Our Guide to LGBT Gay Travel Resources will reveal useful sites, apps, links, and more to help you better organize your vacations.
About Our Guide to LGBT Gay Travel Resources
The essential gay trip, the gaycation, starts like any other planned holiday. Where do we go? What do we do? What shall we see? Travel inspiration comes from a million different places;
- often from referrals by our friends and loved ones.
- Instagram—is the number one source of how the Z-generation chooses where to travel.
That way, gender and sexuality minorities’ travel has transformed dramatically over the past years. So, thankfully, we have more and more tools and resources to make LGBT travel more cozy.
Where to Find LGBT Travel Inspiration & Things to Do
One of the best ways to discover any gay or lesbian things to do in a new city is to go where the gays and lesbians gather—and look for their local media. Look for the brochures, flyers, and advertisements on the corkboard in the LGBT+ center, or pick up that gay map (plastered in ads) and support those local businesses. These community-led media make the life of the LGBT traveler easier because they’re just about everywhere.
Local LGBT+ Magazines
Anyone who’s ever been inside a gay bar is likely familiar with the stack of magazines, brochures, or flyers you’ll find in the doorway or by the toilets. In most cities, you’ll see one of the longest-running media outlets for LGBT+ individuals—the local magazine. Despite all odds, many of the LGBT+ print magazines worldwide printed and produced locally exist.
Unfortunately, most of these indie magazines have poor websites, so your best LGBT travel research will have to happen on the ground by picking up the latest edition when you’re in town.
And that’s why we in our Gay Travel Resources Guide give you some examples:
- Siegessäule, Berlin’s free gay magazine,
- Attitude (magazine), in the UK
LGBT Travel Blogs & Vlogs
Like all parts of this new travel media industry, independent bloggers and YouTube vloggers have been at the forefront of discovery. Increasingly, we trust our travel decisions (where to go, what to do) with not just our friend’s Instagrams but those influencers who’ve already been there and done that. The most popular LGBT travel bloggers typically publish destination guides. So, it’s a matter of finding the one that suits your travel style.
More and more YouTubers also make travel videos to report about their travels through recommendations. The most exciting and successful blogs or vlogs also share their tips.
LGBT News Sites
There are quite a few dedicated LGBTQ travel websites that publish detailed and up-to-date guides. Our favorites are:
- Out Traveler – issues contemporary LGBTQ city guides on its website.
- PASSPORT Magazine – provides a resource to teach, inspire, and encourage LGBTQ travelers and their friends.
- Vacationer is where you’ll find valuable advice and inspiration for your next gaycation.
- AfterEllen – frequently publishes lesbian travel guides.
- TravelGay – Provide complete city guides for destinations around the world.
LGBT Hookup Apps & Their Blogs
Even the most prominent gay apps have started to push out content through their channels. Grindr launched a digital magazine with a travel section. The other hookup apps, including the more niche ones like Surge, Blued, or Planet Romeo, maintains regularly published blogs, periodically featuring travel tips and local insider guides. Scruff has gone the furthest in incorporating travel tips into their app with their feature Scruff Venture which allows users to search a destination for other visitors, local ambassadors, and events.
IGLTA “Plan Your Trip”
The International Gay and Lesbian Travel Association is the leader in LGBTQ tourism. Its members include hundreds of airlines, hotels, destination tourism offices, and independent tour operators, both LGBTQ-owned and mainstream.
On its website, you’ll find a proper “Plan Your Trip” feature that searches through its members. It’s a great place to find LGBTQ-specific things to do on your trip.
LGBTQ-friendly Accommodation
Often, the most challenging part of gay travel is finding an LGBTQ-friendly hotel or accommodation. However, all this is slowly changing. Namely, some of the biggest hotel chains and brands have actively backed the LGBTQ community by participating in Pride events worldwide, training all their staff in diversity and inclusiveness issues, and running LGBTQ-inclusive campaigns.
