Travel filmmaker chooses Winnipeg — of all places — as home base after visiting 80 countries

A filmmaker who has travelled to 80 countries has chosen a spot on the globe to make his home — and despite a number of exotic options, he’s decided on Winnipeg.

In a now-viral video that has been watched more than 153,000 times on YouTube, Karl Watson shared the reasons why he moved from London, England to the Manitoba capital, even though he’s spent time in hot spots all over the world.

One major reason is that his wife — a fellow traveller he met on a tour in Iceland — was born and raised in Winnipeg, but Watson says he fell in the love with the city when he first visited.

“I’ve lived in London the last 17 years, and I’ve got great friends there and family there, but you don’t get the sense of community as you do that you get in Winnipeg,” Watson told 680 CJOB’s The Start.

“Canadians are known as being polite and friendly, but in Winnipeg and Manitoba it just goes up to a whole other level. Everyone here that I met just made me feel at home before I knew it was going to be my home.”

The video, which Watson didn’t expect to get so much attention, has garnered a lot of responses — positive comments from Winnipeggers, and negative ones from other Canadians.

Get breaking National news

For news impacting Canada and around the world, sign up for breaking news alerts delivered directly to you when they happen.

“There’s a whole bunch of other Canadians who just wanted to tell me I’ve made the greatest mistake of my life moving here,” he said, on the phone from another travel experience, this time in Taiwan.

“The main point of the video, in some ways, is a lot of people have some preconceived notions about Winnipeg — especially outsiders — and a lot of time what they discuss about Winnipeg can be negative … and that’s not my experience with the city.

“Every place in the world has positive and negative aspects to it — every city has its problems, as does Winnipeg, but the dialogue always seems to focus on the negative. There’s so much of the city that’s really cool and amazing, there’s so much about the city that Winnipeggers can be proud of.”

Watson, whose career was in film editing, began documenting his travels more than a decade ago — a time when, he said, the idea of social media “influencers” was still in its infancy.

“I started filming my travels just as a side hobby, not expecting anyone to watch it.

“The thing that really kicked off my channel was 11 years ago I did a round-the-world trip, just with a home video camera … but then I edited it like it was a TV series. Since then, I’ve bought better equipment, but it’s still, in terms of production, it’s a one-man show in terms of filming and editing it.”

1:13 Local tourism award winners announced

&© 2024 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.