Mike Corey (Fearless & Far)

Mike Corey is a popular YouTuber and adventurer.

He has more than 1.3 million subscribers on his YouTube channel by the name Fearless & Far.

Mike is also an adventure travel TV host.

Introduction-

Mike Corey was born on 24 August 1985 in Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada.

He grew up in Fredericton.

Mike’s father, Lee Corey is the owner of Corey Nutrition Company.

His mother’s name is Jane Corey.

Mike has four siblings.

A born adventurer & the problem of preconceptions-

Mike grew up in the woods and while growing up, he along with his parents used to go to rocky beaches of New Brunswick especially Bay of Fundy.

His parents taught him rock flipping and he became obsessed with rock flipping in beaches and used to explore crabs, sea cucumbers, lizards, salamanders, snakes, spiders, centipedes, scorpions, etc.

Thanks to his curiosity, he used to flip the rocks even in the trails behind his house.

As Mike grew interested in the small animals and insects, he was saddened to learn that most people hated them as they didn’t have proper understanding of them and he had the strong urge to dispel the myths of people.

Later as he started travelling to many obscure countries like Turkmenistan, the DRC, Mauritania, etc. he realised that most people have formed preconceived opinions of those countries much like they did in case of insects and he started debunking the preconceptions about the countries through his YouTube channel, Fearless & Far.

Thanks to this love for insects, Mike later graduated in Zoology.

Education-

Mike did his schooling from Fredericton High School in Fredericton, Canada.

After completing his schooling in 2003, he joined University of New Brunswick in Fredericton to study for a BSc in Zoology and Marine Biology.

Mike graduated in 2007.

Glossophobia-

While studying in grade 4, Mike lost his pet hamster and was traumatised by this loss.

And on the same day, his French immersion teacher forced him to share this incident in front of the whole class in French.

As Mike didn’t know French and was traumatised on losing his pet, he couldn’t speak and this started his fear of public speaking.

He suffered from glossophobia until he was 25 and then, as his YouTube job involved much speaking, he has been able to overcome his phobia.

Mike used to also stutter and choke while speaking and suffered from anxiety attacks.

A solo trip to the Wakatobi Regency-

In 2007, Mike suffered a bad breakup and a death in his family and so, he wanted to travel far away from his country to feel better.

As he was afraid to travel alone, he convinced one of his friends to travel along with him to the islands of Wakatobi Regency, Indonesia.

Both of them joined a fundraising committee to go on a volunteer project to the Wakatobi Regency.

But his friend didn’t turn up to pay the deposit and by that time, as Mike had paid thousands of dollars and booked his travel to Indonesia, he was forced to travel alone.

From July 2007 to September 2007, he worked as a Marine Research Assistant for Operation Wallacea in the Wakatobi Regency.

This was the first solo trip of his life and even though initially Mike was very fearful of the solo trip, he thoroughly enjoyed his time in the islands and this experience inspired him to travel furthermore.

His first ever video & inspiration to work on YouTube-

Once, Mike stubbed his toe and caught a MRSA infection.

The initial couple of surgeries were unsuccessful but thankfully, the third surgery was successful and saved his toe.

During that time, Mike wasn’t able to walk and was confined on a couch for three months.

During that time, one of his friends informed him about a travel video competition and suggested he participate in it.

The winner of the video competition was to receive paid world travel and a camera.

Even though Mike loved travelling, he was fearful of speaking on camera and at that time, he was on employment insurance in Canada and had no work and savings and as a result, he wasn’t able to travel.

So, he reluctantly made a video for the travel video competition with the footage that he had shot earlier on his trips.

As the competition required having a YouTube channel, Mike started working on his YouTube channel.

Soon, he started winning a few video competitions and thanks to this, he started receiving opportunities to create short films for several tourism brands around the world.

From Kick the Grind to Fearless & Far-

Even though Mike started his YouTube channel by the name Kick the Grind on 11 April 2006, he started publishing videos onto it only from September 2011.

Later, he participated in a contest organised by Cathay Pacific and as he won the contest, he was given a chance to fly unlimited flights for 80 days and he completely utilised this opportunity and visited several countries and shot many videos for his YouTube channel.

After working with several tourism boards for many years, Mike found the work boring and so, he quit working with the clients and started seriously working on his YouTube channel.

In May 2018, he changed the name of his YouTube channel to Fearless & Far.

As of November 2022, Mike has 1.39M subscribers on Fearless & Far.

And has 141K followers on Instagram and 356K followers on the Fearless & Far Facebook page.

Mike earns from advertisements on his YouTube videos, affiliate marketing, receiving sponsorships and he also accepts donations on Patreon and sells The War on Fear Bootcamp course on his website.

He used to also sell merchandise.

Mike named his channel as Fearless & Far because he successfully worked through his fears of public speaking and travel.

He also has a website.

Many countries, TV shows & nominations-

Mike travelled to many countries and documented them on his YouTube channel and some of them are Romania, Germany, Bangladesh, Japan, Pakistan, Venezuela, Philippines, Mexico, Indonesia, etc.

He also interacted with many local tribes like The Hamar and Mursi of Ethiopia, the Toraja tribe of Indonesia, etc.

Before visiting a country, Mike does a lot of research and establishes a good connection with a local person.

From December 2017 to July 2021, he worked as a freelance Television Presenter for BBC’s The Travel Show.

From October 2021, Mike has been working as a Contract Part-time Television Host for The Weather Channel and here, he featured on the Uncharted Adventure.

In 2022, Uncharted Adventure was nominated for Outstanding program in Nature, Travel, and Adventure in Daytime Emmy Awards.

From February 2021, Mike has been a Contract Part-time Podcast Host for Against the Odds podcast of Wondery.

On this podcast, he shares true survival stories.

In 2022, Mike was nominated as Wanderlust’s Travel Influencer of the Year.

He was also nominated in the Wanderlust Reader Travel Awards as Travel Media Influencer of the Year.

Personal life-

Initially, Mike was in a relationship with Mariannela Cataño and then with Eva Zu Beck.

Eva Zu Beck is also a famous travel YouTuber with over 1.5 million subscribers.

Mike parted ways with Eva.

A bibliophile & his book recommendation-

Mike loves reading books.

Vagabonding by Rolf Potts was the first travel book that he read and later, he read The 4-Hour Workweek.

For people planning to start a trip, Mike recommends reading the To Shake the Sleeping Self book for inspiration.

He also journals daily and does morning pages.

Some interesting facts about Mike Corey-

• Mike loves solo camping and is fascinated with castles.
• He loves free-diving, skydiving, scuba diving and does jump training, breakdancing and jiu-jitsu to learn to better balance himself.
• Mike is a polyglot as he knows English, French and Spanish.
• The Beach is his favourite travel movie.

So, how are you inspired by the success story of Mike Corey?

Share with me in the comment section below.