Scott and Jen reflect on their significant milestones in 2025, including reaching 50,000 followers and Jen’s new role with American Cruise Lines. They discuss their grassroots growth and introduce their lifetime membership option.
They also outline exciting plans for 2026, including a Route 66 road trip for America’s 250th anniversary and various local history explorations. Additionally, they invite listeners to participate in a survey at iaskhistory.com to help shape future content and offer behind-the-scenes access to exclusive videos.
2 min survey: iAskHistory.com
Support our Journey through American History: thehistoryroadtrip.com
00:00 Introduction
00:44 Reflecting on 2025 Milestones
01:42 American Cruise Lines and New Opportunities
02:08 Lifetime Membership and Support
03:45 Mission and Upcoming Projects
04:31 Route 66 and Historical Road Trip
05:42 Local History and Civil Rights
06:37 Expanding Content and Collaborations
08:59 Engagement and Feedback
10:21 Conclusion and Thank You
Transcript
Introduction and Podcast Overview
Scott: [00:00:00] Welcome to Talk With History. I’m your host Scott here with my wife and historian Jen. Hello. On this podcast, we give you insights to our history inspired world travels YouTube channel journey, and examine history through deeper conversations with the curious, the explorers, and the history lovers out there.
All right, Jen. So the title of this podcast episode is probably pretty obvious about what we’re gonna talk about, kind of 2026 in advance, what’s coming up, uh, on the year of the 250th anniversary of this great nation. So, uh,
Reflecting on 2025 Milestones
Scott: before we get into 2026, we want to kind of briefly recap 2025. It was kind of a, I’d say it was a big year for us.
Um, we finally hit 50,000. So that was the year that we hit 50 K, almost crossed at 55. I think by the time this comes out we may be there, but that was kind of a big milestone for us. I think kind of halfway to [00:01:00] that, that a hundred K mark man, maybe we’ll get lucky this year, and this will be the year that we hit that.
So 2025, we did a whole bunch of stuff. You started working for American Cruise Lines, so you got a lot of opportunities that kind of came out because of that. For some interesting content. Uh, and we had some, we started building some plans for the upcoming, I’d say like next year or two.
Jenn: Yes. So we wanna say thank you to those 50,000.
Everyone who follows us supports us. We are so appreciative. We are one of these slower growing channels. But it’s, uh, you know, it’s really grassroots and we appreciate all of you because I feel like it’s very authentic and, uh, and we just appreciate everyone has come along this journey with us. Uh,
American Cruise Lines and New Opportunities
Jenn: working for American Cruise Line has been fantastic.
I am the historian on the cruise, so I do a history talk every night about where we’re going, and then the next day we spend the day in that area. So I’ve been able to make content. In those areas and some places that would be a little bit harder to travel to. So, uh, [00:02:00] this year, coming forward, looking forward, I have all new places to go and it kind of coincides with a lot of this 250th anniversary of America stuff.
So it’s gonna be really great. So,
Scott: yeah. And, and o
Lifetime Membership and Support
Scott: ne of the other things that we started up, um. This year was the lifetime membership option for, in order to support us. We’ve, I’ve kind of toyed with different things over the past couple years about subscriptions and newsletters and this, that, and the other.
I decided to consolidate it all, make it easy on you. The, the listener and the watcher and have one lifetime membership. Now, you don’t have to pay for a lifetime membership. Um, you can just, you know, tip us a couple bucks if you wanna just buy us a cup of coffee. Um, but if you go to the history road trip.com, because that’s really what we are inspired to do is, is get out there, see the history for ourselves, go to the locations and we want you to do the same thing.
So if you go to the history roadtrip.com, you can see a way to buy us a cup of coffee, tank of gas, um, pay for a lifetime membership. And we may even have some, some higher tiers in the future. But that is one place that we’ve really kind of started support and we got our first few lifetime members on there.
So we really want to say thank you to those lifetime members who, who joined us. And it’s a [00:03:00] one time thing. I was kind of tired of the subscription model. I’m not wild about that. And so we wanna do a one-time fee. Now that fee may go up in the future, right? So if you’re listening to this, um, or if you’re watching this.
Now is the, is the time where it’s ever gonna be the lowest? Uh, it’s, it’s, it’s probably only gonna go go up. ’cause as we grow, there’s bigger things that we wanna do. Um, but it is one time thing. You pay for it once the folks who’ve already paid. That’s it for the rest of the, as long as we’re doing this, they’ll get that behind the scenes access.
