I stayed in the loneliest town in America

I'm currently standing in the loneliest town in America. I'm in the middle of Alaska, hundreds of miles away from the nearest city, and there is pretty much nothing out here. The town is called Chicken, Alaska. It's an old gold mining town cut off from the rest of the world. No cell towers, no grocery stores, no main electricity, and I'm spending 24 hours here. But that's the fun part. The real challenge was getting here. It says rerouting right now. Let me explain. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Denali, Alaska. Whoa! We've traveled a long way to get to this point. It all started in Seattle, where my little brother and I embarked on one of the loneliest cruises in America. The cruise took us through remote waters from Seattle all the way up to Juneau, Alaska, where we boarded a flight to the final city of Anchorage. From there, we hopped in our rental car and started the drive into the isolated wilderness of Denali. After surviving a night in the wild and seeing some crazy wildlife, it's now time for us to begin the final stage of our journey of reaching the loneliest town in America. Let's drive. So we reserved our base camp. They sent us a confirmation email telling us a little bit about what it's going to be like. This is what it says. Welcome to our unique area of Alaska. Chicken is completely off-grid. There are no public services available. No groceries, propane, telephone, internet, cell towers, electricity, water, trash, or sewer within a 100-mile radius. Good luck. I'm just kidding. I added that last part. They didn't say good luck. And so began our final stretch of the journey, a seven-hour drive across beautiful Alaska to reach the lonely town of Chicken. I pulled off because there was a sign that said there's a scenic view over here, but I don't know if this was it. I think it's more that way. Okay, we've been driving for a few hours at this point, but there's two things I really want to see along the way. And the first we're coming up on, which is the literal North Pole. Yep, we're officially so far north that we've reached the legal town of the North Pole. All right, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the North Pole. Dude, that wasn't even rehearsed, bro. We got chemistry. We're finishing each other's sandwiches. I'm looking at a road that says St. Nicholas Drive, which is kind of crazy. I guess we've literally made it so far north into Alaska that this town is literally called the North Pole. What does it smell like? What are the vibes? It smells like concentrated cigarettes, and Santa looks a little unique here. Oh my goodness. One part about the town is that all the lampposts and light posts and signposts are designed like candy canes, which is cool. And I guess Santa Claus House here is where Santa Claus lives. We went in there. It's pretty cool. There's souvenirs and all the like. Unfortunately, as much as we love Santa, we got to get to the loneliest town. So this was stop number one. Super fun. Let's keep going. We still got like, what, five hours of drive or something? This is the loneliest series. And if you know me, you know I love a good gas station. So I figured if both of those things are true, I got to find the loneliest gas station. And my friends, I think I found it. Unfortunately, guys, it looks like it's closed. On maps that said it might be open. You guys getting chills? Wow. Nothing like a good gas station. All right. I think I've seen all I need to see. Let's get back on the road. Chicken, I'm coming for you. We're about two and a half hours away, and we've already seen our first sign for the Canada border. Might have to go get some maple syrup. And after a few more hours of driving, we reached the final stretch. Guys, look, this is officially the first sign we have seen for chicken. We're 66 miles away. Map shows we're like an hour and 19 minutes. And we are literally out here. Dude, how are you feeling? Good. I'm ready to get there, bro. I really hope that there's like a restaurant or something open when we get there. But dude, this is it. We're getting closer. The road we're on is not just a regular highway. It's 66 miles of bumps, dirt, and gravel that completely cuts you off from the rest of the world. Once you turn on this road, you are officially in the wild. Oh, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look. I'll have a good night. We're heading to chicken. All right, guys, we have been driving on this road for over an hour now. We have not seen a single other car or a single other soul on this road. We have a zero cell service, and our map is stuck on rerouting right now. The roads are starting to get very bumpy as well. Not only have we not seen like any other cars, we have not seen a single other structure. Not a single gas station. Not a single truck stop. Literally nothing. It's all just forest as far as the eye can see. I do need to go to the bathroom here soon. All