A series of three videos hit the internet this week, and became the most watched travel virals since the “Where the Hell is Matt” film – which is up to 16-million hits on YouTube. Remember him? The dancing dude who filmed himself juggling on the spot in various locations around the world?

The crucial difference with Rick Mereki’s new films is that they were commissioned by STA Travel Australia, who specialise in round the world trips and gap-year jaunts for young Aussies. The three films are here:

“Move”



“Eat”

EAT from Rick Mereki on Vimeo.

“Learn”

LEARN from Rick Mereki on Vimeo.

Each film has foresaken a narrative thread and instead gone for a snappy edits to suggest the fun elements to be found in traveling. They are, essentially, the film equivalent of a mood board, aimed at showing young Aussies what’s out there in the big wide world.

STA must be overwhelmed with the success of the films. In just 6-days since their release, the films have picked up plenty of mainstream coverage (such as this this blog at the Guardian) and featured on enough travel blogs to get over 3-million views for Move, over 1-million for Learn and just under a million for Eat.

It just goes to show that for a small outlay (the film’s tagline is a call-sheet of sorts: “3 guys, 44 days, 11 countries, 18 flights, 38 thousand miles, an exploding volcano, 2 cameras and almost a terabyte of footage”) and a courageous, creative approach, you can reach a lot of people. It’ll be interesting to see the figures in six months or so time.