Ever wondered what it's really like living the luxe life on the French Riviera? Forget the postcards; we're diving deep with Jameson Farn, the guy who went from bathhouses to bougie estates – seriously! In this episode, we're catching up with Jameson, the mastermind behind the "Gay French Riviera" guide and a total insider on all things Riviera fabulousness. We're talking sun, sea, and secrets, from Monaco Pride backed by royalty to finding the perfect studio apartment without breaking the bank. Get ready for hilarious stories, insider tips on the LGBTQ+ scene, and a reality check on that "live-to-work" balance. Jameson spills the tea on everything from navigating the real estate market to why you need to experience Queernaval. Buckle up, it's a wild and wonderful ride through the glitzy, glittery world of the French Riviera with a true original!

Contact Jameson:

• ☎️ +33 (0)9 75 18 57 80

• Email

• Instagram

• Substack

Watch the episode here

Listen to the Podcast here

Glitter, Glam, & Gays: Jameson Farn's French Riviera Secrets!

It's great to see you. It's been forever.

It has been forever. You were like, “Do you remember me?” I'm like, “I remember you.”

I haven't even been back in Vancouver for maybe a decade, so I don't know.

I haven't been there in ages either. I've been commuting through there on the way to Korea. I came back from Whistler. I did a ski week at Whistler.

I saw the photo.

There's more. It was a good week. It was fun. It was good to be back.

That's good.

Here we go. Ready? Fasten your seatbelt.

Meet Jameson Farn, the man who went from managing bathhouses to managing luxury estates on the French Riviera, a plot twist you didn't see coming. For over fourteen years, this wordsmith turned real estate mogul has been sharing the inside scoop on European luxury living. Here's what makes him special. He's made it his mission to turn the Riviera’s glittering close line into a playground for the LGBTQ+ community.

From penning Bathhouse Babylon to crafting an ultimate guide to the Gay French Riviera, Jameson proves that sometimes the best stories and the best lives start in the most unexpected places. This is an episode with Jameson Farn, where luxury real estate meets queer storytelling, and every property comes with a side of fabulousness. It is so good to catch up with you. We have a lot to catch up on. Tell me. How did this happen?

From Vancouver To The Riviera: Jameson's Leap Of Faith

When I was still living in Vancouver, I was coming to the Riviera. I try once a year, at least since the ‘90s. By meeting people and stuff, I found I was gaining another life here, so I ripped off the Band-Aid and moved. I did the visa and all that stuff. I set up everything. Still, it's always an ongoing process, but I love it.

What got it going was one night, when I was bored on a rainy night in Vancouver, I noticed online there was nothing about the French Riviera for the LGBT community. This was the time when blogs were still big and everything. I started a blog, and within three months, the tourism offices in the French Riviera contacted me and were like, “Let us know when you're here next time. We'll give you more information.” We formed a partnership. We pass information to this day, and that was in 2011.

That's awesome.

Nice Tourism, Visit Monaco, all the agencies, I've been working with them ever since, not as a job, but we share information. I'll let them know about events that are coming up and vice versa.

It's a smart way to play because they need that. I was at the IGLTA convention in Osaka. They had, I don't know how many, CBBs and tourist boards from all over the world trying to seduce us. Guam was one of the memorable ones. I would never have thought of going to Guam, but guess what? You don't need to twist my arm to come to the French Riviera, but now I've got an extra special reason to see you.

We have lots of sunshine here, too.

I've been and love it. It doesn't take much to get me to France, so I'm there. What's the most fun part about being there for you?

I find that there's something to do every day, no matter what time of year it is. People from around the world are, for business, huge for networking here and huge for entrepreneurship because it's a very international destination. At its height in the summer, that's when you feel it, too. Even in places like Monaco, they've started a gay association. In 2024, they had their third Monaco Pride. Plans are underway for the fourth one. It's all backed up by the royals, too. They love it. They've been in attendance.

