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I was thinking the other day about the whole "make sure you can travel with them before you date them" adage and it got me thinking about what my travel partner must-haves are. (It's a similar list for friends, but I think friends have a lower expectation of how close you'll be while on the trip.) Roll with the punches . After a lot of thought, this is king. Travel inevitably involves t hings going wrong . You want someone who's resourceful, organized, proactive and able to make the best of whatever situation you end up in.  Emotional intelligence . Know yourself, help when you can, communicate clearly. On one of my first trips with my husband I remember saying, "I'm frustrated and angry right now and I'm going rage for 3 minutes and then I'll be absolutely fine again, so just go for a walk and come back when it's over." And likewise, I've also been the one handling my travel partner's meltdown. But if I'm always the one hand...

(updated Aug 2025) As I've said many times before , I'm not a big hotel person – I'd rather be out seeing the sights and meeting up with people than ensconced in the stylishly-bland, comfortable nowhere of a posh urban hotel. There are exceptions, though. Visiting a traditional Japanese ryokan inn immediately comes to mind. While they're often located in beautiful settings, the hotel itself is the primary destination. Beautiful seasonal food, soaking tubs and onsen baths, and lots of quiet time for just chilling out for a couple of days. For experiences like these, I'm very much a hotel snob. Wood-fired hot tub bliss Our first-ever trip to Vermont back in 2010 was specifically to visit Frog Meadow Farm in Newfane. A friend in San Francisco was describing it to us and it sounded a lot like an American ryokan for gay men: seasonal breakfasts, a wood-fired soaking tub, a massage studio, miles of private hiking and cross-country skiing trails, orchards and honey...

Gay bars in Japan Gay visitors to Japan often have trouble finding and visiting gay bars. Many of them are unlisted, very tiny, and are more like little private club houses for friends than public watering holes. I was very fortunate to be welcomed into Tokyo's scene by a popular, longtime resident and despite the warm welcomes and introductions to these intimate spaces, you're basically being invited to sit at the counter in Cheers and you've never met Norm and the gang before. His photo series about Shinjuku's gay bars is over on Vice if you'd like to check it out . If your Japanese is good and you're an extrovert, you're all set. If not, well, most people at a bar after a long day at work likely don't want an awkward throwback to their high school English class, so you're going to need to use a combination of that Duolingo Japanese you did on the plane, charades, karaoke, iPhone picture show-and-tell, and maybe a little flirting to get you...

I guess I'm old enough that it's still a bit exciting when a big company like Delta acknowledges we exist :) Details about Delta's gay pride fare sale are here .

Several Asian airlines (Korean, Singapore, ANA, others?) only let you redeem miles for tickets for yourself and for certain family members. Until now, I've never had to actually attempt a family redemption. I'd seen a few online guides with scary tales of "you MUST fax this form to..." and "please allow 4-6 weeks for processing" and so I'd sorta steered clear of it. But I'm booking a trip to Korea right now and so it was time to bite the bullet. I was especially nervous about doing it because I'm in a same-sex marriage and I wasn't sure if Korean Air's policies/IT infrastructure would let me designate another man as my spouse. I've talked to a lot of other LGBT travelers who end up with concerns like this and I thought I'd put this out there for anyone who might be wondering the same thing I was. LONG STORY SHORT: It worked just fine, and it took less than 48 hours I was completely new to Korean air, so my husband and I both h...