Travel is always evolving. Hotels are creating wellness resorts and hipster brands. Airlines are putting showers in first class. (I’m personally waiting for the first air spa.)
And the same thing goes for LGBT+ travel – which began with a few full-ship cruise charters in the 80’s and has expanded to a universe of tour operators offering something for every niche under the rainbow. Because they have to keep reinventing themselves in order to service a clientele that is well-traveled and always seeking new experiences.
So, what are the latest and most unique trends in LGBT+ travel?
LUXURY YACHT CRUISES
In the beginning, when it came to big-ship cruises, the LGBT market was relegated to older, less refined ships – a combination of corporate reticence to charter to an LGBT group and the desire by the company doing the charter to mitigate some of the financial risk, since that older ship from a 3 or 4-star cruise brand came with a cheaper price tag.
But today, corporate fears have evaporated – indeed, many of the mainstream cruise brands market directly to our community. And the LGBT tour companies have discovered that their clientele has an appetite for higher quality products. So, in many instances, they’ve been able to upgrade to a better class of ships – Celebrity’s “Edge” series ships, for example.
But the hottest trend in LGBT cruising is the chartering of small luxury ocean ships, typically referred to as yachts. Two years ago, Brand g created a partnership with Atlas Ocean Voyages, and we now offer three or four cruises each year on their 200-passenger luxury yachts. These ships feature contemporary décor, glossy dark woods, marble bathrooms, spacious cabins, and exceptional food.
These smaller scale luxury cruises offer guests the opportunity to actually get to know one another, enjoy a much higher level of service, and experience many of the features of large-scale cruising – such as multiple dining venues, room service, a pool, multiple hot tubs, a spa, etc. – but without the potential annoyances that come with thousands of guests.
These cruises are pricier, of course, but for those with the financial wherewithal, they are the hottest ticket in LGBT cruising.
OFF-THE-BEATEN-PATH DESTINATIONS
Places like Europe are still extraordinarily popular for LGBT travelers, of course, but many now yearn for more culturally diverse locales. And because so many gay travelers have the resources required – time and disposable income – as well as a healthy desire to see every last inch of the world, LGBT tour operators have been expanding their offerings to include trips to some of the most unique and even remote spots on the planet.
Now, companies like Brand offer all-LGBT+ trips to destinations like:
- The Galapagos
- Africa (multiple countries on the continent)
- Nepal & Bhutan
- India
- Mongolia
- Peru
- The Middle East
- Southeast Asia
- Cuba
- Antarctica
These trips can be a land-only tour, or a combination of land plus a river or ocean cruise. And they provide the kind of once-in-a-lifetime experiences that imprint on your mind forever, like seeing big game on an African safari, meeting penguins on a glacier in Antarctica, or visiting a nomadic Mongol tribe. They’re the kind of moments we like to call #lifechanging.
To be clear, these exotic destinations are, for the gay traveler, best done with an all-LGBT group, since many of them involve developing countries where religious strictures persist. These countries can sometimes be problematic for the individual gay traveler, but if you’re on a Brand g trip, you’ll likely never feel even a whiff of judgment. We smooth the way by briefing the staff at hotels, on ships, and in restaurants to ensure that nothing like this happens. In essence, we create a “gay bubble”.
Some LGBT travelers wonder why we should even give destinations like that our tourist dollars, but 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.”
HIGHER-QUALITY LAND TOURS
LGBT land tours have existed for decades, but it is only recently that they have begun to be refined into top-flight experiences. The backpack-style versions of these gay tours still exist, but now, companies like Brand g offer 5-star land tours that employ the services of some of the finest ground operators in the world, like Abercrombie & Kent. Combining this level of touring service with luxury hotels and restaurants has created a new segment of LGBT travel: the luxury land tour.
Along with stellar accommodations, touring and food, these trips often incorporate unforgettable signature experiences. On our Scotland land tours, for example, the trip concludes with a private, formal state dinner aboard the Queen’s former royal yacht, the Brittania. During that evening, when the yacht (which is open for tours during the day) is closed to the public, you’ll go beyond the velvet ropes and sit on the Queen’s couches, stand at the piano where Cole Porter played and Sinatra crooned, and enjoy a five-course meal in the state dining room – after having been fit for a complete kilt outfit for the evening.
ENTERTAINMENT
LGBT ocean and river cruises have raised their game enormously when it comes to the shows offered onboard. Now, the trend is to jettison nearly all of the cruise line’s standard entertainment fare in favor of Broadway, cabaret and pop stars – as well as drag queens – that are all particular favorites of the LGBT community.
These include names like Billy Porter, Amber Riley, Vanessa Williams, Kathy Griffin, Levi Kreiss (Tony winner for Million Dollar Quartet), Varla Jean Merman, Coco Peru, Bianca Del Rio, Meghan Murphy, Ann Hampton Callaway, hot new discovery Effie Passero, and dozens of others.
This makes every night on the ship a can’t-miss event. Alas, those performers come with a price tag, which does raise the cost of a gay cruise, but it makes the entertainment portion of the trip feel like its own special and highly memorable element, as opposed to just “something to do after dinner”.
MORE MIXED CRUISES
When gay cruising began, the charters were virtually all-male experiences. Over time, companies like Olivia came in to offer all-female opportunities, as well.
But in the past few years, the trend in society as a whole has been to mix and mingle much more. In cities like Los Angeles, bars that were once exclusively gay male, for example, have been adopted by gay-friendly millennials of both sexes, mixing up the crowd a bit and giving it an infusion of new energy.
To that end, Brand g makes a concerted effort to welcome men, women, trans and every other element of the LGBT+ spectrum, as well as the occasional straight allies.
Many guests – particularly on higher-end, more mature trips – prefer this mixture (even if it’s still 80-90% gay men), since it provides a wider variety of people to meet. Lesbians who enjoy being around gay men, for example, make many new friends on largely-male trips, since they offer the gay men unique life experiences and points of view.
And the occasional straight allies that join trips – who come along with LGBT friends or family members – often become something akin to “mascots”, celebrated in a manner they would never experience on a mainstream trip.
The world is changing – and with it, LGBT+ travel. Reinvention is, after all, part of the gay DNA.
