Little Panama has managed to evolve into a pretty decent gay travel destination along with one of the hemisphere's "it" places in general. Besides the canal, there's eco/adventure tourism, beaches, history -- and a small but reasonably satisfying gay nightlife scene in the high-rise capital.

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08.25.2008
Posted in BabelBlog at 11:46 am
by Dave

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08.13.2008
Posted in BabelBlog at 5:34 pm
by Dave

Sitges, Spain: Tops For Euro-Gay Summer Play

In June I posted enthusiastically about Barcelona, but I can’t let the peak summer vacation season slip by without mentioning its sandy, sexy little neighbor just 45 minutes down the coast of Catalonia. The resort of Sitges (pronouced “SEAT-jess”) is a picturesque former fishing village ...

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08.1.2008
Posted in BabelBlog at 12:14 pm
by Dave

By now you’ve probably heard the news from la bell’Italia yesterday (here as reported by the Associated Press):

“The Italian government was ordered to pay $160,000 to a gay man who received a driver’s license for the disabled after he volunteered information on his sexual orientation to military authorities, the man and a gay-rights group said Monday.”

(Sigh.) Che stronzata…

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07.15.2008
Posted in BabelBlog at 8:31 am
by Dave

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Well, the big day – 08/08/08 – is right around the corner, and if earthquakes, algae blooms, dissident roundups and brutal crackdowns in Tibet don’t faze you, maybe you’ve got a mind to see the Middle Kingdom for the Olympics. You might want to consider waiting, though – not only have hotel rates been massively jacked up, but the Commies in charge are locking down Peking (the actual English name for Beijing, by the way, still used by the British government and others) and both tightening visa requirements and in some cases making them pricier. So welcoming…

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What with all the hullaballoo about California this past week, less noticed was the fact that on June 17 an entire country also finally pulled itself into the 21st century when its parliament made this the world’s sixth country to grant equal rights in terms of marriage and adoption – and while they were at it they tossed in the green light for dykes to get the ol’ turkey-baster treatment in medical facilities. Now, don’t get me wrong, Norway’s been pretty progressive for a long time – the head of Oslo’s city council is gay, and the country pioneered by passing gay rights legislation way back in 1981 and allowing civil unions in 1992 – but really, lately all that has seemed so 20th century. With this latest act of parliament, though, they’ve now got the full Monty, and just in time for Skeive Dager (Oslo Pride), June 20-29.

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06.22.2008
Posted in BabelBlog at 10:35 am
by Dave

Well, garçons and filles and combinations thereof, I just got back from a visit to one of France’s more underrated destinations, pretty impressed in every way. The country’s second-biggest city, a two-hour ride from Paris (not to mention a new direct flight from New York City on Delta), is a handsome bit of business straddling two rivers at the lower end of the Rhône Valley and loomed over by basilica-crowned Fourvière hill. Feel free to think of it as a smaller but also kinder, gentler (certainly friendlier) version of Paris, and one with a sweet selection of sights, culture, shopping, and – above all! – spots to chow down, more than 1,500 of ’em.

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06.11.2008
Posted in BabelBlog at 3:20 pm
by Dave

Now that things are starting to warm up again weatherwise in the more northerly reaches of North America, it’s time to remind y’all that Canada is not only one of the more gay-friendly countries on the planet (despite being ruled at the moment by a mostly gay-unfriendly political party, the Tories, aka the Conservatives) but boasts some of its coolest and queerest cities.

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Even as The Gay Translator, Gay Spanish for Love + Hookups, and the other GayBabel phrasebooks continue to rack up sales in North America, we’re also catching on in Europe, where in addition to the books we sell on this side of the pond we’ve also come out with local editions in French (Le Dico Gay), German (Der Schwule Übersetzer), and Spanish (El Traductor Gay), with the Italian Il Traduttore Gay on the way. ...