Um, we have a private Facebook group just for the lifetime members. So I’ve started posting some things there, uh, on some, some future long-term plans. And so. Our lifetime members will, will have access to that as well as have any other kind of exclusive future content. Just kind of whenever we can make it and where, whenever we can fit it in.
Um, sometimes it’ll be live from a historic location or something like that. Something that doesn’t quite fit in a structured video. Or a structured podcast.
Mission and Upcoming Projects
Jenn: Yeah, and think about our whole mission is to get you out into history. Our whole mission is to get people outside into the history that’s in your own backyard.
Get active, get off the screen, connect with your family, connect with friends, connect with other [00:04:00] history lovers like you and. The whole point of us doing this is not just, just explore locations, which is great, but as a historian, as a credited historian, I tell you why this matters to you. Why this, how does this impact you?
Why should you care about this? And I give you the facts behind the places you’re visiting, so you cannot not. So you could be like, I always wondered about this location. I always wondered why this was so important. Well, I explained to you why that is so important and it just coincides with the really great year of American history, the 250th birthday.
Uh,
Route 66 and Historical Road Trip
Jenn: we plan to kick off the 4th of July in St. Louis at the gateway arches, at the gateway to the West because we are starting this amazing road trip of Route 66. Yeah. Because it’s the hundredth year anniversary of Route 66. These, these anniversaries just coincide. So this is the gateway to the west. This is the road that took Americans Across America.
And so we’re gonna do the history of that and take you to those locations. Again, why should you care? Why does this matter to you? What [00:05:00] impact did Route 66 actually have on America? And what was it born from? So. We’re gonna be doing all of that in this coming up year. So if you wanna support us in that, uh, just know that everything you give to the channel goes to the channel.
And, uh, and, you know, this is the labor of love and we really, really appreciate all the support we get. So, what else are we doing, Scott?
Scott: Uh, yeah. So the road trip is the big one, right? That is, that is the big thing. That’s the big project. Um, I’m, I’m gonna take a couple weeks off of work. Um, I try to do that every.
Five years if I can. I mean, I would love to do that more often, but that the Navy doesn’t, uh, always allow that. Um, so the road trip is, is the big one. So if you’re not following us, if you’re watching, if you’re listening, definitely follow along. Um, we’re gonna start that in July, so we’ll film it for a couple weeks and, and then obviously the content will start coming out after that.
Local History and Civil Rights
Scott: Some of the other things that we’re doing in the, within the local area, kind of, I’d say the mid south, um, type area is we’re expanding kind of our radius around the Memphis, Tennessee area. So we’re going up to Arkansas. I’m excited to do some Johnny Cash history. Yes. Um. Some, I think you said [00:06:00] Tennessee Williams.
We, there you got, you had a whole list of things that you wanted to do.
Jenn: We’re gonna be hitting this radius, so we’re gonna be doing some Mark Twain Little Rock nine. We’re gonna do, uh, Johnny Cash, we’re gonna do some Meridian Mississippi. So Mississippi burning. So a lot of the civil rights stuff, ’cause really in Memphis there’s a lot of civil rights influences.
Here, uh, Ida B. Wells, she’s from Holly Springs. Uh, people love to talk about Ida B. Wells for Women’s History Month, but not know a lot about her, so I wanted to get more into her life. Helen Keller is from close by here. We’re gonna do Harper Lee. And so just gonna be a lot of stuff with the radius here of, uh, the Memphis area.
Expanding Content and Collaborations
Jenn: But, uh, with the American cruise line, I hope to expand on some Lewis and Clark. Yeah, so that’ll be really great. Uh, Maine. It’d be my first time going into Maine. So if you have any suggestions about Maine or what you’re interested in seeing in the state of Maine, let me know. Uh, we’re gonna do Ohio River, so it’ll be Kentucky Derby, uh, some Pittsburgh, which we have some Pittsburgh videos, but more and of course, long [00:07:00] Island now a.
I visited Long Island when we did Michael Murphy and when we talked about he’s the only Penn Stater to receive the Medal of Honor from the movie Lone Survivor. I drove out to Long Island. Really, it was my first time ever doing that as an adult, and I realized how much Revolutionary War history is out there.
Yeah. In the Long Island
Scott: area.
