S5, E34: Queer Travel Is About Joy, Not Just Safety

LGBTQ+ Americans are more than twice as likely as the general population to hold a valid passport. That stat sits at the heart of (Out )on the Road: The Radical Joy of Queer Travel, a new book from writer Lindsey Danis that’s part memoir, part guide.

Most conversations about queer travel start and end with safety. Lindsey wanted to write past that, toward joy, belonging, and power. In this episode, they and Aislyn talk about the honeymoon trip that reshaped Lindsey’s whole life, the research that turns fear into freedom, and why traveling as exactly who you are is its own kind of homecoming.

Transcript

Aislyn: So recently I learned a new stat. You know how sometimes you pick up a piece of information and it just kind of stops you in your tracks? Well, for me, it was this LGBTQ plus, Americans are more than twice as likely as the general population to hold a valid passport.

I’m Aislyn Greene, and this is Unpacked by Afar. And that stat is a central part of a new book from today’s guest. Lindsey Danis is a writer and the author of (Out) on the Road, a new book that’s part travel memoir, part reported guide, and honestly, part permission slip for queer travelers to explore the world joyfully.

So I sat down with Lindsey to talk about where the book came from, the importance of balancing safety with that joy that I mentioned, and the honeymoon trip that ended up reshaping their whole life. So here’s our conversation.

Aislyn: Lindsey, welcome to Unpacked. It’s so nice to meet you.

Lindsey: Nice to meet you too.

Aislyn: We’re here to talk about your new book (Out) on the Road, but before we get to it, can you take me back to a moment in time? And maybe it was before you had words to describe what was happening or what you were feeling, but when you felt like you were traveling through the world differently from those around you.

Lindsey: I’m stumped because I feel like I was experiencing the world differently from those around me, just in my home life growing up. And so having that sense of like feeling different isn’t necessarily something that I first experienced in travel.

Aislyn: Oh that’s interesting. So then did travel echo that or did it offer something more slash new?

Lindsey: I think what travel did, as cliche as this was, was broaden my horizons. And I grew up in a suburb of Boston that was very, very homogenous. And so on the surface, there were seemingly very few differences. And yet I felt very different. And so figuring out that I was queer gave me like an easy answer for that. But travel showed me just how much difference exists in the world that I wasn’t seeing in my town because of how homogeneous it was.

Aislyn: Yeah, I love that. I mean, it’s kind of a fundamental part of Afar’s values. And it’s just such an interesting lens, I think, to approach your book. So (Out) on the Road came out in May. Why did you write this book?

Lindsey: There’s very little information out there by and for queer travelers. If you leaf through a guidebook, you’ll maybe find a page on LGBTQ travel, and maybe there’ll be a mention of a gay bar in one city and you’re like, cool, you know, I’ll add that to my list, but surely there’s more. And so most of the information out there, if it even speaks to LGBTQ plus travelers, it’s really written for cis gay men. And so that just didn’t feel representative of me and my experiences. And so I wanted to write the book that I wished that I had when I started traveling. I wanted to fill that book with all of the things that it would never have occurred to me to even Google, but that I needed to know. And I wanted to write that, you know, not only reflective of me and my identity and my experiences, but to open that door and bring in as many points of view as I could beyond mine so that as many people as possible could see their perspectives represented, too.

Aislyn: It ends up feeling like it’s part travel memoir, part reported book, part advice. Was that your goal when you set out?

Lindsey: Yeah, I think that the advice piece was the last piece of the puzzle to sort of come in, and I was a little bit like, challenged by that. Like, well, who am I to be dispensing advice? I’m not the guru. Then I was like, well, I am, you know, I can A, I am, I can self declare myself the guru and B, you know, we only need to be a little bit ahead of the people that we’re speaking to to tell them, here’s what’s worked for me. And then in the process of writing and thinking through all of these things and thinking about, you know, what is the advice for the situation that I wish that I would have had? I think I realized how much I know that I really just take for granted.

