Out Traveler 029 Fall Travel 2022

FALL 2022

FALL 2022

21 CRUISES YOU SHOULD TAKE IN 2023 21 CRUISES YOU SHOULD TAKE IN 2023 • BRAUNWYN WINDHAM-BURKE IS OUT • RV LIFE VIA SHARE + SHOULD YOU HAVE A SEXCATION?

SPAIN GREECE THAILAND MEXICO NORWAY THE CARIBBEAN

DO YOU NEED A SEXCATION? EXPLORING CHICAGO’S GAYBORHOODS

FALL 2022 $6.99 USA /CAN UK

BUH-BYE, REAL HOUSEWiVES

No 29

HOW WANDERLUST HELPED BRAUNWYN WINDHAM-BURKE COME INTO HER OWN

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7/27/22 3:03 PM

IMPORTANT FACTS FOR BIKTARVY®

This is only a brief summary of important information about BIKTARVY and does not replace talking to your healthcare provider about your condition and your treatment.

(bik-TAR-vee)

MOST IMPORTANT INFORMATION ABOUT BIKTARVY

POSSIBLE SIDE EFFECTS OF BIKTARVY

BIKTARVY may cause serious side effects, including:

BIKTARVY may cause serious side effects, including: Those in the “Most Important Information About BIKTARVY” section.

Changes in your immune system. Your immune system may get stronger and begin to fight infections that may have been hidden in your body. Tell your healthcare provider if you have any new symptoms after you start taking BIKTARVY. Kidney problems, including kidney failure. Your healthcare provider should do blood and urine tests to check your kidneys. If you develop new or worse kidney problems, they may tell you to stop taking BIKTARVY. Too much lactic acid in your blood (lactic acidosis), which is a serious but rare medical emergency that can lead to death. Tell your healthcare provider right away if you get these symptoms: weakness or being more tired than usual, unusual muscle pain, being short of breath or fast breathing, stomach pain with nausea and vomiting, cold or blue hands and feet, feel dizzy or lightheaded, or a fast or abnormal heartbeat.

Severe liver problems, which in rare cases can lead to death. Tell your healthcare provider right away if you get these symptoms: skin or the white part of your eyes turns yellow, dark “tea-colored” urine, light-colored stools, loss of appetite for several days or longer, nausea, or stomach-area pain.

The most common side effects of BIKTARVY in clinical studies were diarrhea (6%), nausea (6%), and headache (5%).

Worsening of hepatitis B (HBV) infection. Your healthcare provider will test you for HBV. If you have both HIV-1 and HBV, your HBV may suddenly get worse if you stop taking BIKTARVY. Do not stop taking BIKTARVY without first talking to your healthcare provider, as they will need to check your health regularly for several months, and may give you HBV medicine.

ABOUT BIKTARVY BIKTARVY is a complete, 1-pill, once-a-day prescription medicine used to treat HIV-1 in adults and children who weigh at least 55 pounds. It can either be used in people who have never taken HIV-1 medicines before, or people who are replacing their current HIV-1 medicines and whose healthcare provider determines they meet certain requirements.

BIKTARVY does not cure HIV-1 or AIDS. HIV-1 is the virus that causes AIDS. Do NOT take BIKTARVY if you also take a medicine that contains: dofetilide rifampin any other medicines to treat HIV-1

BEFORE TAKING BIKTARVY Tell your healthcare provider if you: Have or have had any kidney or liver problems, including hepatitis infection.

Have any other health problems.

Are pregnant or plan to become pregnant. It is not known if BIKTARVY can harm your unborn baby.

Tell your healthcare provider if you become pregnant while taking BIKTARVY. Are breastfeeding (nursing) or plan to breastfeed.

Do not breastfeed. HIV-1 can be passed to the baby in breast milk.

Tell your healthcare provider about all the medicines you take: Keep a list that includes all prescription and over-thecounter medicines, antacids, laxatives, vitamins, and herbal supplements, and show it to your healthcare provider and pharmacist.

BIKTARVY and other medicines may affect each other.

Ask your healthcare provider and pharmacist about medicines that interact with BIKTARVY, and ask if it is safe to take BIKTARVY with all your other medicines.

These are not all the possible side effects of BIKTARVY. Tell your healthcare provider right away if you have any new symptoms while taking BIKTARVY. You are encouraged to report negative side effects of prescription drugs to the FDA. Visit www.FDA.gov/medwatch or call 1-800-FDA-1088.

Your healthcare provider will need to do tests to monitor your health before and during treatment with BIKTARVY.

HOW TO TAKE BIKTARVY Take BIKTARVY 1 time each day with or without food.

GET MORE INFORMATION This is only a brief summary of important information about BIKTARVY. Talk to your healthcare provider or pharmacist to learn more.

Go to BIKTARVY.com or call 1-800-GILEAD-5 If you need help paying for your medicine, visit BIKTARVY.com for program information.

BIKTARVY, the BIKTARVY Logo, GILEAD, the GILEAD Logo, GSI, and KEEP ASPIRING are trademarks of Gilead Sciences, Inc., or its related companies. Version date: February 2021 © 2022 Gilead Sciences, Inc. All rights reserved. US-BVYC-0008 01/22

US_BVYC_0008_BIKTARVY_A_7-875X10-875_Advocate-Dimitri_r1v1jl.indd All Pages 19203 US_BVYC_0008_BIKTARVY_Advocate-Dimitri_r1v1jl.indd 2

2/15/22 12:08 AM

).

.

#1 PRESCRIBED

HIV TREATMENT * *Source: IQVIA NPA Weekly, 04/19/2019 through 05/28/2021.

DIMITRI LIVING WITH HIV SINCE 2018 REAL BIKTARVY PATIENT

KEEP ASPIRING.

Because HIV doesn’t change who you are.

BIKTARVY® is a complete, 1-pill, once-a-day prescription medicine used to treat HIV-1 in certain adults. BIKTARVY does not cure HIV-1 or AIDS.

Ask your healthcare provider if BIKTARVY is right for you.

ONE SMALL PILL, ONCE A DAY Pill shown not actual size (15 mm x 8 mm) | Featured patient compensated by Gilead.

Please see Important Facts about BIKTARVY, including important warnings, on the previous page and visit BIKTARVY.com.

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Scan to see Dimitri’s story.

1/24/22 3:55 PM 2/15/22 12:08 AM

MASTHEAD MARK BERRYHILL MICHAEL KELLEY JOE LOVEJOY MICHEL PELLETIER DIANE ANDERSON-MINSHALL

STUART BROCKINGTON

NEAL BROVERMAN JACOB ANDERSON-MINSHALL

MARK ISOM EDITORIAL DONALD PADGETT TRUDY RING OUT TRAVELERS

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FALL 2022

I WANT TO GO TO BORA BORA. I WANT TO STAY IN ONE OF THOSE HUTS WHERE I DON’T WANT TO LEAVE THE ROOM, BECAUSE THE PERSON I’M WITH IS JUST SO MAGICAL…I’VE TRAVELED A LOT, BUT I’VE NEVER TRAVELED IN LOVE.

BRAUNWYN WiNDHAM-BURKE No 29

ON COMING OUT, PARENTHOOD, AND TRAVELING AS A LESBIAN

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CONTENTS

ON THE COVER

36 HOUSEWIFE NO MORE

Braunwyn Windham-Burke came out, left Real Housewives of Orange County, and got sober. She tells us travel is essential to living her best life. And she can’t wait to visit the world with a woman she loves.

ON COVER AND ABOVE Braunwyn Windham-Burke @braunwynwindhamburke Photographed by Jen Rosentein @jenrosenstein Photo assistant Mike Nelson @mknlsn Digitech Aly Whitman @alywhitman Stylist Nolan Meader @styledbynolan Stylist on set Vanessa Craig @vanessacraiglist Hairstylist Chris Dylan @chrisdylan Make Up Jenna Nicole @jennaniceofficial

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The Aiguille du Midi footbridge in the French Alps

ROAD MAP

26 ROAD WARRIOR? Not sure if life on the highway is for you? Share an RV first.

28 GAY GUIDANCE This queer femaleowned company is a camper’s best friend.

FEATURES CRUISING IS BACK! 44 CRUISE CONTROL The boats and

boys/bois are back. LGBTQ+ travelers are leading the return to the seas.

46 DESTINATION UNKNOWN Queer cruises helped us gain LGBTQ+ rights.

But where are we headed now?

48 SAPPHIC SEAS Olivia celebrates 50 years of building community for queer women.

50 EMPTY (CROWS) NEST The

company that created the LGBTQ+ family cruise considers life after kids.

52 CRUISIN’ TOGETHER Queer

cruise companies keep us connected.

54 THE FUTURE IS FEMALE

Celebrity is led by women and it shows.

56 GREEK GODS A cruise to Aegean Isles (Mykonos) is a perfect family trip.

58 SCARLET FEVER Virgin Voyages’

new cruise treats you like a rock star.

61 HEALING WATERS Ready to bypass buffets and booze? Try a healthy culinary or wellness cruise instead.

62 CRUISING RESURGENCE Looking

for sex in all the right (public) places.

ALENA PAULUS/GETTY IMAGES

64 JUST THE TIPS How to have a great sexcation.

64 THERE’S AN APP FOR THAT How

a map-based app can help you hook up or find community overseas.

COMING ATTRACTIONS

DESTINATIONS

knows how to do Halloween right.

first LGBTQ-certified resort.

10 FREEDOM RIDERS These group rides are taking the binary out of biking.

32 NORTH CALI STAR From avant garde art to BBQ and blues, the city of Oakland is full of surprises.

10 CREEPY CALI Southern California

11 FESTIVE FALL Check out some of the best P-town events of the season.

34 CITY VIEWS These hotels offer

AROUND THE GLOBE

culinary delights and zen luxury amidst the hustle and bustle.

is catching up on queer rights.

CAPTURE

12 EARTH PERKS How one L.A. hotel

iconic art deco lifeguard towers.

12 ISLAND EQUALITY The Caribbean

is combating climate change.

13 PLANE PEEVES What annoys

travelers most when flying?

13 AIR ALLY A new TSA PreCheck option eases travel for trans folks.

66 COLOR GUARD Miami Beach’s 72 SISSIES ROCK The queer metal band shaking up San Fran gives us a tour.

NOURISH

74 DESERT HIGH Arizona’s wide open

OUT GEAR

spaces and welcoming vibes provide a breath of fresh air.

to bags to blush brushes, we got you, boo.

SPIRITS

14 ARMED FOR AUTUMN From boots

CARRY ON

16 WEDGES GONE WILD Balmain’s sassy new kicks make a statement.

OUT FITTED

18 FUTURE TODAY An exciting

76 LAMBDA LOVE These Black queerowned nightclubs have a unique spirit.

78 GIRL GOALS Portland opens the first women’s sports bar.

78 POP POWER Singer Fletcher steps up to save space for queer women.

surreal collection brings digital worlds into real life.

WANDERLUST

DAY TRIPPING

Cruising finds new life with a map app.

22 RAZZLE DAZZLE Exploring

Chicago’s gayborhoods and more.

VENTURE OUT

24 ROCK STAR Find queers and

confidence through climbing.

OUT TRAVELER

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30 QUEERING CABO Cabo San Lucas’s

79 PARKS OF THE PAST PRESENT

DEPARTURES

80 NATURAL NEW YORK Beyond the concrete jungle, the beauty of Taughannock Falls rises as the leaves change color.

5

7/26/22 2:54 PM

We are equalpride: the LEADING LGBTQ+ owned & operated media, digital, TV, and entertainment company in the country.

Your favorite LGBTQ+ brands are NOW back under LGBTQ+ ownership:

SUPPORT our mission of equality & diversity: Visit Daily. Subscribe. Follow!

Stay Informed, stay inspired, stay equal:

equalpride.com

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BY DIANE ANDERSON-MINSHALL (ALL)

I

haven’t been lesbian-identified since 2005. Yet most of the eight Olivia cruises I’ve been on embarked after I transitioned.

Being one of the handful of men on a queer women’s cruise has never been uncomfortable for me.

Instead, each cruise renewed my belief in the life-changing impact of queer cruises. I haven’t been on a gay men’s cruise, so I can’t compare, but I’m sure there are some elements there that are equally empowering.

Still it’s a man’s world.

The world most of us live in is one built for men. White cisgender heterosexual men, to be sure, but men. Most Americans will never experience what it’s like to be in a woman’s world; to be in an environment where women outnumber men by 100 to 1, let alone one where the majority of those women are LGBTQ+, as on an Olivia cruise. It is eye opening. As a feminist, even a trans male one, it has been invigorating and empowering.

Anyone who leaves a cruise has to rediscover their land legs, but for queer travelers disembarking from an LGBTQ+ cruise, the culture shock can be depressing, like waking from a great dream. Oh right, this is the “real” world.

It’s not surprising that so many queer travelers will do what it takes to go on another cruise. After one visit you can’t wait to get back to Neverland. This is what gives queer cruises a special place in many travelers’ hearts.

That isn’t to say that LGBTQ+ travelers don’t also go on, and absolutely love,

mainstream cruises too. Cruises offer great vacations, a mobile resor t t hat ca r r ies you out to sea a nd far off beaches. (And right now one of the cheap es t vac at ion s available, with some lines offering 5-day itineraries with rooms as little as $25/night, according to t he Washington Post).

For many of us it w a s he a r t bre a k i ng to see t he cr uise indust r y decimated by the pandemic, and we’re thrilled to see it steaming back now.

In this special issue we examine the role queer cr uises have played in the LGBTQ+ rights movement (page 46), celebrate LGTBQ+ compa n ies, sha re cr uise advent ures from our Out Travelers, a nd e ven con s ider that other kind of gay cruising and its connection to travel (page 62).

Paul J. Heney takes us along for a family cruise to Mykonos, and we get tours of Virgin Voyages’ new ship, Scarlet Lady, and Celebrity Cruises’ Edge (did you know queer travel companies VACAYA and Atlantis Events both have chartered Celebrity ships for their cruises?).

This issue’s cover star, Braunwyn W i nd h a m -B u rke, t he f i r s t Re a l Housewife to come out while on the show, talks to us about how travel is one of the most thrilling aspects of her new life as an out lesbian (page 36).

Also in this issue you’ll find guides to visiting Oakland, going RVing, climbing the walls, day tripping in Chicago, being pampered in Scottsdale, viewing Miami’s lifeguard towers, staying in luxury, and frequenting new LGBTQowned drinking establishments.

Earlier this year I enjoyed my first cruise since the pandemic star ted (on the aforementioned Scarlet Lady), and I’m already looking for ward to my next outing. I’m planning to party with thousands of women celebrating Olivia’s 50th anniversary and expecting it to be as memorable and empowering as my last one.

Jacob Anderson-Minshall #ImTransAndITravel

On Virgin Voyages’ Scarlet Lady in 2022 LEFT The author on an Olivia cruise in 2008

Another Olivia cruise in 2013

Hope to see you on the high seas,

Jacob Anderson-Minshall Editor in Chief @outtraveler OUT TRAVELER

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EDITOR’S LETTER

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OWNERS STATEMENT

(FROM LEFT) Michael Kelley, President of Global Growth and Development, Diane Anderson-Minshall, Global Chief Content and Mark Berryhill, Chief Executive equalpride x Google party in Los Angeles.

DEAR OUT TRAVELERS,

Thank you for your support and contribution, Mark Berryhill, Michael Kelley, and the equalpride family OUT TRAVELER

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BILLIE BLACK

We’re writing today with some wonderful news for our LGBTQ+ community as well as women and people of color. We are pleased to tell you that Out Traveler and all of its assets have been acquired and are now operated by an LGBTQ+ certified company, equalpride! Along with Out, Advocate, and Plus magazines, related websites and social handles, and Pride.com, Out Traveler is now part of equalpride, the leading LGBTQ+ voice reaching more than 90 percent of the queer media audience every month across digital, social, TV, print, experiential and soon, a streaming TV channel!

We are Mark Berryhill and Michael Kelley, and we are honored to be among the LGBTQ+ principal owners and operators of equalpride.

Additionally, Mark serves as chief executive officer and board member and Michael serves as board chair and president of global growth and development. We’re thrilled Diane Anderson-Minshall continues with us as global chief content officer and president, to lead our editorial teams and help grow these brands with amazing LGBTQ+ reporting and storytelling. equalpride is more than just our name: it’s our mission for everyone to know and feel pride, equally. We are listening to you — our community — and no doubt you’ll see a wonderful evolution of this media voice for issues, lifestyle, better living, and equality content for our LGBTQ+ community.

To help support our LGBTQ+ voice, we ask you to continue to provide feedback on how our voice can be even more relevant to your lives. We ask you to follow all our equalpride brands on social including Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter (and soon Snapchat and TikTok!), and visit our sites daily for information, inspiration, motivation, and aspiration through trending topics that impact our community. And, we ask you to support our diverse voice by subscribing to our print magazines, then donate the read copies to reach more of our community at LGBTQ+ centers, affirming churches, accepting school groups, libraries, and more. For further information, please visit equalpride.com In our current political climate, our voices must all unite to continue the fight for equality and inclusion in our country, in every state. LGBTQ+ media is critical to this battle. We hope you’ll help us spread the word.

Exciting changes are coming, and we’ll keep you informed and proud.

Take pride in this new chapter; take equalpride.

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EQUALPRIDE BEHIND THE SCENES (Top right) executive producer Jennifer Rehmert, CFO Joe Lovejoy, COO Michael Kelley, CEO Mark Berryhill

Party with a Purpose Out Traveler's sister mags & GLAAD celebrate a more inclusive future.

Kicking off Pride month in st yle, equalpride (publishers of Out Traveler) joi ne d for c e s w it h GL A A D a nd Google to celebrate our #SeenonPixel partnership. Held at The London Hotel in West Hollywood to celebrate Out's 30th anniversary, the magazine and Google partnered to reimagine iconic covers with more diversity using Google Pixel 6 to highlight its real tone technology that captures skin color in greater detail.

Out's new cover stars include Orville Peck, Jari Jones, serpentwithfeet, Dexter Mayfield, Nyle DiMarco, Chella Man, Miss Shalae, Hayley Kiyoko, and more.