right, I'll check back in when hopefully we pull up to chicken. This right here, all the road is kind of like that. We got 13 miles of dirt roads. It says we're two miles away. We're getting closer, guys. Whoa! Guys, I think we made it. Look at this. So cute. Bro, we made it. How do you feel right now? I'm stoked. Guys, after hundreds of miles traveled, cruise, ship, spending the night in the wild, we have made it to chicken Alaska. This is crazy. While we're here, I want to explore everything this place has to offer to the restaurants, the hotels, the environment, the people. I want to see it all. So it's like 10 p.m. right now. So the first thing is first, we got to go find our hotel and get ready probably for bed. And by hotel, I mean, well, you'll see. And then tomorrow morning, we can check out more of the town. But let's go. Let's get in here. This is where we're going to be staying for the night. To get the full picture of this town, I'm going to be looking into the hotel, the food, the people. And lastly, I want to learn about the gold that has so much history here. At this point, it was like 1030 p.m. But this is where the email told us to come and check in. Guys, where am I? It is so quiet. Chicken is up there. Well, guys, I guess everyone in this town is asleep. It is pretty late. But in case you've ever wondered what the loneliest town in America's hotel looks like, I'm calling it a hotel. It's going to make people mad. I'm going to go try to find my cabin. I think I can just pick one. It says they have espresso here. So this might be a good place to come and get some coffee in the morning. We just got to find where our cabin is. Shower's there. There's nobody here right now. Crazy. I think this might be my cabin. Let's see. Oh, sweet. Okay, so the key was just sitting here on the table. Now I have to put my information on this and put this with money in the drop box over there. And then this is officially my room. Nice place. And there's beds. We didn't know if there was going to be beds or not. We knew such little information about this. When some people go on vacation, they stay at the Marriott, the Hilton, the Four Seasons, all great hotels. I bet they've never stayed at a hotel like this. Tomio, that's not a hotel. That's a campsite. Give me this. I've been driving all day, all right? This room is cozy. Look, I've stayed at some lonely hotels in my day. But this might just be one of the loneliest cabins I've ever stayed at. Chicken has some charm. What can I say? This cabin is called Steel Creek. And you walk in and first thing you notice is how big this room is. It's pretty cold outside right now. It's like 30s, high 30s Fahrenheit. But in here, it's honestly pretty warm. And there's a nice space heater on the wall as well, which made me excited. I didn't know if we were going to have power here. Turns out we do have power and plugs so that we can plug our stuff in and charge it. Right when you walk in, you notice a nice little lamp, a mini fridge to store your food in that we don't have. There's some nice art on the wall, including a saw that's a little bit questionable. But not to worry, right? And then you have not one bed, not two bed, but three bed. Very excited about that. A nice little mirror. And you have a table in the middle where they've left us what appear to be grocery bags with towels in them in case we decide we want to take a shower. And perhaps my favorite part about this room is the view. Because from my door, I can lay eyes on the big chicken, the icon of this town. An old structure that I believe has something to do with gold. Hopefully I'll learn about that tomorrow as well. This is just one section of the town. There's more to see tomorrow. So despite it being very bright outside, it's 10 30 p.m. right now. So I want to snuggle down and get some rest. I'll see you in the morning. If there's one thing that I've realized going to all these lonely places so far is that I'm really, really thankful to have my brother with me. I just know tomorrow we're going to find some cool stuff around here. Well, hasn't this been quite the adventure so far? And you know what else is an adventure? One of my new favorite things ever. And it's from today's sponsor, Cometeer. This is a coffee like you've never seen it before. What makes Cometeer different is that the coffee is sourced from world-class roasters like Counterculture, Onyx, and Intelligentsia. Then brewed to perfection and flash frozen to lock in peak flavor. It's peak. No machine, no guesswork. You just melt it. For hot coffee, just pop this frozen puck in the mug using the eject button. Add hot water and watch it go. For a nice latte, thaw the capsule overnight. Add milk and ice first. Drizzle the coffee over the top and you get this incredible inky cloud effect. Iced coffee, same thing. Just water and ice. It tastes so good and you cannot mess it up. Trust me. I'm speaking from experience. Cometeer ships frozen on dry ice in recyclable