Aislyn: Yeah. You know, I think as you move about the world, as you grow as a person and in your career, you glean things over time and you don’t always think consciously about how you’re doing that. So it’s interesting that you say that you are feeling more comfortable with saying, yeah, I am an expert because as an outsider, I absolutely perceive that to be true. You have your website, your travel blog, your book, you’re this resource for queer travelers out in the world. So would you ever have anticipated that that’s where you would end up?

Lindsey: Yeah. I mean, in a way, it’s really me coming full circle to the interests and passions that I had as a young person. I share in (Out) on the Road that I wrote my senior thesis on road trip novels. And so I took a road trip so that I could, like, write not just from reading about it, but from having lived that as well. And so I think if me at the time knew what me now was doing, they’d be like, yeah, of course that’s what you’re doing. But it was a long road that I took to here.

Aislyn: Was there a version of the book that is quite a bit different from the one that’s out in the world?

Lindsey: Not that ever existed fully in writing. But when I was planning the book and working on my book proposal, I had a writer’s residency that I did, and I went there, I was down in Tennessee, I was spending a week there and just was like, I’m going to work on this all week long, and I’m going to come up with the outline for the book and write some sample chapters. And the version that I came up with at that time was completely a travel memoir. And I got to the end of the week and realized I had no interest in writing that book. Thank God I only invested a week of my life in it.

Aislyn: And why didn’t you just want it to be a travel memoir or that travel memoir?

Lindsey: I mean, the really short answer is that it it felt boring to me, even though, you know, I had lived those experiences, you know, and I think that’s that’s a fair criticism of some travel writing is that when you’re just writing about I went here and I went there, that’s not always very interesting to other people. I had had fun and hard and weird times, but the idea of sitting down and writing a whole book about that didn’t interest me, and I didn’t think that it would be that interesting for the reader.

Aislyn: And was that because you felt like you wanted to offer more advice, or you wanted to take those memories, those stories, and carry them further?

Lindsey: I think I needed to figure out what I wanted the reader to take away from the book, and that once I sort of did that, once I approached it, not from the perspective of like, what are the stories, the personal stories that I’m most interested in telling, but what is it that’s really missing from this conversation that people are really hungry for and they don’t even know because they’ve never seen it, that then that like much more abstract question really opened the door to me.

Aislyn: What has the response been to the book? Do you feel like it’s answered that hunger?

Lindsey: When I tell queer people about it, there’s usually a moment of recognition where they like, immediately understand why this is a book, and then they share a story with me. I was talking to somebody that I had never met before, you know, in my community, and she just asked me what I did, and I was telling her what I was working on, and she said, Oh my God. Years ago I was planning a trip to Saint Lucia because I always wanted to go there, and the week before I left, I realized that it was illegal to be queer there, and I had to cancel my trip at the last minute. And I lost a lot of money. And I went to a different island because, like, you know, it never occurred to me to look. And then somehow I realized that, like, you know, it just wasn’t the kind of place that you want to go. And so she was so excited that I was working on this book and she saw that experience that she had had as like, oh my God, if only I had known.

Aislyn: Well, I have to admit that I had a very similar reaction multiple times. Like I went through all the conversations my wife and I have had over the years of like, should we go here? What do we think about going here? Oh my gosh, why did we go there? Or we were surprised by, for example, being in New Orleans and having people shout hateful things at us and we’re like, What? We’re in New Orleans. But one of the things that I really loved in the intro was that you cited this stat that LGBTQ plus Americans are more than twice as likely as the general population to have valid passports. So why do you think this is? I had no idea.

Lindsey: Yeah, I love that stat too. So my wife and I have a running joke that of course we have passports so that we can flee the country if we need to.

Aislyn: Yes. It’s that dark humor, right.

