Traveling as a Gay Male Couple

This guy, and his blog, has been bugging me for years. Right before COVID I harassed him a bit in the comments section on this specific topic; I think he was gushing about traveling to Turkey and Syria at the time. He brushed off the criticism and continued rallying against the mediocrities of his travel experience.

In the beginning of the pandemic he took some nonsense trip, justifying ignoring the anti-travel advisories by proclaiming he was taking all precautions. But some of the pics he posted on that blog entry showed him maskless at times and also wearing inappropriate masks. Other readers lambasted him, I naturally jumped on, and by the end of the day not only were all those critical comments deleted, but my (and I assume others') IP address was blocked from ay further comments.

[quote] The dude would fly to North Korea if they gave him good points and a decent champagne with his seat.

Actually he would fly to North Korea to complain about being robbed of points/upgrade, receiving shitty champagne and the lack of overhead air vents. But they WOULD need a Marriott-associated hotel in Pyongyang so the staff there would be compelled to blow smoke up his ass.

[quote] I wrote about my experience getting a massage in Singapore, and the lady asked if I have kids, and when I said I didn’t she asked “why not?”

That would be pretty awkward and uncomfortable for a straight guy too.

Who is probably not going to offer "because we've been trying for five years and have had three miscarriages" or "because an operation left my wife infertile" or any other number of reasons.

The One Where He Flips Out at a Hotel in Mykonos

R3 What an insufferable queen

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To his credit, he's been very open about what he enjoys - it's all about the airline trip, and not the destination.

It's even been the tagline of his blog.

"That would be pretty awkward and uncomfortable for a straight guy too."

R2 et al...

Not really. Well to an American or some Northern European straight men yes, but not universally.

In many cultures children are still highly valued. For men especially to have sons that will continue his name. Marriage and the breeding of children is what men (and women for that matter) are supposed to do, when that does not happen many don't see anything wrong with asking "why not?"

It wasn't that long ago American society was largely same way. To be an unmarried man in thirties or later say during 1960's or even 1970's raised some eyebrows. Ditto for females but things started earlier, by middle to late twenties. JFK famously quipped one of the reasons he was getting married was because people were thinking he was "queer".

Asian cultures in general value children, especially sons. There was a recent court case in NYS where Asian parents of a West Point cadet who died petitioned court to be allowed to harvest their son's sperm because they were sure he would have wanted children, and they wanted to be grandparents. While whole thing played out in court an order from same kept hospital from discontinuing life support (they had refused to in anyway assist in harvesting said sperm on legal grounds).

He is not wrong, the laws and the politics are not the people nor the truth of many countries.

r4 Anyone who's nickname "Lucky" are by default insufferable.

News flash. The world doesn’t revolve around any one particular kind of person. Including gays. My partner and I go to Eastern Europe quite frequently. I’ll let you in on a little secret: if you don’t act like a giant walking stereotype, no one really cares.

I'm aware that there's a OMAAT blogger but I've never paid any attention until now.

His piece on travelling as a gay married couple seemed reasonably measured. He stated his position and the atmosphere and issues of gay travel in some countries less hospitable to gays than others. Applying a measure of common sense and considering what you want from visits to some countries seems about right. He's not saying that because the Marriott staff are nice, everything's great in country X - no reason to worry.

Granted, he's just offering his own perspective, not brilliant not unusual insight, but it doesn't seem bold and controversial, just a personal and practical view.

The Mykonos piece linked above was too tedious to read in detail and reflects more poorly on a lack of professionalism. Spending time at a hotel and updating one's live review at every turn doesn't seem a solid approach to his line of work - instead it seems like traveling for upgrades and pampering which I find off-putting. The idea of miles for miles sake and the emphasis on flights and Marriotts is for me a backwards view of travel. I like nice hotels and nice travel experienced outside the "sights" that are the main draw, and don't mind using miles and points to advantage; but making a full-time job of it loses too much perspective for me. I'm just not that grasping about sales and offers and upgrades and being pampered because I'm live logging done hotel clerk's conversation with me. Not my idea of luxury travel to be always positioning for a little bump in service.

When I traveled a lot with my ex, I just didn’t give a fuck about whether people thought we were a couple or not. Two beds? No problem, I can spread my clothes out on the other one.