aluminum capsules straight to your door. This is their new world mug collection. Inside this box is 32 cups of coffee from 16 different countries and roasters. They're all paired head-to-head and you can rate each matchup in the Cometeer app or this little passport to figure out which origins you like best. My winner from the box was the Ethiopian light roast. We can't get enough. My wife even stopped going to Starbucks. Thanks again to Cometeer for making this video possible and be sure to try it for yourself and get $20 off your first order at cometeer.com backslash tonyo20. The link is in the description as well. Good morning everybody. Let's go explore this town, shall we? Before we start our day though, it's shower time which was in this cool building. We needed to exchange our dollar bills for quarters because that's how the showers ran. Time for this rooster to take a shower. Sorry. We're going to use these quarters to pay for the showers behind us but this is the part where we turn the camera off. When we made it back to our cabin, we met a friend named Mike who started giving us some info about this place. Yeah, this place, they named it chicken because they couldn't spell ptarmigan. I looked it up. Ptarmigan is the Alaskan state bird. No shade on the people of chicken. I couldn't spell this either. Are you serious? No way. And this is where the gold rush started 100 years ago. This thing, that was eating gold, man. So these buckets hook to this thing. It just goes and pushes it all the way through and spits out the rock and keeps the gold in. Well, Mike, great to meet you. Okay. Mike was a chill guy and he told us we needed to go try coffee from the coffee shop. Cafe's open. It's time to go get some coffee, hopefully. Morning. How are you? Yeah, I'm Antonio. Great to meet you. Would I be able to order a coffee? A coffee, I can do. I'll do a hot latte, please. This little trading post had all sorts of awesome stuff. And then Lou showed us a picture of something they spotted on the same road Carlos and I were on yesterday. And he actually charged at the truck. No way. So he was aggressive. Yes. Oh my goodness. I'm glad we didn't run into that. And then she showed us this old book with the history of chicken. And how long have you lived here? Wow. We found out that that chicken outside was actually built by some school students and transported here by trailer. Who founded chicken? Miners from back in the 1800s. They came here for gold. So it's been around that long? Yes. Lou was super sweet and made us a great cup of coffee. But we had more to see. All right. We're repping the chicken merch now, baby. What you got? I got myself a little chicken Alaska gold camp jacket. I got the vest. Let's go. Also got some coffees. What's crazy is you can be anywhere in the world and there is tap to pay. There is internet via Starlink. Not expecting that. And there's lattes. So they're working it out here. Lou was super sweet. We got some more of this town to explore. So let's keep going. We then headed to the town's main street because we still needed to try some food and learn more about the gold around here. Maybe even try and find some. That was some subtle foreshadowing. Luckily, there was a restaurant called the Chicken Creek Cafe that was open. Knock, knock. I don't really know why I said that when I walked in. Hey, are you guys open? Barely. That's totally fine. Are we okay to come in? Yeah, yeah. Okay, sweet. How about breakfast sandwiches? Down for breakfast sandwiches, bro. That sounds incredible. What was your name? Max. Antonio. Great to meet you. Antonio and Carlos. Free coffee? Oh, yeah. Max had also just made fresh baked cookies and they were just sitting on the counter. Of course, it would be rude if I didn't get one. So I got one and I ate it and it was incredible. While Matt makes us these delicious breakfast sandwiches, let me catch you up on a goal I have. See, I have a dream of hitting 1 million subscribers and since you all are always telling me that I look old, I made a deal with you that if I hit 700,000 subscribers during the series, I'd shave the mustache. Well, you guys destroyed that goal and my wife shaved my mustache on live stream and this is how I look now, like a baby. Now, this is technically the last episode of the series, but I've decided to extend the subscriber incentive to the end of this month. Our next goal is 800k, where you guys will decide what color I dye my hair. You have till July 1st. My fate is in your hands. Great sandwich, Max. Thank you. And that's when we met the boys, Bill and Jim. We didn't know it then, these guys were going to play a big part in our story of Chicken Alaska. We found out they were local gold miners and hung out with them for a little bit. I'll be blessed. See ya. Thanks again, Max. But as much as we wanted to stay, we still wanted to check out some of the other buildings on Main Street, like the Chicken Creek Saloon that it seemed a little too