Lindsey: But I think that, um, you know, to pick up on an earlier point that we were talking about a lot of LGBTQ plus people grow up not fitting in, whether that’s not fitting in in their community or not fitting in in their family, or just being different or feeling different. And so for us, travel is kind of a way to explore other places that we might fit and really find our belonging and, you know, not just experience belonging in a place we visit, but feel that belonging within ourselves too.

Aislyn: And it’s interesting because, you know, that stat bumps up against this idea of safety, which you grapple with quite a bit in the book. And it’s something that I also have face. Like, do we travel to places that we know are either unfriendly or have laws on the books, you know, where it’s illegal to be gay? And at times we have made decisions to go to those places and then just act as friends in public. But how did you kind of go into that conversation in the book?

Lindsey: It’s such a part of the conversation. It’s almost the only thing that’s talked about when LGBTQ plus travel is talked about.

Aislyn: Yes.

Lindsey: And I have a lot of frustrations with that, but I didn’t want to just brush over it and say, oh, well, we don’t need to worry about this because of course that’s not true when we do. So I wanted to look at it and talk about, I guess, what the risks of visiting places are, and then how people can prepare themselves and how they can take back their power. And sometimes that’s through hiding and saying, it’s not okay for me to be open here. So I’m going to hide and I’m going to say, my wife and I are friends, or, you know, I’m going to dress more conservatively than I dress at home so that I blend in. But doing that from a place of feeling like, well, I know what the risks are and I’m choosing this as opposed to I’m doing this because I’m afraid and I don’t know what the risks are, and I’m just carrying around this anxiety and fear because I’ve been told that this place is bad.

Whether we have it in our mind or we’re really consciously feeling that fear that, you know, a place is bad, a place is scary, then that can translate into us feeling closed down and feeling on guard and feeling on edge when we move through that place. But conversely, to pick up on what you were saying about New Orleans, if all we’re told is that a place is supportive and we go there and think, great, I’m going to hold hands and wear my like, you know, rainbow onesie. And people shout things at us. Then that feels like, whoa. Yeah. Did I just hear that right? Is this happening to me here, of all places? And so just as harmful as the constant fear mongering about places that, you know, aren’t as accepting of LGBTQ people as the sort of harm that those lists of safe places also have that we don’t even think to talk about either.

Aislyn: Yes. And I do think it’s really up to the individual to decide whether or not they want to travel to places with anti-gay laws. Personal example many years ago, my wife and I were debating a trip to Malaysia with my family. There are very harsh punishments there for being gay, including up to 20 years in prison and physical trauma. So it’s upsetting when you read about it. But ultimately we decided to go, although we did behave as friends in public and we were in a group and we had an amazing time. I mean, people were wonderful. I don’t know what it would have been like if we had tried to be out as a couple there, though. But why do you personally still travel to destinations with laws like this in place?

Lindsey: I mean, I think selfishly, if we say we’re only going to visit places that have good laws, then there are just a lot of places and a lot of experiences that we wall ourselves off from having. And I don’t want to stand on my values and stand on principle and miss out on things that I really want to see.

Aislyn: Yeah. And, you know, you talked about this in the book, but I have longer hair now, and it is much easier for me to pass. Jeannie doesn’t. Um, so it’s not as easy or it hasn’t been as easy historically. So I do recognize that I have privilege that I can just walk through the world. And most people just using my appearance alone wouldn’t assume or don’t assume that I’m part of the queer community. So I really appreciated that, you know, you talked to different people who spoke to that and this idea of manipulating your appearance to shift how you’re perceived as they travel, you know, in a sense, choosing whether or not to hide. Do you have any advice for people who are navigating that? You know, am I going back into the closet by hiding? Am I protecting my safety? Am I making a statement? It’s a lot to navigate.

