“I need a gayborhood, a gay bar, queer community”: Meet the influencer putting ‘gaycations’ on the map

Long before she knew she was queer, Courtney Vondran recalls visiting Chicago for the Pride parade and just knowing that it felt like a safe, exciting place. But growing up in the midwest, it wasn’t until she was 29m came out as a lesbian and moved to Puerto Vallarta on the Mexican coast that she went to events for queer women for the first time.

“I went to a queer-women pool party and to a lesbian bar. Those experiences of being surrounded by queer women—even the bartenders and staff—were the representation I needed,” Vondran told me over the phone. “I need a gayborhood, a gay bar, queer community. Without that, I feel silenced.”

Today, the queer travel content creator is based in Chicago where she lives with her fiancée Liz Wieland, who she met on Tinder, and their dog Kali, and cats Phillip and Gilbert. Vondran works with tourism boards around the world to create inspiring travel content for the queer community.

It was while planning her trips around the world, Vondran turned to TikTok for information on queer-friendly destinations, but she could never find much about gayborhoods—so she started creating the content herself.

It began with a simple video about her gayborhood obsession. In the comments, folks shared their favorite gayborhoods and asked for recommendations for gayborhoods near them. This sparked Vondran’s mission to visit all of the country’s gayborhoods—which she says is more attainable than all the gayborhoods globally.

“Galena shocked me. I didn’t expect it to be queer-friendly because it’s Illinois where it can be scary going south toward Springfield. You have to go back in the closet and it’s only three hours from Chicago. But Galena has a small-town charm with lots of queer millennials.”

- Courtney Vondran

A follower suggested she visit Saugatuc in Michigan. Vondran was stunned that she’d never heard of it, despite living in the Midwest. “The Saugatuck TikTok went viral and made me realize many people don’t know these places exist,” she says. “I’m not the only one seeking gaycation spots.

Her experience in Saugatuck also taught her not to avoid every red state. “Michigan is a red state in the Bible Belt—queer people see it as dangerous,” Vondran says. “But Saugatuck has a gay resort, rainbow crosswalks, and gay camping.”

Since then, she’s been surprised by red states with strong queer communities in Williamsburg, Virginia; Minneapolis, Minnesota; and Cleveland, Ohio. “Galena shocked me,” Vondran tells me. “I didn’t expect it to be queer-friendly because it’s Illinois where it can be scary going south toward Springfield. You have to go back in the closet and it’s only three hours from Chicago. But Galena has a small-town charm with lots of queer millennials.”

After a few more gaycation TikToks, Vondran made a free downloadable bucket list of gay destinations around the States. She’s visited 21 of the 140 gayborhoods and her goal is to visit them all by the end of 2024. She’s visiting Portland in Oregon before the end of the year and also hopes to visit San Diego in California, and St. Petersburg in Florida.

While she’s visited gayborhoods around the country, Vondran hasn’t forgotten her roots in Chicago. Her most recent free community resource is a map of LGBTQ+-owned businesses and queer-friendly things to do in The Windy City, currently with nearly 170 points of interest.

She and Wieland travel from Chicago to share nature adventures with visits to Haystack Mountain in Maine, and Great Basin National Park, Nevada. But exploring the outdoors can be challenging for a queer couple.

At a campground in Nevada Vondran felt vulnerable sleeping inside of a tent with her partner. There weren’t other queer couples, which left them guarded and concerned for their safety as she feared being attacked. In Maine, they felt hostility in a small town and as if they were being glared. Fortunately, they stayed in an isolated cabin and felt more secure. Feeling unwelcome led to her being apprehensive about visiting smaller towns, rural areas, destinations that lack diversity, and conservative states.

“I don’t want to go anywhere where we might be the only queer couple,” Vondran says. “I feel uneasy on traditional campgrounds because of sexuality-based violence I’ve heard about at rural campgrounds.”

“While travel planning, queer folks have to become familiar with the anti-LGBTQ+ laws of different states and countries and hostility from civilians. It’s a burden we carry.”

- Courtney Vondran

After the negative experiences camping at traditional campgrounds, Vondran started to search for queer-friendly nature accommodation and came across gay camping (gay-owned campground for the LGBTQ+ community) which sparked a new obsession. “Going to a gay campground made me never want to stay at a non-gay campground again. It’s essentially a gay bar inside of a campsite,” Vondran says.

Her first time gay camping was at the historic Campit which has been creating a safe environment for LGBTQ+ campers since 1982. She said there were many lesbian flags flying and events specifically for lesbian campers. While at Campit, Vondran proposed to Wieland as nature has been a cornerstone of their relationship and she wanted to get engaged somewhere they could feel safe celebrating their queer love. She’s now determined to visit the 40+ other gay outdoor resorts and campgrounds in the US.

After her experience at the campground in Nevada, Vondran has found herself back in the closet in some destinations. Queer travelers want to have memorable travel experiences like anyone else—but that requires an extra step of research. “While travel planning, queer folks have to become familiar with the anti-LGBTQ+ laws of different states and countries and hostility from civilians. It’s a burden we carry,” Vondran says.

Representation is another factor Vondran considers when planning a trip. She’s more likely to visit somewhere she sees lesbian couples, content highlighting lesbian-owned businesses, and lesbian-friendly places in destination marketing. “Having sapphic spaces like lesbian bars, lesbian events, having representation of lesbian-owned businesses is a must,” she says. Vondran feels most safe traveling to lesbian-specific events such as lesbian pride in Puerto Vallarta.

She advises that tourist-facing businesses such as hotels can be more inclusive by abandoning a “his and hers” mentality when couples book a room. For instance, she notes many hotel rooms provide a set of slippers and robes curated for heterosexual couples in different sizes rather than a gender-neutral approach. Staff training is also of importance to the lesbian traveler, saying that hotels can avoid misgendering guests by asking their pronouns and not presuming that two people of the same gender need two beds instead of one.

While there’s a long way to go for the travel industry to be inclusive of everyone who is a part of the LGBTQ+ community (not only gay white men), Vondran recognizes there’s been progress in the travel industry specifically regarding creating safe spaces for queer people such as gay campgrounds. “If the staff is trained on the needs of lesbian travelers then we wouldn’t have to constantly come out of the closet like while we’re traveling or assert our queerness,” Vondran says. Simply consulting with a queer traveler is one of many ways Vondran believes travel-facing businesses can become more inclusive to LGBTQ+ travelers.

***

Adventure.com strives to be a low-emissions publication, and we are working to reduce our carbon emissions where possible. Emissions generated by the movements of our staff and contributors are carbon offset through our parent company, Intrepid. You can visit our sustainability page and read our Contributor Impact Guidelines for more information. While we take our commitment to people and planet seriously, we acknowledge that we still have plenty of work to do, and we welcome all feedback and suggestions from our readers. You can contact us anytime at hello@adventure.com. Please allow up to one week for a response