From YouTube fame to island resorts: The Bucket List Family enters a new chapter

It’s been 10 years since Garrett and Jessica Gee sold off all their belongings to wander the world with their children — they now have three: Dorothy, 12, Manilla, 10, and Calihan, 7 —in tow. Over the years, they’ve visited nearly 100 countries and become social media stars known as the Bucket List Family, sharing their adventures (camping in Botswana, scuba-diving with sharks) with millions of followers.

It hasn’t always been smooth sailing; Garrett’s been in the headlines lately due to some viral criticism over his parenting choices. But the Gees believe there’s more good than bad to be found on the internet. “For the most part, if you go onto our Instagram page and look through our comments, it is the nicest people with the kindest hearts,” mom Jessica tells Yahoo.

After spending three years on the road full-time, the Gees opted to slow down a bit, settling in a home in Hawaii. “We really wanted that consistency,” mom Jessica tells Yahoo, noting that Dorothy was especially ready for a change. “She wanted friends; she wanted to go to school. And then now we just travel on school holidays.”

They certainly haven’t lost their wanderlust. Their latest adventure: launching the Bucket List Collection as owners of two new family-friendly resorts — Mounu Island, a private island in Tonga, and Berry Island, a wilderness lodge in British Columbia. It’s all about giving other families a taste of what Jessica calls the “bucket life experience” — for a few days, at least.

Here’s how her family is approaching their new chapter — and what it’s like raising three kids in the spotlight.

Being the Bucket List Family, 10 years on

In the decade since they took the leap and began traveling, the Gees have amassed quite a social media following; they have 3.1 million followers on Instagram alone.

“It always started off as a family journal,” Jessica says. “We were making these YouTube videos feeling like we were talking to our 12 friends and cousins back home. It’s just evolved. And you kind of learn from experience what you feel comfortable with [sharing].”

Scroll through their feeds and you’ll see reels of the family doing things both adventurous (surfing, cliff jumping) and mundane (pulling out baby teeth, practicing dance moves). What’s off-limits? Jessica says they tend to keep a lot of their home life, their friends and their faith offline.

“There’s certain things that you want to keep really personal. I don’t want to hear what the peanut gallery has to say,” she says.

The negative comments that do pop up from time to time only bother her a bit, Jessica adds, and they don’t faze her husband at all. “It’s been 10 years now, so we’ve gotten a little used to it,” she says. “And as long as you’re confident in who you are and how you are as a friend, a parent, a wife, then it doesn’t really matter.”

And while the Gee kids have an Instagram presence managed by their parents, they don’t actually use social media at all. Their only involvement is in being filmed and occasionally watching the content together as a family after Garrett has done some editing.

“They don’t have phones or anything like that, so they’re pretty oblivious to all of it,” says Jessica. “They wouldn’t know what a TikTok trend is.”

From content creators to resort owners

First, some backstory: Before his family began their Bucket List family journey, Garrett Gee struck it big by selling an app to Snapchat for a whopping $54 million. The family initially decided to travel using only the money they made by selling their belongings, leaving a solid nest egg to fall back on. Since then, they’ve managed to turn their adventures into a profitable business while keeping their costs low. So when the Gees’ accountant told them they might want to consider investing money in real estate to continue to stretch their dollars (while simultaneously reducing their tax payments), it was a bit of a no-brainer.

“That was kind of the ‘spark,'” says Jessica. “And then things just spiraled, because Garrett is not going to invest in anything that he doesn’t know and love and care deeply about,” says Jessica.

After much discussion, they realized investing in a resort was the way to go, given their brand and audience. “It just seemed like really natural steps for us,” she says. They just needed to figure out where this resort would be.

Jessica says Tonga was the very first destination on their family bucket list. The Gees wanted to swim with whales, and the Polynesian kingdom is one of the few places in the world where you can do this. “They do a really great job of doing it ethically, where only four people are allowed in the water with some whales at a time, and their guides are highly trained,” she says.

After their first visit, Jessica says they fell in love with both the whales and the Tongan people, and it’s one of the few places they return to nearly every year. A love of nature also drew them to their Canadian property.

“There’s always been a little part of me, even as a Colorado girl, who’s loved the Pacific Northwest. And when I saw this place, it sang to me,” says Jessica. “I love it up there. I love being on the water, the green of the trees, the wildlife, the orcas, the humpbacks, the grizzly bears, the eagles. It’s my heaven.”

Both resorts are already up and running and booking guests into October of this year (with additional availability for next summer). So far the Gees are loving every minute of it, renovations and all. Their travel background has also come in handy.

“We’re trying to take what we’ve learned and can continue to learn, especially when it comes to quality tourism, how to be a good tourist and how to leave a place better than you found it,” she says.

Being parents, travelers and social media stars, though, the hope is to get these places running on their own so they can continue to add to the Bucket List Collection.

“My dream would probably be [owning] about 12 different places all over the world,” says Jessica. “The common denominator would be that they’re all bucket list destinations — not just fancy houses somewhere, cool places on the beach, but like, what’s the bucket list experience? What’s iconic about these properties that you can’t get anywhere else?”

Of course, “iconic” doesn’t come cheap. At the moment, it’s $4,685 per person for a four-day, three-night stay (based on double occupancy) at Berry Island, and $1,250 per night per person at Mouno Island. But that cost also includes meals, nonalcoholic beverages, access to an accredited guide, gear rentals, excursions and more. And while Jessica acknowledges that those prices aren’t accessible to everyone, she sees these bucket list destinations as something worth planning and saving for.

“We want people who are coming to really have worked for those experiences, so they truly cherish them,” she says. She adds: “I would love for families to go and fall in love with wildlife, the ocean and our planet and cultures and, in turn, be way more open-minded and care more about the Earth that we live on. If we can teach our visitors that, that’ll mean the world to me.”

What’s next for the Gees?

In addition to the Bucket List Collection, the Gees can also be found at the bookstore. They’ve got a new children’s book for National Geographic (The Bucket List Family and the Big Adventure), coming out in October. They’re also still working hard on a new animated series about the family, which will feature country-by-country lessons they’ve learned around the world.

There’s a lot happening, but Jessica says she’s staying grounded. “[I’m] just grinding, [juggling] lots of hard work while trying to be present at home and well balanced and a good mom — all those things that I think a lot of people deal with.”

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