Forget picture-perfect selfies — this is travel with heart. In this episode, we’re hanging out with Brian Miller, the mastermind behind Daddy Cruises (soon-to-be Daddy Adventures!), who's on a mission to turn vacations into real, vibrant communities for LGBTQ+ travelers. Brian’s not just planning trips; he’s building chosen families — from solo adventurers to couples — making sure the connection starts long before the ship leaves the dock. Think Facebook groups, Zoom meetups, and unforgettable journeys to places like Japan, South Africa, and Machu Picchu. We’re talking hilarious travel stories, the real power of showing up as your authentic self, and why true adventure starts when you ditch the filters and lean into community. Get ready to laugh, get inspired, and maybe even plan your next trip!

For the viewers:

Mention The PrideNomad when you book, and receive $50 onboard credit.

Contact Brian:

• ☎️ 614-799-1390

• Email

• Facebook

Listen to the Podcast here

Daddy, Disrupted: How Brian Miller Built The Most Welcoming Gay Cruise Club On The Planet

Meet Brian Miller, the dude who flipped the script on gay travel. While other companies were busy Photoshopping abs, he was busy building Daddy Cruises, a vacation club for actual humans, the ones who prefer good vibes over Instagram filters. For over a decade, he's been creating adventures where regular folks can just be themselves. No massive party ships, no pressure to fit in. Just great company and real experiences. This is Pride Nomad Unleashed where authenticity meets adventure. The only requirement is just being yourself. Welcome, Brian Miller. How was that?

It was great. I want this recording so I can put that on my website. Actually, some of it is from the website.

I got it. We took the raw material and then I just threw it into my very expensive AI genius.

I was going to say AI is wonderful. I love it.

It is such a lifesaver. I want to start with this only because I'm inspired and I don't want to date this because this is supposed to be evergreen forever. Jane Fonda was given the Lifetime Achievement Award from SAG and I watched the video of her acceptance. Did you see it? You're nodding.

I saw it. I saw clips of it. I saw bits of it. I tagged it so I can watch it later because I just saw it.

It is so worth it. There's a quote in my newsletter that says, “Community means power.”

I did see that. Yes.

Woke means you actually give a shit about people, which is another great one. I'm misquoting her on that one, but it's close enough. Welcome to the community. By the way, I’ve done zero homework, so forgive me for sounding ignorant, which is great because my viewers know nothing as well.

That's perfect.

Building Global Communities: From HR Expert To Travel Visionary

Tell me about Daddy Cruises.

It's interesting you start with the word community, Ken, because that's what we're all about. My background, this is not my first career was HR consulting in the HR realm. My whole world was around helping teams come together. They called me a team building expert. I’ve written books about team building, all that stuff. My life passion has been about helping people connect and be together.

This was like a natural outgrowth for me when I decided to go into travel. That's what we do. We create community for folks, especially for people who are a little bit skittish about travel. We have guys. A lot of times, there are solo guests like, “My husband won't travel with me,” or, “I don't have a husband,” or, “I don't have a boyfriend, I have no friends,” whatever. For whatever reason, people are traveling alone.

Traveling alone is difficult. There's a lot to keep in mind. I'm married and so I notice that when my husband and I travel, a lot of times, we're checking with each other. It's like, “Do we do this? Are we supposed to go here? Did you hear that in instruction?” If you don't have someone to do that with, it's daunting and intimidating. I'd say over a half our guests are actually single individuals. Sometimes they room together, but they're single individuals traveling and they just want to have just a little bit of community, Especially for people in the LGBTQ community.

There are so many more letters you could put on there. We feel a little bit intimidated too by going to another country. Going to the UK or going to France, Canada, no big deal, but South Africa? Am I going to be okay? Am I okay to touch my husband? Can I hold his hand? Can I give someone a look and wink at him or will that be misconstrued? Is it illegal to even be who I am? We can take that out of it as well. A lot of times, it's simply strength in numbers. When a group of eighteen people come off a ship together and we get with a tour guide, the tour guide is like, “Crap.” We've had a couple of them say, “Where are your wives?”

