Fort Lauderdale is for Gay Beach Lovers

Gay Beach Lovers If Florida’s a family of blockbuster travel destinations – with Miami and Orlando as the energetic kids – Fort Lauderdale’s like the cool older brother. The one who doesn’t need to raise his voice to command your attention. Located on the state’s east coast a 38-minute drive from Miami, and three hours from Orlando, this city of 172,000 is the perfect foil to both. It’s less intense and touristy than its neighbors, while sharing their year-round temperate weather. It’s almost perpetually sunny, and the sea is warm in summer and refreshing through winter. But Fort Lauderdale’s best quality sets it apart from the pack: it’s found in Broward County, the most progressive (read: gayest) of all Floridian counties. It’s firmly Democratic in a region where Republicans reign supreme and, according to the US census, has the second highest proportion of LGBTI residents in America. Furthermore, Greater Fort Lauderdale has long been recognized for its efforts to attract gay and lesbian tourists, and in recent years, trans travelers specifically. Perfect for gay beach lovers.

By Andrew Gonsalves – Full Story at Gay Star News

Fort Lauderdale Gay Travel Resources

Photo by Greater Fort Lauderdale Convention and Visitors Bureau]]>

Queer San Francisco's Lost History

queer San Francisco Osento, a Japanese bathhouse on Valencia Street in queer San Francisco, is long gone, closed now for nearly a decade. I could have used a soak, though: It was an uncommonly hot and muggy day in the city, and I’d been walking its streets for hours. Back in the day, people looking for Osento on a similarly soupy afternoon were probably just as confounded. The women-only communal bathhouse, a frequent haunt for lesbians, didn’t have a sign out front. It was mostly known through word of mouth by its clientele, who say its founder ended a nearly three-decade run when she shuttered it in 2008 and moved north to Lake County, Calif. Now it is a splendid Victorian dwelling, kaleidoscopic in hues of magenta, turquoise and gold. On its facade are stunning sculptured plaques of sea horses, conchs and starfish. Elaborate cast reliefs of tattooed mermaids by a San Francisco artist named Natasha Dikareva gaze ahead. While the relaxation rooms, saunas and a secluded deck for nude sunbathing were all gone, somehow the bathhouse’s spirit lives on.

By Elizabeth Zach – Full Story at The New York Times

San Francisco Gay Travel Resources

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Canterbury Inn Hotel – Ocean Shores, Washington

Canterbury Inn Periodically we’ll feature one of our properties here to let our readers know about some great gay friendly places to stay: The Canterbury Inn is a condominium style hotel located along Washington’s Pacific Coast. Voted one of the best vacation getaways in Washington, Ocean Shores offers six miles of sandy beach, 23 miles of interconnecting fresh water canals and a quaint beach town to shop and explore. The ocean is the big draw, no matter the season. Visitors enjoy beach combing, horseback riding, clamming, kite flying or just watching the sunset over the Pacific. Our fresh water canals provide the perfect spot to kayak, water ski, and fish, to bike around and they even come into play on the golf course. Our units range in size from studios to two bedrooms and each are individually decorated. Each features living room areas, flat screen TVs, and kitchens — most have fireplaces too. Choose a 1st floor unit with a patio and easy beach access or enjoy a 3rd floor unit with balconies and our most spectacular ocean view. It’s the perfect getaway for those looking to enjoy themselves on the coast.

See the Canterbury Inn Expanded Listing on Purple Roofs Here

Gay Friendly Bed and Breakfasts, Hotels, and Vacation Rentals in Washington State

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Salento Gallipoli, The Beautiful City – The Scruffy Italian Traveler

Salento Gallipoli If you have already been to Salento Gallipoli is for sure very familiar to you! Gallipoli in ancient Greek means The Beautiful City: and yes it is a beautiful city indeed! The ancient Greeks knew Gallipoli very well! Nowadays well known as the pearl of the Ionian Sea, and somehow the capital of Salento Gallipoli was one of the main ports of the so called Magna Graecia: it was a very important due to its strategic position by the sea. The beautiful city of Gallipoli has seen many different population on its soil: Vandals, Goths, Bizantines, Messapic, Normans, all lived in different periods in this area, but for sure were the Greeks to leave the biggest footprint. By the way, where the hell is Gallipoli? In Puglia, of course! To be more precise in Salento Gallipoli is located about 30 Kilometers South West of Lecce. It is a pretty big town, featuring an amazing old town, connected through the main street, Corso Roma, to the modern part of the town. Corso Roma is the promenade, where the locals and tourists usually go for an evening stroll (in italian we call it struscio), meet friends for an aperitif, or go for some shopping: it is the main center of the city, where during summer you can find also plenty of buskers entertaining the visitors.

By Sergio Scardia – Full Story at The Scruffy Italian Traveler

Apulia Gay Travel Resources

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London in Under Two Minutes

london alain I was in London for 6 days to do some sightseeing and see some old friends. I haven’t been able to post a blog entry on my London trip so, here’s a video of London in under two minutes. I have so many good photos and stores to tell about the trip but I’m still in traveling mood right now. And I do still have a jet lag. Promise, I’ll post all my summer trip photos once I have time to sort out my thoughts and thousands of photos.

