Looking for your next gaycation? This queer creator is here to help! A new gayborhood bucket list by Chicago-based travel writer Courtney Vondran (also known as @CourtneyTheExplorer on TikTok and Instagram) is available to download on Canva, completely free.
The destinations include historically relevant gay landmarks, like the Castro in San Francisco; neighborhoods with a large presence of LGBTQ+ households and businesses, like Hillcrest, San Diego and The Grove in St. Louis, and popular gay vacation destinations including Fire Island, Key West, Asbury Park and beyond.
After coming out in 2020 at the age of 29, Vondran moved to a gayborhood in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico for four months. "I felt seen and safe and celebrated and I found community," she says. As a result, she started seeking out more gayborhoods and incorporating them into her travel itineraries. For example, on a trip to Spain, she made sure to visit Gaixample in Barcelona and Chueca in Madrid. "I was hooked," she says. And she was eager to share that enthusiasm with the world.
Vondran's TikTok about her healthy obsession with gayborhoods went viral. "I realized I wasn't the only one [interested]," she says. "I also started seeking out and posting gaycation spots as well, like Saugatuck, Michigan. I think everyone was shocked, myself included, that these super queer, colorful pockets exist in the Midwest and in red states."
The blogger and social media personality wanted this information on where to find LGBTQ+ communities and spaces, to be more accessible. Googling "gayborhood" for most destinations doesn't necessarily yield comprehensive results. "I wanted a bucket list, access to all of the gayborhoods and extra queer-friendly destinations in the world," says Vondran. "I decided to start with a US gay bucket list first."
The list is a collection of Vondran's TikTok community's recommendations (this is the first draft), plus everywhere she could find online as well as LGBTQ-friendly cities and gayborhoods she already knows and loves, like Chicago's gayborhoods, Northalsted and Andersonville. She hasn't yet visited every spot on the list, but it's her mission to go.