Who We Are

We’re Damon and Jo — two 90s kids who got tired of cheesy travel shows and cookie-cutter travel hosts, so we took off around the world and made our own version: Shut Up and Go. We felt there was an obvious lack of someone different representing the travel industry. No one that was young, multilingual, or diverse; no one like us, or the millions of other people in our generation who want to get out and see the world.

Here’s more about us in less than fifty words.

Damon Dominique

Indiana born-and-bred, and by that I mean, growing up 13 years in a trailer park. I’m big on paving your own path and basically doing you, hence why I’m a vegetarian, a college dropout, and a frequent nomad (Damon spelled backwards — looks like it was meant to be).

Jo Franco

Brazilian immigrant, scrubbin’ toilets swag since the age of 6. I’m a believer in taking risks and just going for it, hence why I left home behind my mom’s back, lived in Paris with no income or savings, and quit my 9–5 job after college to pursue Shut Up and Go.

How it happened

After meeting in a Facebook group before attending college in NYC, we met in the person the first day of Orientation and it was…awkward. Complete small-talk around the bagel table. That soon faded away the more we realized we were both into foreign languages, traveling, and simply exploring and seeing new things — almost to an obsessive level.

We bonded through language classes and cheap buses to nearby cities, but it was during our study abroad experience in Paris that we started filming our cheap adventures around Europe for our friends, family, and pretty much everyone who has ever thought they were too busy or too broke to travel.

We wanted, and still want people to see that, if you truly want to see the world, you will do it. We’ve traveled to more than 20+ countries, lived in six, and have done our fair share of 20-bed hostel dorms, overnight buses, and CouchSurfing.

The point is: we shut up and went. And we want you to, also.