There are gay-specific accommodation websites such as Rainbow World Hotels, Purple Roofs, and MisterBnB. Still, you’ll almost always find duplicate listings on mainstream sites for far lower prices. However, in most cases, the mainstream locations and listings are increasingly safe and comfortable for LGBTQ travelers.
How to Meet Other LGBT Travelers
Meeting strangers is one of the most exciting parts of traveling. And when you’re looking for LGBT things to do abroad, there’s no better way to find an LGBT local to show you around. Gay travelers today are 100% luckier to have apps like Grindr in their pockets.
Grindr
Firstly, we’d like to present you in our Gay Travel Resources Guide with perhaps an unusual option. However, we’re not going to stress the safety issue. Grindr has changed how we find sex, love, or even friends. Still, it also enabled a lot more connections. And yes, it would help to be cautious of who you might meet through an app. Still, it’s simply a matter of knowing and trusting your instincts.
Other Apps
There are other gay apps, including Scruff, Planet Romeo, Jackd, and Tinder. Smaller ones, such as Recon or Feeld, accommodate more specific sexual interests. For lesbian and bisexual women, She is the leading app of choice. Meeting like-minded travelers, especially those who share your sexuality, will undoubtedly make a gay trip more enjoyable, much more unforgettable, and, more importantly, even easier to find those LGBT-friendly hotspots.
Networking Groups
Couchsurfing
For a long time, Couchsurfing has been one of the finest sites to meet other LGBT travelers and locals. With a strong community, the bed-sharing and hosting network made it easy to connect with other travelers, and the queer Couchsurfers were one of the site’s most active and welcoming.
Meetup.com
On Meetup.com, most significant destinations have LGBTQ/queer-themed groups and meetups. These are often a great and safe way to meet other LGBTQ travelers in nonsexual encounters. Sometimes, you’ll find them for specific interests, whether a group of gay science fiction fans in Berlin or LGBTQ professional networking in London.
With its thousands of public groups, Facebook can also provide an excellent meeting point online and offline through local city or regional networking groups. It’s just a matter of researching beforehand to find the right network for your trip. Once you know the names of some LGBT areas in the city you’re traveling to, check out the scheduled Facebook events for parties, meetups, or other gatherings.
Safety & Security when Traveling
Safety and comfort are essential to any gaycation, especially for the more marginalized sexualities and genders in the LGBT spectrum. It’s a matter of trusting your friends’ advice, who may have traveled wherever you’re headed previously, and putting a fair amount of trust in your government. Thankfully, there are more than enough resources online to help you decide what or where might be safer to travel. For a more independent look at the LGBTQ rights and safety situation, see Equaldex.
Government Travel Advisories
Many Governments have particular pages dedicated to travel resources when traveling abroad. Furthermore, these pages provide comprehensive information for LGBT travelers in almost every country worldwide. So, if you’re a traveler from a country that doesn’t already support LGBT individuals, check the below-listed government advisories recommended for LGBT issues.
Equaldex
For a more independent look at the LGBT rights and safety situation, this is our favorite place to check. This platform allows users to post and share country-specific news articles about LGBT rights issues. It can benefit those less-familiar places to get a general comparative rating for the inclusiveness of just about anywhere worldwide.
HRC Corporate Equality Index
The Human Rights Campaign publishes the annual Corporate Equality Index, rating over 500 businesses on their corporate policies and practices relevant to LGBT employees. Many brands and companies featured in the index are in the travel/tourism sector, so it can be valuable to see which travel brands are the most LGBT-inclusive.
Final words of our Gay Travel Resources
Over the years, and thanks to new technologies and new formats for our media, the traveling experience has changed for the better. And for LGBT+ travelers, these advancements have made it more accessible, more secure, and friendlier.
The best trips are spontaneous ones that pull recommendations from available resources. Roaming around a dark, deserted lane at 2 a.m. in a foreign country suddenly seems effortless because we’ve got maps, apps, and friendly locals to help guide us now. Ultimately, it’s when we let our guard down, trust our instincts and let the locals be our guide; that’s when you discover that fabulous queer party with the half-naked boys on the tabletops.
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