Daniel Goz (Nonstop Dan)

Daniel Goz is a popular YouTuber and flight reviewer.

He has more than 600 thousand subscribers on his YouTube channel by the name Nonstop Dan.

Introduction-

Daniel Goz was born on 13 May 1997 into a middle-class family in Westminster, London.

His father, Bradford Goz is an American and is the Director of Fossil Free Indexes LLC, New York, United States.

His mother is Swedish.

Daniel has a brother, Jacob Goz.

Love for airplanes & travel-

As a kid, Daniel used to live near the approach path in Heathrow in England and his father used to frequently take him to watch the take-off and landing of planes.

Soon, he developed a passion for watching planes and also developed a passion for trains and cars.

As a kid, airplanes were his favourite toy and whenever he had the opportunity, he loved being glued to the airport and airplane windows.

Daniel used to look up at the sky and imagine many planes zipping in the sky.

At a young age, even though he was very much into planes, he never wanted to grow up to make a career in aviation, instead, as he grew up in the countryside and loved cows, he wanted to grow up to become a farmer and open an animal sanctuary.

At 12, his mother gifted him Microsoft Flight Simulator for his birthday, and he fell in love with it and decided to grow up to become an owner of an airline and spend all his day looking at planes instead of becoming a farmer.

As a kid, Daniel had a strong desire to get out of his hometown and travel the world.

An interesting fact- Max Weldon (CitationMax), a popular YouTuber and pilot, also grew up near the Heathrow arrival path.

Education-

At 4, his parents enrolled him into an English private school but he loathed it.

So, they moved to Forest Row, a village in the countryside of England and here, Daniel was enrolled into Michael Hall Steiner Waldorf School.

Here, he enjoyed an alternative way of learning which included playing in nature, visiting farms, drawing, singing and other down to earth activities and was at a distance with technology.

Unfortunately, Daniel’s father lost his job in 2005 and moved to New York in the search of stable employment and this move affected his parents’ marriage who got divorced when he was 9.

As his mother was unable to afford living in England, she along with her children moved to her hometown near Gothenburg, Sweden.

Here, Daniel attended Waldorf school for three years.

Then, from 2009 to 2013, he studied from Torpskolan.

And from 2013 to 2016, Daniel studied for an International Baccalaureate Diploma from the Hvitfeldtska High School in Gothenburg, Sweden.

Flying regularly & finding respite in MSFS-

In April 2009, for the first time, Daniel and his brother flew to New York to visit their father.

From then on, his father used to fly them to New York three to four times a year.

During that time, Daniel transitioned from elementary school to middle school and found his school life to be difficult as he wasn’t able to relate to anyone around him.

So, he started playing Microsoft Flight Simulator (MSFS) after returning home as a respite and also found it to be an outlet for his passion for aviation.

In 2013, Daniel was accepted into Hvitfeldtska High School and here, he was happy to find like-minded individuals passionate towards aviation.

Even though he loved his high school, he started feeling that he was stuck while studying in high school which prevented him from living his life to the fullest and he grew depressed.

All of this changed in his junior year when Daniel started loving his classmate, Oskar Ehrnberg.

Globe-trotting-

After graduating from high school, Daniel travelled to many countries namely, Denmark, Norway, United Kingdom, Germany, Czechia, Austria, Hungary, Slovakia, Croatia, Italy, France, Spain, United States, China, Hong Kong, Peru, South Africa, Thailand, Egypt, Oman, Canada, Australia, Singapore, United Arab Emirates and Qatar.

He loved trekking in Peru.

He loves flying and exploring exotic countries and cultures.

Career-

From August 2013 to June 2015, Daniel worked as a Website Producer and Social Media Manager at Godisaffären in Gothenburg, Sweden.

From July 2016 to February 2018, he worked as a guest writer for One Mile At A Time website and wrote over a hundred blog posts.

Later, Daniel became a full-time content creator and started working full-time on his YouTube channel and other social media channels.

The story behind Nonstop Dan-

On 12 December 2009, at the age of 12, Daniel started his YouTube channel by the name Dantorp11 and later renamed it to Dantorp Aviation.

Later, in October 2018, he renamed his channel to Nonstop Dan.

Initially, Daniel started publishing the videos of the Flight Simulator onto his channel and loved working on his YouTube channel as this helped him to get through his middle school.

Later, he started publishing videos of the real planes.

Even though Daniel started his YouTube channel without any intention of earning money from it, in 2014, at the age of 17, his channel got approved for Google AdSense.

And he received his first check of $300 from YouTube.

This check was a life-changing one for him as during that time his family was going through a rough time financially and his parents decided he would pay for everything except food but at that time, he had only a couple of cents left in his bank account.

This check inspired Daniel to work hard on his YouTube channel and take it to the next level.

In 2015, he became the first YouTuber to collaborate with an airline, Finnair, as it upgraded to the brand new Airbus A350.

His first self-funded trip-

Daniel spent his first cheque of $300 from YouTube for his first self-funded trip.

At 17, he went on a plane spotting trip to Copenhagen.

As Daniel fell in love with flying, he became an avid reader of aviation blogs.

In 2017, he took over a hundred flights in business or first-class to all six inhabited continents on an income lower than that of the United States average.

This was made possible as Daniel learnt to find the best flight deals and maximize credit card bonuses.

Dropping out of college to become a full-time YouTuber-

In 2017, Daniel joined Minerva University in San Francisco, California to study for a Bachelor’s degree in Liberal Arts and Sciences, General Studies and Humanities.

At 22, he dropped out of college to become a full-time YouTuber and traveller.

After reading a few books, Daniel realised that he was living in his comfort zone which prevented him from living his life to the fullest and this inspired him to drop out of college.

Becoming a flight reviewer in true sense-

After working with a lot of airlines around Europe for 16 months, Daniel was feeling unfulfilled and realised that he can’t call himself a flight reviewer if he accepts flights for free.

So, he stopped accepting free flights from airlines and started buying the flight tickets with his own money or miles.

Then, Daniel started sharing the honest experiences about flights through his videos.

A successful YouTuber-

As of February 2023, Daniel has 679K subscribers on his Nonstop Dan YouTube channel.

He earns from a variety of sources like advertisements on his YouTube videos, affiliate marketing, selling merchandise and receiving sponsorships.

As of February 2023, Daniel has 109K followers on Instagram.

He also has three other YouTube channels namely, Nonstop Planes, Shorts by Nonstop Dan and Oskar and Dan.

Daniel also has a website.

Personal life-

Since 17, Daniel has been in a relationship with Oskar Ehrnberg.

Oskar is a pianist, composer and songwriter and is Swedish and much like Daniel, he too dropped out of college to travel the world.

Both of them have been travelling to many countries.

Daniel’s favourite food is salad.

His favourite countries are Thailand and Mexico and he along with Oskar want to travel to every country in the world.

So, how are you inspired by the success story of Daniel Goz?

Share with me in the comment section below.

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