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04.26.2008
Posted in BabelBlog at 12:28 pm
by Dave

04.16.2008
Posted in BabelBlog at 2:44 pm
by Dave

Ever stayed in a “gay hotel” where the experience for one reason or another turned out to be less than fab? I’ll name no names, but it’s happened to me more than a couple of times. Let’s face it: for a long time, there was less competition, so gay innkeepers didn’t have to be good — it was enough to be gay, and so over the years, fags and dykes have put up with some pretty mediocre (sometimes downright dodgy) service and surroundings just for the privilege of “staying gay.”

That’s been changing, of course, but there’s still a lot of chaff among the wheat out there. Enter Pedro Castro, a tourism-industry pro – from Portugal, now based in Zurich – who has just launched the world’s first gay lodging brand. Starting with 30 small properties in 15 countries, Pedro’s Attitude Hotels’ seal of approval aims to guarantee travelin’ queers an experience that goes beyond merely gay to offer solid quality and value.

Come to think of it, scrap that “Leading Hotels of the World” comparison: Attitude does it better. Rather than handling only fancy-schmancy, stratospherically priced properties, it actually includes three categories, from pricey and upscale to good-quality budget digs, and you can examine and reserve all of them directly from the web site. Check out the list below, and for more details, log on to Attitude Hotels (the picture above, by the way, is of the Masia Casanova, near Spain’s gay-popular resort town of Sitges, just south of Barcelona).

And what’s all that got to do with us? Well, in the interest of helping guests put the beds in their lovely rooms to good use, Attitude and GayBabel have teamed up to publish a special Attitude Hotels edition of our seven-language Gay Translator, which obviously tickled Berlin mayor Klaus Wowereit (below) at Berlin’s recent ITB travel show, when Pedro presented the openly gay pol with his very own copy. Is that like cool, or what?

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04.5.2008
Posted in BabelBlog at 5:25 pm
by Dave

Yo, big day for us here! You may already be familiar with our growing family of foreign-language phrasebooks for hooking up and getting laid, Gay Spanish (and Italian, and French,and German) for Love & Hookups.

But what if you could combine all of those sexy tongues, plus a couple more,  into one convenient book that can be used in more than 76 countries, colonies, and territories in every continent? That’s over a billion people, guys! Half of those are men, 10% are gay, who knows what percent are bi… you do the math! ...

Happy St. Paddy’s Day, begayrah! In observance, here’s a few thoughts and notes re the country that in the 21st century has really put the “gay lick” into Gaelic, with several of its metro areas evolving into fun – even fairly hip – homo havens.

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03.17.2008
Posted in BabelBlog at 12:55 pm
by Dave

Howdy this time around from my hometown, Miami, Florida. Just 45 minutes ago, one of the hottest homo hootenannies in America just got started: South Beach’s annual Winter Party ...

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03.2.2008
Posted in BabelBlog at 12:45 pm
by Dave

Well, guess what! I decided not to go to Carnival in Rio de Janeiro or New Orleans Mardi Gras again this year after all. Instead, here I am in Colombia’s fourth largest city, Barranquilla
(“ba-ron-KEE-ya”; locals dub it Quilla), on the Caribbean coast a 2 1/2-hour Avianca flight from Miami. Next-door Cartagena is much better known thanks to its UNESCO World Heritage Old Town. But Barranquilla sports a nifty vibe of its own, plus a pretty cool claim to fame: the world’s second-largest carnival after Rio ...

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02.4.2008
Posted in BabelBlog at 4:26 pm
by Dave

Jim Gladstone, the book guy for one of America’s top gay travel mags, weighs in on our new series of phrasebooks in the February 2008 issue of Passport. Check it out:

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01.27.2008
Posted in BabelBlog at 11:00 am
by Dave

Ahoy, mateys! “Wave season” (aka peak cruise season in the Western Hemisphere) is upon us, and in fact just today Atlantis set sail on the biggest all-gay cruise in history (a whopping 3,750 fags, O…M…G) on Royal Caribbean’s Liberty of the Seas. But if you haven’t yet tried a gay cruise, it’s not too late to sign up for some this year’s batch — especially summer’s Europe and Alaska sailings and this fall’s to Mexico, South America, and the Caribbean.