By Alain – Full Story at Keep Calm and Wander

London Gay Travel Resources

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Leith Hall B&B – Gay Friendly Bed & Breakfast in Cape May, New Jersey

Leith Hall Periodically we’ll feature one of our properties here to let our readers know about some great gay friendly places to stay: Leith Hall is an elegantly restored 1880’s home in the center of the Victorian historic district featuring full gourmet breakfasts, Ocean views, antiques, and afternoon tea. Fireplaces, jacuzzis, wraparound porch, period wallpaper and furniture, and a great location.

See the Leith Hall Expanded Listing on Purple Roofs Here

Gay Friendly Bed and Breakfasts, Hotels, and Vacation Rentals in New Jersey

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Thirteen Surprising Things About Berlin – Globetrotter Girls

Berlin - Dani I’ve talked about Berlin a lot on this site, providing you with some useful guides for the city (check out:

…but returning after a year, several first-time visitors in tow, I noticed that there are quite a few things that I’ve never shared with you: The things I find surprising about Berlin, and the things people I show around find surprising and interesting. So without further ado, here are 13 things about Berlin that I find surprising and that might surprise you, too: 1 BERLIN IS THE VEGAN CAPITAL OF EUROPE This one is surprising – who would’ve thought that you’d find one of Europe’s most vegan-friendly cities in meat loving Germany? It seems like vegan cafes, bars and restaurants are popping up everywhere around the city, but I was skeptical when my friend Sam told me that Berlin was the vegan capital of Europe. A quick Google search revealed that he was correct though, and Berlin is in fact the city with more vegan restaurants than any other city in Europe, according to CNN. Germany’s first vegan supermarket chain, Veganz, was founded here, and Berlin is home to the biggest vegan festival in all of Europe. You can get vegan versions of the meat dishes that Berlin is famous for, doner and curry wurst, and you can get pretty much anything vegan: wine, cheese, ice cream, pizza… There are vegan versions of everything, and then there are of course the 60+ purely vegan restaurants and cafes in the city.

By Dani – Full Story at Globetrotter Girls

Germany Gay Travel Resources

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Gay Italy – From Verona to Milan

Gay Italy In my deluded mind, a trip to Milan was an opportunity to sip Negronis by a sun-baked pool, admiring the city’s style and hot, swaggering men. A relentless two-day rain storm changed that plan slightly. An umbrella was firmly in the hand, rather than in the cocktails, but Italian talent was duly ogled and the Milanese remain admirably chic, even when it’s quite nippy and pouring it down. We were in the city for the Quiiky Untold History tour. This wasn’t a guided peek into Donatella’s plastic surgeons or Berlusconi’s favourite escort agencies. This was a journey into an ancient past when alchemy, art, design and religion fused to made Italy a cultural ruler. But before delving into the mysteries and wonders of 15th-century art, we plunged into Milanese nightlife. Lecco Milano is a hip, mixed bar offering food, DJs and a range of cocktails, including one tipple worryingly called GinHB. We also played bingo at L’Elephante while drinking a killer cocktail called the Bin Laden. I don’t remember how I got home.

By Stewart Who – Full Story at Gay Star News

Milan Gay Travel Resources

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Brooklyn Bridge Park – Globetrotter Girls

Brooklyn Bridge Park The past week has been all about work; the most I got to see of New York was during my runs: Brooklyn Bridge Park with its stunning Manhattan views, across the Brooklyn Bridge (with even better views), the lovely Red Hook neighborhood with its pier and great vistas of the Statue Of Liberty, running in Riverside Park alongside Hudson River and in Central Park. I took a break on Thursday to finally enjoy an outdoor movie – one of the 28 things I love about summer in New York City are the free outdoor movies all over the city – and couldn’t have chosen a better time for a break away from my laptop: a beautiful summer night, A League Of Their Own, good company, a lovely picnic and watching the sunset over the Manhattan skyline. That night was a nice walk down memory lane in three different ways: This Used To Be My Playground, the theme song of the movie, was the first Madonna song that really got me hooked on her music (I liked her 80s stuff, but it was a bit too pop-y for me), and was the song that started her ‘ballad phase’ – over the next couple of years, she would release some of my all-time Madonna songs, like Rain, Secret, I’ll Remember, Take A Bow, and finally You’ll See, which might be my all-time favorite song of hers.

By Dani – Full Story at Globetrotter Girls

New York City Gay Travel Resources

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Ipanema: Rio's LGBTIQA Hot Spot

ipanema - Gabriel Heusl With the Olympic Games well under way and the first medals snapped up, the worlds eyes are on Rio de Janeiro. But despite the hustle and bustle around the venues and inside the athletes village, living in Rio follows its own pace and its a fairly relaxed one.The city is, by far, Brazils gay hub: apart from welcoming over one million visitors flocking to the city each year, Christ the Redeemer also casts a watchful eye over the citys own, home-grown community. After all, 14.3% of Rios citizens identify as part of the LGBTI community. At a population of 12.3 million people in the metropolitan area, that accounts for about 1.7 million people and those who arent LGBTI themselves are often described as open minded and extending a warm welcome to people from every walk of life. Brazils second-biggest city may not have a clearly defined gay quarter, but ask around and people will generally point you in the same direction: towards the Rua Farme de Amoedo, in the affluent South Zone neighbourhood, or bairro, of Ipanema.

By Stephanie Gerdes – Full Story at Gay Star News

Brazil Gay Travel Resources

Image from Wikipedia, by Gabriel Heusl]]>