I just read a blog by two young(er) American gay backpackers about their most recent trip around the world, their world being parts of South and Central America and Europe. They seemed to have had a grand time on their journey, partied their asses off, and certainly got their gay on while soaking up the sun and men in Ibiza. Elsewhere, not so much. In fact, when and where they allowed their true selves to shine was a conscious decision on their part, one they made on a daily basis. In one of their later posts they addressed the issue, explaining the various reasons they’d used to choose when and when not to be openly gay. There were a lot more instances of when not than when. Though with plenty of photos of their travels to peruse I think those when nots were more about not being in-your-face gay because gay backpacker #2 had rainbows shooting out of his ass.

In a perfect world you could travel your heart out being who you are. In the real one, closeted travel is an issue we all have to deal with at one time or another. It’s an acceptable fact of life for some, others – especially those who’ve learned how free life can be when you’ve come out of your closet – object to the idea of being forced back into the dark just because they chose to use their passport. Some avoid the issue by only travelling to gay friendly destinations (that’d be those locales gayer than John Travolta at a masseurs’ convention), others by only travelling to gay tolerant destinations and then staying within that area’s gay ghetto. Both will tell you that’s about freedom. But restricting your travel to only those places where you feel free to be yourself is really about closeted travel. Walls are walls regardless of who erected them.

Personally, I don’t feel the need to be segregated, to be only surrounded by other gay people. I’m an experienced traveler and am quite capable of handling myself in most situations around the world. I enjoy interacting with people of all backgrounds. I’m not looking for everyone to get – or appreciate – who I am and do not need to travel in a homogenized bubble. And while I can understand those who only travel to places with rainbows flying from every building, and have been to many of them myself, that’s not why I travel. The boys too went beyond those walls, but – at least for the first part of their journey – they carried a lot of those walls with them.

With its culture of machismo and Catholic heritage South America is not exactly a hotbed of gayety. Okay, there’s Rio, where even when all the gay Olympic divers and gymnast hit town in 2016 the pink factor won’t trend upwards by even the smallest of blips. But even though homosexuality has been legal in Brazil since 1830 and same-sex marriage became the law of the land last year, in preparation for the FIFA World Cup being held in June many stores in Brazil began selling T-shirts bearing homophobic slogans such as calling Cristiano Ronaldo gay and footballer Diego Maradona a maricón. And while the São Paulo Gay Pride Parade is the world’s largest LGBT Pride celebration, 44% of world’s anti-LGBT violence occurs in Brazil too. But with an estimated 25% of tourists visiting Rio being gay (some 880,000 of them annually with a 90% satisfaction rating of their time there) the boys decided the numbers were in their favor. Rio, they felt, was a safe place to be gay, so they donned their feather and boas, and let their inner rainbows shine. But out of the three and a half months they spent south of the border, that was the only place they visited where they felt comfortable being themselves.

Some Latin American countries are more progressive than others; Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Mexico and Uruguay have moved more quickly on gay rights than the United States has. But there is a difference between what is and isn’t legal and what the attitudes of the locals are. Our intrepid gay backpackers decided the safest course of action was to hide their relationship and who they were from everyone they met. They shared a room but not a bed, replaced the o in espouso with an a, and told anyone who asked they were friends from college travelling together rather than admit they were a married couple. Their overarching reason for travelling in the closet was for personal safety, occasionally it was ‘in respect’ for the families whose homes they stayed at; unsure of their attitude toward gay men it was easier to allow their relationship to be a non-issue by repressing it.

Both of those reason are understandable. Both are also the same justifications gay men have used in the past to stay safely cocooned in their closet. The boys went into a huddle in Costa Rica to reflect upon their last three months on the road and came to an important conclusion. They’d been traveling constantly but had not been getting to know people very well despite frequently interacting with locals and fellow-travellers alike. They realized that by not being themselves – and even actively hiding who they were – they’d prevented themselves from really getting to know people and sharing the incredible experience that international travel can be. It was time for a re-boot before they hit the shores in Europe.

Not that that meant it was time to break the pink suitcases out. The pair still remained respectful of local culture and did not attempt to become poster boys for the gay traveller set. They admit they were not out to make big statements or to change deeply rooted ideologies. And at times they still had to hide who they were, such as while volunteering at a children’s orphanage in Ghana, a country where same-sex relationships are illegal and can be punishable with 5-25 years of imprisonment. Their change in attitude, however, was a positive experience. Or as they put it:

“The more we stepped out of our bubble to meet the travelers around us, the more comfortable and trusting we grew. We felt less and less necessity to be wary of coming out to people, especially travelers. You have to notice that travelers tend to be of a certain mindset (generally speaking). They’re typically very open minded. It’s a ‘come as you are’ and ‘let’s learn from each other’ kind of crowd. The more you open up to it, the more you stand to gain from it. In the end, we just became less willing to hold back.”

Like many gay travellers before them they learned that the unintended consequence of insulating oneself from homophobia is the insulation from many of the other rewarding experiences of travel. That doesn’t mean you have to constantly fly a rainbow flag. In fact depending on the country you are visiting doing so can be quite dangerous. But there’s a difference from being out and being visibly gay. And traveling in the closet, being forced to lie again, to pretend again, to be someone you are not again, is seldom the best way to go.

Some gay travellers adopt a don’t ask, don’t tell policy, preferring to keep their sexual identity private. That may work. At least until you are asked. I can’t say I’ve ever had a local or fellow touri ask me specifically if I was gay, but I am frequently asked if, or why I am not, married. There’s the how many children do you have question that comes up frequently too. Years ago, even though I was out in my home country, I’d lie. It was the easy out. I was on holiday to enjoy myself, not to deal with the possibility of homophobia. But one lie leads to another, even in a casual encounter. And in the end, being uncomfortable about not being myself far outweighed the possibility of finding myself in an uncomfortable situation.

Now when those questions come up I come out. And just as many have found when they finally came out of the closet, the reaction is more times than not a big yawn. Though in Brazil the nice old local lady who’d enquired about my wife then decided I needed to met her gay grandson. And that was a rewarding travel experience in its own right to say the least.

More recently I’ve begun travelling with my boyfriend. We’ve yet to have an eyebrow raised when we check into a hotel and have requested a single king-size bed. We travel as a couple. Openly so. We don’t seek out ‘gay friendly’ hotels, or choose where to visit off of the large travel sites’ rainbow pages because we don’t gay travel any more than we gay eat or gay park the car. Neither of us is big on PDAs and neither of us feels being openly gay means having to hang on each other, so local attitudes have not been a real concern. But then neither of us has a desire to visit Uganda either.

Thailand has a well-deserved rep for welcoming its gay visitors. It is one of the places in the world where you will find zero problems in being who you are. It’s safe. And yet many gay visitors stay at a gay hotel, eat at gay restaurants and pubs, and hang out at the gay bars and gay clubs. The only locals they meet are gay, or more likely those who cater to the gay traveller trade. And that’s a shame. With all the country has to offer, segregating yourself does nothing more than insure you’ll never get to experience the Thailand most visitors are rewarded with.

The times are a’changing and so are people’s perceptions of and attitude towards gay men. In some areas of the world discretion is still the better part of valor. But in most, you’ll find that the majority of people whom you meet have enough troubles of their own and don’t really care who it is you’ve decided to love. And while you don’t need to be a world ambassador for gays, just being who you are can help change those attitudes. And it certainly can make for a much more rewarding and enjoyable trip.

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