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01.19.2008
Posted in BabelBlog at 6:17 pm
by Dave

Hi kids! I thought it would be a good idea to follow up our first six-city look at gay saunas in Europe with a rundown of the traditional Big Three: London, Paris, and Rome. So without further ado, check out these good spots to find tail of three cities ...

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01.9.2008
Posted in BabelBlog at 9:30 pm
by Dave

As lots of you already know, for homo hook-ups, Western Europe can be a paradise. Yeah, there are a gayzillion bars and clubs, even in many of the smaller cities and towns, and it seems everybody and his daddy’s online these days. But another big reason is because more than any other continent in the world, Europe is chock full of sometimes elaborate bath houses that attract a wide range of dudes, including some of the very hottest. ...

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12.31.2007
Posted in BabelBlog at 7:35 pm
by Dave

Several weeks ago, I gave you the scoop on the gay scene in Costa Rica’s capital, San José — a city with a pretty respectable gay, cultural and dining scene but frankly not otherwise what you’d call one of Latin America’s major lookers. Just the opposite, though, is the gay-popular resort on Costa Rica’s Pacific coast called Manuel Antonio — in fact, it’s one of the loveliest bits of coast in the Americas...

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12.24.2007
Posted in BabelBlog at 12:18 am
by Dave

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12.11.2007
Posted in BabelBlog at 3:15 pm
by Dave

Oh, lordy — they’re baaaaack! Natalee Holloway and Aruba, that is, with this week’s re-arrest of those krazy kidz we all saw slathered endlessly all over the media back in the summer of ’05 (...) Anyway, I was down in Aruba just last month, and not only survived with life and various body parts intact, but...

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11.26.2007
Posted in BabelBlog at 6:03 pm
by Dave

Hola muchachos! This time out we’re spotlighting Central America’s most popular eco-destination. A lot of people complain the place is overrun, Americanized, and generally ruined—and in certain areas they have a point (I’m thinking especially some honky-tonky Pacific beach towns and some San José ’burbs). But there are still plenty of beautiful and fascinating areas packed into an area the size of Vermont and New Hampshire ...

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11.18.2007
Posted in BabelBlog at 10:10 pm
by Dave

Time to polish yer poles, powderhounds! You know that time of year is already around the corner, so I decided to offer some quick notes on best Euro-bets this winter for their mix of prime downhill action with a gay old time après-ski (in a soon-upcoming post I’ll tackle North America, and down the road I aim to focus on top slopes in the Southern Hemisphere, so stay tuned). Not that there’s much—in most cases, you’ve gotta import your own scene. But there are also a handful where there’s something going on all season.

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11.10.2007
Posted in BabelBlog at 4:43 pm
by Dave

These days Islam is just all the rage (so to speak), ain’t it? At least there are some of us making some kind of effort to figure out who “those people” are and what they want— who try to learn the nuances rather than the swarthy, angry, turban-swathed cartoons (Danish or otherwise) most people carry around in their heads.

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10.30.2007
Posted in BabelBlog at 12:15 pm
by Dave

Guten Tag from onboard the recently launched direct LTU flight between Miami and Munich! I’ve picked the capital of oompah-land as my first “GayBabelGram” not just because Muc’s one of Europes most attractive and fun cities, but because this was the month of the famous Oktoberfest.

10.22.2007
Posted in BabelBlog at 10:09 pm
by Dave

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Why do I love Rome so much? Well, apart from all the gorgeous romani zipping around on their Vespas, it’s such a glorious cacophony of contradictions! And — just when I thought things couldn’t possibly get any more delicious — now the Vatican even has its very own incarnation of newly inducted Idaho Stall of Fame member Larry Craig. As this Associated Press report shows, the righteous dudes in dresses ousted Monsignor Tommaso Stenico after he appeared on an Italian TV news report about gay priests (caught on hidden cam hitting on a young guy in his office which everybody recognized, duh). Apparently Tommy Girl was a bit of a celeb — at one point even an anchor and intoner of masses on a local Catholic TV station.

10.15.2007
Posted in BabelBlog at 2:46 pm
by Dave