We're trying to change the laws there because they are still at the lowest level for basic LGBTQ laws. You can have a common law spouse, in a sense, and you pay into the system, but there's no benefit. The association is trying to change that. For the surrounding French Riviera, it's France, so equality is very good here.

Monaco's LGBTQ+ Revolution: Royals, Pride, And Progress

That’s awesome. Let’s backtrack on Monaco for a minute because I love Monaco. It's beautiful. If the royals are supporting pride, then where do you think that’s going to go, and what kind of timing do you expect based on what you're seeing on the ground?

It used to be an invite-only pride because they weren't sure how to handle it, and it was only the third pride that they've had. In 2024, it was more open to anyone. You see a strong sense of business community there, too. I know directors of huge companies there who are gay, and they fully support it. They sponsor the pride a bit if they can.

The royals are behind it all, too, because Princess Stephanie has a charity called Fight Aids Monaco. She was one of the first people to jump on board. Her daughter was even at the last Pride. It's that kind of thing. It's more of a governmental thing, and also because it's a Catholic-type principality, but they're trying to bypass that. We have people from the economic board on our side, too.

Thinking in terms of gay rights, gay marriage, and that type of thing, what is your suspicion of when you think that's going to shift? I'm supportive of let's all go, but I'm curious.

They wanted to do it cautiously, from what I was told, because they didn't want to spook the horses, so to speak, because it's a grand area with a lot of history behind it. Since they've started to put a stronger push on everything, they think it's going to come around soon. I know they had meetings with the top people who make the decisions in Monaco at the board on why it's important to have. It's like what we've had in North America, when if your spouse was sick in the hospital, you wouldn't be allowed to visit them. If you had a kid at school, if you were their partner, that wouldn't make you their parent. That's what Monaco is dealing with. It's trying to be changed.

Is The Riviera Really Affordable? Life Beyond Paris Prices

That's great. Let me think back to this. Every time I get on a call with anybody, it's like, “I want to move there.” One of the biggest benefits but also one of the biggest challenges is that I want to be everywhere all at once. I can't be wherever that movie star is who was in the movie Everything Everywhere All at Once. We can't do that. Let me ask you this. In terms of the cost of living in the Riviera, how does that work? Is it prohibitive? Is it crazy? Is it better than Paris? Is it worse than New York?

It's better than Paris. I haven't even been back to Canada since 2019, but I've heard that the prices are crazy there for groceries and stuff. Here, it's very good and more nutritious. They're very big on that. We are having a housing crisis here in the French Riviera, too, like other places are. If you're an expat coming in, it's a little bit more difficult. It's also who you know here and who you can reach out to who might know of somebody. They've also clamped down on a lot of the Airbnb stuff, so those are all being implemented. I have seen a lot more long-term properties come into effect.

Nice is considered the cultural LGBT hub of the region. It's where everybody seems to gather. It's considered the cultural hub for the LGBT community. That's where a lot of people mostly move to anyway, because it has a bit of everything. It's central in the region. It's 22 minutes by train to Monaco, another 20 minutes to Italy, that kind of thing. It's got the big beaches and stuff, too.

Studios in Nice are going for about €800 a month and up. One-bedroom apartments are about €1,500. Two-bedrooms, which are hard to get, are €2,000, easily. The cost of living is a lot better than what I remember in Vancouver. You get a life here. One of the reasons I moved here is that you get an excellent work-life balance. If you have all your paperwork in check and everything, it is surprising how much of your own time you get besides work.

You're in France. The live-to-work mentality is very different over there, which I love. That's awesome.

I still come with the North American attitude, but it's been beneficial, too, for work. Since I work in luxury real estate, I'm always on call and I never get a day off, but that's fine because I love what I do and the people I meet. Even the collaborations here for work, everybody loves doing that. It's big on a shared economy here. I pushed that when I first came in, too, because a lot of it was new.

At the French Riviera, there's something to do every day, no matter what time of year it is.