There's that and it's just on the ship as well. We're less likely to have side comments or looks or whatever because there's 20, 30, 40, 80, 90 of us and usually on ship, people want to join our group rather than give us dirty looks. Yeah, we're all about creating community and we do it long before the ship even departs. We do it on Facebook groups and Zoom calls and stuff like that to help people start connecting right away. When they actually get on a vacation, they feel like they're with friends.

How many do you do it in the course of a year?

We've been growing so fast and hadn’t it been for COVID, we'd be exploding right now. We are up to about ten a year, so almost every month. We host all of them. I'm always on the cruise. I have three other guys who help me. One, two or three of them are going to be on as well. We're always there to make sure that everybody feels safe and connected and part of the group.

It's all just cruises, right?

We have branched out a little bit.

I had that feeling.

Every company has to grow. For me, I have this weird history where I happen to speak Japanese fluently. I’ve lived in Japan and I’ve been to Japan many times. Several years ago, a bunch of friends said, “Next time you go, I want you to bring me with.” Long story short, we morphed into now I do tours of Japan. They're land tours. They're not cruises. We spend time in Japan. We did another thing with South Africa, same thing. It's not a cruise, it's South Africa. We visit the Winelands in Cape Town and we go on safari and all that good stuff.

In 2026, for the first time, we're going to do Machu Picchu, which will also be a land tour. With all these, we use members of our community, the LGBTQ community, for our tour guides and all that stuff. I have a partner in Japan who I use, I have a partner in South Africa I use, and I now have a partner in Peru who I’ll be using for those as well. It helps us feel connected. It helps us feel safe.

That makes all sorts of sense. Certainly, the component of being alone and when you're going solo makes a giant difference. One of the things that we're concerned with in the Pride Nomad community is loneliness because when you are traveling alone, yes, you jump to deal with the travel partner. It's like, “I don't want to go do that.” You can do it by yourself, right?

Right.

I remember years ago, I was in Prague. I'm on the bridge. It's gorgeous, it's Christmas time, it's fabulous. I'm by myself. I was like, “I'm missing sharing this with someone special.” That someone special could be a friend. To have someone on that you're with 17, 18, 20 other people makes a difference. Yeah, it does take away a lot the fear or the concern. I’ve been a solo traveler for such a long time. It's not for everybody.

I appreciate your comment there, Ken, because I'm going to go back to that bridge in Prague. It's not even about, “I wish I had someone to hold his hand.” It's not even that. Sometimes you just want to point at something and say, “Can you believe that?” I remember I was in London and I was watching a show on the West End. It was Dreamgirls and the right before the mid intermission, she sings that song, And I'm Telling You. She finished that song and I see you clutching your heart. Same thing.

She sings this song. I was by myself. When it was over, I looked on either side of me and the two women on either side of me, both were like, “Wow.” I'm like, “Yeah, can you believe that?” They're like, “Yeah.” We can't help it as humans. I felt connected to those women immediately. The second half of the show, we had a different experience watching it. Afterwards, we talked for a couple minutes. I never saw them again and never will. There's something about, “Just look at that,” or, “Can you believe this?” Or, “Wow, that's beautiful,” or, “That's ugly. I can't believe that guy did that.” Just those little teeny connections.

The Story Behind The Name: How "Daddy Cruises" Came To Be

Yeah. It's more fun of course, when you're in the same tribe, but nonetheless, you're still sharing the experience, which is great. I suspect that probably the name of your company is going to change from Big Daddy Cruise to Big Daddy Adventures.

Daddy Adventures, Daddy Trips, Daddy Vacations, something like that.

We'll run it through AI.

We'll see what they say.

Let's talk about this because you've got Daddy as a keyword in the name of the name. Here's the thing. Having spent a lot of time in Asia, I moved to Thailand in 2009. Cool. I was in Bangkok for like ten years. It is heaven for daddies. It's bizarre because back in the States, like, “Why would I date you? You're too old.” I'm like, “You Have no fucking idea.” I'm going to guess now. It would not surprise me that a number of people that are on in your community are not daddies, but are the daddy lovers.

They are, yes.

Okay, so there's hope for everybody.

We're all about creating community. We start long before the ship departs, so when they get on vacation, they feel like they're already with friends.

Yeah. They're greatly outnumbered.

What is the mix of your clients?

