Mark Wiens

Mark Wiens is a popular food YouTuber.

He has more than 9 million subscribers on his YouTube channel by the name Mark Wiens.

Introduction-

Mark Wiens was born on 26 February 1986 in Phoenix, Arizona, United States.

In one of his YouTube videos, he revealed his DNA test results, according to which he is 51.3% East Asian/Native American (of this, he has a predominant Chinese ethnicity) and 48.7% European (Germany/France).

Both his parents are Americans but his mother has Chinese ethnicity and his father has Caucasian ethnicity.

Mark has a sister, Pamela Robinson.

Education-

Mark did his schooling from Rosslyn Academy in Nairobi, Kenya.

After completing his schooling in 2004, he attended Arizona State University in the United States to study for a BA in Global Studies with emphasis in World Culture.

After graduating in 2008, Mark did a one-month course in Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL) in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

France, DRC & USA-

As his parents were working as Christian missionaries, at five, in 1990, Mark along with his parents moved to Albertville, France and here, he attended his first year of school.

Then, they moved to Zaire (now known as Democratic Republic of the Congo) in 1991.

Mark lived in DRC for three and a half years and was home-schooled.

Later, as war broke out in DRC, he along with his family relocated to Nairobi, Kenya in 1995 and here, he did most of his schooling from Rosslyn Academy.

Then, Mark moved to the United States to attend Arizona State University.

An adventurous eater-

As his grandfather was a Chinese chef and as Mark himself is half-Chinese, he loves Asian food.

His father has been an adventurous eater and has been trying a variety of dishes and he inspired him to develop an interest in eating and become an adventurous eater.

While living in Democratic Republic of the Congo, Mark used to travel to the jungle to catch and eat flying termites, grubs and he used to hunt birds with a slingshot and eat them.

He has been a foodie all his life and this later inspired him to start a food blog and food YouTube channels.

At a young age, Mark started cooking and was influenced by his mother’s cooking.

Career-

In 2005, Mark worked as a Food Preparation Cook for Aramark in Phoenix, Arizona and he also worked as an Order Picker at The Home Depot.

From 2006 to 2008, he worked as a Truck Team Leader at 1-800-GOT-JUNK? And during this time, he was also studying at the university.

During this time, Mark also started a small business of selling items on eBay and Craigslist.

Travelling the world & starting a blog-

After graduating from university in 2008, with the savings that Mark had garnered by working as a Truck Team Leader, he travelled to South America on a solo trip.

These savings also allowed him to be debt free after graduating.

In South America, Mark took an English teaching course and travelled through Argentina, Uruguay and Chile.

After living in South America for six months, he moved back to the United States and started his blog, Migrationology in January 2009 to record his travel and food experiences in South America.

Later, Mark decided to travel to Asia and so, he sold all his possessions in the United States.

He travelled to Bangkok, Thailand and other South East Asian countries for six months.

Later, as Mark’s savings dwindled, he returned to Bangkok in 2009 and started working as an English Teacher at Wall Street Institute in Bangkok.

Here, he worked as a full-time English teacher for a year.

Working on Migrationology –

After a while after starting Migrationology, Mark earned a couple of cents by setting up a Google advertisement on his blog and this inspired him to work harder on his blog, so that he could make a living from blogging.

At that time, he was more passionate about blogging rather than working as an English teacher because blogging allowed him to pursue his hobbies of travelling and eating whereas teaching confined him to a classroom.

So, while working as an English teacher, Mark worked hard on his blog so that he could sustain it and could stop working as a teacher.

During that time, apart from blogging, he also started doing freelance projects.

From September 2009 to October 2009, Mark worked as a Volunteer Travel Blogger for Gawad Kalinga and his job involved travelling around the Philippines and sharing his experiences.

It took him three years to start making a decent income from his blog.

Mark also started the Eating Thai Food blog.

Travelling the world, thanks to his blog-

The success of Migrationology blog allowed Mark to travel the world.

Even while travelling, he used to blog on his laptop for long hours.

Mark started earning from his blog by a variety of sources like affiliate marketing, selling his premium travel and food ebooks.

He wrote many ebooks like 101 Things To Do In Bangkok, Eating Thai Food Guide, The Vegetarian Thai Food Guide, Delhi Travel Guide, etc.

Also, Mark’s blog allowed him to obtain many freelance writing projects and he did freelance writing projects for many newspapers, magazines and websites like CNN Travel, Phuket Gazette, Mabuhay Magazine, etc.

He also wrote for Go Backpacking.

Working on his YouTube channel-

Mark started his YouTube channel by the name Mark Wiens on 3 February 2009 and started shooting videos with a small point-and-shoot camera.

In 2011, he realised that videos can better showcase food rather than blog posts.

And so, since 2011, Mark started seriously working on his YouTube channel.

On 19 June 2017, he started his second YouTube channel by the name, Mark Abroad.

And on 12 May 2020, Mark started his third YouTube channel by the name Big On Spice – Mark Wiens.

In one of the YouTube videos, he got interviewed by Will Sonbuchner, a popular food YouTuber and he also collaborated with Pailin Chongchitnant, another popular food YouTuber.

A successful YouTuber-

Mark is an extremely successful YouTuber.

As of September 2022, he has 9.19M subscribers on Mark Wiens YouTube channel, 735K subscribers on Mark Abroad channel and 208K subscribers on Big On Spice – Mark Wiens channel.

And has 1.5M followers on Instagram and 5M followers on his Facebook page.

Mark earns from a variety of sources like advertisements on his YouTube videos, selling merchandise, receiving sponsorships, receiving donations through PayPal and he also does affiliate marketing through his website.

He uses Sony Alpha FX3 and Lumix GH5 cameras and uses a DJI Mini 3 Pro drone.

Mark also started a Thai restaurant by the name Phed Mark in Bangkok.

Personal life-

Mark met his wife; Ying Pt in Thailand and she is a Thailander.

Later, they got married in July 2013 and this couple has a son, Micah Tharachat Wiens.

Micah was born on 12 November 2016 in Bangkok, Thailand.

Ying helps Mark as a videographer.

He is based in Thailand but frequently travels to different countries to shoot food videos.

Mark settled in Thailand because of its low cost of living and this allowed him to follow his passions instead of toiling in a regular job.

Apart from food and travelling, his other hobbies are hiking, backpacking and enjoying nature.

So, how are you inspired by the success story of Mark Wiens?

Share with me in the comment section below.