Big agencies have been coming to me saying, “We're French. We aren't sure how to push our stuff.” They're not big on promotion, but they see everybody else is getting the clients. Since I'm from North America, all of my clients are from North America. They want somebody like a liaison advisor. That's what I've been called over and over. They want somebody to help them out with stuff like that. I do that as part of my job. It seems to work, though.

The way you're positioning yourself is smart because people do want an advocate. When I was doing business in Costa Rica, for example, I didn't speak Spanish, which was the dumbest thing ever. When you need someone whom you can trust, you speak French.

My French is still not the best.

After ten years?

I can read it well and write it well. When I'm out shopping or whatever, it'll come to me if I'm out in public if I’dve had wine. Otherwise, I struggle with it sometimes. I'm dreaming about it, so it's coming around. I want to be perfect at it. That's my problem. A lot of people here speak English. From what I understand, if you're in high school, you can't graduate from high school unless you know English, and then you have to pick a third language to learn.

It's smart. Frankly, as a world traveler, I haven't had a problem not being able to speak Vietnamese, Thai, Spanish, or whatever else. I love French. Even when I try speaking French, because I learned some French in high school, they embrace me because I give a crap. I love the language.

That's what it's like here, too, for that, so it's not a problem at all.

What I'm getting at is you're being smart, building yourself as that liaison and that advocate.

I get a lot of people from Texas, California, Arizona, and New York. You name it. I love it. We start talking about Golden Girls or something like that. When they find out I'm Canadian, it takes on a whole different dimension. It's fine.

Making It In Luxury Real Estate As An Expat

Years ago, when I was living in St. Croix, I went up to a yoga retreat in Massachusetts to Kripalu. Everyone was like, “You live in the Virgin Islands.” They have no clue what it's like to live there, although someone was teaching yoga up there from St Croix. I was like, “You get me.” The important thing is we get you. There is an understanding. That's got to be gold for you. Are you selling real estate, or are you doing holidays?

When I started my blog, that's when Facebook was new. It was for fun. I was posting my photos of the French Riviera, and it was built there. I had friends who had villas, and they were like, “Would you want to promote our villa for us and see if we can get some clients? We'll pay you a commission.” I wanted to make sure I had my business stuff set up first. I did that, and it went well. They told their friends, and it was built from there.

I did villa rentals, and I still do villa rentals for the majority for a good number of years, but then I started to have people who had villas wanting to sell them. I went through the whole process of working with that. That's how I got to work with the big agencies, too, and say, “My client wants to sell their villa. Will he get the mandate?” It goes that way, too. That's one example of how it goes. There's always an opening for something.

You've got great energy. You've always had that, “We're going to make it work no matter what. If I've got an obstacle in the way, I’m going to be like white water.” You go around it.

People say that about life here. When it sometimes feels very tough for people, there's always a way to make things work in the Riviera. If you want to be here that strongly, you will make it work. It builds a lot of character. I've made a lot of mistakes and stuff like that. I’ve had tough times. 2024 was the best and the worst year for me, and I'm so grateful for it. It was amazing.

I'm going to ask you about what made it best and what made it worse.

Work-wise, it was amazing. It wasn't as chaotic as when everybody was starting to travel again right after COVID. I was also between housing at the time. With the housing situation, especially in the summer, forget about finding a place for rent. That's what made it hard, so I had to figure stuff out. It all worked out for the best, though. I've got the most amazing place, too. It came so easily. I was almost suspicious about it because of how easily it came about.

When you're an expat, they think you might stop paying your rent and take off or whatever. They want all these guarantees and stuff if you're not French. When you're self-employed, like I am, it also makes it hard. They’re like, “Where's your government job? Where are your contracts?” They want to see years of bank statements and stuff. It's crazy.

Since it's not regulated that strongly, the landlord, if you want it bad enough and with the housing crisis being what it is, can ask for anything. It's about finding the right people and stuff, too. What saved me was the person who saw that I was looking knew who I was through my work. Right away, she was like, “I know who you are. No worries.” We did a normal lease, and I got to move in. It was perfect. I have a big garden and everything.