Before I answer that question, I'm going to go back just a step, because the name the name is an interesting, fun story. When I first started this, I thought I was just going to be a travel agent to the LGBTQ community. Just a Joe Blow. I have a friend of mine who came to me and he's a daddy and his husband is a daddy. What they call their family is not like my family, like my kids and my grandkids, but like their family. They're slaves, they're puppies, they're boys, all that stuff. They've got all that. He said, “We go on a cruise in our family and since you're an agent, will you book this for us?” I said, “Sure.”

I started booking it and I talked to other people and they're like, “That cruise sounds fun. I wonder if I could go with?” I went back to him and I said, “Can I invite other people to go with you guys?” He said, “Yeah, sure, fine. The more the barrier.” I set it up with cruise line and the lady on the cruise line says, “What's the name of your group?”

I said, “What do you mean?” She goes, “Every group has to have a name in our system.” I'm like, “His name's Chuck. Chuck's Cruise.” She punches it in and she goes, “You're not going to believe this, but there's already a group called Chuck's Cruise on this group. I need another name.” I panicked. I didn't know what else to say.

I'm like, “He's daddy. Daddy's Cruise.” She goes, “I love it.” She starts giggling and laughing and we had so much fun talking about it. I'm like, “Okay, so there's a name.” I ended up ending 20 people to join his 20. We had 40 people. That's where this whole idea of, “There's a market for guys our age,” not those little twinks, not the circuit party group, to go on cruises. Now I’ve forgotten what your question was.

What's the mix?

Over the years, it's morphed a little bit. I'd say now, about half of them are single guys. The other half are couples. Most of us are in our 50s and 60s, some in our 70s. We have, we have one guy, he's 92. Now get this, Ken. It's amazing. A couple of years ago, we were on a cruise and like, “What are you going to do on shore today?” We're all like, “I'm going to take this buggy ride and I'm going to go on this little boat ride.” It was all this really passive stuff. We turned this guy. He was 87 at the time. He goes, “I'm going ocean kayaking.” We're like, “Okay.”

I love it. That's great. God bless him.

I know. I want to be like you when I grow up.

My mom is like that. It's the funniest thing. You'll appreciate this. We were in Nepal and we were in Pokhara and we were hiking there. She's hiking with me and she got about halfway up and then we put her on a horse because she got too tired. When we finished the whole thing and came back from the trek, it was four days up to Poon Hill, we were on the lake and we're sitting on a whatever boat or something and there were people paragliding.

My mom's like, “That's cool.” I'm like, “Yeah, that'd be really fun to do.” We're like, “Can we still do it?” “Yeah, we can still do it, but we’ll catch the last one. Who wants to go?” All the young people are like, “No, we're going to stay here and chill out.” We did it. The woman's like in her 80s at that point. I think that's just brilliant. All these people, they're like, “We’ll wait.” Fuck you. Let's go play.

I’ll add to our mix, about half single, half a couple, mostly in our 50s and 60s and early 70s, although we do have a lot of in their 30s and 40s and even a couple in their 20s. I’ll also say about 10% of our group is not necessarily gay men. Women, gay women, lesbian women, family member. We're getting more and more of that as people are like, “This is really fun and I want to bring my sister and her husband.” It's like, “Okay, yeah, sure, fine, whatever.” It's funny because I took my sister and her husband and the first couple of days, they were very standoffish. They didn't want to come to our dinners, they didn't come to our happy hour and all this. It's like, “Gail, why are you doing this?” She goes, “I want to give you guys your time and your space.”

I'm like, “No, it's because you just don't want to hang out with he gay men kind of thing.” After about three days of them just being themselves, the whole group won them over. She's like, “I am so sorry we missed the first three days of this cruise with these people. They're the nicest guys.” A couple of them are still friends with my sister on Facebook. They ask about her all the time. I was like, “You know how our community is. We're marginalized so we help people not feel marginalized.” You almost can't help it but feel welcome and part of our group, whether you're gay or not.

It's smart. I did not go into the travel business and I tell this story a lot. Years ago, my mom and I were doing a bus trip through Ireland. The trip itself was beautiful, but the people were freaking boring. With all due respect to the heterosexuals, we love you, it was like traveling with cardboard. They were very sweet, but they were just boring.

