LGBT Travel Panel at the L.A. Times Travel Show

Yours truly is organizing an LGBT travel panel at the upcoming L.A. Times Travel Show on Saturday, January 28, 2012 from 2:15pm to 2:45pm  in the Travel in Style Pavilion, naturally enough.

If you are anywhere near the Los Angeles Convention Center in downtown L.A., please stop in. You can find more information about the travel show by clicking here. You can obtain a 20% discount off the $10 entrance price by purchasing your ticket here and using the code EARLYBIRD.

We’ll talk about hot new destinations, events, and cruises to make your gay/lesbian travel planning just a tad easier. Come with questions. I’ll be moderating a panel that includes:

• Shannon Wentworth, founder and CEO of Sweet, cruises and tours for lesbians and their friends;
• Duane Wells, contributor to MoxieQ, which promises a “gay for every girl” and numerous LGBT travel publications; and
• Andy Bender, blogger for Forbes.com and contributor to numerous mainstream and LGBT publications.

The panel is brought to you in part by the International Gay & Lesbian Travel Association, which is active in over 80 countries. Discover more about this nearly 30-year-old organization by clicking here: LGBT.Travel.

High Seas Hijinx: We Can’t Even Cruise Straight

Actual guests on an Atlantis cruise

After a welcome but almost scarily mild (global warming?!) December, rigid weather gripped the Northeast just after New Years.

Of course, that propelled our thoughts to warm-weather getaways, including gay and lesbian cruise vacations. This season’s aqueous getaways range from the offbeat (scuba diving in the Republic of Palau with Undersea Expeditions) to the romantic (Danube riverboat excursion with RSVP Vacations) to the humungous and fun (the Caribbean with Atlantis Events).

Check out the websites of these companies and the following for this year’s line up of water-based fun including all-gay or all-lesbian charters and gay or lesbian groups on mainstream cruises:

• Alyson Adventures
• AquaFest
• Coda
• Concierge Travel
• Hanns Ebensten
• Olivia
• Pied Piper
• R Family Vacations
• Source Events
• Sweet

TOUR OF THE WEEK: ISLA MUJERES RESORT WITH SWEET

Welcome to your lesbian fantasy, an island of women.

Join lesbian-ownend but everyone-friendly Sweet for a fun-filled week in Isla Mujeres (which means “Island of Women” in Spanish), September 24 through October 1, 2011.

It’s an all-inclusive and exclusive (meaning only for Sweet customers) week of fun, activities (or utter leisure or both).

That’s Suzanne Westenhoefer to the left, one of the entertainers you’ll enjoy.

Tranquil beaches, pristine marine parks and sculptured cliffs, this is nature at its best.”We’re taking over this charming resort for a week of unbridled fun (unless you bring your bridled, but that’s totally optional),” says Sweet’s sweet owner and CEO, Shannon Wentworth.

More info: http://discoversweet.com/sweet-isla-mujeres-resort2/

Originally published in GPS.OutTraveler.com.