Lifestyle
TravelBy bestgaycities
7 weeks ago
Gay porn star/director/producer
Michael Lucas
is about to add tour guide to his resume – the head of Lucas Entertainment announced on his website that he is going to start taking groups of tourists to Israel.
Lucas writes: “It is no secret that Israel is one of my favorite places in the entire world, and I travel there at least twice every year to visit my favorite parties, restaurants, historical monuments, beaches, resorts, and most importantly, all of the close friends and wonderful people I have met throughout the course of my travels. What I love about Israel is that it is extremely modern while maintaining such an amazing and diverse sense of history: You can be in urban Tel Aviv, one of the most gay-friendly cities on earth, surrounded by skyscrapers, and then drive 40 minutes to ancient Jerusalem and see craftsmanship and architecture that is over 2,000 years old. It is incredible!
|
| Continue reading... |
LifestyleTravelBy bestgaycities
8 weeks ago
When my partner and I travel, we always look for gay accomodations to stay at. Not just because I want to support my community, but who wants to stay with a bunch of families? I suppose if you have gaybies, staying at a gay hotel is not important.
We do have some gay friends that would rather choose a 4 or 5 star straight hotel, over gay accomodations.
Pink Choice , one of the largest and most trusted websites for gay and lesbian hotel reviews, today announced results from its first annual Gay and Lesbian Travel Survey. The results shed some light on the health and direction of gay travel in 2009 and going into 2010. Over 500 individuals completed the survey.
The Economy is Impacting Gay Travel
|
| Continue reading... |
LifestyleTravelBy bestgaycities
2 months ago
Mexico City
enacted Latin America's first law recognizing gay marriage Tuesday and said it hopes to attract same-sex couples from around the world to wed.
The law, approved by city legislators on Dec. 21, was published in Mexico City's official register Tuesday and will take effect in March. It will allow same-sex couples to adopt children and municipal officials say it will make Mexico's capital a "vanguard city" — and attract extra tourism revenues. "Mexico City will become a center, where (gay) people from all over the world will be able to come and have their wedding, and then spend their honeymoon here," said Alejandro Rojas, the city tourism secretary.
"We are already in talks with some travel agencies that are planning to offer package tours that include flights, hotels, guides, and everything they need for the wedding, like banquets," said Rojas. "We are going to become a city on a par with Venice or San Francisco" — the current leader in the gay travel market segment. The annual economic impact of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender travelers is about $70 billion in the United States alone, according to Community Marketing Inc., a tourism research company that specializes in gay and lesbian consumers. |
| Continue reading... |
LifestyleTravelBy bestgaycities
3 months ago
Nepal, is a landlocked country in South Asia and the world's youngest republic. It is bordered to the north by the People's Republic of China, and to the south, east, and west by the Republic of India. Nepal is a country of highly diverse and rich geography, culture, and religions. The mountainous north has eight of the world's ten highest mountains, including the highest, Mount Everest.
Nepal's quest to appeal to the gay and lesbian market continues with a new LGBT tour company. Nepal's first and only openly-gay member of parliament and founder of the country's gay rights movement, Sunil Babu Pant, has started the republic's first travel agency for gay travelers and is encouraging gay couples to get married in Nepal.
The company is called Pink Mountain Travels and Toursand Pant is energetic about its offerings, “For gay couples who want a memorable wedding, we are offering to hold it at the Everest base camp,” Pant said. “Or it can be in Mustang (Nepal’s northernmost district that was once part of an ancient Tibetan kingdom).
|
| Continue reading... |
LifestyleTravelBy bestgaycities
3 months ago
President Obama has been key to lifting the ban on people with HIV/AIDS entering the United States. It is a significant step in promoting equality for people with the disease.
As it was, the ban stopped people who have lived legally in this country for years from going abroad out of fear that they would not be allowed back in. The U.S. has been among a dozen countries that bar entry to travelers with visas or anyone seeking a green card based on their HIV status. The law effectively has kept out thousands of students, tourists and refugees and has complicated the adoption of children with HIV.
The ban was put into place in 1987, when it was widely thought that HIV could be spread as easily as a cold. Now many more treatments for the disease exist, and there is no reason to fear that allowing people with HIV into the country will significantly impact its spread.
On a bigger scale, after 22 years, the biennial International AIDS Conference will return to the United States in 2012. |
| Continue reading... |
LifestyleTravelBy bestgaycities
3 months ago
25 years ago, I was selling ad space for a small regional gay rag. It was so hard trying to convince straight businesses, the value and power of the gay dollar.
Fast foward, Corporate America has finally figured out Gay business is big business, and gay travel is even bigger business. Comcast Spotlight acknowledged that fact when they launched the Gay Travel On Demand Channel Oct. 14. Subscribers can now click onto tourism videos featuring Gay Chicago and Gay Friendly Halifax.
Canada is a prime destination for gay travel and the LGBT travel market is so desirable to Canadian businesses that FlyNovaScotia.com not only sponsored a travel video on behalf of its capital city of Halifax ( 2006 population: 372,679 ) but it also sponsored the Gay Chicago video, which opens and closes with an ad driving viewers to the province's tourism Web site.
The unfortunate part is you have to have Comcast. "The goal is to create an On Demand gay travel guide on Comcast that is populated with dozens of gay travel videos for our customers to peruse at will," said NGLCC member and Comcast Spotlight integrated marketing manager, Nancy Newman. "The platform is free and available 24/7 to all 16 million Comcast digital subscribers." |
| Continue reading... |
LifestyleTravelBy bestgaycities
5 months ago
A gay Toronto couple was detained for 28 days in Dubai for carrying the prescription arthritis drug Celebrex, which is banned in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
Rocky Sharma and Stephen Macleod, who have been together for 10 years, were stopped upon arrival in Dubai on Aug 2, where they planned to spend the day before returning to Toronto from a vacation in India.
Macleod had a bottle of the prescription arthritis medication Celebrex in his suitcase. They were told Celebrex is a controlled substance in UAE and, even though they did not present themselves to border officials as a couple, both partners were detained.
“I think they thought we were gay and we would have some party drugs with us,” says Sharma, who is now safely back at home with his partner. “They were definitely targeting people who are young, from the western world and nicely dressed, like they are going to party.”
|
| Continue reading... |