The tour guide was a lesbian, she was great, and then it was us. We came back, I was like, “Mom, we need to do like gay guys and their moms.” We put up the website and we called it Fan Friend Adventures and all this, but I couldn't make it work economically. You got to be in the travel business as you are to make it actually make sense as a business.

Business Challenges: Managing Travel And Operations On The Go

This leads me to ask a question on the business side of things because the nomadic community is a combination of people that are travelers and people that are running businesses. Location independent on the road. I'm going to ask you, what has been the biggest challenge for you to run this business? Since you're doing these cruises, you are on the road a lot. How are you managing your business while you're traveling?

That's a slightly different question than I thought where you were going. Where I thought you going is how do you manage this business? That's my problem is I'm not making much money. In all seriousness, no, I'm not doing this for the money. It actually helps to not have to worry about that. I’ve got to make money, but whether you make X or Y doesn't matter that much.

What I do when I’m on the road? You can do so many jobs on the road these days. I do it a lot through the internet. I do have an associate who works with me now. He's been with me for a couple of years. Typically, he and I are not on the same trip at the same time. He picks up the slack when I'm not there and vice versa.

I assume now you're getting mostly word of mouth, but where are new clients coming from?

I would say mostly word of mouth.

It's interesting that I'm seeing more and more, I don't want to use the word small, I’ll say intimate groups. So many guys are running trips and filling them up. I was with another company and they were having a party that was celebrating the upcoming year of tours as well as celebrating their current clients. They invited potential clients as well. One guy did fourteen trips with them in 2024. It was crazy. Just as you are, loyal clients that go to trip after trip because now it's like, “This is our group,” which is awesome. There seems to be no shortage of that.

The interesting thing about ours, and I wish I could take credit for this, Ken, I really do, because I have no idea how it happens, but there's something about who we are and the way we do it. We get exactly what you just said but there's something about them. We can't use the word clique because it doesn't work. They're not a clique. I’ve seen it like we'll be on board and we have a private game and we're playing trivia contest or whatever. Some guy will slink in the back door because he is a little bit unsure and he is not sure if he wants to stay for this game or not.

One of the core members, I’ll call them core members, will look up and say, “Kevin, come on over. Join our team.” He waves them over and somebody'll say, “No. Join our team.” It's like, who gets people fighting over you when you're an unknown? It’s just something about this core group and the way they bring people in that makes the core group even bigger. They’re like, “This is the social norm here. We invite people to join us. We don't wait for them to join.” It's the coolest thing. I get goosebumps when I think about it because it's so beautiful. I say it all the time because I can't take credit for it. I didn’t do it.

Here's the thing I'm going to say to you. That is you can take credit for it because you created the environment for that to happen.

Thank you. That's probably accurate.

They're coming off your energy. I’ve been teaching for 40-plus years and during COVID, I was doing online events and my events, without patting myself in the back, I had a waiting list for my class. It's only because I was just being me. During my events, same idea. They come, they meld, they become a community immediately because they feel your vibe and they feel comfortable. They don't feel threatened. They don't feel that they had to protect themselves. Now, more than ever, I'm going to soapbox this for a second, we do need that community where we can feel loved and appreciated and safe. We can say, “Come on over here,” because that person's not a threat.

The difference of it, you take an environment of a big gay cruise and you're going to see cliques on that. Even during ski week, I was up at Whistler. I love that Whistler week. It's a fantastic week if you're a skier. You'll see the people, the Washington group and there's this one and that one because they’re together. Now they'll still talk to other people but it's still that.

The problem with that, and this is to those of you who fit that category, is that when you stay with the people that you haven't expanded your horizons. I’ve told people that I’ve traveled with before, like, “I love you, but go away. I want to meet new people.” If you stay with that same cocoon the whole time, you don't get to expand and meet the new people that you should be meeting. You're creating that environment, which is really wonderful.

Thank you for that, Ken. Actually, as you're describing it, it's like, “Yeah, okay. That's cool.” Thank you. I’ll also add, one of the things we do also is we do limit our size. We did a cruise and we had 130 people on it. Several of the core members and even the new members and myself all looked and said, “This is too big. We're going to have to limit it from now on.” We're determining like 80 to 100 is like the max and we just won't go beyond that. Once we get there, it's like, “Sorry, it's sold out.”

