Lonely Planet LGBTQ+ Travel Guide: Our 7 picks of queer travel advice from the book’s more than 50 destinations
In partnership with Lonely Planet
By Dale Fox
If you’ve ever landed in a new city and typed “gay bars near me” into Google with fingers crossed, Lonely Planet‘s The LGBTQ+ Travel Guide is for you. Indeed, the new tome, written by journalist Alicia Valenski, is the queer travel bible we’ve been waiting for.
The guide features over 50 destinations, with recommendations for each one from a local tastemaker, creative or community leader who shares their personal picks of what to do and where to go – and sometimes even what to avoid.
Below, we’ve pulled together recommendations from seven of the stunning contributors from the book – including Drag Race icon Pangina Heals – to share their travel wisdom.
Drag Race legend Pangina Heals (Bangkok, Thailand) on where to find the best food
My biggest advice is: don’t just go to what’s usually recommended. Go out and find your favorite local Thai restaurants. One of my favourites is a little place called May Kaidee. It’s a vegetarian restaurant, and their pumpkin hummus is truly just the best thing in life. It’s always these smaller restaurants where the cooking is what their grandmother and her mother did for generations.
Seek out where the locals eat. Ask the hotel receptionist, or follow someone who looks like an office worker and see where they eat and what they order.
‘Couple of Men‘ Daan Colijn and Karl Krause (Amsterdam, Netherlands) on a porntastic gay bar
One of our favorite places is Spijkerbar, right near Leidseplein. It feels like an old ’70s gay bar. You come in and it’s dark and you have to walk down some stairs. There’s a pool table. They have Naked Tuesdays, which is always a big success.
They play porn and animated movies on two TV screens next to each other – if you watch for a couple of minutes, sometimes the cartoon characters will look really happy or bewildered in the direction of the porn, and it’s hilarious.
Comedian Aurelia St Clair (Melbourne, Australia) on how to dress like a local – and avoid fines
There are a lot of ticket inspectors on public transport and the fines are crazy. You would maybe pay $8 a day on a day-pass for public transport, but if you forget to buy one, you could get fined like $300. The alternative would be to Uber everywhere, but public transport tends to be less expensive and quicker.
It’s a ‘dress however you want’ vibe here. People definitely express their style openly. I’d say folks wear more black in Melbourne than in any other Australian city, especially in the colder months. But even in the heat, people will wear head-to-toe black. So that’s the easiest way to look like a local.
‘The Queer Nomads‘ Aisha and Lexie Shaibu-Lenoir (London, England) on their go-to bars and favourite daytime hangout
There’s VFD, or Vogue Fabrics Dalston, which is a basement club, but it’s where the fashion kids and creatives go. Dalston Superstore is great too – there’s always something going on there, and downstairs turns into a sweaty rave.
There’s nothing like Common Press, because there are very few daytime spaces for the queer community. It’s a bookshop, café, and event space – it feels really inclusive, and it’s one of our favourite places to hang out.
‘Two Bad Tourists‘ Auston Matta and David Brown (Madrid, Spain) on partying all night like a true local
Madrid is a party city. Spanish people in general want to be on the street having a party. They don’t always even care what it is. They’re like, ‘Let’s do the botellón: drink on the street, listen to live music…’
Clubs open at midnight and don’t get going until like, 2am, so don’t go any time before (or even right at midnight. But around 1am to 2am is the time to trickle in. Be ready to be out until 6am, for sure.
IGLTA veteran Clovis Casemiro (São Paulo, Brazil) on bear parties and a secret speakeasy
We can enjoy various gay bars in the [Largo do Arouche] neighbourhood, including the oldest in the country, Caneca de Prata. And if you’re willing, weekends promise lots of parties at bars like Eagle, or parties for bears in particular at bars like Bigger or Ursound.
What is so unique [in the Farol Santander building] is in the basement, the Bar do Cofre (the ‘Vault Bar’). You know those big safes from banks in the 1950s, the big door with the big handle that you spin? You go through this big door, and inside there is an incredible bar, like a speakeasy!
‘The Goldon Queers‘ Justine and Sam Goldon (Anchorage, USA) on glaciers and retro skiing vibes
If it’s winter, learning to cross-country ski here is amazing. Hatcher Pass has a great cross-country skiing area at Archangel Road in winter, and there are these adorable little red huts you can rent at Hatcher Pass Lodge, which still looks straight out of the ’70s and they have no intention of updating it.
You gotta see a glacier when you come to Alaska. We take people to Matanuska Glacier, where you can pay for a tour to walk on, in, and around the actual glacier. They teach you all about the layers of ice, and you can even crawl through the glacier.
The LGBTQ+ Travel Guide (£22.99) is available now at major retailers including WHSmith and Amazon, as well as independent bookshops including the Lighthouse Bookshop.