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Q: 50 december 9, 2011 My partner and I are getting ready to plan our first vacation together. Instead of going to one of our families’ for the holidays, we’re heading out for a holiday of our own. We both love travel, but we’ve never traveled together. We’d love some advice about where to look for LGBT-friendly hotels, resorts, etc. And we can always use advice about how to make sure we travel well together. A: First, there are a lot of places you can go to find LGBT-friendly vacations. Vacation companies: There are numerous companies out there specializing in LGBT excursions. Check out Sweet and Olivia for lesbian excursions and Atlantis and RSVP Vacations for gay cruise and vacation options. These companies do everything from chartering entire cruise ships to buying out full resorts in order to give guests all-gay vacations. Companies like Spirit Journeys offer vacation workshops and retreats. Queer magazines: Curve and Out have travel sections, and online reviews of properties as well as locations, if you’re looking for a thorough exploration of possible destinations from the LGBT perspective. Listing websites: There are websites out there that serve as clearing houses for queerfriendly lodging. Global Gay Lodging has a listing of hotels, and Purple Roofs has a listing of queer-friendly bed and breakfasts. Still other websites provide a place for queer travelers to talk about their experiences. Organizations: In addition, there are a number of organizations that certify travel companies, hotels, airlines and the like as queer-friendly. The International Gay and Lesbian Travel Association and TAG can help you find out if the places you’re planning to visit are friendly. Mainstream: Many mainstream properties and travel websites have pages dedicated to gay travel. Orbitz and Travelocity both have information for gay travelers. Websites like airbnb.com offer rooms for rent by the night or week in people's homes. Check the listings for queer-friendly lodging. Also, a lot of individual properties and companies now have information for gay travelers. Take a moment when you’re booking tickets or rooms to search the site for a gay travel page. As for how to travel well together, I wish there were a formula I could give you. Some people travel very well together. Other couples, who are able to spend every second of Nightly “Happy Hour” is the last hour Tuesday “Happy Hour” is Burger Night! Come In And Join Us Monday – Thursday 4–10 pm, Friday – Saturday 4–11 pm, Sunday 4-9 pm voices Roam If You Want To ask a gay BY KRISTIN FLICKINGER every day together with no conflict at all, will buckle under the stress of trying to catch a cab or shove carry-on luggage into the overhead bin. Just watch The Amazing Race. But I think there are a few things you can do to relieve some of the stress of travel, before it rears its ugly head. Communicate: It really is the solution to most of the world’s problems. Communicate before you plan your trip. Talk about what it is that you both are hoping to get out of the trip. Is it relaxing time on the beach, or adventure in the jungle? Is it a shopping excursion to a big city, or a meditation retreat at a spa? Knowing where each person is before the trip will allow you to plan together and avoid some (maybe not all) of the potential conflicts that can arise. And when issues do arise on the trip, communicate then, as well. Maybe one of you wants to spend the day by the pool, while the other wants to hit the sand. Talk it out. I’m not kidding. This kind of thing can seem like a major issue in the moment, but if you just discuss it, you can probably find easy compromise. It takes both people talking about their wants, and both people being flexible. www.justout.com Be flexible: Sometimes it rains on a tropical island. Sometimes it rains for a week. Sometimes it doesn’t snow at a ski resort. Sometimes a flight is canceled or a room reservation is lost. But those unexpected setbacks can lead to great experiences. You might spend an extra night in a new city, or end up in a different room than you expected. If you can keep your cool and go with the flow, you will be more likely to get along with your partner—and more likely to enjoy the experience. Do your homework: Some people can fly by the seat of their pants. Until you know how you travel together, make sure you have things like confirmation numbers and itineraries printed out. Double- and triple-check passport requirements, and make sure you have your identification with you. Have a plan for withdrawing foreign currency if you’re traveling outside the country. Be kind: Be kind to the people you meet. You never know how long you’ll be sitting next to someone. Or whether that airline worker will upgrade you. Be kind to your partner. And be kind to yourself. Being kind will make your trip more enjoyable for everyone. And, even if everything falls apart, you’ll still enjoy each other. Kristin loves traveling gaily. You can read about her travels at midleap.com.