From a scaling standpoint. I hear you. I’ve experienced that too in my speaking business. More is better. Bigger and bigger room. More than 75, I don't have a good time.

Yeah, I don't either. If I'm not, they're probably not either because it's my party, so how can I not have a good time?

Disaster At Sea: A Marijuana Mishap And Roommate Roulette

From a business standpoint, what's interesting is that if you're selling to that size group, your conversions will be higher because you have more intimacy. As you get bigger, you lose. Tony Robbins is a master at creating intimacy with 30,000 people. What he's done with that is he's created subgroups that other people are managing. He's part of a small community and you're still seen, but not necessarily by Tony. In this case, you're creating something that is super special. That's really important because I always like to ask these questions. What's the biggest disaster that you had that you had you overcame?

I'm going to go back to years ago. One of the things we do, some of our cruises, not all of them, but some of our cruises, again, especially the single people who have been traveling, I don't know if you know much about cruises, but typically the cruises, they advertise a price. If you're going to go by yourself, they double that price.

One of the things we do for some of our cruises is we offer a roommate match where we guarantee we'll find you a roommate and if we don't find your roommate, we will pay the other half, that double part. We charge people like a couple of hundred dollars for this. If we get enough people, it pays for that self. It's not a money-making thing for us. It's more just to make this happen.

Anyway, we had this couple. We've never had any problems before since, but this one time we had these two guys on and they didn't know each other. They get on the cruise and they're doing okay. After a day or two, one of them, I'm going to make up names, Greg comes up to me and says, “My roommate Kevin has marijuana in his luggage.”

I don't know about cruises, but even if it's legal in the country, which is in, is in Canada, in the state of Alaska, which it is, this was in Alaska cruise, so in both places, legal. On the cruise ship, it's still illegal because the cruise ship is registered somewhere else. If they find marijuana in the room, technically they can kick you and your roommate off even if you say, “I’ve never met this roommate before.” This guy's freaking out.

Now add the level to this that this guy works for the government in a very high security position. He would not only get in trouble, he'd lose his job instantly. We had to move quickly and it was scary as heck, and the ship was full. There were no spaces. We couldn't separate them even if we wanted to pay. It was scary.

What I had to do was go around to some of the other guests. I had a roommate, so I had to find another guest who had a room by himself who would be willing to like this guy come in with him because we couldn't get the other guy to get rid of him. He was a jerk. We had to accommodate Greg in another room. This other guy just blew us all off. He was high the whole time. That’s a lesson on vetting roommates, I guess. It was a scary situation.

It's great that you have people that were able to step in and help.

Yeah. That was again, one of the things where one guy, he overheard us and he said, “I’ve got a room by myself. He can stay with me if you'll compensate me, of course, for the other half of the room that I’ve just lost.” I'm like, “Yeah, of course we will,” so we took care of that. Money doesn't mean anything if you don't have a bed to put him in.

Love & Friendship At Sea: Unexpected Connections & Lasting Bonds

I know. Speaking of which, you've got singles and you're sharing rooms. Are there any love connections?

If you go with love connections being sex, yes. Lots.

Yeah, I'm sure of that.

As far as true relationships, yeah, we've had several. I'm trying to think. Those guys were together for about 3 or 4 years and they're not together anymore. We have one couple. It's so cute. They don't mind me telling the story because I tell it in front of them and they both laugh about. They just think it's hilarious. There was one guy. He was traveling solo and he coming to us with questions and needed stuff. He was needy and he just wanted someone to tell them what to do, when to do and where to do and how to do it. We have another guy who kept almost trying to do my job for me. He's bossy. “We should have done this, Brian, we should have done that, Brian,” and stuff like that.

My business partner, Patrick, who was the co-host at the time, said, “This guy wants to be told what to do. That guy loves to tell everybody what to do. They should meet.” He actually sat them down and said, “I want you guys to have dinner together.” Six years later, they're still traveling together. They're still a couple. They laugh because he goes like, “Yes, he likes to be told what to do. Yes, I like to tell everybody what to do. We're a perfect match.” Nothing romantic about it.

You have people that don't know each other and you're putting them in room together. I'm just curious, yes, they may have sex, but have they turned into relationships, any of them?

