The Art of Silence with Kraig Adams

In a world filled with so much noise, you learn to appreciate silence. No one understands this better than filmmaker and YouTuber, Kraig Adams. His no-talking, documentary style hiking films have made him one of the most popular names recently.

Kraig has been making travel videos for over four years now, but his audience grew significantly after posting his first video in the new “silence” or “meditation” category, which garnered 3.1 million views. In the video, he hikes 60 miles alone in Hornstrandir, Iceland and you can hear nothing but nature the entire time. There is something so soothing about the absence of talking especially when you are experiencing one of the most unique places on earth. You can hear the wind blowing, his tent being setup for the night and water at the creek crossings. It’s almost as if you are hiking alongside him.

He has since created many more videos in this style including the Tour Du Mont Blanc Loop, Adirondack, Picos De Europa, and the Santa Cruz Trek to name a few.

Kraig is a minimalist at heart and prefers quality over quantity. His bedroom in his Brooklyn apartment features nothing but essentials and he has deleted most social media from his phone. When you are living out of a backpack for a good portion of the year, it changes your view on materiality. You start to realize what is important to you.

In his latest podcast episode, “Building a Home”, Kraig mentioned he has a big trip planned and we should expect new content soon. He also dove into life changes and said he would love to move out of NYC so he can buy a house, get a dog and just be in nature.

He prides himself on being authentic and transparent so that he can develop a more personal relationship with his audience. In an interview with GeniusLink, Kraig gave some advice to upcoming content creators.

“Make whatever you want. Inspiration should come from everywhere and not just the platform that you’re posting on. Pull from nature, pull from books, pull from music, pull from food, from animals – whatever. Second, I would suggest realizing that people are almost more important than the content that you’re creating. It’s possible to get popular and become successful in whatever sense that is just by making and posting and never talking to anyone else and never asking for feedback. To be 100% of an artist, I feel like that’s what that is. But the reality of the situation is that you need to work and collaborate with other people. You need to have a real roadmap of the people that you look up to, that inspire you, that you would love to connect and give value to in the future, those are the people that you follow on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook and then you should have those people on your radar. Always be pushing towards that as a goal. Then, also identify the people in the struggle with you, in the same industry in the same genre, niche, whatever. With similar impact and influence, you should be working towards the same goal next to each other. Those are probably going to be the best people to collaborate with because you’re in similar situations and you’re going through the same process. Eventually, you’ll start to have fans. They will start out being your mom and then your closest friends. Those are the first people that you’re trying to make promises to and keep them. Whatever your content is, go with that idea. Make a promise, keep a promise. The fans will be happy and they will share. Just keep doing that over and over again. Make a promise keep it.”

To read more from that interview, click here.

Stay up to date with Kraig by subscribing to his YouTube channel here or listening to his podcast on Anchor.