If a cab driver or anyone else started asking questions like “are you guys single? Looking to meet pretty girls?” I’d just passively say “No” and not engage.

The only time I ever recall anyone connecting the dots was at a hotel in Texas (of all places) and for some reason this middle aged Indian hotel clerk got SO excited like we were the first gays ever to come to the state, that they sent a bottle of wine (cheap wine) to the hotel room! It was touching, but also undrinkable. I think he thought we were going to tell all the gays and then his place would become a gay Mecca of sorts.

R12 That was a lovely gesture by the hotel clerk. I hope that you and your boyfriend found some way of rewarding his good deed.

I wish we could have. We didn’t see him again, but left a note thanking him. It was already a weird trip. It was the first Super Bowl weekend after 9/11 and we lived in New Orleans where the SB was taking place. They set up a HUGE security perimeter around the Superdome stretching for about a mile that effectively cut us off from going grocery shopping and for doing anything uptown, so we decided to leave for the weekend. (We also kinda though the city might get nuked and didn’t really want to be there for that) so we made our way to Houston because neither of us had ever been.

Fortunately nobody got nuked and we actually had a good time in Houston! And met a quirky older Indian man who was excited to meet (maybe his first?) gays!

The same thing happened to my husband and me in Portland, OR of all places. I had made the reservation for a king bed and the desk clerk did a reverse and said "I can get you into a room with two queens," to which I replied "The room will have two queens in it regardless, we would like the king." He did a lot of typing and upgraded us to a very nice room with a wide view of the river and Mount Hood.

We were able to thank him (many times) later, one notable time involved plastering him against the window of that view. Naked.

Fun times. I miss whorish hotel workers.

R15 Stick to Penthouse Forum.

Um, I just want to assure people that my boyfriend and I did NOT “thank” the middle aged, married, Indian hotel clerk, naked and repeatedly, up against a plate glass window.

Thank you.

R12 R14 you're a boring fellow. Travel is wasted on you.

Please now, R12/R14 is from New Orleans... I'm sure both he and his boyfriend have been very "thankful" to visitors to their city and ensured everyone had a great time.

I also have met several whorish hotel workers. One in Nashville that I remember fondly. And I have been reading this OMAAT blog but he is annoying and he is the reason why they hate us. His blog is also completely useless.

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Not even a couple. My Mom asked me to go to Dubai with her, I said fuck no.

One of his recent first class reviews (might have been Emirates or Singapore) had him ordering a heavy red wine with fish because the wine was the most expensive one on the list. Says it all.

Yawn, another entitled privileged white millenial/GenZ travel blogger like 4,000,000 others.

TL:DR

Even with his "gay" angle - not worth my time.

Youtube and Instagram are filled with these modern-day equivalents of glorified shop girls. Hopping from destination to destination, label-dropping (Country 88, 89, 90), capturing The.Most.Epic.Sights.to.Record/Take.A.Picture like everyone else.

They were interesting in 2019, then their continued travels to the same countries with limited Covid restrictions during the pandemic (Mexico, Turkey, Egypt) showed they are both self-indulgent and unoriginal.

They're more interested in themselves than the countries they visit.

I wish I had a boo.

I'm an avid reader of OMAAT and I get a lot of good tips and tricks about amassing and using points for travel, where it's worth it to spend money on upgrades, business class etc. and reading reviews of hotels. Like someone else said, I believe Ben may be a bit on the spectrum, but I get and appreciate his nerdiness about flying well and traveling. In general, he makes every effort to be honest and straightforward, and I appreciate that as well.

And like anyone on social media or posting on the internet, he gets dumped on a lot.

He’s a tired, old points Queen.

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Never heard of him but he reminds me of the YouTuber 'Nonstop Dan' who's always flying on airplanes and generally being a whiny bitch about the service he gets (he once complained that airline staff referred to him by his first name, rather than Mr last name".

He goes travelling with his boyfriend (who's not quite as insufferable) but they're often going to Dubai and other places that aren't exactly accepting of gays. I'm sure it's for the air miles.

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I would never travel to any country that wanted me dead or wanted to imprison me, or that hated Americans. The one exception is Egypt. I'm not sure if Egypt is safe now or not, but I would like to go there, and assume it's not like Iran or Rwanda or the United Arab Emirates.

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I thought r22 just didn’t want to hang with his mom.

OP You lost me at queer....