Guests enjoying the L.A. night sky with us included our Out Traveler cover star Braunwyn Windham-Burke, as well as Nick Adams, Christine Chiu, Shea Diamond, Raquel Willis, Mollee Gray, Jeka Jane, Kent Boyd, Wils, Robinick Fernandez, Howin Wong, Jacob Tobia, Vincint, Billie Lee, Greg Mathis Jr., Elliott Cooper, Bunny Barbie, Kodye Elyse, Anna Shumate, Kelsi Davies, Daniel Franzese, Gregory Zarian, and more.

(Below right) Real Housewives star Braunwyn Windham-Burke and Global Chief Content Officer Diane Anderson-

PARTY ON (Clockwise from bottom left) equalpride’s Chris Go, Anna Carias, Reema Therani, Betsy Skidmore, Out Traveler’s editorial director Neal Broverman, and SVP Stuart Brockington

OUR EVENTS

(Bottom right) Christopher Soto, Raquel Willis, Shea Diamond, and Michael Shayan

BILLIE BLACK (EQUALPRIDE STAFF, BRAUNWYN); COURTESY PRESLEY ANN OR ROGER KISBY/GETTY IMAGES FOR GOOGLE (ALL OTHERS)

(Middle) Jacob Tobia (left) and Daniel Franzese

OUT TRAVELER

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San Diego Zoo – San Diego Weekends in October HowlGLOween has musical entertainment, dance parties, and turns the zoo’s famed Reptile Plaza into a scary Python Path.

COMING ATTRACTIONS

San Diego Zoo Safari Park – Escondido October 16-17, 23-24, & 30-31 Autumn Festival features a hay maze, lantern festival, special entertainment, and Safari Parker to answer all your wildlife questions.

Southland Screams!

These SoCal theme parks get into the Halloween spirit.

By Donald Padgett

Southern California theme parks know how to celebrate Halloween.

Since the original Halloween Haunt at Knott’s Berry Farm in 1973, the Southland’s theme parks, zoos, and other attractions have gotten into the scary spirit. While some are downright terrifying, others are family-friendly with the little ones in mind.

Disneyland Resort – Anaheim September 2-October 31 There are frights to be had across the entire resort with special parties and decorations. California Adventure attractions take a sinister turn, while Disneyland’s Haunted House gets The Nightmare Before Christmas treatment.

Knott’s Berry Farm – Buena Park September 22-October 31 Knott’s Scary Farm Halloween Haunt is the original, longestrunning, and possibly scariest Halloween-themed amusement park event.

Nonbinary Biking

Where only the wheels come in twos.

By Shauna Farnell

From casual city rides to arduous gravel and mountain bike competitions, more events across the country are including nonbinary categories and welcoming queer participants. Here a basketful of our favorites: San Francisco Friday Morning Ride is a biweekly casual group outing for female and nonbinary cyclists. Organized by the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition it meets the second and fourth Fridays of every month at the entrance of Golden Gate Park for a relaxed ride just over an hour long, which runs through the park and offers views of the beach.

Pittsburgh Group Rides are run by Bike Pittsburgh, which conducts fun, social rides for women and nonbinary riders of all levels. The group’s 8th annual Women and Non-Binary Bike Summit lands on October 15. In addition to presentations and discussions on making cycling more inclusive and leveraging the sport to bring social and environmental justice, the summit includes an ice cream social ride.

The Life Time Grand Prix offers six challenging dirt, gravel, and mountain bike races across the U.S and includes a nonbinary category in all competitions. Not for amateurs, these races are for avid cyclists. Late summer and fall events include the Leadville Trail

SeaWorld San Diego – San Diego September 17-October 31 Howl-O-Scream returns for its second year challenging you and your fears with haunted houses and scare zones, creepy rides, and delightfully sinister drinks.

Six Flags Magic Mountain – Santa Clarita Select nights September 10-October 30 Fright Fest promises “Thrills by Day and Fright by Night” and turns off the lights so you can experience some of the Southland’s most terrifying rollercoasters in the dark.

Universal Studios – Universal City Select nights September 8 – October 31 Halloween Horror Nights is a living horror movie with eight haunted houses, multiple scare zones (some infested with zombies), and a terror tram.

100, a 100-mile, high-elevation mountain bike race on rugged terrain in Leadville, Colorado, August 13; the Chequamegon MTB Festival, a 40-mile dirt race in Cable, Wisconsin, September 17; and Big Sugar Gravel, a 100mile gravel race in Bentonville, Arkansas, October 22.

Rebecca’s Private Idaho is a collection of gravel bike races in Sun Valley, Idaho, from August 31 to September 4. Launched by seven-time World Mountain Bike Champion Rebecca Rusch, Rebecca’s Private Idaho is open to riders of every background. But don’t be fooled by child-like names: the Tater Tot is the easiest race of the week and still runs 19 miles and gains 1,478 feet in elevation. So, even if you don’t do the lung-busting four-day Queen’s Stage Race, you’re in for a challenge.

FoCo Fondo offers gravel racing and riding over a variety of distances in Fort Collins, Colorado, every July. The most competitive race – the 145-mile Triple Dog Dare You – delivers significant prize purses for men, women, and nonbinary winners. Then there’s the chill 12-mile Family Ride, a leisurely pedal for all ages.

OUT TRAVELER

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Legoland California – Carlsbad Saturdays September 17-October 29 Brick or Treat features family-friendly activities like a Monster Party, spooky (but not too scary) characters, and, of course, plenty of trick-or-treating for the little ones.

JEFF GRITCHEN/MEDIANEWS GROUP/GETTY IMAGES (DISNEY HALLOWEEN); SHUTERSTOCK (CYCLIST)

The Frightfully Fun Parade at Oogie Boogie Bash, A Disney Halloween Party, in California Adventure at the Disneyland Resort

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Life’s a Carnival In Provincetown, embrace the season’s monsters and legends, leather and rubber, and the queer destination’s women and trans folks.

Carnival August 13–20 One of the largest outdoor Massachusetts celebrations returns with the theme of “Monsters, Myths & Legends,” costume parties, live entertainment, drag brunches, and the famous Carnival Parade (August 18).

CINDY GOFF/GETTY IMAGES

Mates Leather Weekend XXV September 29–October 3 Whether you’re into leather, rubber, or any type of uniform, you’ll find your people at the 25th anniversary of Mates, where contests and parties abound.

Women’s Week October 10–16 A week of events for women, including music, comedy, dance parties, art exhibitions, film screenings, dune tours, sports events, and more.

Fantasia Fair, The Original Transgender Week October 15–23 The longest-running transgender event in the world is a week-long learning experience, social gathering, and reunion.

Mr. New England Leather November 18–20 The annual pageant will culminate with crowning Mr. New England Leather 2023.

Holly Folly December 2–4 One of the only LGBTQ+ holiday festivals in the world celebrates its 25th anniversary. There is a holiday market, Jingle Bell Run and Champagne Brunch (a Santa run in bathing suits), dance parties, sing-alongs, drag bingo, and Hung with Care, a queer holiday burlesque spectacular.

OUTTRAVELER.COM

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The Annual Provincetown Carnival Parade in P-town, Massachusetts

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Aerial view of historic Fort James, St. John’s, Antigua

AROUND THE GLOBE

Islands in the Sun Antigua and Barbuda throw out draconian laws criminalizing queer sex.

THE EASTERN CARIBBEAN Supreme Court ruled this July that t he law in A nt ig ua a nd Ba rbuda criminalizing same-sex sexual relations violates both basic human rights and the constitution of the twin-island state. The court agreed with the two claimants who brought the suit and found the Sexual Offences Act 1995 unconstitutional.

“The selection of an intimate partner is a private and a personal choice,” the court wrote in its ruling overturning

Planting a mango tree in Africa

the law, which itself was based on much older laws written during the British colonial era.

Though rarely enforced, the draconian Sexual Offences Act 1995 criminalized what it termed “buggery” and “serious indecency” with penalties of up to 15 and five years respectively.

“This is a pivotal victory for LGBT people in Antigua & Barbuda, thousands of whom can now look to a future free from the stigma of criminalization,” Téa Braun, chief executive at Huma n Dignit y Trust, said in a statement hailing the decision.

The case was brought by Orden

David, a gay citizen of Antigua and Barbuda employed by the country’s Ministr y of Hea lth; and Women Against Rape, Inc., a group whose work includes providing support and services to men and women who engage in samesex sexual relationships.

While cultural prejudices will take time to overcome, Braun recognized the significance of the moment.

“After almost 150 years on the statute books, devastating countless LGBT lives in their wake, these colonial legacy laws have finally found their rightful place in the history books,” said Braun.

Caribbean nations continue to take steps forward — and backwards — when it comes to LGBTQ+ rights. Bermuda and the Cayman Islands recently upheld rulings that prohibit marriage equality.

Hello Cool World An iconic L.A. hotel steps up to battle climate change.

By Neal Broverman

Most of us adjusted to the end of free daily housekeeping at large hotels — a policy mainly enacted for health, safety, and staffing reasons during the pandemic. It happens to also dramatically reduce water usage for daily laundry service. For guests at the stylish The London West Hollywood at Beverly Hills, opting out of cleaning wields even more benefits: the hotel will purchase offsets to neutralize the carbon footprint of the guests’ stay. The London partnered with Cool Effect, a nonprofit that helps companies purchase carbon offsets. The organization has innovative campaigns around the world, including replacing polluting cookstoves in Honduras, planting trees in Uganda, and restoring forests in areas of Tennessee denuded by campers and hikers.

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ROBERTO MOIOLA/SYSAWORLD/GETTY IMGAES (ANTIGUA); CLAUDIAD/GETTY IMAGES (AFRICAN GIRL)

By Donald Padgett

7/26/22 7:09 AM

Flying Fails

A new study illuminates our biggest pet peeves that drive us crazy in the sky.

What irritates us and our fellow passengers the most? According to a survey of 1,000 Americans these are the worst: ■ People who don’t cover their mouths when coughing or sneezing (irritating 76% of

respondents)

■ Unwanted bodily contact from other passengers (75%) ■ People who watch videos without headphones (75%) ■ Parents who let their children “run wild” (74%) ■ Seat recliners and kickers (74%) ■ Smelly passengers (73%) ■ Those that don’t follow pandemic safety measures (73%) ■ Taking up more than one’s fair share of overhead bin space (73%) ■ Passengers who eat smelly food (67%) ■ Crying babies (67%) ■ People who take off their shoes or socks (67%) ■ Passengers who stand up as soon as the plane lands (64%)—NB Source passport-photo.online

Carry on Your Gender

SHUTTERSTOCK (BABY); MONKEY BUSINESS IMAGES/GETTY IMAGES (DISABLED TRAVELER)

The convenient TSA PreCheck service becomes more trans and nonbinary-friendly.

The Tr a n s p or t at ion S e c u r it y Administration in April addressed some of t he pa in involved in # t r a v e l i n g w h i le t r a n s w he n t he agency began allowing TSA PreCheck applicants to select their gender based on self-determination, regardless of sex assigned at birth or other factors (like paperwork or gender-confirmation surgery). TSA PreCheck is continuing the progress by recently adding additional gender markers for nonbinar y and gender-nonconforming fliers.

“TSA remains committed to ensuring all travelers are treated with respect and dignity,” TSA administrator David Pekoske said in a July statement. “This new TSA PreCheck enrollment feature reaffirms our commitment to equality and inclusion for all people, including the LGBTQI+ community.”

Nonbinary and gender-nonconforming travelers already enrolled in TSA PreCheck can call 855-347-8371 to update their data. And just like with the trans update, no additional paperwork is required to make the change. For those who have recently transitioned or changed how they identify, the TSA is assuring they will not be denied the PreCheck service even if they haven’t alerted TSA to the change as long as the name,

known traveler number, and date of birth on their reservation matches their record with the agency.

TSA PreCheck allows travelers to get through security with shorter lines and ends the requirement of removing shoes, belts, light jackets, laptops, and even liquids. Those interested need to apply online at tsa.gov/precheck, pay an $85 fee (which covers the first five years of the service), and attend a 10-minute inperson interview for fingerprinting.—NB

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TSA PreCheck now offers more options for trans and nonbinary folks

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Muscle Cruise

Tom of Finland and Hiro Clark team up for an exclusive collab of black sweats, tanks, hoodies, and tees featuring Tom’s artwork and this simple yet to-the-point, 100 percent combed cotton cruising tee. ($88, hiroclark.com)

Wherever You Roam

The Roam Large Carry-On is the convenient modestlysized luggage with a little bit more. It’s small enough to qualify as a carry-on for most major U.S. airlines but the famed Roam design maximizes space — and little touches like sturdy wheels and a monogram patch mean you can pack large while still looking great. ($575, roamluggage.com)

OUT GEAR

Fall, Fashion, and Fun! We’ve got just what you need as the leaves turn.

BY DIANE ANDERSON-MINSHALL, DONALD PADGETT

Legendary Boot Revamp

Take a hike on any terrain with the Sawtooth X from Oboz, an update of the popular Sawtooth II. These boots feature an Adaptive Cushioning Technology midsole for comfort, B-DRY breathable waterproof technology, and Oboz’s legendary quality of design and construction. ($165, oboz.com)

Timely

COURTESY MAKER (ALL)

World-renowned watchmaker Vacheron Constantin celebrates art, history, and culture with its new limited edition Métier D’Art collection. In collaboration with the Louvre Museum, the collection pays homage to the great civilizations of Antiquity. Created by master craft smen with generations of experience, the Métier D’Art collection is the stylish and sophisticated way to stay on time. (From $108,000, vacheron-constantin.com) OUT TRAVELER

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Soft Style

The new Rover Collection from luxury leather and travel goods specialist Carl Friedrik features lush nubuck and Vachetta leather with the right kind of intelligent design.

All five pieces also have a soft, velvety, suede-like feel for the perfect combination of style and utility.

(From $590, carlfriedrik.com)

Psychedelic Campout, Man

Turn your next campout or backyard get-together into a colorful outing with the AspenGlow 500 Lumen Multicolor USB Lantern from BioLite. This little light packs enough color combinations to make its own rainbow Pride flag. There’s even a candle flicker and fireworks mode, plus the AspenGlow has a handy USB outport for device charging. ($79.95, bioliteenergy.com)

Blush Sustainably

The Multitasking Cheek Brush from Benefit with retractable bristles is a veritable steamer trunk of makeup brushes all rolled into one. Its versatility means there are fewer throwaway brushes in landfills, Benefit’s redesigned packaging uses 20 percent less paper, and you can change colors on the fly when combined with their Wanderful World Blush Collection. ($32, benefitcosmetics.com)

Backcountry Comfort

The NEMO Moonlight is the reclining portable backpacking chair that goes anywhere while weighing less than two pounds. Just use the simple straps to adjust your sitting angle to an upright or reclining position, and the forged aluminum construction supports up to 300 pounds! ($149, nemoequipment.com)

Beat the Chill

Arc’teryx is the choice of seasoned cold weather explorers and the Covert Cardigan Fleece Jacket keeps you warm and stylish whether you’re heading to the ski lodge after a day on the slopes or volunteering on an archaeological dig above the snow line. ($189, arcteryx.com)

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CARRY ON

Wonder Wedges

These shoes make a statement and work almost everywhere.

Balmain’s bicolor monogrammed knit B-Bold wedge sneakers make the colder months much more palatable. From the sides, the chunky platforms resemble skis — but all angles of this shoe drip glamour. These soles put pep in your step, and all eyes will inevitably turn to the wearer when they roll up to a dinner meeting, drinks with the squad, or courtside seats. With the wide-heel, these could even work at the airport—well, if you have TSA PreCheck and can sidestep removing your footwear, because these booties take a minute to get on and off. Oh, what we do for beauty.

COURTESY BALMAIN

—N E A L B ROV E R M A N

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Hang out with no hangups.

Few places on Earth embrace the live-and-let-live attitude like Key West.

For more than a century, we’ve been a safe harbor for people from all walks of life to unwind in perfect harmony. No matter what’s going on in the world, our true colors are always on display. fla-keys.com/gaykeywest 305.294.4603

Island House Resort

Award-winning clothing-optional resort for men. Luxurious rooms. Poolside café and bar.

Gym, sauna, steam room, Jacuzzis®. Poolside massage pavilion.

1-800-890-6284 or 305-294-6284 islandhousekeywest.com

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Key West Business Guild Presents Key West Pride 202

Celebrate PRIDE on a tropical island that is legendary for its laid-back style and its open and accepting atmosphere.

305-294-4603 gaykeywestfl.com/pride

7/28/22 11:03 AM

OUT FITTED

Back to the Future The new collection from Dhruv Kapoor wants us to embrace

By Neal Broverman All looks Dhruv Kapoor

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elcome in Fall with Indian fashion designer Dhruv Kapoor’s Soul-Tech Aug ust / Winter 202 2 col lec t ion.

Covering the body in expertly tailored edginess that looks like a vision of the future, Kapoor has centered this nonbinary collection around his fascination with digital realms, like the metaverse. Skinsuits festooned with colorful prints evoke stick figure avatars that would fit in on The Sims, baggy bomber jackets and oversized pants bring to mind the optimism of the ’90s tech explosion, while the Wachowski sisters would have loved the collection’s endlessly-long trench jackets for The Matrix Resurrections.

Kapoor’s whimsy, which includes Glasnost-era scarves tied around chins and dreadlock hats that kiss the ground, translates to clothes that feel far away from the grim dystopian reality of 2022. The future is now and tomorrow’s fashion here today. Kapoor’s Soul-Tech pieces should be worn at parties, in nightclubs, on hotel rooftops; basically (and ironically) anyplace not accessible via video screen.

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DAY TRIPPING

Welcome to the Gayborhood

From famous artworks to a touchable beluga whale and the queer neighborhoods of Andersonville and Boystown: Here’s your guide to a day out in Chicago.

By JD Glass

T

Cloud Gate, better known as The Bean

life underwater in the only German WWII submarine displayed in the U.S. Continue to the Shedd Aquarium where you can get your hands on a beluga whale. Seriously, you put on a pair of waders, stand on a ledge in chest deep water, touch the whale and say, “Hello!”

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Take the “El,” the elevated trains are worth a ride simply for the view. Or grab a cab to see the boys, grrlz, and cute queers of all sorts in the city’s two LGBTQ+ neighborhoods. The Lakeview neighborhood Boystown has hosted the annual Pride parade since 1971.

FRANCK REPORTER/GETTY IMAGES (PANAROMA); NICK AGEE/UNSPLASH (CLOUD GATE)

he city of Chicago was founded in the heart of Potawatomi traditional ter r itor y by the Black t r a de r Je a n B ap t i s t e Poi nt du S a ble, who established a settlement here in the 1780s. Over the ensuing centuries, the metropolis was built up, burnt down, and built again, coalescing into a series of neighborhoods, each with its own personality and ethnocentric flavor, including Chinatown, Greektown, and Little Lithuania.

