NAVIGATION
Can a Vacation Change the World? VACAYA’s gay co-founders on how LGBTQ+ travelers — and their stories — are uplifting their destinations. By Jacob Anderson-Minshall
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ABOVE Antartica travelers LEFT VACAYA founders Patrick Gunn (left) and Randle Roper
from Polari, a centuries-old language used by the gay subculture to discreetly communicate.” And of course, “vacay” is a casual mainstream term for vacation. To create the right environment for these experiences, VACAYA charters entire ships and resorts, giving travelers the freedom to express themselves authentically. “For one magical week, our community gets to be the majority and live life out loud in the blissful utopia VACAYA creates,” Gunn says. “That single change from being an always-minority to a
COURTESY VACAYA
hen Patrick Gunn and Randle Roper founded VACAYA they were hoping to find a “sweet spot – a great ‘in between’” that blended just the right amount of the “liberating, empowering, and fun aspects of all-gay travel” with the variety of activities, destinations, and types of people found with more mainstream vacation travel. Roper says VACAYA is the first vacation or cruise company to really cater to “the entire LGBTQIA+ community.” He argues the queer community “sort of segments ourselves into our tribes. And we’ve been holding that model for about, gosh, Olivia [Cruises has] been around almost 50 years. They were all lesbian, then RSVP came along in 1985 as all gay, Atlantis in 1991 as all gay, and R Family Vacation kind of came into the mix to cater to the families with Rosie O’Donnell and Kelly Carpenter. They have a wonderful model, and they do cater to LGBT folks. But we are adults only.” Don’t get the wrong impression though, VACAYA isn’t that kind of adults-only. “While everyone loves a good time, there’s more to a memorable vacation than just parties,” Gunn says. “We also recognized the trend with Millennials that they didn’t require an experience to be exclusively gay men to be a viable option. They wanted to travel with their friends, no matter whether their friends were gay, straight, bi, questioning — or fell anywhere else on the spectrum.” The travel company’s name itself blends elements from gay and straight worlds, Gunn explains. “‘VACAYA’ is a word
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