Kiwi plumber Logan Dodds' GoPro Europe holiday video goes viral

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This was published 8 years ago

Kiwi plumber Logan Dodds' GoPro Europe holiday video goes viral

By Siobhan Downes
Logan Dodds and his GoPro at the Salt Lakes in Turkey.

Logan Dodds and his GoPro at the Salt Lakes in Turkey.Credit: logan_dodds/Instagram

The Auckland plumber uploaded the video of his European adventure to YouTube last Tuesday morning, initially sharing it with his friends. Then he decided to post it to the official GoPro Facebook page.

Within 12 hours, "Summer Daze" had been clicked on by hundreds of thousands of people all over the world. One week later, and the video has been viewed almost 1.2 million times on Facebook.

"It's maybe, like, 15 seconds of fame," Dodds said.

"It's absolutely hit the roof. I just wanted to have a good record of my trip and something I could look back on when I got home. No way in my wildest dreams would I ever think it had gone crazy like it has."

The young tradie originally left his plumbing job in Auckland to play rugby for a season with the Bury St Edmunds club, north of London.

Family reasons meant he had to come home in December last year, but he was determined to see out the remainder of his visa.

"I came back in June to finish it off and have one last hurrah around Europe - do some good travel and get it out of my system."

His first stop was the Glastonbury Festival, and since then he's been travelling around with different groups of friends, documenting his adventures on Instagram and on his GoPro.

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Dodds said he had no background in film, and just used a GoPro Hero3, a stick, and iMovie to put his video together.

"I think it's gone so crazy because people can relate to it," he said.

"It's not like it's fully professional. So many people have commented on it saying, 'oh, we should do this for our trip next year'. It's an achievable goal for people. It was the same for me, it's only my first video I've put together."

Dodds laughed off comparisons to Max Key, who in July uploaded a video of him and his girlfriend, Amelia Finlayson, holidaying in Hawaii and New Zealand.

"I did see his video. It's a good video and fair play to him, he's done well," he said.

"I'm sure he would have liked it to take off."

His holiday video has already "opened a few doors" - and with a bit of luck, he's hoping he won't have to return to the building site when he comes home.

"There's been a bit of a call for another video. Who knows what's going to happen in the Kiwi summer."

LOGAN'S TOP TIPS FOR TRAVELLERS

- Always take a good attitude and an open mind.

- Take extra time in the airport.

- Always have a clean pair of underwear.

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