early for anybody to be hanging out in yet. Oh, it's cool. I guess this is the saloon here. These are all hats. Oh, there's probably like thousands. This is insane. I don't really even have words. This is crazy. That's all I can say. And after leaving the saloon, we came outside to find the boys waiting on us with an offer. These guys were so kind. They invited us to where they live and where they mine for gold. All right, before we head out of Chicken, we met some friends. They're taking us, I guess, to their camp. I'm not sure where they're taking us, but we're going. Now, I know what you're thinking. Tonio, you're following two complete strangers in one of the most remote towns in America to their camp, where you don't even know where it is and you're completely just trusting them. Yes. And just like that, we had arrived at their base camp where they live. That's awesome. So Bumba Bus is a fully self-contained, converted school bus. Oh, sweet. It's got 900 gallons. That's awesome. French fry oil. No way. So you convert French fry oil into powder? Yep. Oh, cool. It'll go from Georgia to here. Run a solar power battery to our Starlink. You care about the cord, Lee? Starlink plugs into this. This all runs off the solar. Oh, nice. Literally a furnace. This is the spot. Messy man camp. Got a shower in here. So this thing holds 900 gallons of fuel, so I can use it for a fuel storage. No way. It'll go from here to Georgia on a fuel tank of French fry oil. So it drives? Oh, yeah, it drives. Yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah. To run this whole camp, it costs about $300 in fuel a month. No way. Home base whenever you're out here mining. This is home base. And then this is how we process some stuff. Oh, look at that gold in there. Look how fine that is. We ran a couple hours yesterday, and we got about $2,000 worth of gold. Wow. In a couple hours. Then Jim gave Carlos and I a personal lesson on how to mine for gold. Your gold stays in a pan. You see that one piece right there? As you can see, Carlos is absolutely dialed in. Oh, see, this would be addicting. It's better than drugs. Jim was so generous and gave us our own bags that we could pan through that actually have gold in them. But there's still gold in it, so practice the craft. So this hovercraft goes in the river? Yeah. It flies. It could go on the road? Yeah. On the road, over rocks. Hovercraft. Okay, so these guys told us they're going to take us to the mine and show us where they mine for gold out here. They also gave us some gold potentially in here to pan through. I couldn't believe that not only had we learned about the gold around here, but we'd actually gotten some of our own. And after following them for a few miles down some crazy roads, we finally arrived at the mine. Here we are at the office. Not a bad place. Come on, let's take a walk. What we're standing on right now is just about a foot above bedrock. Oh, cool. We've already mined all this area. There is gold in that stuff. So there's gold up there? Yes, there's gold up there in those gravels. There's no place I'd rather be. What a cool job. All right, guys. We are out here in near Chicken, Alaska with the boys. We got Prince. We got Yukon Bill, Tin Pan Jim, and Carlos. My personal favorite thing about Alaska is the remoteness and the lack of people. It's not people-y. Alone. Yeah. Not lonely. Yeah, alone. There's a difference. Big difference. That's what we've started to learn because we've gone to lonely places, but we realized there's a difference between being lonely and being alone. Come to Alaska, do some exploring. Yeah. A lot of people think camping is like living homeless. Yeah. It's living free. Yeah, it's living free. Tin Pan Jim? So, no people. Yeah. Being alone. Yeah. Not lonely. Yeah. The Lord is with me, so I'm never alone. Speaking of that, I have a gift for both of you that I wanted to surprise you with. And it ties just into that. One sec. So, we've been taking this journey and the message that we want people to know that they can feel lonely at times in their life, but that lonely won't last because God is with them. And then there's people. There's relationships. And it's not about quantity. It's about quality. And we've been wearing these hats that say, Lonely won't last. Amen. He's singing my tune, bro. He's singing my tune. You guys are reinforcing that message that it's not about where, it's about who. I got two more brothers I didn't even know exist. Carlos and I didn't realize that even in the loneliest town in America, we'd find some long-lost brothers. Lord, bless them with sights that they can only imagine. Bless them with safety that they can only feel. Lord, guide them in their walk of life and protect them. Lord, we ask this in your most humble and gracious name. Yeshua, Savior. Goodbye, chicken. It's been nice knowing you, but it's time for us to go home. Our journey's come to an end, but you should always remember that lonely won't last.