Imagine a stranger — say, two strangers armed with video cameras — approach you one evening in Zilker Park while you’re hanging out with friends, basking in a post-race endorphin glow. They offer you a free trip across the world to spend 72 hours in Stockholm, Sweden.
The only catch? You have to leave tomorrow. What would you say?
For 28-year-old Austin resident Alex Leonard, the answer was easy.
“I’d go to Stockholm. Wait, why would anyone not do it?”
That answer and all the adventures that came after are captured in a viral YouTube video, titled “2 Strangers Swap Lives Across the World for 72hrs!!” It has been viewed more than 1.6 million times since it was uploaded in September. Those two strangers in Zilker Park were Matt Dajer and Ammar Kandil, co-founders of Yes Theory, a YouTube channel with more than 4.4 million subscribers that encourages people to break out of their day-to-day routines and “seek discomfort,” the team’s official tagline.