About
Ashley Brown, the American creator behind the WAY AWAY YouTube channel, has navigated one of the most challenging pivots in the creator economy. She began as one half of a successful husband-and-wife travel vlogging duo, building an audience of 225,000 subscribers. Following a divorce that dissolved the original brand, she launched a solo career under a new identity, “Winging It With Ash,” candidly documenting her life as an American expatriate in Europe. In a strong example of brand resilience, Brown has now returned to the U.S. and reclaimed the original, high-subscriber WAY AWAY channel, merging the equity of her past with the loyal community she built on her own terms.
WAY AWAY: History and Growth
The WAY AWAY channel was established on October 22, 2015, and was initially branded as the joint venture of “Josh and Ashley Brown, married world travelers.” Their stated mission was “to bring the world closer by showing the uniqueness of our cultures and promoting unity around the world.” The content followed a consistent format of daily travel vlogs, chronicling their shared global adventures in series like the “USA Road Trip 2018” and international travels to Mexico and Spain. Their relationship was a central pillar of the brand, with videos like “Our Love Story: How We Met” and a look back at their wedding video designed to build a personal connection with their audience, a community they called the “WAYFAM.” This strategy proved successful, generating over 34 million views.
Around 2020, a content hiatus culminated in a pivotal video titled, “What Happened To The Way Away? | The Honest Truth & A New Start.” In the video, Ashley Brown announced that she and Josh were divorcing, explaining the cessation of their joint content. This announcement was not just an ending but a strategic launch. In the same broadcast, she introduced her new solo channel, Winging It With Ash, and explicitly directed the established “WAYFAM” audience to follow her independent journey. The formal closure of the original partnership was solidified in a subsequent video where Josh Brown delivered a final goodbye, endorsing Ashley’s new solo venture and effectively passing the brand’s goodwill to her.
WAY AWAY: Content and Style
With the launch of Winging It With Ash, Brown’s content underwent a profound transformation. She relocated from the United States to Europe, first living in Wales and later moving to Barcelona with the goal of learning Spanish. Her narrative shifted from the polished, aspirational travelogues of a couple to the candid, often raw, realities of life as a “SOLO American living in Europe.”
The content became intensely personal. She documented the unvarnished challenges of expat life, including culture shock, homesickness, navigating a breakup while abroad, and the logistical nightmare of losing a passport in Paris. Her solo travels, such as her first hike in Italy, were framed as experiences of personal growth and confidence-building. This pivot from an external, destination-focused model to an internal, relational one was crystallized with the creation of a new interview-style series, “Am I The Only One??”. This series marked a significant departure from travel vlogging, exploring deeply sensitive subjects. One prominent video, “Shocking Revelation: My Husband Confessed He’s Transgender!”, garnered 92,000 views. Another discussed the loss of a parent to dementia. This shift toward radical vulnerability became her core content strategy, cultivating a durable bond with an audience invested in her personal story, not just her travels.
How WAY AWAY Makes Money
Ashley Brown operates a tightly integrated digital network unified under her solo identity. Her primary content now resides on the original WAY AWAY channel (@WAYAWAYWithAsh), which retains 225,000 subscribers. Her second channel, Winging It With Ash (@WingingItWithAsh), with 26,800 subscribers, serves as an archive of her expat journey. A Linktree page acts as a central hub, directing followers to her Instagram (@WingingitwithAsh) and Facebook page (facebook.com/WingingItWithAsh).
Her monetization strategy is direct and consistent. Nearly every video description contains a standardized block promoting her Patreon for recurring monthly support and a Buy Me a Coffee page for one-time contributions. The latter explicitly identifies her as “Ashley Brown.” This is supplemented by a robust affiliate marketing program, promoting the specific tools she uses, including the Wise debit card, the Chase Sapphire Preferred credit card, and the music service Epidemic Sound. Her vlogs also provide affiliate links to her complete camera and editing setup: a Sony camera, a specific tripod and memory card, and the laptop, external hard drive, and headphones she uses for post-production.
The most significant business decision was her relaunch of the dormant WAY AWAY channel. In a video titled “The Way Away is BACK and I’m in charge! | THIS IS MY STORY,” she announced her takeover, stating it was a “waste for something that in the past has proven to be successful just sits here and is not used to its full potential.” Following this, she standardized all branding, social media links, and monetization platforms across both channels, effectively consolidating her digital assets to leverage the larger, established audience for her personal brand. Her professional contact points are a business email, [email protected], and a physical P.O. Box in Port Orchard, Washington: ASHLEY BROWN (WINGING IT WITH ASH), PMB #289, 3377 BETHEL RD SE STE 107, PORT ORCHARD, WA 98367.
WAY AWAY's Collaborations
While the dossier does not indicate formal roles in industry organizations, Brown’s content features collaborations with local businesses and organizations that align with her focus on authentic cultural experiences. During a trip to Venice, she highlighted Row Venice, a non-profit organization of female gondoliers, or vogatrici, dedicated to preserving the Venetian style of rowing. She encouraged her audience to learn from them rather than take a conventional gondola ride. Similarly, while in Italy, she documented a truffle hunting experience she booked via Airbnb with a local business identified as “eleattartufialba” on Instagram, bringing direct attention to a niche local tour provider.
WAY AWAY: Public Reception
Ashley Brown’s career has been shaped not by controversy but by her transparent management of a profound personal and professional schism. The disclosure of her divorce and her ex-husband’s gender transition was handled directly and on her own terms. By announcing these life events herself through long-form videos, she controlled the narrative from the outset, framing a potentially brand-destroying event as the catalyst for a new, more authentic chapter. Rather than facing public scandal, she invited her audience into her journey of rebuilding, leveraging vulnerability to create a stronger, more personal brand identity. This strategic transparency allowed her to maintain audience trust and successfully transfer community loyalty from the couple-centric “WAYFAM” to her solo identity.
WAY AWAY: Philanthropy
Brown’s focus on immersive travel has led her to promote non-profit organizations that preserve local culture. Her collaboration with Row Venice in Italy stands out. By showcasing this non-profit run by “passionate women and expert vogatrici,” she used her platform to direct tourist attention and potential revenue toward an organization dedicated to the preservation of traditional Venetian “cultura acquea” (water culture). This act aligns with her stated mission of digging deep into local culture and history, providing a tangible, positive impact on the communities she visits.
WAY AWAY Today
Ashley Brown’s journey is a example of creator resilience. After her visa expired in Spain, she made the “abrupt decision to move back to the U.S.,” establishing a new base in the Pacific Northwest and taking a job at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport. Her decision to revive the WAY AWAY channel was a calculated consolidation of her digital assets, leveraging the reach of her past to amplify the brand she painstakingly built alone. Her content will likely evolve into a hybrid model, blending explorations of her new life in the U.S. with the international travel that remains her passion. The core product, however, is no longer just the destination. It is the ongoing, unfiltered story of Ashley Brown’s life—a journey her loyal audience remains deeply invested in.