Purple Roofs Newsletter. Every day, our LGBT Travel Blog brings you featured LGBT travel articles, as well as tons of news and helpful travel tips, which we summarize here for you every few weeks. And you can also join our Facebook Travel Clubs for our daily discussions and your travel questions (it’s free!):
VENTURE OUT – Find Your Place in the World!
Since 1998 Venture Out has operated small-group tours for LGBT travelers around the world. We specialize in high-end, guided vacations for gay and lesbian travelers (and friends). Wherever possible we emphasize unique accommodations and fine dining. Each year brings a new calendar of tours as we introduce new itineraries as well as bring back popular vacations from our repertoire of 18 years. Be sure to check our website for current destinations! Our group sizes are small – usually a maximum of 15. Additionally, there is a Venture Out tour manager to accompany each group. Try us for your next adventure!
Featured Articles:
GENERAL: Traveling as a Gay Couple in Asia
by The Nomadic Boys
“Why should I spend my tourist dollars in a country that wants to throw me in jail?!” This was our dilemma before setting off for our big travel adventures in Asia – as a gay couple. If it isn’t illegal (like in Sri Lanka, Singapore, the Maldives, Malaysia, India, Myanmar…), then it’s certainly not truly welcomed (think Indonesia, China or Mongolia). A few (like Nepal and Vietnam) have taken proactive steps to start to protect their LGBT community instead of criminalising them. And some have gone further to not only protect their LGBT community, but to embrace, support them and in addition, actively promote gay tourism: Japan, Thailand, Taiwan and the Philippines. So as a gay traveller, does that mean you shouldn’t visit countries like India or Myanmar? Are you really under any practical danger visiting a country like Malaysia or the Maldives?
GENERAL: Evolution of a Nomad
by Dani, Globetrotter Girls
It’s been almost a year since I looked back on five years of full-time travel, and I thought it was time for an update on how my nomadic life has evolved in the past twelve months. It’s been now over 2,000 days since I switched my London apartment for a life on the road, and quite frankly, I’m tired of being on the road constantly. Over 2,000 days of vagabonding – that’s even longer than I had an apartment in London, or anywhere else I’d lived before. When I started traveling in 2010, I thought it would be a one-year trip around the world. I even had a new employment contract ready for me to sign, and a job waiting for me upon return.. which I obviously never started. In the beginning, I thought I could travel forever, never getting tired of exploring new places, meeting new people, trying new foods. I had an insane amount of energy, my body fueled by new experiences and my mind stimulated by the ever changing scenery around me.
[caption id="attachment_40083" align="alignright" width="250"]
Resorts World Bimini pool photo by Steven Skelley[/caption]BAHAMAS: Bimini
by Steven Skelley and Thomas Routzong
Ask just about anyone about Bimini and they will probably say they’ve heard of it but have no idea where it is. Some may know it is in the Bahamas but have no details beyond that. We learned quite a lot about Bimini during our recent visit. These two tiny Bahamian islands have a unique culture, bountiful history, visitors both famous and infamous, and a new focus as a casino hotspot for the rich and famous. Bimini consists of the two main islands named North Bimini Island and South Bimini Island as well as numerous cays or keys. Just 50 miles off of Florida’s eastern coast, Bimini is the closest Bahamian island to the United States. Bimini’s history contains an impressive list of both the famous and infamous. The Lucayan natives who inhabited the islands named them Bimini which means two islands. Within just 50 years after the European explorers arrive in the 1490’s, the Lucayans had all been enslaved and relocated to other islands to work as plantation slaves.
[caption id="attachment_40154" align="alignleft" width="250"]
Photo by Dennis Dean[/caption]CUBA: Gay Havana
by Joseph Pedro
In old Havana there is a tree that’s said to be older than the city itself. It was here, though it was very young, when the Taino people would worship, venerate, and respect her as Ancient Mother. It was here too, though a little older now, in 1519 when the Spanish first established a settlement. The land was claimed, right beside her growing roots, as San Cristobal de la Habana. She provided shade for the first mass and bestowed a breeze for the first council meeting. And as she reached toward the heavens, so did a city. Becoming resilient and strong, prosperous and wealthy, devout and ideological-she soon had a home overlooking churches and plazas, statues and mansions that rivaled those of Europe. She felt the breeze of independence and briefly felt it taken away from her. As times changed, though, she witnessed the plight of the Cuban people under a dictatorship and felt the mumblings of revolution brush through her leaves. Then, in 1959, as winter drew to an end she was here still to feel the rumbling of a tank shake her roots to usher in spring and a new hope for her land. More than half a century later, the wind again sways her branches and one of her leaves falls in 2014, twirling like a Sky Dancer, landing flatly on my head.
USA, INDIANA: TRAVELING IN OUR FABULOUS GAY WORLD: Amazing Indianapolis
by Donald and Ray, the Gay Travelers
We had not been to Indianapolis, Indiana in over 35 years and when we went a couple of weeks ago we were totally shocked, amazed and pleasantly surprised how Amazing the city is. The Governor of Indiana, and we will not even mention his name, but The Governor is one of the most homophobic Governors in the country. There are “PENCE MUST GO!” signs and billboards all over the city. However the State Capitol and major city, Indianapolis is one of the most GAY FRIENDLY in the country! As you enter the city there are signs that read, INDY WELCOMES ALL” and signs on many business read, THIS BUSINESS SERVES EVERYONE. The newly elected Mayor of Indianapolis, Joe Hogsett who by the way, won with over 63% of the vote last December is extremely intelligent and pro LGBT. He is loved by the entire city! He had us to the Mayor’s Office so that he could officially welcome the “Gay Travelers” to his city.
That’s it for this edition of the Purple Roofs Gay Travel Newsletter! –Mark & Scott Purple Roofs – https://www.purpleroofs.com
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