I'm thinking of one right now. One of the very first cruises we had. These guys we put together, they are best friends. They're not a couple, but they're best friends. They travel all the time together. Not just on our cruises, but whenever they travel, they like, “Let's go on a trip. I want to go to Peru. Do you want to go with me?” “Yeah, let's do it.” “No, I was thinking Thailand.” “Okay, let's do Thailand instead.”

We have a lot of those in terms of not even just roommates friends, but a lot of friendships where I see on Facebook there's a lot of them connect and then they want to friend me, but a lot of guys, “I'm in Baltimore and look who I saw.” All of a sudden, you see three other guys from the Baltimore that were on the same cruise as this guy and they're all friends hanging out together. It's great.

For some reason, I have a lot of clients in San Francisco and my son and his family live there. I go to San Francisco a lot and we've got one guy there who is like a real champion of our Daddy Cruises. He's got an emailing list and he'll send out the email. My husband's name is Tim. “Brian and Tim are going to be in town on the 13th. We're going to do happy hour at such and such a bar in the Castro. Come on down.” Usually, we have like 20, 25 guys there every time we visit to San Francisco. It's great.

That's really a fabulous way to fill your cruises.

Yeah. Always a couple of people are like, “I didn't know you guys were here. Who are you?” Long story short, they turn into clients because they see the connections that we have.

Is there a wait list for your cruises now?

No. Part of it is I'm doing enough now where I don't have wait lists. If I were only doing a couple year like I was years ago, then yeah, we probably would. I'm keeping enough in the hopper that now the complaint is, “I want to do all these, Brian, and I only have a budget of $10,000. I can't go to Thailand and to Machu Picchu and on a cruise.” We're going to Antarctica in 2026. That's expensive trip.

That's a trip I want to get onto. I'm hoping that, as press, as media to get invited to a trip because that's cool. My buddies wore press on this past year's trips. We'll see where that goes because the community is growing very rapidly. The influence is becoming more significant.

This one I’ll blame on a good friend of mine. I met her many years ago. She and I were working together and we found out that we had a mutual love for travel. She's my agent. She said, “Brian, I’ve always had this goal of 50 states by the time I'm 50, 60 countries by the time I'm 60, 7 continents by the time I'm 70.” Now I’ll ask you, we're going to Antarctica next year. Guess who turns 70? She's actually going with me too. She and her husband will be with us as well. Yeah, just before I turn 70, I’ll hit that seventh continent.

It's funny, my mom did both North and South Pole. She says that she's now bipolar.

I'm going to use that. I’ve got to go to the North Pole now so I can use that

Japan Journeys: Cultural Immersion & Unique Adventures

I want to do that adventure as well. I haven't done those two. I'm missing those. That'll be fun. It should be incredible. Where's your favorite place?

Japan. Ireland is a close second, but Japan.

 Here, we invite people to join us, we don't wait for them to join.

Where in Japan?

When I was a kid, I was raised Mormon. They sent me on my Mormon mission to Japan. I didn't know anything about Japan at the time, but luckily, they “stuck” me in Kyoto for two years. I lived in the cultural heart of the country for two years.

Where is that? I don't know that.

It's in the middle of Japan. It's it was the capital of Japan for 800 years. Other than the picture of Mount Fuji, most of the famous shrines you see pictures of online are in Kyoto.

I love Kyoto. It's beautiful.

It's funny too because as well traveled as you are, I'm like, “He doesn't know Kyoto. That's interesting.”

Honestly, I had never had any great desire to go to Japan, as shocking as you'll find that. In 2024, IGLTA had their convention in Osaka.

Were you there?

Yes.

Is that where we met?

Yeah, I believe so.

Yeah, because I was there as well. I loved it. I did a tour after that. I had twenty people show up for a tour. It was great.

That makes all sorts of sense. I did a pre-trip fam to Hokkaido. That was great. I did a post event in Osaka and then went to Kyoto, went to Nara. I didn't want to leave. It was so much fun. It was great.

Did you see the bowing deer?

I think my ass still hurts. We have to explain this to people that don't know. I’ll let you explain the bowing deer.