Jenn: It was amazing. And so I asked for one of those cruises. So I will be doing one of those cruises, we’ll, doing some 250th Revolutionary War history out there, and just know that that’s where, uh, Washington’s greatest defeat was during the Revolutionary War. We’ll talk about that, but I’m also doing the Chesapeake Bay, so.
If you’re a fan of the channel, you know, we know the Chesapeake Bay, like the back of our hand, right? So it’ll be Jamestown, Yorktown, Williamsburg, Annapolis, all those things we know so well. But really center them more on the 250th anniversary of, uh, America. And I was on a podcast with John. What, how do you say it?
Ku I was on a podcast with John Kiriaku and if you know anything about him, he’s a former CIA agent. Yeah.
Scott: The podcast is called Deep Focus
Jenn: and he was actually on Joe [00:08:00] Rogan’s podcast talking about his time in the CIA and he has suggested we do a video together of CIA agents who are buried in Arlington.
So when I’m up there, we’re actually gonna make a video together. So if you’re interested in some of those stars. In Langley, we’re gonna be talking about some of those people who are buried in Arlington and some of their career that we can actually talk about. And, uh, and I’m gonna do it with an actual CIA agent.
So if you, if you are interested in that, that’s coming this year as well.
Scott: Yeah. So you, you’ve, you’ve been on a few podcasts this past year. You’ve started doing more speaking engagements, so that’s something that we hope. Um, we can continue. I know we have one coming up in March. I think both you and I like a museum association type thing, so that’s, that’s fun stuff.
And if you guys, uh, watching or listening ever. Work in that industry or interested in, in having one of us out, um, or having us speak or something like that. We’re here, right? You can reach out to us if you, you can contact us through the show notes also if you’re watching or listening and you want to provide input on things you want to see us do on the channel.
Um, so
Engagement and Feedback
Scott: I was [00:09:00] able to snag a pretty cool URLA pretty cool website called i ask history.com. Um, and right now we have a survey that’s live over there. It’s very short. It’s like two minutes. And it’s a freeway to support us, go to iask history.com and you just kinda tell us what history you like. Seven questions takes less than two minutes.
When you finish it, there’s actually a, uh, like a link to a never before scenes video of Jen’s, uh, quick Tour. It’s a very short tour of London’s Tower Bridge. And so that was actually pretty neat because we never published that one. It was, it was always been unlisted, but if you go and do that. Um, survey over@iaskhistory.com.
Uh, you can finish it in about two minutes. You can watch this other, uh, quick video. It’s like a two minute tour and within five minutes you’ll have helped us out and you got to see a free video. So, um, I ask history.com.
Jenn: And we always do those things ’cause we’re always surprised by what videos really resonate with you guys.
And so I think, you know, I had done Dick Winter’s grave and uh, I happened to be in Gettysburg. I wanted to do, I wanted to pay my respects to, uh, [00:10:00] major Dick Winters. And that video was very popular. And so we just wanna understand more what content you’d like to see. And so. That’s important to us, right?
And, uh, because history is important to you, it’s important to us. It’s the 250th anniversary of America. We wanna make sure that we’re giving you the content that you actually want to be a part of and, and, uh, engage with. So
Conclusion and Thank You
Jenn: thank you for everything. We’re looking forward to 2026. Happy Birthday America.
Uh, we’re gonna celebrate all year long, and we just thank you for coming on this journey with us.
Scott: Yeah. Again, thank you so much to our lifetime members who are supporting us financially. If you want to, um, help us out and either way, and take a look at the, uh, the links that we mentioned earlier. Look in the podcast show notes or the video description down below, and happy Birthday America in advance and we’ll talk to you guys next time.
Jenn: Yeah. On to our Next Walk with history.
Scott: This has been a Walk with History, production Talk with History is created and hosted by me, Scott Benny episode Researched by Jennifer Benny. Check out the show notes for [00:11:00] links and references mentioned in this episode. Talk With History is supported by our community at the history road trip.com. Our eternal thanks go out to our lifetime members to help keep us going.
Thank you to Doug Liberty, Larry Meyers. Patrick Benny, Gail Cooper, Christie Coates, Calvin Gifford, corny Sini, Jean Noah, Larry Mitchell, Tommy Anderson, Susan Selis, Bruce Lynch, William Garner, Mark Barrett, and Don Kennedy. Make sure you hit that follow button in that podcast player and we’ll talk to you next time.