Europe and the Caribbean have long been popular destinations for gay cruises and land tours – with good reason – but eventually travelers yearn for new and more exotic experiences.
Fortunately, tour operators like Brand g offer vacations to some of the most #lifechanging destinations on earth. These countries (many still developing) offer incredible experiences, exposing visitors to truly unique cultures; but for many reasons, navigating them can be challenging at best.
One such reason is that some of these countries are not traditionally known as overly “welcoming” to LGBT folk, which causes some guests to wonder why anyone should travel there.
Brand g co-owner Jeff Gundvaldson explains it this way:
“We certainly understand travelers’ feelings about supporting a country that has laws or cultural norms that don’t embrace the LGBT community. But we have found that a large segment of the citizens often don’t agree with those laws or norms, and that by traveling there and interacting with the locals, we can have a profound impact on their understanding and acceptance.”
This, of course, is what makes group travel to these countries so important and valuable to the LGBT+ guest. Traveling in a gay bubble (and its attendant “strength in numbers”) makes the experience infinitely easier than traveling alone, and you’re met with smiles and warmth and gratitude because Brand g (or hopefully any other LGBT+ tour operator) has smoothed the way.
In addition, Brand g in particular offers trips that manage every detail, from luxurious hotels and river cruise ships to highly experienced staff there to handle any issue. As we like to say, “All you have to do is show up.”
Some examples:
The logistical details of seeing an entire country in one trip can be incredibly daunting. On a recent Brand g Peru trip, one gay couple brought their mothers (who became the mascots for the trip – everyone loved them). One of the men said to me, “We started trying to put this trip together ourselves, and it was completely overwhelming. Way too many details. When we saw the Brand g trip, it was like they had created it just for us. We got to see exactly the places we wanted to see, and have every detail handled by somebody else.”
On a Brand g tour of India, a guest had a sudden medical emergency, and the staff were able to get him treated and then airlifted back to the U.S. without incident. That kind of assistance can be worth its weight in gold.
Here are some of the destinations (from Brand g and others) that bear serious consideration, along with tips for the best ways to travel there.
EGYPT (AND JORDAN)
Egypt puts the ruins of places like Greece and Turkey to shame. Well-preserved, beautifully presented temples, tombs and more offer some of the most jaw-dropping ancient sites on the planet.
Some companies, like Brand g, offer an add-on to Jordan which is a must. The stunning sites of Jerash and particularly, Petra (along with the red sand desert of Wadi Rum) will make for a spectacular finish to your journey through these middle eastern gems.
But being heavily Muslim countries, it’s best to travel with a group, since there can be many hiccups on your own. (A gay couple – friends of the author of this blog – who recently went to Egypt on their own were refused a room – at a large, international American chain hotel – because they were two men traveling together who wanted a king-size bed.)
As a tour group (particularly with a high-end company like Brand g), you’ll likely never feel even a whiff of unwelcomeness, thanks to copious advance planning by the tour company and the fact that a small security detail travels with the group everywhere they go. When you’re in a bubble like this, you have nothing to worry about and can focus on the amazing sites at hand.
PERU
Peru is a land of extraordinary contrasts, from the jungles of the Amazon to the sophistication of Lima (with one of the highest concentrations of Michelin-star restaurants in the world) to the mysticism of Machu Picchu.
This country does not suffer from religious strictures the way Egypt does. It’s highly Catholic, but tolerant, and the Pope’s recent blessing of same sex marriages will only strengthen that. What is taxing about seeing Peru are the logistical challenges in trying to see these many varied parts of the country. Luxury tour operators like Brand g have created trips that fold all these planes, trains and buses into a neat and quite well-paced package that allows you to cruise the Amazon, spend time seeing Lima and Cusco and the Sacred Valley, and tour Machu Picchu – all in 5-star comfort. (The trip includes two intra-Peru flights, a train to Machi Picchu, buses to and from the Amazon cruise point, etc.)
INDIA
High on the list of #lifechanging destinations that can be overwhelming is India. Again here, a group tour is a must, and a 5-star version will provide you with the sort of hand-holding necessary in a land of overcrowded cities (albeit ones with profound cultural and religious sites) and poverty.
It will also provide you with the kind of luxurious respites that will restore you after a chaotic day. Luckily, India is inexpensive by American standards, so a 5-star trip here will cost what a 3.5 or 4-star trip would elsewhere. Brand g pairs touring the Golden Triangle cities with a peaceful and culturally enlightening river cruise on the Ganges, all using 5-star amenities (river cruise ship, hotels and restaurants).
One of the things to look for in an LGBT tour company that offers India trips is experience. Brand g has done their trip to India a dozen times and knows the country backwards and forwards. (It also helps that we use the finest land operators in the world.)
Since the amount of travel time it takes to get to India is considerable, those for whom vacation time is less of a concern will often also opt to tour neighboring Nepal & Bhutan, which border India on the north. Bhutan in particular offers some of the most hospitable people on earth, along with spectacular sites like the Tiger’s Nest monastery, which clings to the side of a mountaintop.
AFRICA
Perhaps nothing is more #lifechanging than sitting in an open-air jeep twenty feet from a pride of lions. But we’ve all heard the horror stories of low-end tours where unsuspecting tourists in a car were accosted by a wild animal.
Taking a safari is not the place to economize, if you have the means to afford a luxury trip. For starters, low-end tours merely offer drives on paved roads through Kruger National Park’s open areas, where a line of cars are constantly snaking through. This is less of a “game drive” and more of a Disney version of a safari. (We mean no disrespect to those who take less expensive safaris – we’re all of different means and have different priorities when traveling.)
To have a truly memorable experience, you want to be on a private reserve. (This term can seem like a misnomer, as though the reserves are fenced in, with animals that are cared for, but that’s not at all the case. The reserves are not fenced, and animals come and go, and live and die with no intervention from humans except to stop poachers.)
Here, you’re driving down dirt paths and through brush with extraordinarily experienced, top-flight rangers and guides. (On a luxury safari, there are two traveling with each jeep.) You can sit watching lions or leopards or elephants or giraffes – and any number of other species – completely alone, or perhaps in the company of one other jeep from the same safari camp. It is nothing short of magical.
And you feel safe. As one guide put it on a private reserve game drive, “Here in the reserve, the wildlife look at a jeep and its occupants as one entity, and a nonthreatening one at that, since no one in these jeeps has ever tried to hurt them.” So they generally ignore the jeep and just go about their activities, which makes for incredible viewing.
But it would be a shame to visit Africa without seeing some of the other extraordinary sights on this massive continent – like Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe, or sophisticated Cape Town, South Africa, one of the world’s great cities. Brand g’s South Africa trip packages all of these together to create a luxury trip that includes a four-night safari, two nights in Victoria Falls and four nights in Cape Town (plus all the attendant transportation, of course), which makes for a spectacularly varied visit to this below-the-equator continent.
LGBT+ tourists are some of the most well-traveled and adventurous tourists on earth. If you’re one of them, and you’re ready to sample the world’s more exotic destinations, we’re ready to smooth the way.
