Issue #104 – Grab your mouse and escape – Travel column, which would have been appropriate for this time of year. It just talks about booking vacations online
Surfing & Cruising
Grab your mouse and escape
Originally, I had intended another topic for this issue but the weather
has driven me to dreaming of places that are much much warmer. Getting
away from the umpteenth centimeter of snow seems more apropos now
than ever.
I’ve put together some sites that can help to plan a gay vacation. The sites
I’ve listed all have the gay traveller in mind. If you can’t get away, close the ‘
blinds, turn up the heat, slip into that thong bikini, put on some tiki music
and boot up the computer. Check out these sites and pretend that you are
far, far away.
If you can get away, the best starting place is the travel section of
PlanetOut (www.planetout.com/pno/travel). This is one of the best gay trav-
el guides on the Web. Well organized and researched, containing the most
popular gay destinations, gay travel books, search engines, reviews and a
live poll. Best bet for an all in one travel guide.
Out and About (www.outandabout.com) is another guide for the gay
tourist. The site is an advertisement for the monthly newsletter magazine,
so not much is available for free. Worth a gander for the ardent traveller,
who needs a gay alternative to the in flight magazine.
A little more helpful is Gay Places 2 Stay (www.gayplaces2stay.com). The
opening page has a pull down menu of several destinations. Every city has
hotel listings, several with good quality photos, rates and locations. An
extra bonus is the currency exchange rate and the latest weather for any
chosen destination. Even better, if you have a credit card, you can book it
right from the site.
The Guide Online (wuM.guidemag.com) has a mixed bag of everything. \
The travel listing features major cities with club and hotel info. The best
part about the Guide is it’s updated regularly — nothing worse than an out-
dated travel guide. Suitable for printing and a great alternative to dragging
around a thick travel book.
RSVP Vacations (www.rsvp.net) specializes in gay and lesbian cruises.
When I looked there was still space available for a nine—day Costa Rican
vacation starting Feb. 9. Other destinations include the Caribbean and the
Far East.
Rainbow Destinations (www.guesthouses.net) is a database of “gay/les-
bian owned or friendly accommodations worldwide.” Divided by geography.
they’ve included rates and photos of gay—run bed and breakfasts. Useful if
you don’t want to stay at a generic hotel.
A curious entry is the Gemini House, (www.geminihse.com) a Key West
B&B run by a naturist couple. Their site for the no clothing guesthouse
offers a few revealing pictures. If naked is your thing, then Naked Places
(www—03.io.com/~mboy/) might be a logical stop. US$18.95 buys a guide-
book dealing with clothing optional travel. I don’t have a copy but it claims
to have 750 listings of accommodations, organizations, nude beaches etc.
(getting warmer?).
Another titillating stop is Gay Mardi Gras (www.gaymardigras.com). The
x—rated section has a few galleries of crown jewels being exposed in
exchange for plastic beads (AVS required). If you manage to break away
from there, you’ll also find places to stay in New Orleans during Carnival
(as of Feb. 16). Mardi Gras in Sydney (www.mardigras.com.au) has a beau-
tifully designed site, featuring information about the parades, the parties
and gay history.
A site catering to the circuit party crowd is Circuit Noize (www.circuit—
noize.com). Their “party finder” is a massive database; search for a particu-
lar city, month or DJ.
A couple of issues back I wrote about IRC and I’m still getting email
about it. To answer the most common question, #gaytorontosex is best
accessed from an EFNet server like irc.idirect.ca.
