All in Travel
My piece on Tswalu, South Africa’s largest private game reserve, fro Glass Magazine. Many incredible critters made appearances during my stay (Zazu from the Lion King even tried to break into my room at one point). But the real mission of the reserve only comes into focus after a visit to the Tswalu Founation, where guests can learn about the reserve’s efforts to protect the southern Kalahari against threats like climate change and poaching.
Brazil’s largest city São Paulo has long been the heart of the country’s cultural, food, and design scenes — but in recent years, the city has also become a hub for sustainability and innovation.
British Airways asked me and a couple other LGBTQ travel writers to write about a "memorable experience" we've had while traveling as queer people. My piece was about the time a homophobe and I went to a bar together in Greece (sounds like the set up to a bad joke) and hilarity ensued.
Excerpted from Sassy Planet: A Queer Guide to 40 Cities. Jordan doesn’t criminalize LGBTQ+ identities, and trans people can even have their gender marker modified there—but locals say that being openly queer nonetheless carries a huge social stigma in Amman and across the country. Still, homosexuality has been decriminalized in Jordan for consenting people over the age of 16 since 1951. While Amman has few queer spaces, the scene is nonetheless very present, a situation unlike in many neighboring countries, where it has been forced underground. Read the article here.
Bali may best be known for its notorious nightlife and moonlit beaches, but the region’s lush, mountainous terrain also makes it one of Southeast Asia’s most amazing outdoor playgrounds. The biggest draw for some of Bali’s bolder visitors is the opportunity to summit one of the island’s active volcanoes. Indonesia is part of the Ring of Fire, a horseshoe-shaped path along the Pacific belt where the majority of the world’s seismic unrest occurs.
The nightlife industry has been decimated by the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, and LGBTQ+ communities—whose members are heavily employed in service and hospitality jobs—have been especially hard hit. Nowhere is this truer than in New York City, a place more accustomed to being the epicenter of queer nightlife and culture than a global pandemic.
Write up in Luxury Magazine’s Winter 2016 print edition on two ways to explore Marrakech: “Artisanal Souvenirs” and “Heating Up the Senses.”
LGBTQ parents eager to show their kids the world are helping usher in a more diverse and welcoming era in hospitality. Travel + Leisure print edition, November 2019 issue.
As two young me prepare to fight, a semicircle of onlookers quickly gathers around them. One is more imposingly built than the other, but this match won’t be won based on who can throw the strongest punch. Those observing, moreover, are not passive spectators: They drum, clap and sing, or pluck a single-string instrument called a berimbau. As the music reaches a fever pitch, the battle begins. One of the men explodes into a backflip, the other launches into several powerful turns of a cartwheel. This is capoerira. From Luxury Spring 2019
EACH autumn, thousands of wine lovers flock to Napa, California, to take part in the region’s harvest season. Disciples of this pilgrimage, which takes place roughly between June and October each year, ascribe an almost spiritual quality to the experience—harvest devotees trek from one winery to the next for the opportunity to breathe in the intoxicating aroma of crushed fruit, and pay homage to the grapes to be used in the next year’s vintages. Read the article here.
“TWIST more slowly,” Mariangela instructed me, through a translator, in her native Sicilian dialect. Mariangela was attempting to teach me her homespun macaroni-making method as part of a private cooking class arranged by the Belmond Villa Sant’Andrea, a beachside resort in Taormina, Sicily. The process, which Mariangela made look effortless, involves forming fresh pasta around a thin wire before twisting the resulting noodle off, all without breaking the dough. I kept breaking the dough.
NO TRIP to Venice is complete without a walk across the majestic Rialto Bridge or a climb to the top of Campanile Bell Tower. But after a day or two of visiting Venice’s most recognizable sights alongside 60,000 of your closest friends—which is the average number of tourists who fan out across the tiny city on any given day in summer—even the hardiest of travellers will be ready for some Venetian experiences, minus the claustrophobia.
“How could you be cynical about humanity and join Airbnb?” It’s a rhetorical question, but in this moment—when nothing but a door separated my mother from my naked guest, and the gallery of hardcore porn he had erected in my living room—I felt I’d found the answer.