voices oregon’s lgBTQ newsmagazine decemBer 9, 2011 51 Early winter in Portland, and night falls so early—it’s mid-evening and pitch-black dark outside as I step into the No. 4 bus. I show the driver my pass, turn away from him, and freeze. There, in the first row, sits Marshall, engrossed in a thick fantasy novel, the white wire of his iPod headphones leading out of his ears. Weeks ago, he and I broke up, concluding our relationship with mature discussion of the irreconcilable differences between us, a stoic hug. Our split had no great drama, no emotional theatrics, no animosity. However, all that is beside the point on the bus in the stormy night: I am simply not ready to see him here. I rush down the aisle, praying to whatever deity may exist that he not look up from his book, that whatever song playing in his ears stays loud and engaging. I get to the back of the bus, brush past an elderly man to wedge myself into the far left corner of the bench, continuing to pray for invisibility. The fact that change is necessary and inevitable doesn’t escape me intellectually. Strangely, this has even been a factor in several of my breakups, my frank willingness for my world to change reading as a form of personal instability to some of my partners. It mystifies me —What makes you think you can halt change? I always wonder. Why would you want to resist Dig The Void Everything that leaves us, our lovers and time and the old year passing, creates a void that we are forced to stare into wide-eyed. and be a stubborn stone when the river of time will just wear you down to nothing? However, in the dark of winter, when the calendars change and the reckoning comes upon me as it has here on the bus, the metaphors and the philosophical distance fail to comfort me. The pain of change still knocks the wind out of me, leaving me to shiver and hide. “Why hello, handsome,” I hear, and turn my head anxiously. Oh, thank God—it’s Leni, my fabulous beatnik neighbor, a selfprofessed “gay man within an old Jewish lady’s body.” She slides elegantly into the seat next to me. “Oh, Leni,” I sigh with gratitude. “So good to see you.” “How are you holding up, kid?” “Oh…. You know, things have been better.” She looks to the front of the bus, recognizes the back of Marshall’s head, turns to me with remember to breathe BY NICK MATTOS a knowing look in her wrinkled eyes. “Oh, honey… it’s the void!” she exclaims. “There’s always a void when someone leaves. I get so tired of people leaving.” She pulls up the collar of her green coat, the fur lining brushing against her face. “Not just capital-R Relationships, either—people dying, quitting their jobs, moving on through life.” She slides a slim silver case out of her pocket, opens it and removes a Dunhill. “I take it as a sign I need to keep moving on, too.” I sigh again, and Leni puts her tiny, soft hand onto mine. “It hurts every time, the void. Now, though, when I see it, I just try to remember how it looked the last time I saw it. How I looked in front of it, what I did afterward. Then it’s just like a medicine—it tastes awful, but you get better for taking it. That’s how I learned to dig the void.” Leni is right. Everything that leaves us, our lovers and time and the old year passing, creates a void that we are forced to stare into wide-eyed. We can be hypnotized by it, frozen into stillness until more and more things leave us, the void consuming everything; we can also view it as an invitation for motion, a familiar reminder to stay dynamic. The void can be a crucible, reminding us that the heat and force of the world will forge us into whatever it needs us to be, that we must adapt when it informs us that it is time for something to stop. We arrive at 12th Avenue—I pull the cord, the bus stops, Marshall doesn’t turn around as Leni and I step off. Outside of the bus, rain knocks the yellow leaves from the trees, wind blows them in bright clouds over Division Street. Raindrops run over my face as I look in the bus window at my personal history seated therein. Just as the stoplight changes from red to green, I raise my hand up to wave. “Goodbye,” I say silently, to Marshall, to a past that inevitably yields to the present, to the departing year. The bus speeds away, and for a moment I keep waving, the “goodbye” turning into a “hello,” greeting the void and the lessons I’ll have to learn from it this time, welcoming the future and whatever it holds. Leni looks over, takes the cigarette from her lips, smiles at me. “Just keep moving,” she says softly, and I smile back at her. Quietly, thoughtfully, we walk into the darkness. Nick Mattos is still learning how to dig the void. Send coping mechanisms to nickmattos@justout.com.
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