Lindsey: Yeah. I mean, I think the first piece of advice I would give is that there is no one right answer. There is what’s right for you. And that can be situational. So you can say, I don’t want to hide. You know, like me, I might say, I don’t want to hide in my own country. I’m not going to change who I am to go visit a different state. But I may decide, oh, I’m going to hide going to this other country, in this other culture. And that might be to blend in with cultural laws that are more conservative, like, oh, they have modest dress in this country. I’m going to dress modestly. Is that a choice I’m making to hide my queerness or to be respectful of that other culture? You know, it can be a little bit of both.

Aislyn: Have you ever not traveled somewhere because you felt like you were hiding too much of who you are?

Lindsey: I haven’t, but I’d say there’s places that I really want to travel that haven’t bubbled up to number one on my list. And some of it, I think it’s because I wish it were more accepting there. Maybe one day I’ll be like, oh, it’s time, right? Like, I’d love to go to Morocco. I haven’t made it there yet.

Aislyn: Well, you also really focus on joy in the book, which I love because so often this conversation about queerness and travel centers on safety, and that’s the only dialogue. So how do you think about shifting that narrative away from fear and safety and toward joy and power, without dismissing the very real risks that exist?

Lindsey: Ah, this is such a big question. And so I always start with research. And for me, I think a lot of the fears come from knowing that something is maybe, quote, bad or dangerous, but not really understanding why. And so research is really the bridge to joy, to power, taking us behind those vague warnings and allowing us to think about, okay, well, here’s the current laws. You know, here are the attitudes in this place. Here’s what people think. Here’s what’s happened to other LGBTQ plus travelers and at what point in time that’s happened. And so just by gathering this information, you start to like break down that fear into manageable pieces. And from there you can think about, okay, well, if these are the risks, then how can I make them smaller? How can I minimize them? And maybe that’s by modifying your appearance like we’ve been talking about. That could be by deciding, I’m going to go on a group tour and I’m going to have safety in numbers, and I’m going to outsource worrying to somebody else. Yeah. If you’re one queer traveler and you’re on a group and you know everyone else is straight or straight passing, then you get to blend in with them. Yeah. And if you want, I can share some of my favorite resources for research.

Aislyn: Oh yes. Please.

Lindsey: All right. So for US laws, I like the Movement Advancement Project And that is like a color coded database where you can compare state laws on gender identity and sexual orientation. You can look for specific laws that are of interest to you and for country specific research, I like Equaldex which kind of ranks every single country in the world on LGBTQ plus rights. And similarly they have different criteria. So if there’s an issue that’s relevant to you, you can really look for how they feel about this issue. What do I need to know about this issue? And then look also at like surveys and attitudes and how societies have changed over time to either be more accepting or less accepting.

Aislyn: And it is interesting to see the directions that they shift, right? It’s not always forward progress. Those are great resources. Yeah.

Lindsey: And sometimes it’s really rapid progress seemingly out of nowhere. And we tend to think about like places are either really accepting or, oh, they’re backsliding. But I think we focus less on the countries in the middle where like, it’s not great, but it’s not bad. And sometimes that’s where really the big momentum is shifting.

Aislyn: Yeah. And that’s also where I find that, you know, policies aren’t people. So you might encounter some scary on the books laws or policies, but then people can be quite different, right? And they can make or break that experience for you. I have had incredible experiences in a place that I never would have imagined, and it’s just that the people on the ground are people on the ground, right? They don’t necessarily match their government or agree with the policies in place.

Lindsey: Right. But then you have to sort of take that risk and be authentic with them in order to, to see and gauge the acceptance. You know, if I’m connecting with somebody and I’m enjoying the conversation and I’m feeling like we’re really connecting with one another and I’m not being myself, then I feel like I start to doubt the connection that’s happening because I’m like, well, I’m not actually being me, right? Like I’m playing this role. And so then I’m like, okay, you know, is there an opportunity for me to come out or to be more myself and stop hiding?

Aislyn: And, and even that can be a gradual thing, right? Like you can say one small thing and see how the person reacts and then go from there. But I bring that up because I think there are these calculations that at least I know my I make in these moments that perhaps not everyone has to think about in this way when they’re out in the world.