But far from fragmented, Chicagoans are drawn together, unified particularly in their love of the city’s unique culture.

This makes the Art Institute of Chicago, with its wide range of works from ancient to modern, a great place to start a day in the Windy City. From there, walk the few blocks to Cloud Gate, more commonly known as The Bean, the public artwork meant to mimic an enormous drop of mercury. It’s the perfect place to take amazing pictures and enjoy the adjacent Millennium Park.

Next, stop at the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry with its hands-on experiential exhibits. There, you can go underground in a coal mine or imagine

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SHUTTERSTOCK (ART INSTITUTE); STUART WESTMORLAND/GETTY IMAGES (BELUGA); MARILOU TRIAS/GETTY IMAGES (ANDERSONVILLE); COURTESY JD GLASS (KOPI)

FRANCK REPORTER/GETTY IMAGES (PANAROMA); NICK AGEE/UNSPLASH (CLOUD GATE)

The gayborhood — recently renamed Northalsted to be more inclusive (but locals don’t call it that) — has something for everyone, including the LGBTQ+ resource space, the Center on Halstead.

I ndu l ge y ou r ne e d to express your sexiness and snark in pins, posters, plants, and more at Foursided Card & Gift. Stroll down the Legacy Walk, America’s first outdoor LGBTQ+ museum, and read pl aque s honor i n g que e r heroes such as Harvey Milk and Frida Kahlo — then stop at Chicago Diner, which boasts an array of vegetarian and vegan options. While famous for their Radical Ruben, their gyros deserve a shout out and the vegan milkshakes are amazing.

Stop, shop, and stroll, in the city’s other queer neighborhood, Andersonville, the “coolest neighborhood in the U.S.,” and second in the world to Copenhagen’s Nørrebro, according to Time Out. Home to the Swedish Museum and the famous water tower painted with the Swedish flag, Andersonville has everything from fine dining to comic books (Alley Cat Comics, across the street from the famously feminist Women & Children First independent bookstore, and the nearby Graham Cracker Comics).

Traveling kinksters will also be pleased to find tons of sexy supplies for consenting adult fun at Full Kit Gear, aka FKG. Along this strip you’ll find another Foursided store, as well as Kopi Cafe, the evergreen lesbian meeting place with a lounging space that’s made for sitting cross-legged on pillows.

Kopi Cafe, a local lesbian hot spot Andersonville is Chicago’s other LGBTQ+ neighborhood

A few blocks south is Urban Vegan, which makes such tasty Thai cuisine you’ll forget that it’s all plant based. Or go a little farther to Budacki’s Drive In in nearby Ravenswood. This classic, cash-only hot dog stand serves fries so good the late Anthony Bourdain was a fan. Eat like a local and ask for your dog “dragged through the garden,” which means smothered in relish, pickles, onions, tomato, celery salt, mustard, and sport peppers. The celery salt is key, and there is no ketchup. Ever.

Walk down the block from Budacki’s to Rock N Roll Vintage Guitar Shop & Synth City, where you can explore, indulge, and encourage the rock star in your life. Round off your night with a trip to the truly all-embracing Black and queer-owned bar, Nobody’s Darling.

Art Institute of Chicago

Pet a beluga at the Shedd Aquarium

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VENTURE OUT

Reaching New Heights

No matter how high you go, the sport of scaling rock or indoor walls builds

By Shauna Farnell

and then come back and take a lead class together. The whole point is to build community.”

In add it ion to nur t ur ing relationships with others, climbing fosters a powerful sense of self-trust and reliance. Nearly every aspect of the sport serves as a metaphor for confidencebuilding and self-growth.

After all, it’s an endeavor through which you always find yourself facing a wall. The handholds and footholds used to work your way up are literally called “problems.” No matter how far you go, or which route you choose, you are overcoming problems and taking yourself to a higher place.

“You learn not only to trust other people but learn to trust yourself and the equipment,” Carter says. “With the kids I coach, that’s one of the biggest mental blocks — trusting that the rope has them, that the harness will catch them, that the holds won’t fall off of the wall. For new climbers, the common denominator is trust. You learn to trust your gear and trust yourself.”

Another barrier to climbing is the perception that it requires an enormous amount of fitness and strength.

“The misconception is that you need this tremendous upper body strength to be successful,” says Eagle Climbing owner and operator Larry Moore. “Really, we use our legs, our whole skeletal systems to propel us up the walls. People with bigger body sizes think they might not be able to do it, but it can be achieved by everyone. There are so many different layers to success in climbing.”

The recommended path to entering the sport is via an indoor experience at the gym, whether OUT TRAVELER

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A climber working a rock cliff

SHUTTERSTOCK

W

hen Megan Carter moved to Colorado several years ago, her partner at the time was an avid climber and tried to throw her into the sport. Carter found herself atop a teetering stone arch in the wilderness. She wanted to cry.

“I was super afraid of heights, totally mortified,” recalls Carter, who is now a climbing coach and the brainchild behind Queer Climbing Night at her local gym, Eagle Climbing + Fitness in Eagle, Colorado. “It was something totally out of my comfort zone. Also, at that time I saw the climbing community as unapproachable and, as a queer woman, not very welcoming. I saw it as a lot of bros and people trying to prove themselves.”

A couple of years later, she gave climbing another try. As it turned out, all she needed was someone she could trust to show her the way.

“I think whether it’s checking out a queer climbing night, signing up for a class at your gym, or creating a relationship with an instructor or friend who can guide you into the sport, it comes down to trust,” she says.

“Showing up at a gym by yourself can be really intimidating. Having that Yoda take you through and show you around is huge.”

A number of climbing gyms throughout the country offer queer climbing events at least once a month. Typically, the events draw a broad variety of skill levels and deliver a community atmosphere.

“We’ve had people who had never climbed before to people who spend every other day at the gym,” Carter says of Eagle’s Queer Climbing Night. “You see this mentor-type relationship develop. You see people meet for the first time

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A climber grips a handhold on a climbing wall

TAKOBURITO/GETTY IMAGES (CLIMBER CLOSE-UP); COURTESY EAGLE CLIMBING (INDOOR)

it’s a community event, class, or simply going with a friend for an hour of dabbling on the bouldering wall. From there, familiarity and confidence develop and oftentimes, opportunities to take one’s skills outdoors.

“A lot of what is taught in the gym certainly transfers to outdoor climbing,” Carter says.

“The style and level of difficulty are different for every outdoor climb and they’re not standard like what you see in a gym. What’s cool about outside climbing is it takes everything learned in a gym — how to belay, lead climb, and use your gear — and forces a person to heighten their awareness beyond those pieces. All the things that are controlled in a gym are not controlled outside.”

Whether indoor or outdoor, taking the first steps in climbing is not as challenging as one would think. Once you reach those first holds, going above and beyond is not only natural and intuitive but strengthening in every way, physically and mentally.

“The point is not to go super fast. The point is not to get to the top of the wall. Building trust, developing a sense of community, selfconfidence, and self-efficacy, those are the most valuable things to get out of climbing,” Carter says.

Numerous climbing gyms nationwide offer queer community events, including ever y first Thursday of the month at Valley Rock Gym in Cor vallis, Oregon, once a month on Sundays at Adventure Rock gyms in Wisconsin, and at several Central Rock Gym locations across the east coast, including ever y second and four t h Fr idays in Ma nhat ta n a nd on fourth Fridays in Hadley, Massachusetts.

A l so, Q ueer C l i m bi ng Col lec t ive (@queerclimbingcollective on Instagram) posts monthly info about communit y climbing events and is a great resource for anyone and everyone interested in climbing.

Colored grips denote a route’s level of difficulty

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ROAD MAP

The Simple RV Life A new company makes going RVing incredibly easy, even if you don’t have your own rig.

By Paul J. Heney

that owners bring to your preferred campground on the assigned date, hook it up, level it, and prep it so it’s waiting for you when you arrive.

The company says that fully 40 percent of its users choose this option and forego having to drive or tow the RVs themselves. For us, this meant we only had to pack our 15-year-old son, the dog, and luggage into the car and drive the easy five hours to the gorgeous Harpers Ferry Civil War Battlefields KOA Holiday campground.

When we arrived all we had to do was to walk in and get settled.

Today’s RVs are worlds beyond the models I remember as a kid. Luxe kitchens with fancy backsplashes, modern appliances, adjustable and flexible lighting, real showers, and comfortable seating areas are the norm now, along with larger beds and comfortable mattresses. Slide outs extend outward from the sides of the RV once it is parked, and these really add to the available square footage inside.

O u r C o ac h me n C at a l i n a comfortably slept three (and our dog!), and we had several extra sleeping areas that we could have used had we brought along more family members. Our RV even featured a large screen TV, and the campground’s ample WiFi

ROMAN ODINTSOV/PEXELS

M Y H U S B A N D , L A N C E , has been a little obsessed with the concept of RVing ever since he saw a TV segment where Oprah and Gayle set up a pop-up camper in Yosemite National Park. We’ve talked about trying this type of travel for years — and watched with interest as the industry expanded greatly throughout the pandemic. I even bought Lance the RVs & Campers for Dummies book for his last birthday. (He responded by pretending to look for his supposed other gift of an actual RV around our neighborhood for days afterward.)

So, when we had the opportunity to tr y out an RV for a weekend in beautiful Harper’s Ferry, West Virginia, we jumped at the chance. We secured our RV through an innovative company called RVshare (rvshare.com), which allows nonowners to rent an RV or camper and enables those interested to try the lifestyle out before they buy.

All of the RVshare owners are individuals, not fleets owned by companies, so RVshare is a sort of Airbnb for campers. You can search based on location, type of RV, size, price, whether it’s petfriendly, and for specific things like whether it has a microwave, television, or electric generator.

Even more usef ul, you ca n search for a “deliverable” RV

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connectivity allowed us to stream our favorite shows.

EDWIN TAN/GETTY IMAGES (4 FRIENDS); PAULJ. HENEY (COACHMAN)

TRENDING UPWARD According to RVshare’s 2022 Travel Trends Report, 70 percent of millennial travelers said they planned to take an RV trip this year and 77 percent were interested in having the RV delivered to their destination. The top types of trips that travelers said they were considering most were road trips (59 percent), national parks (56 percent), family camping trips (45 percent), trips with friends (42 percent), and RV delivery to a festival (24 percent).

Interestingly 38 percent of those surveyed said that they now had more opportunities to work remotely and 76 percent said that this new flexibility would be a key consideration in how they traveled.

OUR HOME AWAY FROM HOME Our KOA campground was nicely-sized and our individual campsite offered plenty of space to park our SUV and still enjoy the outdoor picnic table adjacent to our RV, without feeling like we were infringing on any of our neighbor’s space.

The company is a believer in diversity and inclusion, and the types of people camping today are certainly changing.

The first person we ran into at the campground Yoga guru while walking our dog was also queer — a woman also walking her Jessamyn Stanley (right) and partner ashe danger phoenix on the road

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dog. We chatted and she mentioned that her wife was a traveling nurse, so they’re living the RV lifestyle, spending six to 12 months in different parts of the country.

Our resort had a lovely daily morning breakfast service. That cost extra, but the prices were extremely reasonable, and we were pleasantly surprised by the options and quality of the food.

KOA says that 9.1 million households went camping for the first time in 2021 — and one-third of those said the pandemic was the reason they tried camping. What’s more, urban residents have become one of the most avid camping segments, camping more frequently and for longer periods than people living in the suburbs or rural areas.

Maybe I should be worried; now Lance is really going to be expecting that big red bow one of these days, and his birthday is right around the corner.

A Coachman fromRVshare was delivered to our KOA site and set up for us

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ROAD MAP

Breanne Acio is CEO and co-founder of Sēkr — and a woman of color who lives with her wife in a camper van six months of the year. Sēkr raised $2.25 million earlier this year to further its mission of making the outdoor travel experience safer, easier, and more accessible.

In 2016, Acio and her wife Lacey started new careers as teachers and were weighing life decisions ranging from career moves to children to a new home. “ We k n e w e a r l y retirement and travel were our top priorities and wanted to find a way to accomplish all of our goals as soon as possible,” Acio said. “On Christmas of that year, Lacey’s dad showed up with a Promaster and a vision of building it into a camper. After seeing that, Lacey and I decided to invest in our first ‘wheelestate’ and convert it into a camper, just like her father. We named the van Flipper and set off on our first extended vacation in May 2017. This was a liberating experience for us because we were able to choose when and where we wanted to go, for however long we wanted.”

“After a month on the road, Lacey looked at me and said, ‘I think I’m relaxed,’ with disbelief in her eyes and voice. At that moment, I realized we had never been able to feel that level of presence before. It hit me then and there that, unfortunately, most people might never experience it. Since then, it has been my mission to help others experience life on the road and in the outdoors.”

They then founded SD Campervans, a company where the couple upfits vans at an accessible price so more people could afford them.

Great New RV Models and more at outtraveler.com

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“I’m proud to say there are over 100 people on the road in our builds, most of whom are women and people of color,” she said. “We also built a rental fleet of vans so more people could try out the lifestyle, even for a short period of time. Now with Sēkr, we help thousands of people, every single day, connect with the information and community they need to thrive in the outdoors. Lacey and I went from being tied to jobs we didn’t love in a place we couldn’t afford, to being free to live and work from anywhere we wanted.”

Interest in RVing has absolutely been growing among queer travelers, Acio shared.

“There are so many groups and organizations focused on the outdoors now that cater specifically to the queer community,” she said. “For example, Pattie Gonia is an environmentalist drag queen and a great example of why and how outdoor travel is growing among LGBTQ travelers. Pattie documents photos and videos of themself on Instagram and TikTok, hiking and camping, both in and out of drag.

One of our own goals with Sēkr has been to diversify the representation of people who love the outdoors and make the outdoors a more inclusive space for queer folks.”

Acio co-founded Sēkr with Jess Shisler with the mission of accessibility and inclusivity in mind. The company claims to have the largest database of campsites available and offers an easy-to-use map that includes more than 50,000 campgrounds and overnight options. The site also offers reviews. In five years, they’d like to see Sēkr become synonymous with outdoor travel.

“We are firm believers that when people seek out a meaningful outdoor lifestyle, they don’t return to old worldviews and perspectives,” Acio said.

Sēkr is a public benefit corporation that hopes to “protect the places we share by educating our members and partnering with nonprofit organizations like Leave No Trace and TreadLightly! to ensure our public lands stay clean and open for recreation.” —PJ H

SHUTTERSTOCK (NIGHT IMAGE); PAUL J. HENEY (SEKR)

(Left to Right) Breanne Acio with wife Lacey, cofounder Jess Shisler, and her partner

A company co-founded by a queer woman makes locating RV camp sites easier

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DESTINATIONS

Key West

Fantasy Land This queer Florida town throws a Halloween bash like no other.

By Jacob Anderson-Minshall

K

COURTESY KEY WEST BUSINESS GUILD

ey West’s annual 10-day costuming celebration, Fantasy Fest is back in full force October 21-30.

Started in 1979 by a group of Key West locals, the party was created to bring visitors to the island in what was a typically quiet season.

Since then Fantasy Fest has grown enormously and now draws tens of thousands to participate, with 70,000 turning out for the annual parade.

Last year, many of the events were canceled, but the popular LGBTQ+ destination plans to return to a full schedule in 2022. For example, the Annual Headdress Ball was postponed four times in the last two years, before finally going ahead early this year. The organizers are determined that the 39th event will return to its traditional timing.

Events at Key West’s Fantasy Fest range from the family friendly Goombay Festival, to the adults-only Kink Party (for the 24th year it will offer BDSM stations, fetish rooms, bondage, and more).

This year’s theme is Cult Classics and Carton Chaos which invites you to be inspired by any film or show with a cult following (such as Rocky Horror Picture Show — which is also being performed live on stage during the fest) or any cartoon, comic book, or animated show (like Steven Universe, Lumberjanes, or Q-Force).

Vital events include the Heroes and Villians Run/Walk, Pirate ship revelr y, the annual under wear par t y, She-Avengers Stripfinit y Wars: A Burlesque Parody, a pet costume party, Dante's 15th Annual Halos & Horns Pool Party, the 21st Annual Living Art Expo, and a couples-only kink party.

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Cabo E

Baja Bliss

Committed Queer Destinations resort.

By Taylor Henderson

KORPO Wellness Experience. The welcoming staff transported me to another tranquil world. I relaxed into the massage and promptly fell asleep. After the masseuse laughingly woke me from my slumber, food was the only thing on my mind. Lucky for me, the property boasts four on-site restaurants.

First up, Mamazzita Mexican Soul, a luxurious twist on Mexican classics. I’m a Texas boy and grew up surrounded

by Mexican food, so I can be a critical judge of the cuisine.

Mamazzita went above and beyond my expectations: this was less of a meal, and more of a culinary experience. My server, Gio, served the tortilla soup with flair, artfully swirling two jugs of steaming hot soup together as he poured them into my bowl. Arnold handmade the most delicious guacamole I’ve had in years, right at the table. The entree was a seafood enchilada, fi lled to the brim with fresh octopus, scallops, and fish, and surrounded by so much crema verde sauce that at first glance I thought it was the plate.

Everything about this restaurant felt destined for the gays.

Wedding parties and girls’ trips surrounded me. Every song the DJ played was a banger; “Don’t Start Now” by Dua Lipa transitioned to “Sugar” by Maroon 5 to “Passionfruit” by Drake.

It was a crime that when Beyonce’s “Crazy In Love” came on, my friends weren’t around to throw some ass with me. The incredible night was capped off with a firework show over the ocean.

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ALL PHOTOS COURTESY ME CABO RESORT

DESTINATIONS

ntering ME Cabo Resort is an experience. Walking into the grand entryway, one’s eyes take in a sweeping room of white, with high Mexican-style archways, plants snaked up the walls, a the 30-foot-tall ceiling, and a breathtaking view of the ocean.

Following a $10 million renovation in 2021, the Meliá brand resort oozes opulence and comfort. Located in Mexico’s Cabo San Lucas, a city just a two-hour fl ight from Los Angeles, the resort sits on Los Cabos’ only swimmable beach overlooking the “El Arco,” the very tip of the Baja California Peninsula.

