Jon & Mia are two London born YouTubers & entrepreneurs with a passion for travel & business. The two met at age 13 & have since started two YouTube channels; Jon and Mia & LearnGrowAchieve, backpacked together across Southeast Asia & most recently celebrated their 8-year anniversary.
As you may know, TL Travel is always on the hunt for inspirational travelers & exciting content creators for you; our TL Travelers! For some time now the TL Travel team has been addicted to the Jon & Mia YouTube channel & their content from Thailand & around the globe, and with their newest channel LearnGrowAchieve launching recently, we were excited to sit down & chat with them about their channels, their travels & their goals for the future.
Both Jon & Mia have a passion for self-development & personal growth, so in addition to filming their travel adventures together on Jon & Mia, they started LearnGrowAchieve in order to help people reach their full potential by providing content & life hacks that you can implement into your own life journey. Follow their adventures online & find out more about their travels below.
TLTRAVEL: Did either of you travel much before you met & how has traveling as partners changed the way that you see the world?
@JONXMIA: No, we did not travel at all before we met as we met at the young age of thirteen. However, as soon as we got the opportunity to travel together we were gone! To this date we have traveled to eleven countries.
Traveling with your partner is one of those things that makes each & every trip that much better. We get to experience the same things, share funny moments & we become closer overall after every trip we take. Southeast Asia changed our lives in so many ways. Asia was the first time we had ever been away from home for a long period.
The two main things we have learned from traveling together are gratitude; being truly grateful for the small things in life, and how much we actually love traveling. The world is too big & beautiful to spend in only one place.
TLTRAVEL: Whose idea was it to document your travels on YouTube & were you both always so comfortable in front of the camera?
@JONXMIA: It was Jon’s idea. From a young age, he had a passion for filming EVERYTHING (he even has videos from when we were fourteen years old.) I know it's crazy, but in all honestly neither of us can remember whose idea it was to film everyday in Asia. We always knew that we wanted a YouTube channel, then the idea just fell into place.
I remember the day that we ordered all the equipment, it came & we both felt so uncomfortable filming. We felt shy, embarrassed & awkward, and it wasn’t until we got to Asia that we started developing that confidence. I think it's because we didn’t know anyone out there & we could be whoever we wanted to be. As the days went on, we be became more & more comfortable, & now we have got over that fear completely.
TLTRAVEL: Where has been your favorite place to travel & why?
@JONXMIA: So far we have traveled across Southeast Asia & Europe. Both are extremely different, but the one place that will always stick in our minds is Thailand. Thailand has so much to offer & it's so different to what we are use to back home. The tuk tuks, the street food, the weather, the chilled vibes, the people; we felt at home in Thailand. We loved renting out mopeds for only £2.50 & having the freedom to do whatever we wanted to do that day.
TLTRAVEL: Where do you still want to visit that you have never been? What city/ experience is at the top of your bucket-list?
@JONXMIA: South America; Brazil & Argentina are two places that have always stood out to us. The culture & the people seem so vibrant & full of color. We read "4-Hour Workweek" where Tim Ferris states that he lived in Buenos Aires for a period of his life & from then on our passion for South America has grown.
TLTRAVEL: What experience is NOT on your bucket list at all/ you have no interest in seeing or doing?
@JONXMIA: A funny story to tell is from back when we were 19 years old & planning out our first adventure around the world. America, Fiji, New Zealand, Australia, Dubai & so many other crazy countries were on our list. We sat down & mapped out our overall costs & we realized that we couldn’t afford that trip! At the time we were both so against going to Southeast Asia & we even remember Jon saying ‘I AM DEFINITELY NOT DOING ASIA’. So, I guess to answer your question there is nothing we don’t have an interest in seeing. We loved Asia & whatever opportunities come our way in the future we are going to go for them. That’s the same advice we would give for anyone reading ... LIFE IS ABOUT EXPERIENCE, just go for it! Don’t listen to what others think of something/ somewhere & make your own mind.
TLTRAVEL: Filming & running two YouTube channels (among other things) is a lot of work. Do you find that you do most of the work together, or do you divide & conquer?
@JONXMIA: Filming for two YouTube channels, having two websites, running multiple Instagram accounts & recently writing our book "The Backpackers Guide to Southeast Asia" has been hard work. We aren’t going to portray our life to be all fun & games. Behind the scenes we work everyday for around 15 hours per day & that’s something we are trying to escape. We are working very hard now to live our dream life & travel the world on our own schedule while making money online.
The great thing is that there is two of us which means not only can we take on more work, but we can always tackle it quicker & bounce ideas off of one another. What we do runs so smoothly because we divide tasks to between us. Jon edits all of the videos, whilst I organize emails & commit my time to marketing & social media. Dividing tasks works very well for us both.
TLTRAVEL: What advice would you give to someone starting out as a travel vlogger that you wish you had known before?
@JONXMIA: Less is sometimes more. We went out there & filmed every single day, & although we LOVED this we sometimes had days where we spent too much time on work rather than having fun & exploring. Make your priority having fun & enjoying yourself; work smarter not harder. Overall, we would recommend anyone who goes traveling to film their adventures, it's amazing to look back & see what you have done.
TLTRAVEL: What is the top tip that you can give to world travelers today?
@JONXMIA: EMBRACE IT. Like really embrace it. When you visit a certain place don’t just take photos & move on, but really take it in & appreciate it. In Asia we were there, but we weren’t really there. Take the time to stop, look & listen. We can’t stress the importance of taking time out enough. We think that because we are on this incredible journey we have to rush and squeeze everything in, when in reality there is no rush.
TLTRAVEL: What is the next step for both of you & your channels?
@JONXMIA: Our next steps are to continue to grow our businesses which will allow us to travel the world whilst making money online. We have plans to go back out to Southeast Asia in February 2018 & to grow our personal brand from there.
If you like what you have seen so far then you will love all that Jon & Mia have going on across their various social media outlets. Follow them on YouTube at Jon & Mia / LearnGrowAchieve, on Instagram at @jonxmia & @learngrowachieve & online at www.learngrowachieve.co.uk.