There are wild deer that run around this park in Nada is an ancient capital of Japan too before Kyoto. They’re maybe four feet high. They're a little tiny deer. They have been trained to bow their head in front of you. Once they bow then they know that you're going to give them one of these wafers. If you don't give them a wafer, they're aggressive. They'll bug the shit out of you. They'll come after you. The only ones that don't bother are the little ladies who sell the little wafers because they know better that those ladies will probably beat them on the head a couple of times. They're like, “Yeah, you stay away from me.”

Unless you've been, you really can't understand what we're talking about because they're everywhere.

If you youtube it, you could see. There are videos of people and you just see like dozens and dozens of deer running around and hundreds of people around feeding them. They never get enough food. They're all bowing at each other. It's hysterical.

It's the coolest thing. Nara is just so beautiful. You're right, the temples are stunning.

The juxtaposition to the ultramodern high rises and high tech and all that stuff that Japan is also known for.

Yeah, it's great. The thing is that Japan is digital nomad friendly. It's got the technology. It's got a reputation being incredibly expensive but it doesn't have to be.

It's not really expensive. Especially right now, the yen is so beat up. Actually, the whole time we were there, when you were there for Osaka, when we were there for the conference, it was like, “I can't believe how cheap this is. I can't believe how cheap this is.”

The whole thing is that you can spend a couple of months there.

You very much could. Public transportation is really cheap. Food is cheap. As long as you don't expect high grade sushi every day for dinner., it's affordable. You don't have to live on noodles either. You can get decent food.

I'm not a big fan of Japanese food, to be honest with you, but there are things. You can avoid some of the interesting types of seafood.

I'm not that adventurous either. I’ve got to ask you, though, were you introduced to the egg salad sandwiches at 7-11?

Yes, I was.

I'm so glad. It's such a thing.

I was in Hokkaido and one of the guys on the trip went to 7-11 and got a sandwich. It’s a deep orange. The eggs were of a different color. I was like, “No.” He said, “It's a thing.” “Okay, let me try it.” It was really good. I’ve gone back for more.

For people reading, so 7-11 in Japan is way different from in the US. Everything is spotless, clean, hygienic, lovely, wonderful and high quality. The egg salad sandwiches are known around the country and they're like $2. It is not like the $5.99 at the 7-11 here in the States that's been sitting there for three and a half weeks and probably has salmonella in it. They put it on that super white bread. It makes Wonder Bread look like a healthy brand. They trim the crusts off for you.

It's so good.

They're so good.

For those of you reading, you may not know this, but 7-11 is now owned by the Japanese, by Seven & I Holdings.

This one you may not know, Ken. If you ever lived in Ohio, especially 50 years ago in Ohio, Lawson's. Did you see Lawson's there, too?

Yeah. Lawson's 101.

Lawson's is an Ohio brand. They used to be all over Ohio.

I didn't know that.

Now they're gone. That little milk jug that's their logo, my husband was born and raised in Ohio and he got over there, “What the heck?” He was so surprised. Anybody from Ohio getting over there and be like, “I just stepped back 50 years in time.”

I saw 1 or 2 of them showing up in Bangkok and I was like, “What the hell is this? Where's this coming from?”

They’re everywhere. 7-11, Lawson’s and Family Mart. That those three.

Yes. Nice Family Marts too.

All of them are really high quality.

For the Americans that are reading this that have not left the country, certainly get your ass out of here. The US, wonderful country, but not everything. Seeing more of the world, it's so cool to experience that. One of the trips just after the Osaka convention that we're at, we were taken to a winery outside of Osaka. We're going to this little industrial area, and it looked like, “This is hideous. It is awful.” We pulled into this driveway and it's some industrial building. They walk us through the building and behind the building, we're now in a residential neighborhood. It's like all of a sudden, what happened?

We're not in Kansas anymore.

No, it's bizarre. It was like, “What?” It was like we're going from the back lot into something else. The next thing I know, we're looking up a hill, which is the vineyard. The guy that owns the winery, it's been in his family for over 100-plus years. He does not like owning it. He doesn't want it but it's the family. He's in the vineyard. We're tasting the grapes. They were delicious. I'm not much of a drinker at all, but it's insane. It was so cool. All those experiences are miraculous when you travel.