I stayed in one of the 170 rooms with a direct view of the Pacific Ocean alongside the pool party raging downstairs at 3 p.m. All I could do was mutter “beautiful” as I wandered around the massive suite. I kicked off my stay with a massage in the

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TOP TO BOTTOM A room with an ocean view; Overlooking the pool

The next morning, I took the short walk through the resort to the beach. The water is a beautifully clear blue, though I’d advise you to admire it safely from shore if you’re not a strong swimmer.

The current was more intense than the beaches I’m used to, and there was a steep drop about ten feet out. You regain entry to the resort with your wristband that doubles as your room key, so no need to worry about losing it.

I strolled through the cape for about an hour, walking past tanned tourists and colorful restaurants. One bar was having an “Alpha Male Competition” where the announcer asked the contestants to take their shirts off “for the ladies. And the guys from San Francisco.”

The next stop was Funky Geisha, an Asian-inspired fusion restaurant. Located right on the beach, the vibes are very Tikiinspired, and you can sit either on chairs or pillows. The Hamachi sashimi was my favorite plate of the entire weekend,

a delicately beautiful fish served in a jalapeno ponzu sauce so scrumptious that I would happily drown myself in it.

At the server’s suggestion, I ordered the yellow curry with shrimp and was not disappointed. The collision of flavors and textures can only be described as surprisingly divine.

That evening happened to be Cabo San Lucas’ Pride.

Six-thousand giddy and welcoming locals gathered to walk through the streets, and not just los hombres guapos. Laughing teenagers and abuelas holding hands of toddlers surrounded me as reds and purples colored the sunset sky. I thought I would just watch the parade, but I was quickly roped in and the next thing I knew, I was holding a corner of a 20-foot Pride f lag. After the parade, local bands and drag queens performed, including a stunning Whitney Houston impersonator. I later learned one of the hosts was the fi rst transgender woman in Mexico to legally change her gender and is now dedicated to supporting her community.

ME Cabo hosted the Pride afterparty, on the resort’s rooftop Confessions Skybar & Tapas where we danced our hearts away in the night. ME Cabo holds a queer-friendly hotel certificate, the first in the city, and was accredited as a Committed Queer Destinations Hotel. It’s easy to see why, their Pride is as obvious as the colors on the rainbow flag.

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CLOCKWISE FROM TOP Entertainment at Mamazzita Mexican Soul; Funky Geisha and Asian-fusion; Taboo cocktail

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Oakland

Adventures in the East Bay Uncovering the numerous attractions of San Francisco’s eclectic neighbor.

By Neal Broverman

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efore my recent Oakland trip, the only time I spent there was at a hook-up’s apartment after meeting him at a gay bar in San Francisco’s iconic Castro District (he drove me back after it was done; it was a looooong ride). So, I was operating on a blank slate when I visited this spring and found a dynamic, diverse city too often cast in the shadow of its sister by the bay.

First thing to know about Oakland is that like San Francisco (and unlike nearby San Jose), it’s mostly dense and compact, making it easy to get a handle on. I got a good sense of the streets while visiting some of the art galleries just north of Downtown (aka Uptown), marveling at beautifully rendered succulents at Werkshack and hallucinogenic spirals of color at SLATE Contemporary on 25th Street. Meandering south, I saw figures of beauty and strength at the Joyce Gordon Gallery on 14th Street, where

the institution’s revered matriarch told us about Oakland’s rich history of Black excellence. Moving closer to downtown, I perused charming 9th Street, with its neatly lined Victorian buildings, peeking into the e14 gallery and its shop of fragrant candles, hard-to-find books, and distinctive clothing.

A margarita was calling my name and nearby Calavera didn’t disappoint. Their guacamole and top-shelf tequila hit the spot after a day of exploration. Dinner at Everett & Jones BBQ & Blues is another shining example of Oakland’s status as a nexus of Black art and culture. Live music in the main restaurant’s connecting lounge floated up and over heaping plates of ribs, chicken, greens, and mac and cheese. E&J’s was hopping with energy and reverie — on a Wednesday night.

Afterwards, my husband, kids, and I, all lay our heads down on the city’s eastern edge near Berkeley, at the breathtaking Claremont Club & Spa. The next day was a family-friendly one, with trips to the elevated Oakland Zoo — where a gondola ride provides expansive views of the entire bay — tours of the Chabot Space & Science Center, with its gargantuan telescopes and recreations of historic spaceships, and a trip to

Reflections of buildings at Lake Merritt in Oakland

THOMAS WINZ/GETTY IMAGES

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ADAM HESTER/GETTY IMAGES (SELFIE); COURTESY VISIT OAKLAND (HELLA GAY DANCE PARTY; CALAVERA); COURTESY JOYCE GORDON GALLERY (ART); JORDAN PARK/VISIT OAKLAND (CHABOT SCIENCE CENTER)

ABOVE LEFT TO RIGHT Visitors indulge in a selfie; HellaGay Dance party

Reinhardt Redwood Regional Park.

This contemplative space east of the city is dotted with towering redwoods, and hosted our picnic lunch. We took a 10-minute stroll among the protective Sequoia sempervirens, which cleared my mind of dogged work and personal concerns. Then, it was back to the city for dinner at Alamar, a delicious and reasonably-priced seafood spot from Nelson German, who some may know from his appearances on Top Chef.

Aside from a very satisfying breakfast at the Home of Chicken & Waffles in downtown’s Jack London Square and an absolutely terrific lunch at Middle Eastern gem Pomella in the city’s north, much of the next day was centered around Oakland’s picturesque Lake Merritt. The kids frolicked at Children’s Fairyland, the adorable playground on the lake’s shore that dates back to 1950 and served as some of the inspiration for Disneyland.

We strolled around the lake — the nation’s first official wildlife refuge since 1870 — but we didn’t have a chance to see all it

Art on display in the Joyce Gordon Gallery

Cuisine at Calavera

Space exploration at the Chabot Space & Science Center

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has to offer, including a bonsai garden and boating center. We did have a lovely dinner — I went with the lobster roll — at The Lake Chalet Seafood Bar & Grill, a vibrant eatery on the water’s edge. We had time to grab some Mexican Adobo at the adjacent and well-stocked Oaktown Spice Shop, which proffers a truly impressive variety of herbs and flavorings.

While our Oakland journey was PGrated, there is plenty of debauchery to be had, especially in Uptown, where the Que Rico Nightclub serves as a drag-friendly center of Latinx queer culture in the Bay Area. White Horse Inn, on the city’s northern outskirts, is one of the country’s oldest gay bars, serving drinks and history since 1933. The Port Bar is a newer location worth checking out, also close to the lake. Revelers are bound to find a companion for the evening at nearby Steamworks Berkeley; no drive across the Bay Bridge required.

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DESTINATIONS

H!els

Location Luxury

These three resorts pamper you during your stay and provide the perfect base for exploring the vibrant cities they call home.

ABOVE A suite at the Thompson Central Park Avenue LEFT At Indian Accent, the beet and peanut butter tikki

InterContinental Miami At the foot of the Miami River and Biscayne Bay in downtown, the InterContinental is one of Miami’s original luxury business hotels. Its expansive lobby is awash in travertine marble and centers around an enormous marble sculpture by artist Henry Moore. The rooftop pool offers fabulous views. Just minutes by foot to the Bayside Marketplace and FTX Arena, the hotel is also perfectly situated for those embarking on a cruise, with many of the 653 rooms offering skyline views overlooking the cruise terminal. The highlight of the suites are the spalevel soaking tubs and wall-wide windows that turn the Miami skyline into a work of art. The hotel features three restaurants; the best is Toro Toro, celebrated chef Richard Sandoval’s creative Pan-Latin steakhouse modeled after Sandoval’s Dubai Toro Toro.

It’s been recognized as “Best New Restaurant” and “Best Latin Restaurant” by Time Out.

ALL PHOTOS COURTESY LOCATION

ABOVE Cafe overlooking the pool at the InterContinental, Miami; LEFT Toro Toro's ahi tuna

Thompson Central Park New York Tower i ng over Ne w Yo r k ’s C e n t r a l P a r k on Billionaires’ Row, the luxurious new Thompson is p er fe c t ly s it uate d to e x plore Manhattan favorites including Carnegie Hall and MoMA. The modern redesign infuses hip sophistication to an iconic structure. Great use of space in smaller suites (with kitchenettes) including a two-sided TV/mirror room divider that swivels 360 degrees. The Thompson plays host to three restaurants, two of which come from opposite ends of the culinary scale. The first is the Burger Joint which debuted in 2002 as a secret venue inside the former Le Parker Meridien hotel. This tasty boutique burger dive remains hidden behind floor-to-ceiling red theater curtains in the Thompson lobby. Jump the lengthy line and order from your room for pick up. Indian Accent — which entered the list of Best Restaurants in Michelin Dining Category in 2021 — was one of the top 10 meals of my life. I especially enjoyed the beet and peanut butter tikki and the saffron and gold flake topping on the makhan malai dessert was the perfect close to a luxurious culinary adventure.

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ABOVE A London West Hollywood bathroom BELOW The rooftop pool

The London West Hollywood at Beverly Hills The London West Hollywood at Beverly Hills offers tranquil modern luxury just north of L.A.’s gayborhood.

Every room in The London is a spacious suite (725 square feet-plus) with separate living quarters, spa bathrooms (with soaking tub and dual shower), and private balconies. The hotel features its own screening room and a rooftop saltwater pool with stunning panoramic views exemplifying its luxe Hollywood-cool cred. It’s also a dog-friendly hotel and some suites include kitchens with full-sized appliances. Headed by chef Anthony Keene, the menu at The London’s Boxwood Restaurant mixes classic British favorites like fish and chips with California fare like a spinach salad with fresh shrimp, mango, and avocado.—JACOB ANDERSONMINSHALL

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After becoming one of the most notorious housewives on reality TV, Braunwyn Windham-Burke is brimming with excitement over travel, dating, and her new lesbian identity.

by Neal Broverman + photography Jen Rosenstein Insta @jenrosenstein subject Braunwyn Windham-Burke @braunwynwindhamburke photographer’s assistant Mike Nelson @mknlsn digital tech Aly Whitman @alywhitman hair Chris Dylan @chrisdylan make-up Jenna Nicole @jennaniceofficial stylists Vanessa Craig @vanessacraiglist, Nolan Meader @styledbynolan OUT TRAVELER

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raunwyn Windham-Burke broke up with her first lesbian love — ex-girlfriend Victoria Brito — the day before she stripped down for her Out Traveler cover shoot. Getting glam was just what she needed. “(Photographer) Jen Rosentein called me,” Windham-Burke says. “She’s like, ‘Hey, I just saw the news. Are you Okay?’ I’m like, ‘I will be’…I felt my own energy that day. I felt my own power. I felt this strong, beautiful 44-year-old gay woman, who was just saying, ‘I’m here. This is who I am.’”

Windham-Burke is embracing a new life now, moving on from her tumultuous tenure on The Real Housewives of Orange County, where she chronicled her life with seven children, as well as her struggles with alcoholism and a nascent sobriety journey. Most memorably, she came out as a lesbian and separated from husband Sean Burke during her time on the original Housewives series.

After announcing she’s gay, Windham-Burke was roasted by some of her castmates and on social media, with some accusing her of faking her alcoholism and even her sexuality, something she vehemently denies. Instead of conniving and artificial — as her haters like to portray her — Windham-Burke is relaxed and funny during our interview (looking gorgeous in a hoodie and mussed hair). She’s excited for her next chapter, which includes no shortage of travel, with trips booked to Scotland, Puerto Rico, Kauai, and a solo journey to Europe.

Wanderlust has a lways been a par t of WindhamBurke’s identity; years ago, she launched a travel blog, BarefootinHeels.com, that chronicled her adventures with her large and loving family.

“That’s actually how I got found for Housewives, was my traveling blog,” she says. “My thing was globetrotting mom to seven amazing kids. We traveled six months of the year…we started taking our babies, at around six weeks old, on international travel. I remember having a double stroller with the twins in London.”

Windham-Burke and Burke have worked hard to instill in their kids a love of exploration and a curiosity about people and places far from them. “[Love of travel] is one thing that I’ve probably shared with my children the most,” she says. “People will assume that I’m very materialistic, I like clothes and shoes and jewelry, but none of that has ever really appealed to me. I grew up surfing in California. My biological father, who passed away, he was a big wave surfer in Hawaii. So for me, it’s never been about the stuff. All I need is a pair of flip flops and a bathing suit.

I always said this to whoever I’ve been with: give me the gift of experience.”

Windham-Burke’s chill, open-minded parenting style extends to issues of gender and sexuality; she says her older kids have long known of her attraction

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Windham-Burke says to be happy, “All I need is a pair of flip flops and a bathing suit.”

Windham-Burke’s love of travel is what brought her to Housewives

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WindhamBurke says she’s trying to balance a bicoastal life as a California mom and living her “best dream life” as a single gay woman in New York

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WindhamBurke says her older kids have long known of her attraction to women.

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to women and are nonplussed. It could be that openness from their mom that allowed Windham-Burke’s daughter, Rowan, to come out as pansexual and her son, Jacob, to experiment with drag.

“We went to the Equality March in D.C. (in 2009),” Windham-Burke says, proudly.

“They’ve been raised knowing that you are perfect just the way you are. That is the home that we created.”

That home — in tony Newport Beach, California — has changed a lot recently, w it h B u rke l i v i n g s e p a r ately a nd Wind ha m-Burke bouncing bet ween California and New York City. She considers herself bicoastal, an arrangement both challenging and exhilarating.

“I’m really trying to figure out a way to sort of meld my worlds right now,” she says.

“I go from being this single, independent gay woman, living her best dream life in New York, going out all the time, saying yes to everything, staying out late, doing whatever I want, whenever I want. Five hours later, I land. I got to get the kids to karate and there’s no downtime.”

Windham-Burke acknowledges that coming out in her 40s meant experiencing that delayed adolescence felt by many queer people, though it’s a bit complicated by her brood.

“For someone that lived their life in the closet for so long, that secretly had a double life, now I’m out. But in many ways, I still have this double life,” she says. “I would love to be able to have them as one. I’d love for my kids to see the woman that I am in New York. All my friends in New York are so much younger than me. I’m okay with that.

I am embracing every beautiful part of this coming out experience later in life…. Maybe that is the good part about living bicoastal, because I get to come here and I’m back to being a 44-year-old mother of seven. I go back to New York and I feel like I’m 22 again.”

Reconciling her new rea lit y a lso includes managing her newfound sobriety.

Windham-Burke describes herself as an active traveler, rather than a chill-bythe-pool tourist, something that requires energy and no hangovers.

“Even before I got sober, I never drank that much when I traveled with the kids, because I couldn’t pull it off,” she says. “For me, travel’s always been the best (time) of my life, because it’s pretty much always been the sober parts of my life.”

Windham-Burke is planning a return to TV, with a new hush-hush project. Life feels full of potential she says.

“I want to go to Bora Bora. I want to stay in one of those huts where I don’t want to leave the room, because the person I’m with is just so magical,” she says. “Even though I’m 44 and I’ve done a lot and I’ve traveled a lot, I’ve never traveled in love.”

Her excitement is infectious. “I’m feeling feelings I’ve never felt before. I am feeling first love, first heartbreak. It’s like Oz, and I just walked out of Kansas and everything’s technicolor.”

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After the devastating impacts of the pandemic, the cruise industry is rebounding. And once again, LGBTQ+ travelers are leading the way.

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ALONSO REYES/UNSPLASH

At cruise travel’s peak in 2019, 30 million passengers hit the seas and rivers each year. Then the travel industry cratered in the face of the global pandemic and worldwide lockdowns.

Cruise ships became viewed as one of the most dangerous places to be. Some ships were not allowed into ports, forced instead to remain at sea for long periods of time.

Ea rlier t his yea r Cr uise Lines International Association, the leading or g a n i z at ion of t he g lob a l c r u i s e community, released its 2022 State of the Cruise Industry Outlook.. The annual report revealed that only 5.8 million people took a cruise in 2020, a loss of 81 percent from 2019.

Forty-nine percent of cruise-supported employees lost their jobs.

Travel has always been about more than vacationing for LGBTQ+ Americans. It is an avenue for us to find community, to go places more accepting, to be our most authentic selves among others like ourselves. Kelli Carpenter recently reflected (page 50) on founding the queer family cruise company R Family Vacations, saying it became more than a company, “It became a community.”

Indeed, gender scholar Liz Montegary tells Out Traveler (page 46), “booking a cruise — could be experienced as [a] politicized [act]. Not only were these travelers doing the political work of building community, they were also increasing their visibility as valuable consumers deserving of state recognition and legal protections.”

Cr uising ha s been a pa r t icu la rly important part of LGBTQ+ travel, as a chartered ship could provide a space safe, leaving homophobia and discrimination behind as it left port for friendlier waters.

When straights can be the biggest threat to your wellbeing, a boat full of queers could be the safest place in the world.

Queer travelers have previously been shown to return to travel more quickly than their straight counterparts (for example after 9-11). By early 2021, the majority of respondents (73 percent) to an IGLTA survey said they were ready to plan their next major vacation.

Proclaiming “Taking a cruise could cost less than filling your gas tank,” in July the Washington Post reported on cruise lines offering bargain basement prices, citing a $25 a night offer from Carnival, a company

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that has ships with the capacit y to hold 6,600 passengers, and apparently was still having trouble selling rooms.

But that doesn’t reflect the situation for LGBTQ+ cruise companies, which generally charter smaller boats (for example the women-majorit y Olivia Travel only books ships with capacities of around 2,200 passengers). Olivia’s founder Judy Dlugacz, tells Out Traveler (page 48), “Cruising and our resorts and adventures are all at capacity this year except for a handful of spaces.” And she adds, “Next year promises to be Olivia’s biggest year in her history.”

Dlugacz muses, “Is it all back?” about the cruising industry. “I think people are wanting to explore and enjoy life and perhaps there is an even stronger desire to travel than ever, after the restrictions and the political upheavals we have all endured.”

Queers are booking LGBTQ+ cruises for what Montegary calls “the fantasy of escaping the straight world and sailing away in a queer utopia.” But (as you’ll read) we are also booking vacations with more mainstream companies like Celebrity Cruises and Virgin Voyages, which Montegary says offer “the promise of inclusion and assimilation.”