I want to go back to this whole thing about being out on the Riviera. It sounds to me, if we're going to talk about nomadic strategy for a minute, that summertime is not the kind of time to come. Is it the end of August?

The seasons used to be a lot shorter. It used to be known to come here between May and August, but people are discovering stuff to do year-round. A lot of people don't like the heat in the summer, so people are coming here year-round. Also, I would say fall or early spring is a good time to come. If somebody is looking for a place to live, if they're a nomad and they're looking for a place, join all the Facebook housing groups. That's a big thing. I'm not looking, but it's how things are done here. It seems like a good resource to do.

Also, I know remote working is a big thing. The government has been cracking down on that here, even for influencers. They've put down laws, and they're monitoring people's Instagram and stuff. That’s because there are a lot of people who come here, and they're like, “I’m going to this dinner here.” Everything's an Insta story or whatever. If they're regular people trying to show, “I take this train to go here,” that's perfectly normal, but if it looks like they're smothered in luxury goods and luxury living, that's who they're going to crack down on.

You get a work visa and then start a business entity that shows what you expect to make or whatever. It's pretty straightforward. It's on the government sites. It helps you step by step. All you do is report your earnings. As long as it's under a certain threshold, then you're fine. If you go over that, then you have to pay into the system. It's nothing compared to North America.

That's awesome. It smacks of, “Let's get out of here.” Years ago, I was reading in International Living a story about Panama versus Paris, about which is more affordable and which is a better place to live as an expat. Paris won, which was interesting. I researched Panama because I was figuring out where I was going to go next. There was nothing LGBTQ in Panama. I don't remember it being anti-gay or gay friendly, but if you want to have a relationship and you want to go out to a gay bar, it wasn’t going to happen. That was a big no. Socially, if I'm going to come for a month, how am I going to find gay social life? When I say gay, for my audience, I mean LGBTQ+.

Finding Community: The Rise Of LGBTQ+ Nightlife In Nice

Like other places around the world where a lot of gay business establishments have been closing down because of nobody going out or whatever, we've had three gay bars open up in Nice.

That's very different.

I can't explain enough how the international community that comes here, especially in the summer, is crazy, but it's fantastic. You meet so many people from around the world. What I love about here is that the gay community supports each other mentally, physically, and all that. Also, as businesses, instead of looking at each other as competitors, they look at each other as partners. It’s like, “If you're not doing well, we might not do well either,” so they show up at each other's places. They're all friends with each other.

There's the gossip and everything else, but you don't hear the rumors or anything. When I was in the bathhouse industry, I was warned going in, “Your competitor is going to be tough on you. They're going to try to break you down and try to do you under.” That doesn't happen here, not from what I've seen. I know a lot of people here. I go out a lot. It's a very welcoming community.

If you're entrepreneurial and want to start something here, this is the place to be. They love new ideas. Sometimes, people can be a bit hesitant at first, but if it looks like fun and it's got a lot of life behind it, they're right into it. What I've noticed about the French people, and I was told about this going in, too, is that they're a bit more private. Once you are in, you are in. They're friends for life, and they will back you up big time. It's fantastic.

That's amazing. To hear that level of enthusiasm is exciting. I'm thinking in the back of my head, “When's the next flight?”

We have a winter carnival. It's the second biggest one after the Brazilian carnival. Several years ago, they started Queernaval. It started off with the LGBT Center and the President, Jean Louis, who owns a gay cruising bar. It started off, and there was not much hype about it. It was a free event to go on a night drink. It's a two-week festival for the carnival. I went to the first night, and there were maybe 150 people there. Now, it's thousands. They're celebrating their 10th year this 2025.

When is it?

It's on February 28th, 2025. Everybody of every demographic and every sexuality shows up. It's like a huge party. You watch all the floats go by. It's all dance music, gogo dancers, and everything, but then at the end, everybody is allowed to go onto the street, and the party continues.

