Chatting with the Nomadic Boys

Back in 2015, we interviewed Stefan and Sebastian, a gay couple who love to travel and post their experiences on their gay travel blog, NomadicBoys.com. We recently caught up with them to see how things were going, and to see if they were still travelling

Back in 2015, we interviewed Stefan and Sebastian, a gay couple who love to travel and post their experiences on their gay travel blog, NomadicBoys.com. Just like every traveller, the Nomadic Boys have their reasons for travelling. Not only do they seek out the best LGBTQ friendly places to visit, but they also travel to places where being gay is not widely accepted, becoming a visible supportive symbol to their LGBTQ brothers and sisters. And of course, they take some amazing photos along the way.

We recently caught up with them to see how things were going, and to see if they were still travelling (the answer is yes, of course!).

1. Nomadic Boys is all about your crazy adventures around the world, but we know that in every journey there’s much more than just the discovery of a pretty place. What are the beliefs and ideas that you try to portray through your work, from blog posts to your social media profiles?

We try to showcase destinations from all over the world which are both gay-friendly to those that are less well-known. For example, Puerto Vallarta in Mexico is famous as a gay destination. But Colombia and Argentina further south are also very gay-friendly places to visit. But as gay travel bloggers, we find it extremely important to not only showcase places around the world that are LGBTQ friendly. We always seek out the best hotels and companies that want to welcome gay travellers and support them in every way that we can through our blog.

More importantly are places with dubious LGBTQ records. For example, a common criticism we receive online is that we are (wrongly) encouraging travel to places like Russia or Malaysia where being gay is either illegal or likely to bring you violent harm. Whilst we always promote care and safety, we believe turning our backs on such countries is more harmful than good. Going there and being a visible supportive symbol to our LGBTQ brothers and sisters, and supporting gay-friendly businesses there is going to do a lot more good than just boycotting them altogether.

2. Being in the public eye is not an easy thing to do nowadays. How do you decide which aspects of yourself, your experiences and your trips to show to your community? Do you think that being a gay couple changes the way that your work is perceived?

To be honest we don’t choose which aspects of our personalities to show or not. We are always very natural, which is what we think people like about us. Being a gay couple means that we are a very obviously “gay”, which is, of course, a great thing, but less so in destinations which are not so gay-friendly.

We are honest but within reason. We don’t publicize our home address or give out our telephone numbers. But we have found that whether you are honest or not, your online persona is going to take on its own path. For example, poor Sebastien has come across as being “the greedy Frenchman” each time Stefan posts stuff about him online. In reality, Stefan is the greedier one, but has promoted this image online, mainly to tease Seb. The fact is, people who follow influencers largely do so because they relate to them. Our personalities are our key selling point as that is what our followers identify with.

3. You’ve travelled pretty much across the entire globe, from Europe to Asia and North America. It’s only fair to ask which travel destination holds a special place in your hearts and if there’s still a city/country on your wish list that you haven’t had the chance to visit yet (but you’re dying to)?.

We loved the Philippines for the incredible beaches, nature and the Filipinos. They are famous for their hospitality and you will quickly fall in love with them, like we did. We are dying to go back. Taiwan and Taipei is a place we want to visit. It’s famous for being one of the most progressive places in Asia for LGBTQ rights and may soon be the first place in Asia (after Israel) to legalise same-sex civil unions. Taipei Pride is also famous for being the largest gay pride event in Asia.

4. On your website, you state that your aim is to “inspire your readers to travel to places beyond the pink comfort zone”. How do you deal with the responsibility of inspiring other people to better their lives through travel? Do you feel somehow pressured to become positive role models for the large gay community that passionately follows your fearless travels?

We do what comes naturally and reasonably within the barriers of safety and encourage this way. We’re not saying to travellers “go throw yourself in the middle of Moscow and camp it up”. But we are saying, rather than boycotting a place with dubious LGBTQ laws, it’s better to go there and support local gay-friendly businesses, establishments and locals.

5. How did you find out about the professional use of social media and what pushed you to invest your time in them and to pursue a career through them? What convinced you to put yourself out there? How often do you get to travel?

We first started in October 2013, then about a year later we started receiving invitations to collaborate and press trips. It all took off from there and we decided to pursue it professionally. Up until now, we’ve been travelling almost non-stop – we spent 2 years in Asia, then 2 in Latin America. This year has been calmer as we need time to work on the blog offline, so have planned our 2019 trips more carefully in advance.

6. Do you enjoy being in the public eye? Do you think this will be your profession forever? How do you imagine your professional future?

We absolutely love it, but with it comes the dark side. As a gay couple in the public eye, there are inevitably places in the world we will face difficulties. We just recently faced this in Lebanon. Being gay is a punishable crime there, as it is in most of the Middle East. As we were leaving from our trip, the immigration stopped us, took us aside and interrogated us for around 45 minutes about what we were doing there, our profession and whether this was our first time there. They told us we should not have entered the country because our names are blacklisted there and we will not be allowed to return. They didn’t give a reason why, but eventually returned our passports and told us never to return. We don’t know the official reason why, but we assume that during our stay, one of our social media posts about gay Lebanon (which was very positive) upset some religious nut who then reported us. Both our names were flagged and blacklisted, so we can only deduce it’s because of our gay travel blog.

We certainly intend to keep our website going for as long as it can. Ultimately the image of the website depends on a gay couple travelling, so there are many ways to market this as we age. In any case, who knows what the future will bring; we will certainly evolve and embrace with whatever comes our way.

7. It’s pretty clear that you’re still enjoying your job as much as the first day, but do you see yourselves stopping travelling at some point in the future? Where do you think your careers could go in the next years?

We aspire to always continue travelling. We are currently based in Cyprus which is our new home base. We are planning our trips for the next year in advance as opposed to before where we took long trips without a definite return date. Over the next few years, we hope our careers with Nomadic Boys will increase of course.