to try to summit the highest peak in Africa Mount Kilimanjaro and we did book our flight for this summer we did book the climb just today and oh my god I have goosebumps just from saying it that is going to be our big adventure for 2021 obviously there are no guarantees because you never know how things are going to go so we're going to give it our best and just try to to plan with the information that we have right now and I really really hope that it's going to stick and work this year so I wanted to throw this out there because there's a lot of work that goes into preparing for a big climb like this one and so I would like to to be able to talk about it openly when I'm making videos about as either hiking or biking which by the way I will start sharing some content about biking as well so all of the activities and the training and what type of gear we're gonna have to acquire over the next few months and how we're going to train physically and mentally so all of that I would love to be able to to share it here so I'm happy that you guys know the cat is out of the bag which it's not it's not a big thing to hide or anything but just because I didn't want to share it in the beginning because you never know with the pandemic if we get sick or if they canceled the flight or if there are more ruled and you can't enter the country tons and yeah so that is going to be difficult but I don't mind I'm going to share it with you guys and I'm sure if we will have to adjust we will have to adjust but yeah so that is the big thing for the year there's a lot that goes into preparing like I said so we will be doing some some hikes here and there we will have to acclimatize so we will be probably spending more time in states with higher elevation like either here up in Flagstaff or probably Colorado so it's going to be a bit of a challenge but we're very excited to be sharing that with as far as training we didn't start a solid training right now we're a solid program so we're just trying to be reasonably active but nothing too too strong or too aggressive right now but we will have to so yeah we are extremely excited to be sharing this with you and just sharing the whole journey yeah so I think that's all I wanted to share I just basically wanted to share about the milestone wanted to say thank you for for supporting us throughout the past year and a half creating on on youtube and I wanted to to share the big adventure for the year and yeah there will be also I talked about this on instagram because the weather is getting nicer here in Arizona we will be spending some time cycling and I did ask if you guys will be interested in some cycling we basically just cycle with you know road bike not mountain biking and I was asking if you guys would be interested in seeing some content of a cycling so a lot of people said sure why not so I will be just throwing sprinkles here and there about some of our biking adventures right here and I will continue on with reviewing even gear that I find to be useful or important to have if you are an adventure traveler a hiker or backpacker and yeah so that's all I had to share with you guys I hope that you are having a great weekend I hope that the year 2021 is treating you well again thank you so much I'm looking forward to see how this year is going to turn out and I am very thankful for for your support for your presence and just for you being here thank you again and we will see you guys soon on a new adventure