Lindsey: Yeah. I mean, I think about and I share this story in out on the road on my honeymoon, my wife and I were staying at a guest house in the Mekong Delta in Vietnam, and we had been there for a couple of days, and I actually had lost my voice. So I was being very quiet, which I’m a quiet person anyway, but in this case, I was actually not able to talk. You know, so for the first few days, the hosts knew me. I was just not speaking at all. And then as I started feeling better, I was chatting with them and I had this moment with the husband of the guesthouse owner who’s a Finnish man, and he was taking shots of the homemade moonshine and was like, oh, come have one come drink with us. And I came over and, you know, did a shot with him. And, you know, he asked if my partner Lisa and I were together, you know, and I just had like a moment of like, okay, you know, what am I going to say? Right? You know, and I just told him the truth because I was like, I really love this place. I love these people. Like I’m having an amazing time.

Aislyn: Yeah.

Lindsey: And I don’t want to hide and like, let my fear lead. I’m going to be honest with him.

Aislyn: And it was a positive experience?

Lindsey: It was fine. Yeah. He didn’t have any reaction.

Aislyn: And that’s really cool, right?

Lindsey: Because also, you know, in Finland it’s fine.

Aislyn: I love that he asked too. Was that okay with you? Like do you prefer when people ask or is that sometimes...

Lindsey: I’m fine when people ask, I’m fine when people are curious and they have questions. Yeah. And most people are fine.

Aislyn: And sometimes they’re not, and then you just figure it out.

Lindsey: It was a very stressful dinner party one night, um, when I was at another writing residency and I was in Greece and the host invited some friends of hers to come. And this British woman had a little too much wine and just started ranting and saying the most transphobic things. It was so upsetting. I had to I had to leave the table. But it was really upsetting because she had just made an assumption that everybody thought the same way as she did.

Aislyn: Yeah. And then you’re in this moment where you’re asking yourself, do I say something? Do I try to bring all of this to a halt? What is my role here? Am I an educator? Do I just leave? I mean, that is also a message, right? So pivoting the conversation a little bit, I wanted to talk about this idea of transformational trips because you mentioned many, many different trips in the book. So was there one that looking back on it now, you felt like was the most life changing for you, either in a small or a large way?

Lindsey: Yeah. So my honeymoon trip has directly shaped where I am now in 2 key ways. That was not the first time I traveled with my wife, and it was not the first time I traveled overseas with her, but it was the first time that we were having a lot of these, like common LGBTQ travel experiences. It was the first time that we were showing up in hotels, and they were insisting on giving us the room with 2 twin beds, because that had to be what we wanted. Why would we want the room with one? And so, you know, in the moment it was all happening so quickly. I wasn’t really processing it. But when I got home from that trip was when I started writing about some of these experiences, and I started working on some of the first pieces of LGBTQ plus travel writing that I did not for anyone other than myself, really. I was just trying to explain it and make it make sense to me what had happened.

So in a very direct way, that led to me writing this book and us having this conversation. And then also on that trip, we spent around 3 days on the island of Koh Lanta in Thailand, and we were just being super active, eating all of this healthy food, having all kinds of good conversations with people that we met. And that really sparked a conversation of like, why are we so happy here? Right? Like, yeah, obviously I’m in Thailand. I’m having an amazing time. Of course I’m happy. But like, you know, what’s happening here that’s not happening in our daily lives. And how can we bring some of this into our daily lives so that we feel more connected and more happy. And that was the catalyst for me moving to the Hudson Valley.

Aislyn: Wow. Okay. Because you wanted like, a slower pace of life. Was that the idea?

Lindsey: I wanted a slower pace of life. I wanted to be closer to nature so I could go hiking on a different trail, like every day of the year, and not repeat where I live.

Aislyn: Yeah.

Lindsey: There’s so many hiking trails, and I just wanted like less stress so that I could be more intentional around connecting with people.