Would you hook me up with those guys? I'd love to cover it. We can even get myself over there. I might want to cover it.

I've written articles about it already, so I'll send you what information I know.

Pride Nomad Hub And Global LGBTQ+ Connections

If you know the people who are in charge and you want to connect me, that'd be fabulous. There's something else that we're doing that you'll be included in. We're launching the PrideNomad Hub, which will be the largest business directory. There are going to be over 100,000 listings of LGBTQ+-owned, operated, and friendly allied businesses, services, and so on all over the world. We want everyone in that. We want to work with every other directory as well because there should be one central place where everything is. We want to have all the community groups in there as well. Every Pride event, we want it listed in there. There needs to be a central place for everything.

I can help set that up on this end.

Fabulous.

I know all the owners in everything, all of them. There are gay-owned restaurants here and everything.

We need to have that. Frankly, for me, the more I learned about the world, I thought I knew a bunch. I know this much. There's much more to share. It's almost going to come down to a competition of, “Where should we go first?” That's the biggest fun and the biggest challenge. I miss Sydney. We haven't had much time to catch up. I haven’t been to Australia for the past couple of years, and I desperately miss Sydney. I miss Australia. I love it so much.

A couple of months ago, I was at the Outback at the Broken Heel Festival, where they had the Elton John experience with this guy who looked like Elton and sounded like Elton. People in the audience were like, “Is that not Elton?” It wasn't. The guy was amazing. There was a point to this. I forgot what the heck it was.

How every area is different.

I want to get back there, but I also want to get back to France. You give me an excuse. If we can work a deal with those guys, PrideNomad may come over and cover it. We have a summit coming up, too. Normally, I like our episodes to be evergreen, but since you and I are doing a catch-up, we're doing the world's largest LGBTQ+ online summit for digital nomads.

That's great.

The Riviera is very laid back. People come here to relax.

We'll have over a million eyeballs coming to the site, and then probably anywhere between 20,000-plus to 80-some-odd thousand people attending this thing. There are going to be 75 speakers, all of whom have an influence on both business and travel. It can be amazing. For us to cover some of that and then give people the benefit of this exposure is going to be huge.

We're inviting all of the LGBT groups around the world to give us commercials and give us 30 seconds. We'll put it in the summit. We're then going to have people competing on which one is our favorite commercial. It’s like the Super Bowl commercials. We’re going to have a competition of who's got the best commercial, whether it's Korea, the South of France, or whatever. It'll be fun.

That's fantastic. I love that.

We want to make this fun. This is a mission. It started out, frankly, as a way to find a husband. I swear to God, no kidding. I travel a bunch. I love to travel. I can't imagine being married to someone who's saddled by a business in Cleveland or something. I need somebody who's like, “There's that thing on February 28th in the South of France. Do you want to go?” It's like my mom. My mom's like, “Have you been to Sri Lanka?” I'm like, “Not yet, Mom.” She goes, “Good. When do you want to go?”

That's what I want to marry. I can't marry someone who is not like that. That would be creepy. That's why I created this, but it has become a whole mission for how to break free, how to create independence, and how to say eff you do the establishment who wants to put us down. With what's happening in the United States, one day gets worse after the other.

Even in Europe, we're like, “What the heck?” It is crazy. You see that there's a lot of support on this end. There are a lot of people here who have been reaching out to me because I'm Canadian, even with what was happening in Canada with the tariff thing. Everybody's reaching out to me. Everybody was in big support of LGBT. It’s the guy sitting there.

The problem, though, to me, is that not only is it the guy sitting there, but more than half the country voted for that idiot. You have a Secretary of the Treasury who's gay. It shocks the crap out of me. I want to be inclusionary, but at the same time, emotionally, I'm like, “If you voted for that moron, I don't know how to have a relationship with you.”

That’s where I am, too.

