<\/p>\n
On April 3, Bill Stiteler\u2019s Instagram<\/a> and TikTok<\/a> accounts took the world to San Juan through a song simply titled \u201cThe Puerto Rico Song<\/a>.\u201d Now, it\u2019s social media\u2019s latest earworm \u2014 but it\u2019s just one of many videos the Pittsburgh-based comedian has created in his quest to document the world\u2019s lesser-explored cities.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Puerto Rico Song,\u201d like all of Stiteler\u2019s travel videos, was written by Stiteler and crafted with the AI-powered music app Suno. It features clips of Stiteler visiting Puerto Rico’s capital city, among others, while a poppy song about the trip plays in the background, with lyrics including:<\/p>\n Immediately was enchanted\/ The whole plane clapped when we landed\/ Didn\u2019t wanna do just tourist stuff\/ So I took the bus to Caguas\/ It\u2019s a wild place to vacation\/ Slot machines in the bus station. <\/em><\/p>\n The video, which features beautiful shots of the city as well as more mundane moments like taking the subway, visiting a local grocery store and a Barack Obama statue spotting, has garnered more than 3.3 million views on TikTok. Its fans range from Modern Family<\/em>\u2019s Sarah Hyland<\/a> to country star Luke Combs<\/a> and Jennifer Love Hewitt<\/a>, who have posted their own videos lip syncing to the track. English Teacher <\/em>star and creator Brian Jordan Alvarez<\/a> has made multiple posts featuring the song, and Stiteler credits the actor with kicking off the trend.<\/p>\n Stiteler\u2019s journey to virality didn\u2019t start in Puerto Rico \u2014 it began in Pittsburgh. The comedian told Yahoo that after spending years in New York City as a comedian, he \u201ctook a little nine year break to do nothing but drink alcohol.\u201d After he got sober in late 2023, he moved back to Pittsburgh to live with his dad and regroup. In 2024, he purchased a Pittsburgh Pirates season pass and started posting videos of himself going to the team\u2019s home games on social media.<\/p>\n \u201cI remember, like, a day after I made my first video, someone came up to me and was like, \u2018Yeah, I saw your video,\u2019 and I was like, \u2018What? That\u2019s crazy.\u2019 That happened very fast,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n He kept growing the account, and as it got more attention, he had the idea to move on from home games to following the Pirates on the road. In 2024, he went to 18 different cities following the team \u2014 making videos along the way. The very first city for which he created a song was Altoona, Penn<\/a>., he said. That\u2019s when he discovered Suno.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s kind of like an auto tuner for lyrics and your voice \u2014 you can sing into it, and it can auto tune it into using AI to make music,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019m not a musician, I don’t know anything about music, but I’m a comedian, and I can write these funny little songs about all my observations.\u201d<\/p>\n He began to realize that people didn\u2019t care about the \u201cworst baseball team in modern history.\u201d What they were really attracted to, he said, was \u201cthe adventures of this guy discovering cities you don\u2019t really know about \u2014 baseball towns and cities people don’t really think of as traditional destinations.\u201d<\/p>\n It was still the Pirates that led Stiteler to Puerto Rico. While the Pirates didn\u2019t have a game on the island, it is where Pirates icon Roberto Clemente, who played for the team from 1955 to 1972, grew up. Stiteler visited Puerto Rico, and specifically Caguas, to see where Clemente played baseball in his early 20s.<\/p>\n Though people don\u2019t really go to Caguas for vacation, Stiteler said he found that there\u2019s a big interest in these lesser-explored places when it comes to international travel too. \u201cPeople don’t want to see pretty beaches on Instagram,\u201d he said. \u201cIt’s boring. We\u2019ve hit peak \u2018pretty place\u2019 on Instagram and social media, I think.\u201d<\/p>\n In addition to creating more addictive songs about other cities, Stiteler is leaning into the travel side of his content with his podcast The Saxcast<\/em><\/a>, as well as his blog The Saxboy Travel Club<\/a>, which is available on Patreon. And he plans to see even more of the world \u2014 particularly the places that not every travel influencer goes to.<\/p>\n \u201cI want to find the Pittsburghs of different countries, because there’s a bazillion videos on Paris,\u201d he said. \u201cI want to see the \u2018Rust Belt\u2019 of, like, Argentina. Or, what are the industrial towns of France?\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\nHow Bill Stiteler turned his hometown baseball passion into travel content<\/h2>\n
How \u2018The Puerto Rico Song\u2019 was born<\/h2>\n