YouTube star Damon Dominique on life as a true 'Global Citizen'

Damon Dominique is what people call a digital nomad. An American world traveller currently living in Paris, Dominique documents his travels on his YouTube vlog, @damondominique, where he has 421,000 subscribers. While doing this, he makes a point of learning as much of the local language as possible and offers his own Spanish and French online courses to teach people the French and Spanish he wishes he had learnt in French and Spanish class.

He’s working on bringing out a TV show called Around the World in 80 Dates and recently released You Are A Global Citizen, a guided journal for the culturally curious filled with anecdotes of his travels around the world. We chatted to him about the challenges of being a digital nomad, some of his best — and worst — travel experiences and his secret for success. 

There are definitely a lot of downsides to being a digital nomad or just travelling full-time. Since I’m always the one leaving, I question why my friends keep me around. Same thing with relationships. It’s really cool that someone travels all the time but it’s also like, “If you’re going to travel all the time, either I have to go with you” — which not a lot of people want to constantly do — “or I’m just never going to see you.” So it’s almost like I’m creating my own isolation sometimes. But 99% of my day is amazing and I have amazing friends all over the world — but none of them really know each other. If I were to ever have a wedding or a big celebration, almost none of my friends would know each other.

Brazil is the easiest country in which to date. I love their food, the landscape of the country, people are so welcoming when you are speaking their language, I love their music. I love Brazilians. They’re just so easy to talk to, there is no weirdness. I feel like they are just really smooth, very charismatic and charming people. And, it helps that they are beautiful.

My worst dating story was probably in Prague. The Czech Republic is not the friendliest country to the LGBTQ+ community. There’s one gay club so I went to the club by myself and met this guy from Algeria. We were dancing and kissing and then he was like “Let’s go up to this park, there’s a hill and we can watch the sunrise.” And I’m like, oh my God, this is a movie right here. I’m in Prague, I’m 26, I’m an American, he’s from Algeria, we’re in the Czech Republic, we are going to watch the sunrise ... this is what life’s all about. So, we go around the hill, watch the sunrise and all of a sudden he gets a call from his roommate who got locked out and he has to go let his roommate in. He told me to just wait on the hill and said he’ll be back in 30 minutes. So, I wait 30 minutes, 40 minutes, I wait an hour. I probably waited about two hours. He never texted me and to this day I don’t know where David from Algeria is.

Tokyo [is my favourite international city]. I love Tokyo because it’s a massive city but you don’t get the sense that everyone is in a rush, that everyone is frantic, that everyone is stressed out. It feels calm and that’s not something we associate with big cities. Everyone is so respectful, so polite, kind. People line up for the subway, not pushing each other to get a seat. I remember there was a guy in the subway. I was definitely lost, everything was in Japanese, and he came up to me and was like: “Do you need help? I’ll show you where to go.” He took me on the subway, out of his way, and the whole time I was thinking “Oh my God, he is going to either ask for money or try to scam me”. He was like, “Here you go, dropping you off. Do you want to go for karaoke?” And then we went to karaoke and that was it.

I don’t even want to plan a day out [in Tokyo]. If I secretly had to plan a day I would wake up, get a coffee, probably go thrifting, get another coffee, find a view on top of a skyscraper. Get another coffee. I would plan a few hours to play some video games then probably get some ramen at one of the food markets. Then probably go out to some techno rave in an abandoned warehouse somewhere.

Paris is the best place in the world for a night out. When most people think of Paris they’re thinking chic, luxurious, rich, wealthy — and that side of Paris absolutely exists. But I don’t go to those clubs, it’s just not my scene. Paris has the coolest, grittiest, grungiest raves. They’re all on the outskirts. Imagine where they store the airplanes when they’re not in use then you turn all the lights off and you put on these lasers and blast techno. You really feel like you’re on a different planet. I like that people feel free to do whatever they want; it’s like a completely non-judgemental zone to the point where you can wear your pyjamas. The point is not to go and look cool, the point is to go and have fun and meet people.

Brazil is the best place to travel as a vegan. It’s always the countries that I’m not expecting — like Romania and Belgium and Brazil. Brazil is known for their rice and beans with meat but they have all these lasagnes, fake meats and stews. I was so surprised; I wasn’t thinking that Brazil was going to be a vegan paradise. I’ve been there three times and every time I eat well, better than in the US.

The best lesson travel has taught me is to realise that I knew nothing the whole time. How can I be so opinionated about certain things when that opinion is going to be shaped by the culture you grew up in or where you spend your time or who you spend your time with? I’m more open to other people’s ideas, to other people’s ways of life now. Travelling helped me realise that you are both learning and unlearning at the same time

I have a lot of these bizarre, mysterious, magical things that happen to me. I was once sitting in a café in Paris and this psychic medium walked into the restaurant and she was like, “Give me your hand”. So I gave her my hand and she was like “You’re an artist, don’t let anybody take advantage of you” and she walked away and she like read my friend’s hand as well. Probably a month later, I’m at a different restaurant and she comes by again. She reads my friend’s palm, a different friend this time, and then she reads my palm again and she’s like, “You’re an artist. Don’t let anybody take advantage of you.” She says the same thing to me! She gave me this little stone that I keep with me to this day and she was like: “Anytime you look at this stone, just remember that you are an artist.” I feel like those kinds of mystical things happen and that’s why when people ask if I’m religious I’m like I’m not necessarily religious but how do you explain that kind of stuff?