Episode 14: My Love Letter & Sponsorship Application to GoPro
Hi travel besties and welcome to another episode of The Just Book It podcast today we’re going to be talking about my favorite tech a year of all time- it is the GoPro. If you don’t know, I am obsessed with the GoPro camera, like call me CEO GoPro whatever you want to say- enough said like I am obsessed with this camera. Hi everyone, it’s The Brooklynite Abroad, and welcome to another episode of The Just Book It podcast. Be sure to follow the Just Book It Podcast for more travel-related stories, news, tips & inspiration you need to jet-set!
The Beginning
If we go back to 2015, it was the first thing I ever bought with my hard-earned money. When I started working my first job as a lifeguard in New York City, I got that first paycheck and aside from buying an unlimited MetroCard, I bought the GoPro Hero. I was convinced by a co-worker because he raved about the camera. He loved it & said he goes on all of these trips and it’s so compact, it was just the best camera he said and I was like “Oh my gosh I’m so easily convinced like everything you’re saying just makes so much sense”, so I bought it and fell in love. I love this camera because it’s super compact, there’s a lot of storage on there once you get your microSD card ready so you could just take photos left and right. The quality is amazing and you download it from the GoPro portal. You can cool video montages, it’s waterproof, and you can add a selfie stick to really get that nice wide angle, fish eye lens that you would love to get that you can’t really get all the time with an iPhone.
At the time in 2015, I forget which iPhone was out, but quality could not compare and that was one of the biggest reasons for buying the camera aside from it being waterproof. For the travel adrenaline junkie, this camera was the one for me. Looking at the GoPros’ Instagram, you just had adrenaline junkies left and right. You had skiing, you had skydiving you just had everything and from that point, my adrenaline junkie was unleashed and I was so motivated and inspired to get out there and create videos of my own like that. This video is going to talk about how much I love Go Pro but it’s not only the camera itself that is why I love this company so much. It’s because of the customer service that keeps me coming back. It keeps me buying more things, keeps me loyal to this company, keeps me inspired and motivated, and really allows me to express myself with his camera. I think if this company didn’t have the same customer service, I would have been so discouraged so early on before I even wanted to do this travel blogging shindig, so let’s get into it.
2 Years Later
We talked about how in 2015 this is the first that I bought my paycheck which is pretty crazy because I’m still using this camera today so it’s just really funny how things work out the way they do like how I’m pretty sentimental about most things so just like has a really nice spot in my heart.
Two years later I go on a trip to Italy in 2017 and if you guys are familiar with GoPro cameras, at the base of the camera they have two prongs sticking out which is what you attached to the selfie stick with all the different mounts. Essentially if you just stuck it in your bag, they could break and that’s exactly what happened to me. I was shoving everything in my tiny bag and I was on vacation so I wasn’t trying to bring the huge tech bag. I know it’s compact but I’m carrying a bunch of other things so I just shoved everything in my bag and it completely broke. So I emailed them all the way from Italy – GoPro support.com- and explained to them that I literally adore this company. I mentioned that it was the first thing I ever bought with my hard-earned money and that I had trips planned, I was going to Hawaii and Iceland later that year, and I needed to continue to use this camera. So they had gotten back to me and they said even though it’s past the 1-year warranty, they made an exception and gifted me a new one.
This is just a lesson for everybody that you can’t just give up. They say, “oh it’s out of the one-year warranty”, you should try and exhaust all options until you get what you want because, at the end of the day, companies like this understand how loyal customers can be. They saw my email about how obsessed I was with them and that I was really eager. I think those little acts of kindness can go such a long way. I think that if they declined that and I probably would have been so discouraged to buy a new camera it was a lot of money. It wouldn’t have led me to what I do right now, so it’s just crazy how things can just go in this domino effect and it happened to work out in the best way.
They ended up replacing the camera with a similar version. A few months later with the replacement camera, it was the same camera so it still had that prong issue where you weren’t able to just pack it away without attaching it to a mount or a selfie stick. So eventually, it ended up breaking again, but I dealt with it for a little bit. I used gorilla glue, I tried to just manage, but it came to a point where when I tightened it with a selfie stick, it broke a little bit more so it was time for me to buy a new camera. So 2019 comes along and GoPro had a $100 off promo with your trade-in so I was able to get the GoPro Hero 8 and it was finally mine.
3 Years Later
I was about to embark on my study abroad trip to Spain which was going to be really cool since I would be able to photograph high-quality videos. As I mentioned before, the old GoPro didn’t have a screen. With the new cameras, the battery life was better and you could see the screens I was able to see the pictures rather than just taking pictures blindly and then hoping when I uploaded them to my computer that they would be right. That was super exciting for me because I was able to experience the new GoPro camera. When I first bought the GoPro Hero camera, the 3rd model was out. Five models later so much has changed. Now the GoPro Hero has 4K resolution, it’s shockproof. All these crazy things that I wasn’t able to get on my old GoPro which is another reason why I’m so glad that they were so flexible with me in the beginning. If you’ve been keeping up with my antics you know that my study abroad was cut short and I wasn’t able to take a lot of GoPro footage, but I do have a ton still that I’m excited to keep sharing with you guys I’m going to make a YouTube channel soon so it’s unofficially official here that I am going to make one.