It's just amazing what you can do. I'm going to stay on Japan. You said in Osaka, you went on a trip up to Hokkaido. I did the opposite. I went down to Fukuoka, which is like the Southern town by Nagasaki. We went to this place where they taught us how to make Japanese fireworks. We sit down at this table and there's this Tupperware thing there with maybe like a cup or two cups of black powder. It was gun powder that's sitting right there. I felt like I could blow up any minute now.

We were much tamer. We were in Sapporo making ice cream. I'm like, “We're stirring ice cream.” It was actually pretty cool.

In Italy, we had a pasta making class. I'm not kidding on this one. We were actually on the rooftop of this building, this restaurant, and we were making pasta at sunset. From the rooftop, you could see the Colosseum. I'm like, “This just doesn't get any more authentic and almost cliché than this.”

The Call To Adventure: Why You Need To See the World

We could trade travel stories forever, but we probably have to close this episode. Before we go, Brian has a very special offer for you guys as members of the Pride Nomad community. You just mention Pride Nomad. I won't tell you what it is because Brian could change it, but it's really good. You’ll really like it, but if you want to know what it is, you have to the link. You'll be able to get over to Daddy Cruises, which could then be Daddy Adventures or Daddy something else. You'd never know by the time you with this. You definitely want to travel with Daddy and the tribe. What else do people need to know?

You're looking for my final comment here, right, Ken?

Is there ever a final?

No, not with me, definitely. I’ll just say whether you go with us or go with someone else, go out and see the world. To your comment earlier, Ken, leave the United States. Not that the United States is bad, but there's so much out there. I have a t-shirt. It's my favorite t-shirt. My kids gave it to me a couple of years ago for Christmas. It says, “I have not been everywhere, but it is on my list.” Isn't that great? You create these memories that are just so beautiful for yourself to share with other people. Go see the world any way you can.

I could not agree more. The biggest challenge that I have now is where to go next. Here's the other thing too. I want to make sure I keep hitting this to people's mindset. Going to a place for two days is not going to a place. I was in Nara for a day and I did the deer and I walked around a bunch and then I took the train back because it cost like nothing to go back to Kyoto. That's not really seeing Nara. I saw the deer. It was amazing. I’ll never forget. To go someplace, go and immerse yourself.

When you think of cruises, that's what you're doing. You're just punching tickets. What I see cruises as is you explore the area and decide where you want to go back. We're doing a cruise in 2026, The Baltic. We're going to hit Sweden and Norway and Copenhagen and the Baltic states and Poland and stuff like that. I fully expect that afterwards I'm going to go, “Tim, we’ve got to go back to Sweden and we’ve got to go back to Poland and we’ve got to spend some time there.”

I'm going to suggest the strategy to our tribe and to everyone else new that's reading. That is just as you coordinated your trip with the Osaka Convention to the Baltic, and I’ve always wanted to do the Baltic cruise. I haven't done it yet. Spend a month in, say, Denmark or wherever else or three weeks and then bookend it into a cruise. That way, you're getting the best of.

You can still travel and play and do all the holiday stuff in conjunction with your nomadic experience. That's the way I think makes all sorts of sense because then your whole year can be structured around some of these things. To me, that makes the most sense. Anyway, more to come. A pleasure to have you with this.

Same here, Ken. Thank you so much. I’ve had a blast.

Likewise. Tell your friends and we'll see you on the next episode.

Thanks.

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About Brian Miller

We’ve been offering Daddy Cruises for over ten years. If you’re not the 20-something dude with the ripped body from the gay travel ads, that’s okay—our adventures are built for regular guys who are looking for a vacation that’s fun, welcoming, and easy going. Whether it’s your first journey or you’re a seasoned traveler, you’ll find a laid-back, welcoming vibe with no massive party ships or pressure to fit in—just great company and an experience designed for you. From serene beach escapes to vibrant city adventures, we go beyond the seas to offer unforgettable land-based vacations, too. We don’t take over entire hotels or ships; instead, we book space well in advance to secure lower rates. This allows us to offer affordable pricing and great value. Join our private Facebook group to meet your fellow travelers before departure and enjoy pre-travel events to build friendships before the adventure begins. We accompany you on every trip, organizing excursions, group dinners, and get-togethers to ensure a smooth and enjoyable experience. We welcome people of all ages, all body types, all sexual orientations. Our trips create a safe, friendly space where everyone feels like they belong!