But do we just blend in with the s t r a ig ht s t he m i nute we boa rd a mainstream cruise ship? Ultimately the gender theorist doesn’t think so. “We can’t really know what kinds of queer desires and alliances — erotic, political, or otherwise — might take shape on the decks of these ‘gay-friendly’ cruises,” she acknowledges. But she adds, “I have the utmost of faith in the capacity of queer sexual cultures to permeate these new configurations.”

I n t h i s s p e c i a l e d it ion of O ut Traveler we delve deeper into cruising, examining its relationship with our fights for LGBTQ+ equality, the impact of companies like Olivia, the future of R Family, guides to some mainstream cruises — and yes, even consider that other kind of cruising by exploring where queer desires and travel meet.

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Cruising to Equality?

The cruise industry helped establish the LGBTQ+ tourism market — and gain rights. But has it gone far enough?

In “Cruising to Equality: Tourism, U.S. Homonationalism, and the Lesbian and Gay Family Market,” author Liz Montegary wrote (as she explains now) that “spending money in local and global tourism markets increased the visibility of ‘respectable,’ economically privileged lesbian and gay parents and, in doing so, strengthened lesbian and gay demands for marital and parental rights.”

Montegary is now director of graduate studies at Stony Brook University’s Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies and author of the 2018 book Familiar Perversions: The Racial, Sexual, and Economic Politics of LGBT Families. In the nearly two decades since R Family launched, the LGBTQ+ cruise industry has been dramatically transformed. And while marriage equality is currently the law of the land, parental rights are under threat and a Supreme Court justice wants to undo our marriages. In this conversation we talk to Montegary about the connection between cruising and equality.

Has cruising contributed to LGBTQ+ equality?

I think cruising has played a role in moving some LGBTQ+ people toward equality, but I also think it has contributed to moving other LGBTQ+ people further from equality.

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As companies began more aggressively courting “pink dollars” over the course of the 1990s, group-based commercial activities, like tourism, took on new meaning. Lesbian and gay identity was organized around a shared set of desires — not just in terms of same-sex eroticism but now around shared consumer wants and common political interests. Within this context, private acts of consumption — like booking a cruise — could be experienced as politicized public acts. Not only were these travelers doing the political work of building community, they were also increasing their visibility as valuable consumers deserving of state recognition and legal protections.

Now for my but. Tourism is only a liberator y site for LGBTQ+ travelers equipped with the bodies, resources, legal status, and cultural capital needed to engage in leisure travel. By increasing

A&J FOTOS/GETTY IMAGES

BY JACOB ANDERSON-MINSHALL

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the visibility of gender conforming, economically privileged, and able-bodied/ minded LGBTQ+ citizens, the industry effectively marginalizes those who cannot or will not conform to the white middleclass norms of consumer culture.

I’m not convinced “equality” is the thing we should be cruising toward. This is not to say legal rights and protections don’t matter. They most certainly do!

But, over the past few decades, demands for LGBTQ + “e qualit y ” have b e en disconnected from racial, economic, and disability justice. Rather than focusing on structural change and the redistribution of wealth and life chances, movements for “equality” have narrowly focused on gaining access to the military, marriage and the family, consumer culture, etc. — the very institutions that cause harm and unevenly allocate material resources.

COURTESY ATLANTIS (POOL); COURTESY VACAYA (BEARS)

Talk about mobility justice and how it relates to the cruising industry.

This conceptual framework understands mobility as an unfairly distributed resource and analyzes the structures that make the freedom of movement possible for some and impossible for others. Mobilities researchers pay particular attention to the fact that the mobility of certain individuals often depends upon the containment or displacement of others. The expansion of the cruise industry, in particular, has had devastating economic and environmental effects on local populations and ecosystems…. [And] cruising threatens to always be at odds with truly transnational justice movements for gender and sexual liberation.

remained uncomfortable with the idea of “segregating” the queers from the straights.

Anything else you’d like to share about LGBTQ+ cruises?

I wanted to clarify that, regardless of how companies market their cruises, we can’t be totally sure how people will use the space of the ship. In the longer version of my “Cruising to Equality” article (which is chapter 2 of Familiar Perversions), I talk about some of the unexpected encounters I had while on my Alaska cruise.

Take, for example, the group of 40-something-year-old gay men, all of whom identified as bears. For them, the appeal of R Family was not the child-friendly aspect but rather the sexually flexible space that refused to abide by the ageist and fatphobic bodily norms associated with most all-male gay cruises.

Or, consider the contingent of white gay men in their thirties….

According to them, the hot tubs had been a prime spot for being cruised by dads who were looking for some fun after putting their kids to bed.

So, even as I wonder (and maybe worry) about what might be a growing preference for “inclusive” vacation opportunities, I want to acknowledge that people don’t always use spaces in the way they are intended. I have the utmost of faith in the capacity of queer sexual cultures to permeate these new configurations. And we can’t really know what kinds of queer desires and alliances — erotic, political, or otherwise — might take shape on the decks of these “gay-friendly” cruises.

TOP Atlantis pool party BOTTOM a VACAYA bear couple

Some LGBTQ+ travelers now prefer to travel on mainstream cruises.

I’m quite intrigued by the rise of “inclusive” mainstream cruise packages. Cruises emerged as an incredibly popular and profitable venue for hosting communitybuilding vacations. The perceived safety of the cruise ship was especially appealing for [queer] tourists. The availability of “inclusive” vacation options marks a break from the industry’s earlier attempts to sell the fantasy of escaping the straight world and sailing away in a queer utopia. Instead, these companies hold out the promise of inclusion and assimilation.

I can’t help recalling a conversation I had with students a few years ago. My students were appalled to learn lesbians and gay men have been forced to vacation separately. I was so caught off guard that I almost cracked up: Why on Earth would queers want to travel with straights?! I eventually pulled myself together, and we had an interesting conversation about community-building projects…but [they] OUTTRAVELER.COM

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All Hail Women of Olivia As the queer company gets ready to celebrate its 50th anniversary, it foresees a record year for LGBTQ+ women cruises.

Olivia Travel founder, Judy Dlugacz

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In 1990, when Olivia — then a venerable lesbian music company — chartered its very first ocean voyage, only one cruise line would lease a ship to a bunch of queer women. “On so many levels we were seen as scary,” Olivia’s founder Judy Dlugacz recalls. “First homophobia, then not believing women could charter a ship, and they were also afraid about what the religious community would think of their companies chartering to gay people.

Also, the crew had to be totally in the closet or be afraid of losing their jobs.”

Since then, “we have changed the travel industry and impacted women all over the world!” Dlugacz says. And indeed, examples abound of how the pioneering company made history and changed the world of travel. In 1993, Olivia visited the Greek island of Lesbos, in what Dlugacz has called, “probably the largest lesbian pilgrimage in a few millennia.”

Six years later, when docking in Turkey, an Olivia cruise was met by protestors who objected to the queer passengers. Over a thousand women disembarked anyway and infused so much cash into the local economy that by the next port they were greeted with signs proclaiming “Welcome, Ladies of Olivia!” and Turkish newspapers heralded the “wonderful women” who helped revive the tourist industry postKosovo War.

“We a re a ma zing a m ba ssadors wherever we go,” Dlugacz notes.

“Meeting people who never saw so many women much less lesbians and LGBTQ+ women having so much fun together.

It is contagious and we have helped to change the way the world sees this very invisible population.”

Over the decades, Olivia cruises have hosted author summits and film festivals, leadership trips with icons like Billie Jean King, and tennis clinics with Martina Navratilova. The former recording label continued its musical legacy by booking stars like the Indigo Girls, Heart, k.d. lang, and Melissa Etheridge.

Today, Olivia Travel is the most inf luent ia l queer women’s t ravel company in the world. “Our team and our guests represent an amazing crosssection of our community,” boasts Dlugacz, who says Olivia’s guests range from their 30s to 70s and reflect numerous ethnicities, racial identities, and international connections.

“Since we started Olivia Travel, we have taken well over 350,000 women on vacations around the world,” Dlugacz says. “So many women never traveled outside of the U.S. before Olivia because of how insecure it was to travel as two women. Now we go everywhere with brand new travelers and well-seasoned adventurers. For lesbians and LGBTQ+

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women in particular [cruising] is a great way to see the world with a community of friends,” Dlugacz says. “It is also a very secure way for women to travel.”

LGBTQ+ travelers face more than taunts or outright discrimination when they travel — violence is always a possibility, especially for women, nonbinary, and gender-nonconforming folks. Singles, couples, and small groups are at more risk than a ship full of queer women. There is safety in numbers and in the way Olivia vets every port and excursion operator before partnering with them. That kind of power and security can be intoxicating and it’s one of the reasons that Olivia cruises can feel so life changing.

There really is something special about being on a boat where women outnumber men 100 to one and the majority of passengers and crew are queer. (“It’s like taking off a tight shoe,” Dlugacz jokes.)

It’s a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Until it isn’t. After going on one Olivia cruise many guests return, again and again.

(I’ve been on eight myself.)

“The LGBTQ+ women who come with us have an extraordinary experience, unlike any other,” Dlugacz adds. “I always welcome our guests at the gangway and say, ‘Welcome to the way the world should be!’ [There’s a] comfort and freedom knowing we are the majority and thus the norm. When you

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step on an Olivia cruise or resort or any of our trips, you can feel that sense of excitement and delight and for whatever number of days you are with us, there is a fresh sense of empowerment for all.”

The cruise industry has grown enormously in the past three decades. “When Olivia started cruising, the largest ships were 1,250 passengers,” Dlugacz muses.

“Now they are over 5,000. But the good news is there is a lot of diversity in terms of size of ships, types of ships, and where we can go.”

Olivia charters cruise ships t h a t c a n c a r r y up to 2 , 20 0 passengers, riverboats (up to 180) in Europe and the U.S., and adventure cruises (up to 100) in the Galapagos, Antarctica, and the Sea of Cortez. The company a l so does resor t buyout s i n Me x ic o a nd t he C a r i bb e a n and land-based adventures in Patagonia and Machu Picchu.

In t he coming year, Oliv ia is planning 33 trips — mostly riverboats. But the itinerary also includes Windstar sail trips in Tahiti, resorts in Turks and Caicos and Nuevo Vallarta, and small luxury cruises to Iceland, Greece, Cyprus, and Israel.

As the world learns to live with the pandemic, travel has rebounded. In fact, business is booming. Dlugacz says, “We are seeing a huge increase in new guests on all of our vacations.

We have yet to do a large cruise [since the pandemic started] and the first will be our 50th Celebrations to the Caribbean.

Everything we are doing is selling out.”

In 2023 Olivia is celebrating its 50th anniversary as a company, and Dlugacz says it ’s planning “blowout experiences,” including two cruises to the Caribbean and a buyout of a five-star resort in Cabo San Lucas. She says, “Next year promises to be Olivia’s biggest year in her history.”

Dlugacz says of her crew, “We get better at everything we do every time we travel.” Those who’ve been on previous cruises will still find something new to experience on Olivia.

“More and more new talent, some wonderful new ships and itineraries you’ve never done before…[and] an even more diverse group of passengers!”

CLOCKWISE FROM LEFT Whale watching excursion on an Olivia cruise; solo travelers often find love or friendship aboard; Alyson Palmer of the band BETTY performs

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A Family Cruise Without Kids?

R Family Vacations co-founder Kelli Carpenter on the last 20 years — and where the queer cruise company goes from here.

Kelli Carpenter was once best known as Rosie O’Donnell’s ex, but now the lesbian mom is known for the company she co-founded, R Family Vacations. R Family was previously synonymous with queer parents who had kids in tow, but now it has so many adults-only cruises the company has announced it will soon rebrand to better reflect its passenger demographic.

Carpenter was a featured speaker this June at the LGBTQ+ luxury conference PROUD Experiences in New York City. She shared the struggles she faced growing up (her conservative religious Louisiana family repeatedly subjected her to conversion therapy) and becoming a lesbian mom.

“When I started my own family 26 years ago, this was way more of a unique situation than it is now,” she explained. “Being in an LGBTQ family was a new concept back then. It came with many of its own challenges. As my kids grew older, I saw their need to see other families that were like theirs. I knew that if I was searching for this and living in New York City, I couldn’t imagine what other gay families in more remote locations felt like.”

Things changed in 2002 when she took her family to Provincetown, Massachusetts, for the queer Mecca’s Family Weekend (now a full week). “My kids were young but old enough to OUT TRAVELER

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understand what they saw,” she recalled.

“They saw for the first time, families that looked like theirs. It was really a moment of change for my kids. I felt an idea stirring inside of me after that first visit.”

Her friend, Greg Kaminski, had been with her in P-town that weekend. A gay man, he was working for Atlantis Events at the time, one of the largest gay cruise companies in the world. “He had a travel industry background and I had a marketing background,” Carter explained. “Plus, I felt like I understood what these families were missing.”

When R Family launched two decades ago, they created vacations for LGBTQ+ families but, Carpenter said, it quickly became more than just a vacation company. “It became a community, a community where everyone is accepted. And once a year, these kids that are members of a gay family could see other families that looked like theirs.”

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COURTESY R FAMILY VACATIONS; JUANMONINO/GETTYIMAGES (QUEER FAMILY IN POOL); SHUTTERSTOCK (POC MOMS); MESQUITAFMS GETTYIMAGES (SINGLE)

ABOVE Families still welcome; R Family cofounders Greg Kaminski and Kelli Carpenter on a recent excursion; singles may choose an adults-only cruise

BELOW R Family Vacations OUT in Venice cruise was aboard a Uniworld riverboat; the company now appeals to emptynesters as well as new families

It also wasn’t just booking queer couples and their kids. “Many of our guests are extended straight friends and family,” Carpenter said. “So we may have a family…book and it’s one gay couple with their children and their brother and his wife and their kids and their parents.

So that’s what it looks like on board one of our trips. It was finally actually a place that was reflective of my own life. Not all gay; not all lesbian; including my allies and straight friends and family. With R Family Vacations, I was able to create the community that I had dreamed of having as a gay teen.”

A lot has changed since 2002, which is why R Family is now reconsidering how it identifies. “Since that first cruise ship charter I’ve shared the world with other 20,000 people and I’ve seen toddlers grow into adults,” Carpenter explained. “I now have a whole other branch with my company. That’s the older empty nesters that their kids have grown up so now we cater to them, too. We now have a whole adult-only side of our business.”

Since that initial R Family sailing 20 years ago, Carpenter said, “In some ways, we’ve made great strides as far as marriage equality and protections for our families.” But, speaking just days after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, she added that we are entering dangerous territory. In the face of that, she concluded, “I hope we keep remembering that travel is a way that we open our minds and soften our hearts to new things. So along with exploring the world together and resisting this, we are all going to get through this together.”

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Birds of a Feather Cruise Together

These companies charter entire ships for LGBTQ+ travelers and their allies.

LGBTQ+ cruises serve as a respite from a hetero- and cisgender-centric world.

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Queer cruises allow travelers to show affection without trepidation.

Atlantis Events Founded in 1991 by current President and CEO, Rich Campbell, who was “looking to create a unique place for the gay community to come together to play,” Atlantis is the largest cruise company in the world to focus exclusively on the LGBTQ+ community. Catering to more than 20,000 guests a year, Atlantis cruises are known for their party culture and offer “a week of fun that’s mostly men and welcoming to women.” The company’s 2023 all-inclusive trips on chartered Celebrity ships begin in the Caribbean in January and February. The company also offers gay all-day resort take overs of Club Meds in Mexico.

NAIMA GREEN

Melissa Etheridge Cruise For those who want their vacation to be a music festival, the Melissa Etheridge Cruise fills the bill. Two cruises have already set sail, the first in 2019 aboard the Norwegian Pearl and the second (which Jewel co-headlined) in 2021. This year Etheridge unveiled a land-based event, the inaugural Etheridge Island, an all-inclusive festival located at the Dreams + Secrets Resorts in Playa Mujeres, Mexico. The aptly named Women’s Beach will be host to the events run

by Sixthman, (which produced Etheridge’s cruises as well).

Currently, there’s no word yet if Etheridge will hit the seas again in 2023, but the lesbian rocker will continue to find ways to perform in these more intimate settings.

Olivia Travel With its roots in women’s music and a heart deep in the LGBTQ+ movement, Olivia has changed the world with music and travel. The former record label launched Olivia Travel in 1990.

Since then, the company has taken over 350,000 lesbians and LGBTQ+ women on hundreds of vacations around the world. In addition to chartering cruise ships, Olivia also books smaller luxury boats and riverboat cruises as well as land-based adventures and resort take-overs. If most of the trips weren’t already sold out, you could take the Columbia River Adventure cruise this fall, jet off to the Magical India Adventure, then bolt to the Mediterranean to join Olivia’s Greece, Cyprus, and Israel luxury cruise before either enjoying the warmth of the Hard Rock Vallarta resort, or braving the cold with a visit to Antarctica. Before the year ends there’s also a polar bear photography expedition and an African safari. If you want something really special, 2023 features Olivia’s 50th

Anniversary celebration, and the company will party with two Caribbean cruises and a Cabo resort.

OUTBound Founded by out actor Jonathan Bennett (Mean Girls, The Christmas House) and his husband Jaymes Vaughan (The Amazing Race 21, AdvocateChannel), this travel company offers small group vacations specifically for queer adults (guests 18-21 are required to travel with a companion over 25). The all-inclusive packages cover rooms and meals to drinks and entertainment and most activities. The company takes over resorts or charters small ships and has policies to protect the privacy of guests who aren’t out back home. The next sailings include a December trip along the Rhine River, Christmasthemed markets, and a Budapest Pride Cruise. OUTBound also does land-based adventures, including an African Safari that ends at the stunning Victoria Falls.

R Family Vacations Founded in 2003 by travel entrepreneurs Kelli Carpenter and Gregg Kaminsky, and featured in HBO’s Emmy-nominated documentary All Aboard!, R Family Vacations was created for LGBTQ+ families (“and that includes our kids, who have their own activities”). Having served over 20,000 folks since then, the company’s cruises, resort takeovers, and land-based vacations, now include adults-only packages and a Broadway Cruise. With vacation destinations that range from domestic American such as Alaska or Miami, to the South of France, Ireland, Israel, Egypt, and even Thailand; R Family has expanded dramatically in the past 20 years. R Family Vacations has helped ensure that LGBTQ+ families are able to enjoy the world.