I want to be fair. I want to be accepting. I want to do a Michelle Obama. When they go low, we go higher, but emotionally, I'm like, “If you voted for that, you voted against me.”

You guys are being massively inundated with all this information. It's so hard to keep a straight path. Stay strong.

It's hard. As a publisher, I want to be fair. I don't want to be sensational.

Clickbait stuff.

When Hillary lost, after that, I stopped doing anything with Huffington Post. I used to love Huffington Post, but I realized that it was also slanted, too. You got one side and the other side. It's like, “Tell me the truth.” I want to be fair to everybody. When Tim Cook gave $1 million to the inauguration, that troubled me. I also knew why. It's smart business for Apple, but at some point, you have to say, “Wait.”

His perspective was that the inauguration is a federal thing. To that person, it's the transfer of power that he's supporting. More than half of Apple stockholders probably are on that other side. Stock price and getting along with that jerk are going to hurt you. There's a responsibility to that as well as the right side of this, like Disney down in Orlando. To have you tell me about how welcoming the government is and how supportive things are, it's a breath of fresh air.

Let me tell you that the mayor of Nice, apparently, is very right-wing, but I find him to be more of a man of the community. He's done a lot of positive things for the city of Nice. They've made it easier for everyone who wants to visit there or who lives there. He's supposed to be very right-wing. He backs up the pride here and everything like crazy. He shows up for it. A monarch of the gay community or an icon died. She was quite old. She died a few years ago. He worked with the LGBT Center, and they named a street after her. It’s that kind of thing.

Didn’t you guys have a president or a prime minister who was gay?

Both.

That's freaking great. I was so excited about that.

You see online, it freaks some people, but to me, it's becoming more of the minority. You have to accept life. It is liberty and equality for all that kind of thing here. That's France. I noticed, too, that people like to discuss things a lot. It's a good opportunity to hear all sides of a story and maybe form new decisions on stuff and ideas. They're like that, but I've never seen anything brutal. The Riviera is very laid back anyway, so people come here to relax and stuff. You don't feel that big push./

You're seducing me again.

When I first moved here with my partner at the time, it was our first time living together. We had so many people who wanted to visit. He started an Excel spreadsheet because it was crazy. That was a long time ago.

That’s neat.

You don't want to screw over somebody on a deal here in the French Riviera because it is the land of the sunny place for shady people.

Lots of things have changed.

The only constant thing is change. I remember we lived in the Caribbean. We had that situation, too. Everyone wanted to come down. They would forget that they're on holiday, but we're still working.

I deal with that every summer. I have to warn people like, “I'm working.” They’d be like, “I won't be in the way.” They are drunk coming off the plane or whatever. It used to frustrate me, but I've accepted that they want to have a holiday and they want to enjoy life and stuff. As long as they're respectful of the fact that I have to work or I have a lot of accounting to do, and stuff like that. It always seems to work out. I see that with a lot of my clients, too, for villa rentals and stuff. It's like they get Holiday stamped on their forehead as soon as they get off the plane. That's how you're going to be.

We had rules that were like, “When I come home from the office, don't talk to me for at least an hour, and then I will come out. I need to decompress as you do, so don't mess with me.” They’d be like, “Okay, daddy,” unless I come out that way. I’m like, “Respect that I have to decompress as you do.” It worked out, but it was like, “If you're coming, these are the rules.”

What I'll notice, too, is I'll have people, not so much anymore, who want to hook their star to my wagon type of thing and try to social climb. That kind of thing is so obvious here for us locals. It's crazy obvious. It never works out for them. You've got to watch your reputation here and stuff like that. I don't play any of that kind of game.

How To Survive And Thrive As An Expat Entrepreneur

That’s important stuff. We've got to wrap this up in a second, but when I moved to the Caribbean, it was the same thing. It is a small community. Rumors spread. The rumors that I discovered after about Richard and me, I was like, “I was never having an affair. You morons.” There were all sorts of stuff. People have far too much time on their hands. What I learned is that in a small, insular community like that, you have to learn to be nice. You have to learn to be tolerant. You have to be a statesman because the person you want to say, “Piss off,” will be on the grocery line behind you ten minutes later.