From there I would just take my GoPro on a hike. I went hand-gliding one time I brought it. There were a bunch of cool opportunities that I needed to take footage that’s a little different than holding your physical phone. The GoPro is super secure and I love everything about that. Just to add something else, editing videos with the GoPro Studio is so easy. They actually now have an app where you can connect all your footage to your phone which was a new feature that I wasn’t even- I was just saying uploading to my computer but when you think about it sometimes you’re traveling on the go like you don’t bring your computer with you all the time. You can easily download media to the GoPro app and then transfer it to your photo library so you don’t even have to worry about bringing a camera, bringing external hard drives- none of that. Everything is within the app. That also goes for editing. I’m actually still in the process of figuring out the right app because they keep changing things, but previously just go through the GoPro Studio now has GoPro Quik, a super easy way to put all of your videos in one, create a montage and a nice song behind it so on and so forth.
1 Year Later
Now fast forward to 2022 and I’ve been going on a lot of cool trips. On some trips, I didn’t use the GoPro because if I’m not doing something adventurous, then I am not going to bring it. Fast forward and my family and I had actually just gotten back from our trip to the Bahamas.
I was so excited it was my first big trip after my study abroad trip was over that I was going to use his camera and yeah I took so many cool photos so many cool videos. We were planning on going on the snorkeling adventure and I was like, “Oh my gosh I’m going to get such great footage of the fishes and this cool Island we’re going to”. I charged it again and we’re about to go to the lazy river and I’m like I’m going to bring it with me in the water and I start swimming to grab a tube for the lazy river. My boyfriend is like “Okay let’s take a picture” & I’m like, “Okay yeah let’s take a picture”. I go to turn it on and it doesn’t go on. In my head, I’m like that’s so funny I just charged it, and then I realized that I didn’t put the cover on. The cover was off and the whole camera had complete water damage. I was frantically trying to smack whatever water was in the cover and at that point, I had already swam freestyle for a little bit. It wasn’t just a little bit, it was fully submerged.
Public service announcement, if you’re going to charge your GoPro, make sure to put the cover back on. You will get water damage and it is not fun. Fast forward, I didn’t end up using the GoPro for the rest of the trip. I was a little upset, but again with travels comes unexpected things. You have to be on your feet. You have to be adaptable and you can’t let everything get to you. In my head, I was like, “Okay, at least I have a lot of good footage”. Can’t do anything about it, we’ll figure it out later. I then get in contact with GoPro support and thank luckily I have the GoPro subscription service, which you only pay $50/year and there are so many benefits! I’m going to list a few benefits. With your GoPro subscription…
- $100 a new GoPro
- Unlimited cloud backup
- 50% off GoPro.com
- No questions asked about camera replacement up to 2x a year.
That’s exactly what happened. I let them know and they said, “Yeah no problem, let’s try to figure this out”. I sent them all of my information. I had to send them the serial number. They responded, “Ugh, unfortunately, we don’t have the GoPro Hero 8, but we have the GoPro Hero9 instead, and for the inconvenience, we won’t charge you anything extra”. So GoPro gave me a new upgraded camera at no extra charge like it was just so crazy, I can’t believe that happened. Typically, you pay a small fee for the new camera but I lucked out. I sent the camera out right away. It took exactly three weeks. I am looking at it right now and it is beautiful. I can’t wait to show you guys it. I cannot wait. It’s beautiful, the lens is huge, and the screen is huge.
If there is anything you learned from this podcast, it is never to underestimate customer service and if you have a company that you like, you use their service and they have good customer service, I’d stick with them because there are so many companies out there that just don’t care about the customers. They are willing to get profits and this company has never been like that ever since the beginning of my GoPro journey. I have nothing but good things to say about it. Alongside the camera performance, the camera is just working amazingly. It has a 5k resolution. Wow, I’m just so excited and I can’t wait for you guys to experience this on your own. Check out GoPro.com, they have so many cool cameras. They have a lot of cool GoPro mounts. I usually ski during the winter, so I have the ski mount. If you’re a biker, you can use the helmet mount. You have mounts for dogs. If you don’t get it on the GoPro website, there’s a lot of gear available on Amazon but yeah just wanted to share my experience with GoPro and I just had to shoutout the company because if it weren’t for them being so nice to me, years ago, I would not be in this position and I feel like GoPro has really changed my perspective on getting out of your comfort zone and to seek adventure and to essentially Just Book it. I can’t believe that happened.
If that isn’t motivation enough to get out there, but that tech gear, and create that awesome footage you have been dying to do, this is your calling. Thanks for listening to me and I am excited to see you guys on the next episode, bye!
what do you think?