VACAYA VACAYA charters entire ships and takes over resorts for folks across the LGBTQ+ spectrum (and their straight friends and family). The company’s bucket list destinations have included Provincetown, New Orleans, Iceland, Costa Rica, Antarctica, and the Seychelle Islands. Upcoming cruises include trips to Antarctica, the Caribbean, Greece, the Norwegian Fjords, and Venice. In addition to the activities, excursions, and entertainment provided on board, VACAYA, has a reach-out program that works with the communities visited, in keeping with their mission to “ensure we’re giving back more to the communities we visit than what’s being taken away.”

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Celebrity Edge pool deck

I was in my 30s when I went on my first cruise, an (almost) all-lesbian cruise with Olivia Travel, and it changed my life — in part because the women I met, for whom the cruise served as an annual lifeline in their normally semi- closeted lives back home.

Perhaps those forced-to-be-closeted women were only 10 or 20 percent of the travelers on the ship, but their stories shaped how I viewed the ways in which travel can enhance the lives of LGBTQ+ people by empowering us, bringing us joy, and letting us have a positive impact on the world.

The Edge of Tomorrow This is what happens when women run cruise lines.

Fast forward 20 years later and Olivia is celebrating their 50th anniversary next year (and I’ll be on board!) and now many “mainstream” cr uise companies have LGBTQ+ gatherings, events, or on-board affinity groups.

Even on fairly recent cruises I’ve had on Princess (the “straight” cruise line featured in the popular ’70s TV series, The Love Boat) and Holland America (the classy older sister ship with a lot

of folks over 50 onboard), LGBTQ+ travelers were abundant, openly queer staff was visible, and there were gatherings for queer and trans folks.

But two mainstream cruise ships blew my mind: Virgin’s Scarlet Lady (see page 58) and Celebrity Edge. A couple of years ago I was on the ship’s maiden voyage and can say it is the most millennial luxury ship I’ve been on, setting sail on a new era in cruising.

Celebrity Edge’s first sailing featured a ceremony where Andra Day sang “Rise Up,” and then the ship’s “godmother,” Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Malala Yousafzai, spoke movingly about inclusivity and female empowerment before blessing the ship.

Yousafzai advocates for a world where every girl can learn and lead by investing in local education activists, holding global leaders accountable, and amplifying girls’ voices around the world. Celebrity Cruises raises money for her nonprofit Malala Fund. The ship is helmed by a woman, too: Captain Kate McCue. “We believe in diversity and inclusion...and advancing gender Adam Rippon equality,” Lisa Lutoff-Perlo, CEO of Celebrity Cruises, says. If you think turned Pride having a female CEO impacts what a travel company does, you’re right. at Sea into a While progress has been made, only 2 percent of the world’s mariners blast are women. Celebrity Cruises is leading the industry into a more diverse future with their bold initiatives to #BRIDGEthegap, recruiting and training more women for these jobs. The company hit another historic milestone: the first-ever sailing with an entirely female bridge and officer team, in honor of International Women’s Day 2020.

Celebrity’s female crew ratio is 50 percent higher than any other cruise line (women are 30 percent of the crew), and 20 percent of their captains are female. “It takes a village and we’re all very committed and it’s purposeful,” says Lutoff-Perlo. “[We’re] putting money where our mouth is…and [plan to] increase that still.”

There are also numerous high-ranking LGBTQ+ folks on staff at Celebrity Cruises corporate and onboard, including head of Entertainment Experience Development Bryan White. Gay designer Nate Berkus is the Edge Series Travel Ambassador and lauds the company for “delivering the very best in terms of luxury design.”

There are endless Instragram-worthy spots and the artwork on board is beautiful, often queer, and female-centric. There’s a gorgeous all-pearl ship replica, the Jiao Long, crafted by British artist Ann Carrington that I wanted to shove in my suitcase!

Whole sections of the ship, like Eden, are designed to be living works of art where people weave in and out and the setting is ever changing.

Sinful is an immersive theatric experience in the ethereal space.

Jouin Manku’s influence is strikingly apparent in the Main Dining Atrium, where the staircase is a work of art and features a gorgeous OUT TRAVELER

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installation known as The Pendulum.

Everything on the ship is outward facing so the view is phenomenal from any deck, but the Resort Deck is unlike any other outdoor space at sea. There’s a poolside gallery full of oversized art installations, martini shaped hot tubs, and high-ceilinged cabanas; a rooftop garden draws guests in day and night.

The ship caters to all ages, so the adultsonly pool and hot tub in the Solarium were delightful refuges.

The Spa is superb, with a 256-squarefoot Rainfall Water Therapy Room where simulated rain showers — ranging from warm to cool, from light drops to a waterfall — helped wash away my jet lag. Then I fell asleep in the Float Room where you can swing into a meditative state, cocooned in floating basket chairs, along with stunning f loor-to-ceiling views of the ocean.

The in-suite bathroom is the best on any ship I’ve been on, hands down.

Unlike the RV-style types on so many ships, this had a full-size bathtub and separate shower. It was gorgeous, spacious, and as modern as a luxury hotel. I could have lived in that tub.

There are 29 dining options on board designed by a Michelin-starred chef, including four main dining rooms, a steakhouse, a French bistro, Raw on 5 (a sushi bar with an amazing lobster roll), a juice bar, poolside cafes, and several ways to eat while staring at the ocean.

My favorite brings travelers’ tabletops to life with Le Petit Chef and Friends at Le Grand Bistro. In this fun and fascinating new experience, four animated chefs stroll across your table creating courses that the real-life chefs then bring out. The animated, interactive show reportedly

changes each visit and I guarantee if you have wee ones, they’ll love it.

W hy a m i l len n ia l ship? Because t here needed to be one!

Wit h 72 million millennials, “They’re the cruisers and the vacationers currently and of the future.” Lutoff-Perlo s a y s , a d d i n g , “ We t r a ve l t o b e a u t i f u l places in t he world a nd t he mil lennia ls dispropor t ionately spend on travel…their aspiration for seeing the world in a meaningful way is quite high. We’re tr ying to bring likeminded, new cruisers into the category, and we think the ship is a great opportunity to do that right.”

Don’t think you have to be a millennial to enjoy it, however (I’m certainly not). I saw queers of all ages on board. Adam Rippon, the first out gay Olympic medalist and America’s sweetheart, is a fan. He served as Sea Grand Marshal at the ship’s Pride Party (when the Edge sailed to Spain, France, and Italy). The annual Largest Pride Party at Sea is part of the brand’s fleet-wide celebration of 30 Days of Pride. The Edge’s kick-off featured a parade and official rainbow flag raising and a Color the Night White party. Travelers literally colored the night with rainbow throwing powder, body paint, and face makeup, with the live musicians playing in the background as the ship sailed off to Barcelona and Ibiza, Spain.

It doesn’t get much queerer than that.

Female-centric art fills the ship

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Aegean Adventure Why cruising Greek islands is an idyllic family vacation.

There was a time growing up when the idea of a “gay cruise” brought to mind huge party ships full of gay men, dancing into the wee hours to the beats of club music. But these days the concept of LGBTQ+ families taking a summer cruise is no longer a head-turner.

For the past decade, my husband Lance and I have taken our two sons (Joshua, 21, and Matthew, 15) on a weeklong summer vacation, to share different parts of the country and other cultures around the world. Our family vacations have varied from a quiet hiking trip in Montana’s glorious Glacier National Park to a busy, immersive visit to dynamic Hong Kong.

Frustrated with the time and travel opportunities lost to the pandemic, this year we decided to go big. We chose a seven-night cruise of the Aegean Sea, which began and ended in Athens with stops at famed islands Mykonos and Santorini. The Idyllic Aegean itinerar y was offered by award-winning Celestyal Cruises, a smaller line that’s locallyowned and prides itself on unique itineraries and culturally immersive experiences. It also featured stops you’ll not likely find on megaships, such as delightful Thessaloniki, Greece’s second largest city; Kusadasi, Turkey, with its incredible ruins; and tiny Greek Milos, recently named the world’s best island.

We cruised on the Crystal, a ship with about 700 passengers and 500 crewmembers. We appreciated the smaller size, which was big enough to feel like a real cruise ship, yet not gargantuan and impersonal. Coming into dock, our ship’s passengers never overran the port towns, and we never felt crowded.

We opted for two cabins directly across from each other. We’d often leave both doors open so the kids could come hang out with us or watch the stunning blue Aegean and the myriad islands we passed from our deck.

While the food quality was excellent, the choices were admittedly limited, but more than sufficient for the four of our palates. Of the three buffet and restaurant choices on board, our favorite was Olympus with its intimate, clubby vibe.

Part of Celestyal’s charm is that so much is included — including gratuities and both alcoholic and nonalcoholic drinks; but you can also pay for upgrades, such as a Greek wine tasting, and special dinners with a menu curated by famed My Greek Table author, chef, and TV host, Diana Kochilas.

In addition, each passenger receives two complimentar y tours: one in Kusadasi and one in Rhodes. Additional tours can be purchased in advance or on board.

There was a nice variety of entertainment, with a main Broadway-type show each evening, featuring a combination of singers, dancers, and acrobats. Other options throughout the morning and afternoon included kids’ activities (mostly geared toward teens), dancing lessons, some arts & crafts activities, bingo, quizzes, and video games.

In the evenings, the multitude of bar and lounge areas on the ship were host to different musicians, from traditional hits to Greek classics, and even disco. Our favorite was the nightly International Hits program by Duo Jaleo, a straight married couple who love to make music and interact with the audience. It was heartwarming to see them off the boat holding hands, wandering port towns.

The seven stops on our itinerary each offered tours to please a variety of guests, and the quality of those we sampled was excellent.

From Kusadasi, we bused to the ancient ruins of Ephesus, where St. Paul once preached, and Mary is said to have lived until her death.

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Roman ibrary at Ephesus

DELIHAYAT/GETTY IMAGES (EPHESUS); PAUL J HENEY (FAMILY )

guide had arranged for us to be dropped off at the higher entrance and picked up at the lower one, allowing for a slow descent through the city, only 20 percent of which has been excavated to date. On the return to port, the bus also stopped at local merchants, where we watched artisans weave silk and Turkish rugs.

On Crete, we journeyed to the center of this beautiful, mountainous island; it’s the largest Greek isle and the fifth largest island in the Mediterranean. We spent a morning with a third-generation farmer who shared winemaking techniques, his family history, and a beautiful philosophy on life (the more love you give, the happier you will be). After being treated to traditional dancing, we sampled his family’s wines and raki, a regional liquor. We also had some of the most delicious yogurt I’ve ever tasted, topped with honey and local yellow raisins that were sweeter and juicier than what you find in America.

Thessaloniki was a delightful stop, and one most cruisers don’t know. While it is Greece’s second largest city — located in the northern part of the country — it’s further away from the more famous islands in the Aegean Sea. Our local guide told us fascinating

stories about Thessaloniki, and its various rulers over the centuries.

The city was great for shopping, eating, and just wandering about to see its architecture and meet the friendly locals.

Sometimes the best cruise experiences are the unexpected ones.

The night before our Thessaloniki stop, another passenger raved about two bakeries near the city’s famed White Tower. Intrigued, we took snapshots of the photos she shared and visited the shops ourselves the next day. She wasn’t wrong — they made delicious pastries and the kids really enjoyed the impulsive scavenger hunt.

Mykonos is a beautiful, sun-drenched island surrounded by incredibly clear water. The main town is an enchanting place to get lost in, as big streets turn into tiny alleys and there are colorful flowers seemingly growing over every doorway. Countless gay couples wandered the streets and congregated at the local queer bar, JackieO’, named after the former first lady who so loved this island.

Make sure to check out the island’s iconic Instagrammable windmills.

In Rhodes we opted for a beach day. We walked about 20 minutes from the city port to the popular Elli Beach, where a nicely mixed all-ages crowd enjoyed the crystal-clear Aegean waters.

The beach was rocky instead The family of sandy, with small, polished overlooking Oia stones. The mountains of city on Santorini southwestern Turkey are visible across the water, truly a dramatic sight. A roughly 20-foot-high diving platform was anchored about 100 feet offshore, and many bathers took the opportunity to swim to it, then plunge off into the cool water. We paid 10 euros each for comfortable lounge chairs, towels, and umbrellas, then ordered pizza and drinks off the bar menu at our leisure from the handsome Greek waiter. Truly a slice of heaven!

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Lady in Red

How a thoroughly modern Virgin Voyage gave this traveler a case of serious ’80s nostalgia.

Untitled Danceshow Party Thing

In 1982, I spent every afternoon playing video games — back when we had to stand at a giant console shoving quarter after quarter into a machine. Just like with the pool table, if you wanted to play, you put your two quarters down on the console and cheered on (or stared at) the current player until it was your turn. I was so obsessed with Pac-Man that my back-to-school miniskirt outfit included the coveted (by dorks like me) Pac-Man deely bobber.

(Google it.)

The miniskirts are long gone, but that arcade-loving chick lives on. So, when I stepped onto Virgin Voyage’s first U.S. cruise ship, Scarlet Lady, thinking I’d have a wellness spa trip I was delighted instead to find a 1980s-style arcade (where quarters are never needed).

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incredibly broad range of ages. I saw guests who looked barely out of their teens and those who appeared octogenarians. But to this Gen Xer, Virgin’s Scarlet Lady was pure excitement because it felt directed at (or inspired by) my generation.

Often overlooked in favor of boomers and millennials, it was delightful to be so reflected.

The Arcade (clearly designed for me) offered the vintage arcade games of my youth, with Donkey Kong and Pac-Man, as well as pool and air hockey (the only sport I have ever excelled in because you can play it drunk). The adjacent ’50s-era soda fountain offered traditional and booze-filled milkshakes as well as boundless free popcorn.

Other spaces were equally delightful. The Groupie elicited a passion bordering on obsession. There you can book private karaoke booths in shades of pink, purple, and red. The booths have mics, giant screens, and song choices that span decades, genres (and an LGBTQ+ playlist), and singing abilities. To my surprise, there were plenty of openings on the signup sheet.

Next door is Voyage Vinyl, a record shop stocked with albums, magazines, headphones, and record players, and several listening stations. Another unusual cruise ship space: Squid

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Scarlet Lady has the largest hot tub at sea

Voyage Vinyl onboard record shop

Ink, a real tattoo parlor with two resident artists and one piercer.

Virgin founder Richard Branson calls the Untitled Danceshow Party Thing, which is produced by Sam Pinkleton and Ani Taj, “the hype music-video-meetsclub-scene” and an “absurdist dance party.” It felt like a night at New York City’s famed ’90s club, Limelight (minus all the blow), and turns from a show to a dance with electronic, hip hop, and pop music that had the entire audience on their feet.

On the cruise’s weekly Scarlet Night, one of the interactive performances centered around the circular stairs where dancers included numerous LGBTQ+ performers.

Virgin also hosts a drag show.

Duel Reality, an acrobatic street-style theatrical interpretation of Romeo and Juliet, is performed in The Red Room, billed as the first transformational multi-form theater at sea (sections can move back and forth depending on the show and size of the audience).

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Earlier this year Virgin announced a fleet-wide partnership with J. Lo. “My artistic and social mission is to empower, inspire and entertain,” the international film and music superstar said at the time. “I am inspired by Virgin Voyages’ dedication to creating irresistible experiences and focus on well-being.”

Even though Jennifer Affleck (née Lopez), is helping create Sailor (Virgin for guests) experiences with an emphasis on well-being and fitness, you’d be hard pressed to call Virgin a wellness cruise — it’s just too much fun.

There’s a sense of play and whimsy throughout the ship and activities. I did sunrise yoga and a mediation class but spent more time playing on the athletic deck, where a massive gym and full court fenced basketball court and a boxing ring are surrounded by a variety of playground throwbacks too fun to feel like fitness (seesaws, circular rope swings, and a DIY burpee station). I discovered that the Athletic Club is also a bar, so you can get drunk and watch other people get in shape or try chess strategies with the giant-size pieces. The deck shares space with two hot tubs as well, for further relaxation and incredible views.

Elsewhere, the Scarlet Lady features the largest hot tub at sea, a pool-size space with various depths and seating options.

On at-sea days the pools and hot tubs were well occupied, but days in port, relatively empty. If you book one of the larger

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The author in another Scarlet Lady space that makes you feel like a rock star

Rock Star suites, you also gain access to Richard’s Rooftop, an exclusive section of the upper deck featuring private hot tubs and a bar with VIP treats (like free champagne at bon voyage).

Hands down, Virgin’s Scarlet Lady had the best food I’ve ever had on a cruise ship. There are more than 20 eateries (but not a single buffet), including everything from fine dining to experimental gastronomy to juice bars and the winkingly named stand, Lick Me Till…Ice Cream (try the salted blue corn cone with orange ricotta ice cream and you will not be disappointed).

At the first Michelin-star restaurant at sea, Test Kitchen, the ever-changing innovative menu features smart molecular gastronomy.

Each meal has multiple courses based on one element that ties all the courses together (ours was mushroom but that included the best farmraised venison I’ve eaten and a chocolate-infused dessert that I can’t forget). The restaurant’s design includes a foodie version of the Periodic Table of Elements and even though it’s a prix fixe menu, servers (who wear white lab coats) ask about food allergies and vegan/vegetarian preferences before service, even switching things up for a tablemate allergic to at least one ingredient in every course (she loved their creative solutions).

Pink Agave’s entryway (above) is filled with giant silver and glass bulbs, making you feel like you’re walking the red carpet with dozens of old-fashioned flashbulbs going off. It was clearly the ship’s most Insta-worthy spot but the elevated Mexican menu — mostly small plates — was enchanting too. Enchilada del Pollo showcases the simple dish while the Pescado Zarandeado included so much halibut, lobster, scallops, and (giant) prawns that it had to be shared. I topped it off with a chocolate tamale and chocolate taco (neither what you’d expect) and a sip of a smokey whiskey with Mexican chocolate.

Gunbae (the only authentic Korean barbecue at sea) is another culinary experience worth a visit. Ingredients — thin sliced Wagyu beef, short rib, pork belly, seafood, and vegetables — are cooked on a tiny flameless grill built into your circular table. Be prepared to start with the eatery’s riotous drinking OUT TRAVELER

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game led by the servers who wear funky street-style K-pop threads. The Korean soju-based cocktails were a blast. Give Me That Dong-Lip is essentially a wine ice cream float; Smash It includes Tokki black label, ginger, citrus, and shiso leaf; and my new favorite, K-Pop Disco Water, includes actual Pop Rocks candy (hello ’80s!) with watermelon juice and Ginro grapefruit soju (and it’s served in a tiny disco ball).