That's what it's like here. You don't want to screw over somebody on a deal here because it is the land of the sunny place for shady people. That, to me, is dying out a bit, too. One of the agency directors that I partner with has been in business for over 40 years. He said, “This can all be gone in an afternoon. It takes one bad rumor,” and it's true.

I was worried about that when I was releasing my bathhouse book. I was like, “Is it going to affect my work negatively?” but it enhanced it. I had so many people come out of the closet, so to speak. There were all kinds of stuff going on. Especially for Monaco, there were business people coming my way. They thought, “He must be open-minded if he's worked in that. That's what I was told. He has seen a lot of this.” It helped me to learn a lot about business strategy and reading the room type of thing. It is good to be an observer and learn from observing a lot.

You make an important point about authenticity. That's huge.

I laid it all out. Nobody can try and use it against me because I've already put it all out there. You can like it or not like it. I feel secure in who I am and what I'm doing. I have a great group of friends here. I know a lot of people, but I have a tight circle of friends, and I love it. I love my life here all the time. I never dread being here. It's not all roses all the time. A lot of people think it is. I look at every bad situation as a new opportunity, a new challenge, and maybe I'm supposed to learn something from it.

Final Advice: Authenticity, Mentorship, And Living Boldly

We always have that. I'm super excited to see what's happened for you and how things have grown. You've got this amazing life. We should aspire to that. Let me ask you this. What's the big lesson you want people to take away from this?

You're given one life. I found I left Vancouver because the ceiling was so low for me, and there were lots I wanted to strive for. I figured, in a sense, I had nothing to lose. Everything falls into place and goes where it does for a reason. Learning from your past history and other history, in general, is a very good thing to avoid repeating mistakes.

It's important to be a mentors for others. I've encountered that. I'm at that age, and that's fine. I'm not going to give away all the secrets because I want people to learn for themselves, but I'm fine with mentoring other people. I know a lot of young people want to venture out. They can always reach out to me. It's fine. I'm happy to help.

That’s wonderful. That's important. There's the give-back and the things that we didn't have when we were younger. The wisdom that we have, which so many of us didn't have when we were younger, we now have at our age. We were called vintage. It was like, “Thanks.” It makes a lot of sense. I want to talk to you about opportunities over there. You found a hole in the south of France, and you filled it. I know people are like, “He's talking about holes. Watch it. Stay G-rated.”

A niche.

There you go. An opportunity. Where do you see business opportunities in your marketplace that have not been taken advantage of?

It's always changing. I'm almost too ambitious. There are always a million projects I'm working on. For real estate, if you're an LGBT individual, they're very open-minded here. They don't care. It's like, “Come on board.” It's about being authentic. I don't want my time wasted, and I don't want to waste anybody else's time, so I'm very upfront with my clients and the agents I work with on what is working and what isn't working. I have some ideas on stuff that I want to change, but I'm holding that close. It's all positive stuff, and I want to introduce more people to it. That's why I love promoting the French Riviera. It's ingrained in me. I'm so passionate about it. That's why I'm open to any questions anyone wants to ask.

Jameson's a good guy. I've known him for a lot of years. We haven't connected in far too long, but that's going to change. We've got to look at how Ken is going to get back there. I don't know how I'm going to make that work, but you have sold me on that. We've got to talk to the tourist board about getting me over there and see what we can do. That'd be cool. We'll promote the crap out of that. We have a summit coming up.

Everybody should still come in the summer.

