Today we’d like to introduce you to Stefan Arestis.
Hi Stefan, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
Nomadic Boys started almost by accident. My partner Sebastien and I met in London back in 2009, and a few years later we decided to leave our jobs and travel around Asia together. We launched the Nomadic Boys blog in 2013, originally as a way to document our travels for friends and family.
As we traveled, we realized there was a real lack of practical, first-hand information for gay travelers. We wanted to know things like: is this destination safe for us as a gay couple? Where is the gay scene? Can we book a double bed without worrying about the reaction? Where are the best gay bars, hotels, and events? Those were the questions we were constantly researching for ourselves, so we started writing about them.
That gradually transformed Nomadic Boys from a personal travel diary into a dedicated gay travel resource. Over the years we’ve traveled extensively together, worked with tourism boards and travel brands around the world, attended more Pride festivals than we can count, and built a community of readers and followers who use our content to plan their own trips.
In 2024 we also published our first book, *Out in the World: The Gay Guide to Travelling with Pride*, which was a pretty surreal milestone after starting out with a little blog more than a decade earlier.
Today, Nomadic Boys is our full-time business, but the basic idea behind it hasn’t really changed: it’s still the two of us traveling together, sharing our experiences and hopefully making it a little easier – and more fun – for other gay travelers to explore the world.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
Definitely not! When we started Nomadic Boys, neither of us had any background in blogging, social media, SEO, or running an online business. We basically learned everything as we went along, usually by making plenty of mistakes first.
One of the biggest challenges in the early days was figuring out how to turn something we loved doing into a sustainable business. There were years of working incredibly long hours without really knowing whether it would ever become our full-time career. The travel industry is also constantly changing, so we’ve had to keep adapting – from the rise of social media to Google algorithm changes and, of course, the complete shutdown of travel during the pandemic.
Traveling as a gay couple has brought its own challenges too. We’ve visited places where homosexuality is illegal or where being openly affectionate simply isn’t safe. Those experiences have shaped a lot of what we write about and made us very conscious of the privilege we have when traveling somewhere we can simply hold hands without thinking twice about it.
And then there’s the small matter of running a business, traveling, and spending almost 24/7 together as a couple! We’ve had to learn when we’re Stefan and Sebastien the business partners and when we’re just Stefan and Sebastien the couple. We’re still working on that one…
But the difficult moments have also been some of the most important. They’ve forced us to adapt, learn, and ultimately made Nomadic Boys what it is today.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
Nomadic Boys specializes in gay travel. At its heart, our work is about helping LGBTQ+ travelers explore the world confidently, safely, and with a lot of fun along the way.
We create detailed destination guides based on our own experiences, covering everything from LGBTQ+ rights and safety to where to stay, the best gay bars and clubs, Pride events, food, culture, and the experiences that make a destination special. We’re probably best known for our gay destination guides, but we also create content across our social media channels and newsletter, and work with tourism boards and travel brands around the world.
What sets us apart is that our content is very personal. We’ve been traveling together for well over a decade, and we’re actually going to the places we write about, staying in the hotels, experiencing the nightlife, attending the Prides, and speaking to local LGBTQ+ people. We don’t want Nomadic Boys to feel like a generic travel website – Stefan and Sebastien are very much part of the story, including all our mishaps and arguments along the way!
We’re also incredibly proud of the community we’ve built around Nomadic Boys. Knowing that someone has used one of our guides to feel confident enough to visit a new destination, or has seen us traveling openly as a gay couple and felt inspired to do the same, means a lot to us.
And publishing our book, Out in the World: The Gay Guide to Travelling with Pride, in 2024 was a huge moment. Seeing more than a decade of our experiences distilled into an actual book we could hold in our hands was something we’re extremely proud of.
So, before we go, how can our readers or others connect or collaborate with you? How can they support you?
There are lots of ways to work with us! We collaborate with tourism boards, hotels, travel companies, LGBTQ+ events, and brands that genuinely align with our audience and what Nomadic Boys is about.
Collaborations can include destination campaigns, sponsored content, social media campaigns, newsletters, hotel and experience reviews, event coverage, and longer-term brand partnerships. We particularly love projects where we can actually experience a destination or product ourselves and then tell that story in our own voice across our different platforms.
For readers, the best way to support us is simply to follow our adventures, read and share our guides, subscribe to our newsletter, follow us on social media, and of course pick up a copy of our book, Out in the World: The Gay Guide to Travelling with Pride.
And if you’re a brand or destination interested in working together, we’d love to hear from you. We’re always excited to discover new places, meet new people, and find interesting ways to inspire more LGBTQ+ travelers to get out there and explore the world.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://nomadicboys.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nomadicboys/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/nomadicboys/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nomadic-boys
- Twitter: https://x.com/nomadicboys
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@nomadicboys