The Ship Eats (which you order through the ship’s app) will deliver to wherever you are on the ship, including the Red Room during a show! We ate breakfast in our room most days, only venturing to The Wake for their amazing pork belly and asparagus eggs benedicts (though I heard missing Razzle Dazzle brunch was a mistake).

Virgin has its own private beach in Bimini, where the Beach Club’s pool felt like a Palm Springs circuit party, complete with jamming music and hot queer guys in various states of undress.

None of the straight guests batted an eye at men canoodling.

Beyond the gays on unicorn pool f loats, a bev y of loungers ensured everyone got their own with plenty of space in between. We shared our row with a group of six Black queer women (three couples) and a white woman with blue hair who was par tnered w it h a pudg y guy w it h dreads. It underscored that Virgin travelers are a quirky and beautifully unique bunch that I fit in with. That’s not something I always experience on mainstream cruises, and further endeared me to the Scarlet Lady.

COURTESY VIRGIN VOYAGES (PINK AGAVE); JACOB ANDERSON-MINSHALL (MIRROR ROOM)

Entry way to Pink Agave restaurant

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Body, Soul… and Sea Cruise lines are riding the new wave of wellness and culinarythemed travel.

BY DESIRÉE GUERRERO

SHUTTERSTOCK

Let’s face it. These days there’s no shortage of problems in the world to keep you up at night — so the need to take a break and “get away from it all” has become more vital to one’s mental health than ever. This has also helped pave the way for a new blossoming realm of culinary and wellness-themed vacations. More and more travelers are forgoing booze-soaked party trips for replenishing journeys that help one let go and heal the body and mind, rather than simply trying to forget your worries for a week. (Don’t fret, most still have booze.)

Cruise lines have caught on to this growing travel trend and there are now numerous wellness-minded options — here are some of our favorites.

Eat, Drink, and Be Healthy Let ’s star t with the y ummy stuff.

While culinary-themed travel isn’t a completely novel idea, there’s now a new crop of carefully curated trips that cater to specific tastes and dietary needs.

Created by blogger and event planner Sean O’Callaghan (fatgayvegan.com), Vegan Culinary Cruises offer luxury experiences that mix five-star gourmet vegan cuisine with adventurous and educational land and sea excursions.

Because trips are individually curated, destinations are always rotating — so visit the website to see what adventures are on the roster for 2022 and beyond.

Another option for vegan foodies is Oceania Cruises, which recently launched one of the most extensive gourmet plant-based menus available on the high seas — and with executive culinar y director Jacques Pépin’s expertise, the fare is sure to be sinfully delicious. T he line a lso operates wellness tours t hat include yoga, meditation, and more.

Not vegan but still craving some healthy yet mouthwatering meals while exploring the waters of the world? Check out Celebrity Cruises’ AquaClass ticket, which includes luxurious spa services in addition to daily breakfast and dinner at Blu, an upscale restaurant focusing on mindful, health-conscious cuisine.

Optional excursions include sea kayaking, whitewater rafting, and taking a relaxing dip in mud baths or hot springs.

Replenishing Body and Mind For those seeking a more healing or even spiritual getaway, a wellnessthemed cruise might be just what the doctor ordered. Aboard Silversea’s new vessel, Silver Dawn, travelers are treated to a wellness program inspired by the OUTTRAVELER.COM

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ancient Roman lifestyle called otium: a chunk of time devoted to leisure. While many associate health and wellness programs with discipline and sacrifice, otium is quite the contrary, focusing instead on pampering oneself with activities like bathing, conversation, singing, theorizing, drinking, and eating. With over 900 destinations on seven continents aboard a wide variety of vessels, you’re sure to find the relaxing retreat you’re searching for.

Oceania Cruises also now offers excursions to select destinations called Wellness Discovery Tours where you can indulge in apitherapy treatments (the practice of using honeybee byproducts for holistic health purposes) for skin rejuvenation at a beekeeping farm in the Spanish countryside or enjoy reflexology sessions on a rice barge on the Chao Phraya River in Thailand. You can also participate in guru-led Kandyan dance sessions in Sri Lanka or relax into the healing, toxinreducing mud baths of Cartagena, Spain.

Nature lovers can connect to our wonderous world with Seabourn Cruises, which now offers a curated Mindful Living Collection. Highlights of this program include exciting excursions like a yoga session and healthy lunch on a bay in Crete, and a meditative bicycle ride through an Arabian wildlife park.

Company president Josh Leibowitz notes that “Seabourn has expanded its marina day operations, which give guests access to Zodiacs, paddleboards, and kayaks off the back of the ship, and we have emphasized expedition experiences to keep guests moving and getting closer to nature.” In partnership with Dr. Andrew Weil, a prominent health and wellness expert, Seabourn also stocks each of its ships with a mindful living coach who is a certified yoga and meditation practitioner.

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the other

Cruising IS Back

too

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FILIPE FRAZAO/GETTY IMAGES

For straight travelers the word “cruising” may only imply traveling via cruise ship. But in queer culture cruising has an entirely other meaning, the act of seeking sexual partners in public spaces, be they parks or bathrooms or alleyways.

The sexual encounters that occur in these spaces are usually anonymous one-time liaisons.

In Cruising: An Intimate History of a Radical Pastime, Alex Espinoza, argues that the origins of the practice trace back to Ancient Greece. Attitude notes that cruising in England (and efforts to use the culture to “catch” gay and bi men) was documented in 1698 when the first recorded instance of entrapment involved a gay man lured to a private room in a London tavern.

Cruising was once one of the only ways for gay men to meet other men for sex, but in the age of hook-up apps it seemed to have lost its relevance or become a past-time of only those with public or outdoor sex fetishes.

Sure, there were still reports of the practice persisting, like when Attitude reported on a 2017 Let’s Go Outside party “at George Michael’s former stomping grounds on Hampstead Heath.” Which Zia X, a 28-year-old Londoner described as “a celebration of him refusing to be shamed into silence and to make a video about how wonderful it is to fuck outside.”

But mostly, cruising was considered consigned to the history books — until the pandemic hit. In 2021, the Grindr blog BLOOP reported on “a notable resurgence in the classic act of cruising.”

Sex and relationship therapist, Joe Kort explained the phenomenon, saying, “I think that there’s fatigue in the social and physical distancing. Cruising offers the opportunity to have physical connection, but from a distance, so it’s a perfect fit for the current pandemic situation.”

Although many use Grindr to order sex direct to their homes, there have always been those who still used it to hook up in public places. Newer apps like Squirt (which has a cruise feature), and Sniffies (a map-based app perfect for cruising) are helping to direct a new generation to cruising grounds.

And walking through public parks or along public beaches looking for sexual opportunities is still a common practice.

We’ve all heard stories about men wandering through the Ramble section of Central Park and stumbling into a sexual experience. And for some, that’s the biggest turn on.

“Cruising and public sex is a kink. It’s taboo, and the risk of getting caught and/or watched can really charge folks’ erotic energy,” licensed therapist, Todd Baratz, told Grindr last year.

“Cruising’s intrinsic connection to nature, in combination with the vulnerability of exposing yourself to participate, make it an almost spiritual and very humbling experience,” argues John Ripploh, writing for coupleofmen.com. “While cruising is certainly not without risks…[by] breaking through the societal norms that restrict us in our everyday lives, cruising is a celebration of lust, equality, and attraction.”

Ripploh calls traveling and cruising “the perfect match,” writing, “The vulnerability of being nude in a strange place, protected only by a few dunes or a forest, is liberating and extraordinary. Beyond our conventional mating rituals, the cruising area is an arena of male virility that allows individuals to feel like an elemental part of nature again…it’s the men that visit it that keep it alive.”

In the next few pages we explore the cruising app Sniffies and share advice about traveling when the purpose of your trip is to visit a cruising area or have sex in a different locale. — Editors OUTTRAVELER.COM

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Getting the Lay of the Land 15 Dos and Don’ts of Queer Sexcations

BY ALEXANDER CHEVES

Sniffies’ map-based system turns even the most distant destination into a gay meet-up.

BY NEAL BROVERMAN

Before the age of the hook-up app, traveling while queer could be a lonely experience until apps like Grindr allowed real-time connections with locals and fellow tourists. Sniffies, a relatively new addition, allows not just sweaty meet-ups but intel on where queer people hang out — enabling gay travelers to find community.

Sniffies, launched in 2018, features a map interface, showcasing cruising destinations where you can love him and leave him or actually spark up a conversation and, possibly, friendship. The app includes tips for timing and even “vibe checks” so users can feel comfortable exploring a new place. There’s also a chat option allowing people to connect with those already checked-in at the cruising spots, while Travel Mode allows users to get a better handle on gay hangouts.

Shane Moran, social media marketing manager for Sniffies, says the app allows queer travelers to get an idea of how sexually progressive any destination is (power in numbers!) — a benefit, even if you’re not looking to hook up. A good example is Little Beach on Hawaii’s Maui Island, a clothing-optional spot where LGBTQ+ travelers congregate.

Some beachgoers retire for romance in the wooded area behind the sand, while others chat and make friends. While knowing of Little Beach’s wonders used to require word of mouth, apps like Sniffies will direct even the uninformed to the island’s unofficial gay nexus.

Finding queer people outside the U.S. can be tougher Moran says.

“We always get testimonials on social media about people finding successful cruising spots and group events in foreign places.”

Sniffies operates outside Apple’s app store, allowing for explicit pics and kinks. Bisexual sex columnist Zachary Zane said it directed him to group experiences in New York City. “As an orgy connoisseur, the app’s most intriguing feature is the fact that people can post about orgies they’re hosting,” Zane wrote in Men’s Health. (Little did Zane know New York hosts at least five to 10 orgies a day!)

1. DO be honest with yourself about what you’re traveling for.

It’s OK to travel for sex, and a sexual adventure can be a great idea.

Just be honest with yourself about why you’re traveling. I knew I was going to San Francisco first and foremost to fuck, and that intention guided my choices and made the trip a beautiful success.

2. DO research local laws as they apply to LGBTQ+ people.

I assume that those reading this are LGBTQ+ and planning sex trips to places that are friendly. Even so, make no assumptions. Queer-friendly locales can (and do) exist in places with laws that outlaw sodomy, same-sex marriage, and public “expressions” of homosexuality.

3. DO be brave (but plan for anxiety).

Travel automatically requires courage and adding sex to the mix can be daunting, so build that nervousness into your itinerary. Do what you have to do to feel confident. If exercise is something that makes you feel strong, plan where you can grab a workout on your trip. If you need chemical courage, such as marijuana, psychedelics, or whatever, be prepared (I cannot encourage you to travel with such substances, but I can encourage you to make plans).

4. DO research local drug laws.

Sex and recreational drugs can go together nicely. But drug laws vary from place to place. In Puerto Vallarta, you can get almost anything at a local pharmacy, but magic mushrooms are hard to find there and are very illegal. Getting caught with them in your luggage will land you in a Mexican prison. Do your research.

5. DON’T make assumptions about local bodies or how locals will view yours.

I’ve heard outlandish stereotypes: “Everyone in Brazil has a huge dick.” “They love chubby guys in Spain.” “In Germany, dark hair and eyes are a hot commodity.” Cringeworthy comments like these make you look like an asshole American and include assumptions

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GEBER86/GETTY IMAGES

Where the Boys Are

While anyone can enjoy traveling for play, sexcations are particularly meaningful for LGBTQ+ people. Many of us live in places where we can’t explore the sex we want, and there simply aren’t enough available playmates, especially if our fantasies are more adventurous.

One of the most transformative sexual experiences of my life happened in my last year of college, some months after my HIV diagnosis. A trusted friend took me to San Francisco for the Folsom Street Fair, the largest gathering of kinky people in North America.

The trip changed my life. I found my people, I found sex partners that were not afraid of my HIV status, and I found direction at a time when I had none: after years in the Deep South, my life suddenly pointed West. I moved from Savannah, Georgia, to San Francisco — and that move would not have happened without a hedonistic sex trip. I needed to leave my small town and try things I could not try there. I needed to meet people who were into what I was into. Sex tourism changed — and saved — my life.

From international circuit parties to lesbian cruises to places off the beaten path that queer people explore every day, a sexcation can be one of the best and most important journeys of your life.

Here are 15 dos and don’ts to making it happen.

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about how your body will be viewed there, which can cause needless anxiety. Why go into an adventure with body dysmorphia?

Abandon your expectations. The place will reveal itself to you if you go there with curiosity and openness.

6. DO at least one solo sex trip.

Queer couples often do sex trips together.

This is fine, but it’s not the same as going by yourself. Immerse yourself in a new place with no relationship to tend to, no drama to follow you from home.

7. DO travel with a trustworthy and experienced friend if possible.

It’s a fact of all travel: it’s hard to know what to do if you’ve not been there before. Travel companions are great, especially for specific events (fetish gatherings, dance parties, Bear Week) where many people will be in attendance. Going with someone who knows the lay of the land can be the difference between a good time and bad one.

8. DO thorough STI screenings before and after.

Get tested. It’s the healthy thing to do.

10. DON’T rely entirely on hookup apps.

Grindr is global, but that doesn’t mean you should always use it. There’s nothing adventurous about going to an amazing new place only to sit somewhere with WiFi to scroll through profiles on your phone.

Force yourself to check out local queer hotspots and gay-friendly neighborhoods.

11. DO bring your sex essentials with you if possible.

With sex gear, some stuff is harder to travel with than others. My fisting lube stays in powder form until I mix it with water and TSA always flags my bag if the powder is in it. And here’s a blunt fact: travelsized lube bottles are simply not enough lube, especially if you’re planning to have marathon sex nights. If you keep dildos and butt plugs in your carry-on luggage, my best advice when the TSA agent pulls it out after searching your bag is to say it’s a chew toy for your dog (my imaginary dog loves massive toys). I still suggest bringing as much as you can, because local shops might not have what you need — if there are local sex shops where you’re traveling to.

12. DO try things you wouldn’t at home.

Sex travel is important because sometimes you need to be in a new place to try something new. There are kinky people all over the world who live in the countryside or in small towns where there simply aren’t other kinky people to play with. Kink aside, sometimes it’s just hard to be the kind of

sexual person you want to be at home. Many queer folks live in unfriendly places that mandate discretion. Use travel to be who you really are.

13. DON’T let #fails ruin your adventure.

Travel is truth serum — it has a way of bringing up whatever underlying issues are going on. Don’t be surprised if things don’t go as planned. Some of the best vacations happen when they run counter to everything you wanted them to be. You will likely have some failure: lackluster nights, bad hookups, performance anxiety, or plain bad luck. These are all part of any sex life, but can be crushing when you travel with the expectation that sex will be flawless, wild, and easy. The same sexual struggles you have at home are likely to appear when you’re away — though travel, at its best, can be where you better learn how to cope with them.

14. DO keep in touch — especially if you’re planning a wild time.

All trips have risks, sex trips included, especially if you plan to prowl on your own.

Just as with any hookup, it’s a good idea to let someone — preferably someone local, in addition to someone at home — know where you are at all times, and ask them to check in on you regularly.

15. DO keep a journal.

Like travel, good sex can be a life-changing experience. A sexual experience can be a lot to process when you’re navigating a trip. I always encourage journaling. A trip is, if nothing else, an opportunity to observe how you react when your daily routine is yanked away. Some of the best life lessons come on the road. On a sex journey, even more so: write it down.

ARTEM BOLSHAKOV/GETTY IMAGES

9. DO discuss boundaries and expectations.

Sex travel is, in my opinion, a precarious notion for couples — even ones who’ve been married for years. People change when they are uprooted from home. I’ve seen happy, resilient couples have terrible fights. I’ve seen the stressors of travel affect people in unpredictable ways. If you do a sex trip with a partner, talk at length beforehand. Be explicit about what your expectations are.

Tell them what experiences you want, with what kinds of people, and how many — how many folks you want to bang, how many

wild nights you want to have. Ask for these explicit details from them in turn. And have similar conversations with whoever you’re hooking up with once you are there. Share what you do and don’t want.

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CAPTURE

Queer architect, William Lane created a kaleidoscope of color and style along seven miles of Miami Beach

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The

Love

Shacks Miami’s iconic art deco guard shacks are the creation of a queer architect.

By Jacob Anderson-Minshall Photography by Martin Torres

Candi Brings Plenty, an activist who successfully lobbied for South Dakota’s hate crime protection bill to include Native American Two-Spirit people

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The architecture has its roots in the LES art scene of the ’70s and ’80s

CAPTURE

A NEW BOOK BY PHOTOGRAPHER Tommy Kwak, Lifeguard Towers: Miami, celebrates Miami Beach’s iconic guard shacks as designed by queer architect William Lane.

Lane cites a mix of influences and inspirations for the towers, which a re bot h ut ilita r ia n sur veil la nce structures and “activators of public space — in this case of the beach. They are anthropomorphic and provide the shoreline with a unique formation of characters that are an expression of the identity and culture of the region,” he adds. The architect likens the towers to sentries on the sands and compares them to the monumental stone moai figures guarding Easter Island.

Recalling how the guard towers came into being, Lane says, “After living in the East Village in the 1970s and 1980s, where I studied art and architecture at Cooper Union, I moved to Miami Beach in 1992. Soon after arriving, Hurricane Andrew hit Miami and destroyed the city’s lifeguard towers. In a show of support, I designed five new lifeguard towers for the City of Miami Beach; each of them located on Lummus Park on Ocean Drive.”

The pink round tower, Lane notes, “was designed in collaboration with my good friend, artist Kenny Scharf.”

Overall, Lane says, “Those towers had roots in the emerging art scene at that time in the Lower East Side and particularly the politics of queer identity. In a way they were a reaction to the hyper-masculine scene in the West Village and strived to embrace and reflect a wider LGBTQ+ population.”

Lane was honored when, in 2017 — 25 years after his initial creations — Miami asked him to design updated replacements for 36 existing lifeguard towers. Pulling inspiration from his original work, Lane created six new silhouettes, which he

transformed in a kaleidoscope of palettes to add glorious, art deco pops of color along a seven-mile stretch of sand.

One can now imagine the beach as one long runway, Lane says. These fierce divas of the sands speak of the community’s diversity, while serving tourists and locals alike colorful whimsy and exuberant queer joy.

