Determined to make the world more accessible to everyone, author Alicia Valenski has compiled a list of more than 50 proud places with the help of insiders around the globe.

From drag bars to queer swimming clubs, these delightfully diverse destinations offer a range of inclusive activities. Here, local experts select their favourite picks.

Credits: PA;

Cape Town

Fashion guru, Yoliswa Moleboheng Mqoco admits her industry is “not the easiest industry to navigate as a fat woman, a queer woman, and a Black woman”. Born in Pretoria, she now splits her time between Johannesburg and Cape Town.

Stay at…

“I would 100% recommend the Cellars-Hohenort Hotel. They put up this huge LGBTQIA+ logo saying that they were queer-friendly, and I almost never see anything like that at hotels. I saw so many people of colour that were queer and looked like me.”

Dine at…

“Blondie has delicious Middle Eastern food with a little bit of a Mediterranean influence. It’s not actually a queer restaurant, but we often find a lot of queer people there. One Park is another good one – it’s a bar, gallery, restaurant, and record store. I’ve found a lot of queer people to be there, too, not that it’s meant to be a queer space specifically, but it just naturally happened that way.”

Relax by…

“Walking on the Promenade and Sea Point in Cape Town is free, and it’s just such a beautiful experience. Getting ice cream, watching the sunset… Kirstenbosch National Botanical Garden is also a beautiful thing to do solo.”

Credits: PA;

Bangkok

Pan Pan Narkprasert – also known as Pangina Heals – has starred alongside RuPaul in several of the Drag Race series.

Socialise at…

“There are two ‘Sois,’ or alleyways, which are considered gay streets: Silom Soi 2 and Soi 4. Those are the most popular places where you can bar-hop. The Stranger Bar in Silom Soi 4 was the first bar I worked at and the owner is a fellow drag queen.”

Dance at…

“The first club I opened is called House of Heals. I opened it because there just aren’t a lot of drag queens out there who get to perform in a club with good lighting, where the DJs are actually good, and the vibes are curated by a queer person. It’s essentially a jungle-inspired drag club, and the girls from Drag Race Thailand come here to perform and party and have a good time.”

Sunbathe at…

“I love Koh Samet, about two hours’ drive from Bangkok, literally known as the ‘Gay Island.’ All the gays flock there on Fridays and it turns into this crazy party island on the weekends.”

Amsterdam

Husband and husband team Daan Colijn and Karl Krause have visited multiple countries and share tips through their website coupleofmen.com.

Giggle at…

“One of our favourite places is Spijkerbar, right near Leidseplein. On Naked Tuesdays, they play porn and animated movies on two TV screens next to each other – if you watch for a couple of minutes, sometimes the cartoon characters will look really happy or bewildered in the direction of the porn, and it’s hilarious. It’s a good icebreaker if you want to start a conversation with someone.”

Feast at…

“For good traditional Dutch cuisine and a very old-school atmosphere, we really like Café Sonneveld. The cafe celebrates one of our Dutch stars, Wim Sonneveld, a singer, actor, and comedian in the 1950s and 1960s who was gay but went through most of his life in the closet.”

Plan at…

“At the Homomonument, check out Pink Point, the official LGBTQ+ tourist information point of Amsterdam. Here you can get the queer version of those famous Delft-style figurines of a boy and a girl kissing. But they also have all the up-to-date flyers about events and love to give you information on anything queer.”

Edinburgh

Literary lover Mairi Oliver runs the Lighthouse, lauded as Edinburgh’s radical bookshop.

Read at..

“You can visit the Lavender Menace archive. It’s full of gay books from the Eighties and Nineties and it’s this lovely intergenerational space. The original founders are usually there – they’re in their 70s now – but the people working there range from baby gays that are, like, 18 or 19 to people in their 30s and 40s; it’s across the whole age range.”

Learn at…

“Typewronger Books is one of the hubs for Edinburgh’s zine culture. Tee Hodges, who founded it, is a nonbinary printer who has their own Riso printer. They run printing workshops and teach people to make zines, and they run an annual Edinburgh Zine Fair, which is always worth looking out for. Tee also used to fix typewriters, hence the name. It’s a wonderfully weird space, and deeply Instagrammable.”

Get outdoors with…

“Edinburgh Queer Hiking has hundreds, if not thousands, of members, and they do regular hiking trips. They’ll take people who don’t live in the city, who are here for a week or a weekend, on guided walks.

“There’s also Queer Swim Edinburgh, where they’ll take you on a guide tour down towards the Newhaven area to places where you can swim. That’s especially nice if you’re nervous to try wild swimming on your own for the first time, or maybe it’s your first time in a swimsuit since transitioning, or whatever the case may be.”

Lonely Planet’s The LGBTQ+ Travel Guide is available from shop.lonelyplanet.com.