Worldwide Travel - Lesbian Style

We’ve all been there before. We have researched and planned for the perfect vacation or travel adventure only to arrive at our destination and find ourselves surrounded by the wrong kind of people, without a clue as to where the nearest girl bar is. Basic internet searches and travel agents can only take you so far when you’re a lesbian seeking a getaway that best suits your lifestyle and interests. So that’s where Girlports comes in. Founded by Tanya Churchmuch, who serves as the President and Publisher of www.girlports.com, the website truly does fill the needed role of a worldwide lesbian travel guide. Churchmuch took the time to tell Cherry Grrl and our readers more about her unique and useful creation that is helping women everywhere achieve their ideal vacation experience.

Cherrygrrl.com (CG): What are your main goals and objectives with Girlports?
Girlports (GP): More than anything, I just wanted to create a useful travel guide for lesbians. Incredibly enough, this is something that just didn’t exist before Girlports was launched. I’m a lesbian who has always traveled a lot for both work and pleasure, and it was a real thorn in my side that a resource like Girlports didn’t exist. You can always find a boy bar no matter what city you’re in, but finding out where the lesbians are is a whole different story. I’m a journalist by profession and one day I finally got so fed up with the situation that I decided to do something about it, and Girlports was born. On Girlports you can find information about lesbian bars, restaurants, hotels, social groups, and so much more for cities around the world.

CG: In what ways have you expanded what you do since launching in 2007?
GP: Right now it’s all about adding new destinations and updating the cities that are already on the site. It’s extremely important for me that visitors to the site find the most up-to-date information possible, so I’m constantly updating, removing, and adding information for all of the cities on Girlports. I have a few other site features that I’m working on right now, but they’ll only be incorporated into the site in 2009.

CG: What are some of the features on your website?
GP: I think the most important feature is the Girlports Passport. This is a personal planner that lets visitors choose what interests them in any particular destination. These listings are then included on a map so you can see not only where everything is, but where it is in proximity to the other listings. Once someone has created their Passport, they can send it to themselves via email or print it up and take it with them.

Other fun features include the Girlports Translations section with words and phrases of interest to a lesbian traveler. These words and phrases (like “is this a lesbian bar?” or “we’d like one double bed please, not two single beds”) are translated into a number of languages and you just have to click on them to hear how they’re actually said.

There’s also our worldwide events listing, which I think is the most comprehensive listing of lesbian, women, and LGBT events that you’ll find anywhere. You can even choose if you just want to look at film, sporting, social or pride events or events in a particular city.

CG: How do you choose the destinations that appear and how often are they updated?
GP: When I launched the site, I made sure to include cities that I thought were some of the most popular for lesbians as well as destinations that I’d just found interesting, like Bangkok and Seoul. Before I add any new destinations to Girlports, I actually visit the city, like any other travel writer would. The next destinations that will be going up on Girlports in the coming months include Ft. Lauderdale, Northampton, MA, Stockholm, Manchester, UK, Seattle and Portland, WA.

As to updating the site, if you look at the Girlports RSS feed, you’ll see that there are updates to the listings happening all of the time. Also, when a new listing is added to Girlports, it says “new listing” next to it for three weeks. If there’s been some sort of change to a listing, then it says “updated” next to it for three weeks.

I go through every listing on the site about once a month to make sure that it’s still valid. Of course I’ll miss something from time to time, but that’s also where visitors to the site can help. At the bottom of each listing, people can leave comments or send me a message about it. For example, users will sometimes send me a note saying that something recently closed or that a lesbian night has moved to a new address etc. which also helps me stay on top of things (but that’s only one of the many, many ways that I find information about local lesbian scenes).

CG: What are some top city’s/destinations that you most recommend to lesbian travelers and why?
GP: I think it depends upon what you’re looking for… Do you want a beach getaway, a busy urban vacation or a small-town escape? I think the best lesbian city in the world is London - where you’ll find at least 50 lesbian parties a month, but I also think Toronto is a fantastic lesbian destination with an amazingly vibrant and diverse women’s community. Provincetown is a great summer beach getaway and the tiny New England town of Northampton, Massachusetts isn’t called “Lesbianville USA” for nothing! But I also love Sydney, San Francisco, New York, Berlin, Stockholm and believe it or not, Dallas, for their women’s scenes and Manchester has one of the best Prides I’ve ever been to.

All of these destinations are great because they have strong and visible lesbian communities that are easily accessible for tourists.

CG: What are some of your goals for the future of girlports?
CP: More than anything, I want women to know that Girlports is a resource that they can use to help plan their trips. I want the site to grow bigger and for more and more women to use it. I’ll keep adding destinations, updating cities already on the site and I’ll also be doing a slight re-design of the site with more added features in 2009. I’d also like to see more women leaving comments about places so that my perspective isn’t the only one presented on the site.

It’s also important for me to support lesbian-owned businesses and lesbian communities around the world. I hope that Girlports can do that by informing women of what exists in all of these wonderful places.

For more about this valuable travel tool visit www.girlports.com.

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