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Designed in collaboration with Lane’s friend, Kenny Scharf

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A reaction to the hypermasculinity of that earlier time, these structures

Vibrant colors standout against the blue sky

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Six new silhouettes dot the beach line

CAPTURE

A glorious pop of color

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Colorful, whimsical, and joyful

Lane updated the design of 36 towers

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CAPTURE Honey Mahogany mourns “the passing of the venerable STUD nightclub. The best of S.F.’s queer nightlife, lives on in our collectivized hearts”

Going Commando

The queer metal band gives us a private tour of San Francisco.

By Jacob Anderson-Minshall + Photography by Devlin Shand

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Krylon Superstar in Eagle Plaza “If you’re like Commando, you’re

THE NÜ METAL BAND OF COMMANDO uses blistering guitars, driving percussion, and searing lyrics to unite crowds in the struggle against racism, queerphobia, transphobia, and fascism. Commando’s latest single, the album opener “Hotel Essex” is an homage to Black gay poet Essex Hemphill and addresses the intersections of the HIV crisis, sexuality, identity, homophobia, anti-Blackness, and racism.

Recently the band created a fictional “modern queer superheroes” travel brochure, Commando’s Guide to San Francisco. Their “cheeky contextualization,”includes joking advice to “take a dip in the colorful post-military industrial waters at Hunter’s Point — an amazing light percolating mineral bath.”

Here are some of our favorite images and notes:

pullover you grabbed from Walgreens

with “beautiful murals by people you imagine you’d be friends with if they

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Commando band members at SF’s peak, Bernal Heights:

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NOURISH

Under Desert Skies

These LGBTQ-welcoming Arizona resorts beckon with luxury spa

By Paul J. Heney

T

here’s a magical feeling to the mountainous desert landscapes, endless blue skies, and remarkable quality of the light that has drawn travelers to Scottsdale and Phoenix for over a century. The area boasts a plethora of high-end resorts and spas, and my husband and I visited three of the best during a recent trip to Arizona.

I’ve loved the Arizona Biltmore for years, and the iconic property with Frank Lloyd Wright vibes recently re-opened after a massive $70 million renovation. In addition to some fresh dining experiences, the improvements include the massive Spire Bar in the main courtyard and the brand-new Tierra Luna Spa with adjacent outdoor Sol Garden.

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The spa’s rela xat ion room feat ures beaut if ul Wright-inspired and southwestern motifs, a nd t here is a br ight, tranquil outdoor space in which to wait. My husband and I tried the ritual bath for two.

We found that this 30 -minute therapy was an intimate, sensual opportunity to connect and relax as a couple. Our bath was in a private separate room, just off the outside waiting area. A large opening above the door, revealed a slice of the sky, and gave the room an outdoor feel.

The bath had been prepared with magnesium salts and was a perfect soaking temperature.

Sof t, myst ica l music played in the background and a small space heater kept us warm on the unusua lly chilly day. We were provided glasses of champagne, a selection of chocolate truffles, some ice water, and cold stones that we could place on each other’s backs or shoulders — the difference in temperature between the smooth stones and the hot bath provided a nice contrast.

The Four Seasons Resort Scottsdale at Troon North is a fantastic getaway in

Saguaro cactus and blooming Palo Verde trees in the background at Pinnacle Peak

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THOMAS ROCHE/GETTY IMAGES (OPPOSITE); JACOBS STOCK PHOTOGRAPHY/GETTY IMAGES (YOGA); COURTESY PAUL J HENEY (BILTMORE AND FOUR SEASONS); COURTESY ROYAL PALMS

CLOCKWISE A visitor meditates on a rock formation in Arizona; the lobby at the Four Seasons; a clawfoot tub and dual shower at Royal Palms Resort & Spa; zen vibes on Arizona Biltmore’s grounds

the northern part of the city. I hadn’t realized how much we’d gained in elevation until walking into the lobby — and was presented with a stunning overview of the entire valley and dramatic distant peaks. There are 210 rooms and suites at the resort, with adobestyle casitas the norm, which adds to the resort’s sense of place.

There’s a feeling of uncrowded space at Four Seasons that is relaxing. We settled on a couple’s massage. My masseuse, Art,

had a style that included some Thai influences, which I found invigorating and helped me let go of muscle tension. He has been with the resort for more than two decades and has created many of the unique treatments on the menu, including the Golfer’s Massage — which amusingly uses warmed golf balls instead of hot stones.

There is also a new Nopal Massage that incorporates prickly pear cactus gel and the cactus paddles themselves (without the thorns!).

New this year is the spa’s Desert Bathing ritual, which includes mindfulness exercises and a Zen hike, encouraging guests to disconnect from electronics and focus on the sights and sounds of the stunning desert landscapes.

There’s also a Soul & Sound series that incorporates yoga at sunset with a sound bath — followed by some al fresco enjoyment of red and white wine.

We found Phoenix’s Royal Palms Resort & Spa to be a luxurious and magical oasis of seclusion, tucked into the city. Located near the foot of Camelback Mountain, the resort is a throwback to earlier glamour days, yet it still feels contemporary and fresh. Guests here are serious about poolside relaxing, and the area was bustling during our entire stay. There are multiple nooks and crannies where outdoor fireplaces become quite popular in the evening hours.

Our suite was oversized and very comfortable, with a large sitting area, sleeper sofa, and enormous luxury bathroom that featured both a shower and a soaking tub.

We also loved the resort’s restaurant, T. Cook’s, a beautiful vaulted interior space that features dinner daily as well as brunch. Standouts included the huevos rancheros, the avocado toast, the eggy but light French toast, and a Russian chai that makes for a yummy and boozy dessert drink.

The spa at Royal Palms is secreted away near one corner of the resort, giving it a quiet, hidden vibe. There are indoor and outdoor relaxation areas; outside featured a nice wood fireplace, while the indoors was decked out with plush fabrics, relaxing forest greens, and metallic accents.

We chose the comfy couches indoors, then sampled the complimentary teas and snacks.

We chose the Mind & Body Renewal massage, an essential oil massage that focuses the body’s energy centers. Named for the chakras each hoped to open (such as Crown & Third Eye, Heart Chakra, and Solar Plexus) the aromatic oils promise healing properties from boosting immunity to promoting emotional balance. I blended the Crown & Third Eye with Root Chakra, and the relaxing combo was an excellent decision to round out the long weekend of regenerative wellness.

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SPIRITS

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high in New York, and establishments opened up, so Hughes and Solomon felt well positioned to welcome folks to Club Lambda.

The couple didn’t start out planning to run queer clubs. They had invested in real estate and were planning to buy more, but the deal fell through. “So, we had a little bit of money,” Solomon recalls, “and instead of spending it on frivolous things like vacations and clothes and things, we said, ‘We have to invest in something.’ Sitting at work one day, I saw an advertisement for [alcohol] come across my screen and I thought to myself, Why doesn’t the LGBTQ+ community have a spirit that’s created by them and targets them directly? We reached out to a few distributors and distilleries, and we found one that was able to walk us through the entire process. Then maybe a year and a half later Lambda Vodka came to fruition.”

ost people would think twice before opening a bar in t he m idd le of a pandemic, let alone t wo. B ut C OV I D hasn’t stopped Charles Hughes and Richard Solomon. The married couple say they’ve had to be nimble and willing to take risks to take advantage of business opportunities.

Solomon explains that their hip, upsca le (a nd queer) Ha rlem ba r — Lambda Lounge — was initially scheduled to open just as the pandemic hit. “We had to stay closed and then transition our business model to only be outside. It was very challenging.”

Ultimately, Lambda Lounge was such a success that the couple opened their second LGBTQ+ bar, Club Lambda Brooklyn, this past May. By that point in the pandemic, vaccination rates were

Lambda Rising How one Black gay couple is building a spirits and nightclub empire.

COURTESY CLUB LAMBDA

By Jacob Anderson-Minshall

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Club Lambda owners Charles Hughes (left) and Richard Solomon

After learning that their first brand name choice (Rainbow Vodka) was already taken, Hughes started researching other options and stumbled upon the significance of the Greek Lambda symbol within the LGBTQ+ community. “We thought it was pretty dope to add a little nostalgia to a brand that we were creating currently,” Solomon says. “That’s why we decided to use that Lambda symbol.”

The Lambda clubs are part of a natural progression, arising from the couple’s efforts to promote their spirits as minority business owners. “With so many spirits on the market and with us being a small brand and not having a marketing budget and distribution budget, we weren’t able to maximize our sales,” Solomon explains. “That’s where the idea of, ‘Well, let’s open a location and sell our spirit ourselves!’”

After opening in Harlem, Lambda Lounge drew a wide range of patrons including Lil Nas X, and actresses Meagan Good and Jerrie Johnson from the Amazon Prime series Harlem. Indeed, Hughes and Solomon acknowledge, the lounge’s popularity has surpassed that of the vodka. But they were still nervous about opening Club Lambda, Brooklyn’s only Black-owned LGBTQ+ nightclub, where they say the biggest challenge was one of scale.

“The first location is about 1,600 square feet. [With Club Lambda] we acquired a location that’s 5,000 square feet. It’s kind of like we jumped into the deep end with this. Lambda Lounge in Harlem was only opened about two years when we decided to open this new location. We are still pretty new in this industry…so I would have to say just the size, and increasing the staff, and things of that nature has made it very challenging for us.”

Hughes says he found a model for success in his own past.

“In my early 20s I would party a lot in Washington, D.C. There OUTTRAVELER.COM

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was one particular club that I went to, called The Edge, that had a hip-hop room, it had a house music room, and then it had an outside area. A nd when we found our location, I said to myself, ‘I want to make this place feel like I did when I was in my early twenties partying.’ That’s why in the new location, with it being 5,000 square feet, we’ve made one of the areas hip-hop, and one of the areas house music, as well as an outside garden.”

African-Americans are under-represented as both clients as well as owners of queer clubs. Solomon says t hat has made opening t wo such clubs, “a ver y hu m b l i n g e x p e r i e n c e [that] comes w ith great respon si bi l it y a s wel l.

[We]’re s t a r t ing to see other individuals wanting to do t he sa me t h i ng, asking, ‘How did you do this?’ Because if you see reflections of yourself, you feel that it can be done.”

H a rlem’s L a m b d a L ou nge w a s aimed directly at what the couple calls the “urban male market,” but with Club Lambda Brooklyn, the couple says, “we wanted to expand, to go into more letters within the LGBTQ+ community. So, on Sundays, we…have day parties for our lesbian community, on Thursdays…a trans night. A nd we would like to a lso expand the demographic much further.”

Solomon adds, “I do want to emphasize that, just because it is a location created by the urban LGBTQ+ communit y and frequented by that community — we’re still open to all supporters of the community. We don’t want to ostracize people who are [allies] from coming. We are open to all supporters.”

The partners hope to expand their portfolio, too. Hughes says their goal is to have 10 locations across the country. “We want to focus on major metropolitan cities like Miami, Los Angeles, Texas, Philadelphia, and D.C., and places of that nature. And along with the growth within the Lambda Lounge/Lambda Club brand we also would like to expand on the spirits brand by not only having Lambda Vodka, but moving into Lambda Rum, Lambda Gin, and Lambda Tequila.”

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SHE SHOOTS, SHE SCORES! The world’s first women’s sports bar opens in Portland, Oregon

By Donald Padgett There’s a sports bar that’s opened in Portland that hopes to eliminate the frustration of trying to find a fun and inclusive space to watch women’s sports.

You won’t have to ask the bartender to change the channel to watch women’s basketball, soccer, hockey, or figure skating at The Sports Bra, which opened this spring and has already become a Rose City favorite (winning the 2022 Willamette Weekly Readers Poll award for Best Sports Bar).

Owner Jenny Nguyen tells Out Traveler she and her similarly-minded friends had grown tired of the lack of visibility and respect for women’s sports in maledominated sports bars.

“The Sports Bra started out as a joke I told once with my friends after being frustrated with the lack of women’s sports we were seeing out at bars and restaurants,” Nguyen says. “Just out of sheer frustration I said, ‘The only way we’re ever going to be able to watch a women’s game is if we had our own place!’ It was totally said in jest about four years ago and now here we are!”

The result is The Sports Bra which plays women’s sports games available on TV, satellite, and cable. It has also partnered with Just Women’s Sports for digital and are an official viewing location for the Portland Thorns soccer team.

The bar and restaurant also reflect the creative efforts of local women and womenowned businesses, highlighting women brewers and mixologists, and featuring some furniture crafted by Girls Build, a Portland nonprofit. This women-centric philosophy came in part as a response to the social movements of recent years which prompted Nguyen to consider the inequities in women’s sports and how she could make a difference in her own space.

“I know first-hand how women are often overlooked and underinvested in the food and beverage industries,” Nguyen says. “I took my personal experience with that and just made the choice to choose women-owned and operated businesses when possible.”

Nguyen also wanted to be more inclusive with the food she ser ves. The menu includes plenty of plant-based options including crispy fried cauliflower and a tempeh Reuben. Other items are “vegan upon request.” A house vegan cheesy sauce replaces cheese and Beyond Meat patties are swapped in for beef at no extra cost.

Food and activism weren’t always on Nguyen’s mind. Basketball was the focus of her teen years. But her dream of playing pro came crashing down in a single moment.

“I ruptured my ACL my first year in college, about a week before our first game,” she reveals. “I was devastated by the injury because up to that point, basketball had really been my identity.”

But Nguyen decided that when life gives you lemons, maybe it’s time to learn how to make delicious lemonade.

“There I was living in the dorms and my room was right next to the communal kitchen,” Nguyen recalls. “The food at the cafeteria left much to be desired and so I just started to pick up a little cooking here and there. I realized I really loved being in the kitchen and it helped me feel better!”

It didn’ t t ake lo ng before she was cooking for the entire dorm.

Af ter graduation, she enrolled in the Western Culinary Arts in Portland. She’s now bringing those culinary skills and her love of sports to The Sports Bra. “People [are] stoked and hyped to be in a space that is so celebratory and in a way that people really don’t get to experience all that often,” Nguyen says, adding she hopes patrons find a “shared sense of community and a real sense of belonging.” (thesportsbrapdx.com)

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Fletcher performs in London, England

Fletcher Supports Lesbian Bars

Fletcher, one of music’s rising queer pop stars and singer of the sapphic bop “Girls Like Girls,” recently partnered with Lyft to go on a mini-tour, performing at culturally significant, women-owned, queer bars.

The four-stop tour was inspired by The Lesbian Bar Project’s efforts to “support the country’s few remaining lesbian bars.”

“I recently became aware of the incredible work the Lesbian Bar Project has been doing for the past few years in order to help protect these spaces which for decades have ser ved as sanctuaries and safe havens for the queer community,” Fletcher explained. “Their research has shown that in 1980 there were approximately 200 lesbian bars in operation and today there are less than 25. This has inspired me to make a few trips of my own across the country to help uplift and support women-owned queer spaces in any way I can to ultimately create more of a conversation around the importance of keeping these spaces open for us all, now more than ever.”

Fletcher played at Pearl Bar in Houston, Texas; As You Are in Washington, D.C.; Gossip Grill in San Diego, California; and Henrietta Hudson, where she arrived just in time for New York City Pride.

“Being on tour again for the last few months and seeing so many queer people at my shows — dancing, laughing, crying, and freely being themselves — has reminded me of the importance of safe spaces,” Fletcher added.

—TAYLOR HENDERSON

COURTESY SPORTS BRA (INTERIOR); FACEBOOK (NGUYEN); BURAK CINGI/REDFERNS/GETTY IMAGES (FLETCHER)

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WANDERLUST

Splendor in the Woods Technology may alter our lives, but gay lust is eternal.

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hen I was growing up in Pocatello, Idaho, Upper Ross Park was known as the Fruit Loop. Men wou ld me e t b eh i nd evergreen trees, shrubs, and lava rocks, to have sex. I’m not sure how I came to know that, but I did. Queer knowledge has often been communicated undercover, via word of mouth, covert gestures, shared cultural touchstones.

Before I ever took a drink I also knew that there was a gay bar in Pocatello called Charlie’s. Years later I spent a lot of time in Pocatello’s one LGBTQ+ bar, which was no longer named Charlie’s. The bar had burned down in a (likely hate-fueled) arson fire. In its place rose The Phoenix.

Decades later, I am back, living on my parent’s farm outside of Pocatello caring for family. The LGBTQ+ bar has moved locations but is back to being Charlie’s. Upper Ross Park is no longer a gathering place for queer men.

Families and disc golfers now crawl over the rocks and into the underbrush that once shielded covert lovers.

These days many of us don’t have to rely on subterfuge to find other queer folks, although as legislatures around the country (including Idaho) burn through a string of anti-LGBTQ+ bills, I worry we may be cycling back to the repression that first drove us underground.

These days Charlie’s can display a rainbow f lag year-round, and instead of following rumors of fruit loops, queers can turn to dating apps to find sexual partners. One of the newest, Sniffies, the map-based cruising app, helped show me where the boys are now. It’s an undeveloped public park with dirt trails and bushes shielded from the road by trees.

The first time I walked there I was with my mom. As I waited for her to slowly exit the vehicle, I noticed a folded piece of paper on a log. I picked it up, unfolded it and read, “I love to suck dick.” It included a phone number.

I didn’t pocket the note. I didn’t call the number. But I did carefully refold it and place it back on the log like it was sacred. It had made me smile. It helps me to know other queers are here. It makes living on a small farm in a conservative community a tiny bit more tolerable. It helps me to know there are gay guys getting blown nearby. Even if I never meet them.

SHUTTERSTOCK

—JAC OB A N DE R S ON-M I NS H A L L

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DEPARTURES

NEW SAETIEW/GETTY IMAGES

Aut umn in t he nor t hea st is i ncompa ra bly beaut i f u l a nd Taughannock Falls State Park in the Finger Lakes region of New York State is the perfect embodiment of fall. Hiking trails lead adventurers through a gorge and up the rim to the park’s namesake waterfall, where water plunges 215 feet and ancient cliffs climb 400 feet into the sky. Campsites, cabins, and even a beach are accessible at Cayuga Lake below. For the brave, a dip may be in order — in late September, temperatures hover in the 60s in this little slice of heaven. —N B

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Sentinel Peak

WI D E OPEN S PAC E S READY TO BE EXPLORED

For those looking to escape the routine and venture off the beaten path, Tucson’s wide open spaces are ready to be explored.

Find out more at VisitTucson.org/open

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that rare destination where dining can delight more than just your sense of taste.

VISITSAVANNAH.COM

THIS ISN’T ORDINARY. THIS IS SAVANNAH.

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