It's not summer. We have our summit coming up in March 2025. I have 75 speakers and all sorts of things I have to record it all. There's a lot on the plate, which is why being here is okay, but not. Part of the challenge with being a nomad out of your own element is that I had to move from one place to another. There's construction everywhere. This is nuts, whereas when I was back home in Australia, I had rented an apartment. There's always construction on the street, but I can close my windows, or I was in the studio here. Here, everywhere I go, it’s like I'm going to be moved in another minute. It's awful. It's a struggle to do the quality I want to do. I've got to find a place quickly.

It'll come together.

It does. You've got to roll the punches. You've got to laugh a little bit. We're doing this in two different locations. With the show, the most important thing in a video is the sound. You have to be able to hear what we're doing. We got that, other than the wind coming through. You have to be flexible with everything. Their technology will go bad. Someone won't show up for a certain thing that needs to show up. Things will happen.

Especially those of us who are traveling, we need to plan for the worst and expect and hope for the best. It’s like not taking the last flight out if you're going to speak on the next morning. You never do that. If you're going to be having a certain event at a certain place, prep. Don’t walk in thinking it's going to be done because it won't be. It is all those things.

In France, too, I always have to remind some visitors at a 7-Eleven here, where you walk in, get what you want, and go out, that you have to have patience. You end up growing patience and understanding why you need patience, too. If you expect quick service sometimes here, you're going to get the worst of whatever it is.

It's true. I learned that having lived in Costa Rica, the Caribbean, and St. Croix. I’ve been building my house in St. John and all that. You've got to be able to breathe. Certainly, being back here, my tension level has risen dramatically energetically. Being back here is great. You've done a heck of a job. For all of us who watch, I'd love to see you leave comments as to how well you've sold the Riviera. Good job.

On my Gay French Riviera Substack account, I write articles on everything, not just gay stuff, but what's happening with train travel and stuff like that, so that they're up on top of everything. I write articles on whatever interests the area and every subject.

We’d love to show that and put some of that on our YouTube channel and write some of that stuff in the newsletter. Wherever there's content, we'd love to access that because people need it. We have PrideNomad Concierge, which we built, which is our online travel bot. We're happy to post all that inside it. We're scraping the web of everything we can find that's real and nascent. We've got Thailand and a few parts of the world.

You can use my information. It's fine.

We'd love to. Certainly, if there are people who are going to come, who they're going to want to talk to is you. I wouldn't talk to anybody else. Think about it.

I'm good at introducing people to whatever interests is of theirs.

Having that person that you know, like, and trust, it's like, “Who else would I talk to? I don't know anybody in the South of France. You better know I'm going to talk to you.” People made new friends here. It's very important.

I'm happy to help.

I am so glad to catch up with you. I want to thank you. I'm so glad. This is fabulous.

Thank you, too. I'm going to be sharing this everywhere for you. I have a huge followers list on Facebook and everything else, so I'll be sharing it everywhere.

Our number one objective is to build the user base and increase the subscribers.

That's great.

For me, this isn't a hobby. This is it. This is my mission. Wherever I go, there's a PrideNomad shirt on me. I'm 100% branded all the time.

That's so cool, though.

It's funny because the back of it has a QR code on it.

I saw that.

The newer versions have it only on the back. I've been to the airport and I had someone from the TSA say, “Can I scan you?” I'm like, “Sure.” It's cool. It starts conversations. People need to know that, first of all, we're everywhere and that we're not weird. It has been fun. Thank you.

Thanks.

Important Links

• Jameson Farn

• Bathhouse Babylon

• Gay French Riviera Substack

• Experience the French Riviera on Facebook

• PrideNomad Channel on YouTube

• PrideNomad Letter

• PrideNomad Concierge

About Jameson Farn

Jameson Farn is the owner of Experience The French Riviera, a luxury real estate agency in France, and has been writing articles for European and North American online magazines for over 14 years.

Alongside his professional endeavors, he is passionate about the LGBTQ+ community, with a special focus on Gay French Riviera, offering invaluable insights for residents and visitors exploring this breathtaking region. Jameson is also the author of Bathhouse Babylon, a compelling book inspired by his diary chronicling his past time managing bathhouses.