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Articles Tagged ‘LGBT travel’

Hit the slopes for gay ski week

Friday, February 15th, 2008

By Jeff Marsh

Jeff_snowmass2005
Because I live in Chicago, I have the annual dilemma of whether to use a week of my all-too-scarce time off to take a ski vacation or a beach vacation. With temps plunging below zero recently and piles of snow all around, you would think my choice would be a no-brainer. But while Mexico and Florida are frequently on my mind in wintertime, I inevitably head to a ski resort.

The majority of my ski vacations have been with my family, but this year I am headed to gay ski week in Telluride with friends. I still have many fond memories of my first gay ski week experience at Whistler several years ago. In the past, many gay ski weeks had the reputation of being nine-tenths circuit party and one-tenth sport, but times have changed. While the dance and pool parties are still on the schedule at ski weeks including Telluride, most of these events promote "unpretentious fun" with "zero attitude," which is just the way I like it.

One of my favorite things about a gay ski week vacation is the camaraderie. Every morning skiers with similar abilities gather in groups to attack the slopes. While I aspire to join the black diamond group someday, there are plenty of skiers — myself included — who stay on the blue intermediate runs. It is nearly impossible not to make new friends from all over whether it be on the slopes, at the lodge, or at the numerous après ski activities. And who wouldn’t enjoy drag queen downhill races with a champagne bar at the finish line?

Telluride may be Colorado’s "Best Kept Secret," but from February 23 through March 1 the secret will be OUT!  See you on the slopes!

Upcoming gay ski weeks:

Telluride — Feb. 23-Mar. 1, 2008
Lake Tahoe Winterfest — Mar. 2-9, 2008
Elevation at Mammoth Mountain — Mar. 12-16, 2008

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Jeff Marsh takes great pride in having created the first-ever TV ad with gay puppets and airing it on Bravo before the Runway was even built.

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Finding a gay-friendly hotel

Thursday, January 17th, 2008

Gayblog
By Matthew Link

Once on a Jerusalem vacation, my boyfriend and I checked into a small mainstream hotel. When I made the reservation, I had asked for one queen-size bed (pardon the pun). I hadn’t mentioned we were two men traveling together, so when we showed up at the front desk the lady looked flustered. "Oh, this reservation is wrong!" she exclaimed. "You men need two beds."

We got to our room, and tried to move the two single beds together to form one bed — a trick we had barely succeeded at before, since someone always ends up falling through the crack in the middle of the night. We soon realized the small room couldn’t be rearranged, so we gave up and spent a night sleeping as "singles" on what should have otherwise been a romantic journey.

In my years of traveling, I have learned this two-bed calamity is horribly common in the gay travel world. Sometimes in traditional places like Jerusalem, there’s simply no way to get around the cultural issues of two men sharing a bed. But there are strategies that help.

The first is that I look for hotels that make themselves known as specifically gay-owned or gay-managed, versus simply "gay friendly." At least then I know there will be "family" on the premises who will understand. Another thing I do is stay in gay parts of town, where even the most mainstream hotels will have a concierge who doesn’t blink when asked about the local gay scene.

I also keep my eyes out for hotels that make a concerted effort to
support gays and lesbians by advertising
in gay media or by supporting gay events and charities, and ones that
do gay sensitivity training for their staff and offer domestic
partnership benefits to their employees. Organizations like the Human
Rights Campaign regularly rate companies on their gay-friendliness — a
good place to start. A little homework like this has helped me avoid
waking up sandwiched in the chasm between two mattresses — and made my gay travel experiences much better!

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Matthew Link (not pictured, incidentally, in the stock image above) is the Editor At Large for The Out Traveler magazine, as
well as a contributor to Newsweek. Having been to over 60 countries and
all 7 continents doesn’t keep him from getting on the next plane away
from his home in New York City.

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Gay travel in the Caribbean: Curacao

Tuesday, December 18th, 2007

Curaco_beachBy Jeff Marsh 

My passport expired this past summer. It wasn’t my first passport since I initially went abroad in high school on one of those "If it’s Tuesday, this must be Brussels" whirlwind tours of Europe. However, my last passport recorded some of the most amazing trips in my adult life, including adventures in Australia, South America and Africa. Noticeably absent, however, were stamps from countries in the Caribbean.

I, like most gay and lesbian travelers, am well aware of the homophobic reputation of many of the islands in the Caribbean. While I don’t think it’s fair to proclaim any destination as "homophobic" based on a small but vocal group of people, the fact remains that as a gay man I am not welcome at several traditionally conservative Caribbean nations. The good news is that there are a handful of gay-friendly oases in the Caribbean, and I am glad that the first stamp in my new passport is from Curacao.

(more…)

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