Aislyn: And 12 years later, do you feel like that has changed your nervous system in a big way?

Lindsey: Oh, 100 percent. Yeah. It was a really noticeable change right away. Within the first like 2 months, I noticed how reactive I was to things because I was out of that situation and I wasn’t having to react to them in the same way.

Aislyn: Well, I feel like that’s a great opportunity to talk a little bit more about kind of this idea around mental health, which you get into later in the book. So you write about how travel can help us rewrite old narratives. And so I’m curious to know in what ways travel can help queer people heal or find self-acceptance and, and seek out that joy that you mentioned earlier.

Lindsey: In our day to day lives. I think it’s really easy to just be running on autopilot and just be reacting to things habitually and doing what we do, because we always do it. And maybe like our lives are super optimized and great and wonderful, but like, you know, as likely as not, there are some things that we’ve outgrown or are ready to shift and we’re just not noticing it. So just by changing our environment, I think travel offers like a new blank slate and a new perspective for us. And it gives us that critical distance from all of the habitual stuff so that we can like actually look at it. We can think about like, oh, this routine, my daily routine, is that working for me? You know, am I seeing something new in this place that I’m visiting? That’s exciting and interesting to me. And like, I want to explore this. Like, what about this is so interesting and why? And we can do a little of this in our work and do some of that rewriting and questioning and rethinking for ourselves.

Aislyn: And it makes me think about this distinction that at least in my own life, I’ve made between the idea of vacation and travel. Because vacation to me, I often think, well, if Jeannie and I were to pick a place where we could just go and be totally out and hold hands and do all of these things, that might be like a very, very, very queer friendly city on one of the coasts. Right? And you know, maybe it’s not going to challenge us in the way that some of these big trips have taken, but there’s like freedom and joy in that too. And so I think I really recognize that I need different things at different times, right? Like sometimes I want that growth and I, it’s more about kind of exploring the world. And sometimes I’m like, I just need a little bit of decompression here. And I just want to feel like I don’t have to have that radar going on, you know, feel relatively safe. Do you think about that at all?

Lindsey: I was laughing as you were talking because, um, so I finished writing this book and I turned it into my publisher and I went on vacation.

Aislyn: Yes.

Lindsey: With my mom. And so we were going on a cruise to the Galapagos.

Aislyn: Oh my gosh.

Lindsey: And I was like, mom, don’t tell anybody I’m gay. Like, you know, and I was like, we’re going with a tour company. It’s, you know, I don’t know who’s going to be on that boat with us, but I know I’m going to be like stuck on a boat at sea with them. Right. So just like, don’t say anything. Yes, yes. Right. And like, she was fine with that. Yeah. You know, for me, that trip was kind of like a, I’m going to like literally go see all of the animals. And that’s why I’m going and like to decompress after like writing this book. And I don’t want to have to worry about what the people at the next table think about me.

Aislyn: Was it restorative in that way?

Lindsey: It was so beautiful. I was so glad to have that experience with my mom, A, but also like someone that I love and I’m close to, because I always thought I would have to go to the Galapagos alone, and that that would have been like a little bit sad because there’s so many magical things happening. And just like sharing that with someone that you care about is part of that magic.

Aislyn: You’re like, I am just another human being. No one needs to know my identity. I just want to go see the animals.

Lindsey: Yeah. And like, I’m not even gonna feel any kind of way about making that choice. Like, that’s a valid choice that we can make sometimes. And one of the people, Eris, in the book that I interview has this line that they say where, you know, they were asked about their gender identity by somebody and it’s like they don’t actually owe that person any answer, right? Like we don’t actually owe an answer the questions when we’re asked. It’s like socialization that convinces us that we do.

Aislyn: I didn’t have to feel any kind of way about it. I don’t have to feel bad about it. I made my choice. This is what I needed and I had a great time. Well, congratulations on wrapping the book. So I’m curious to know what you want allies specifically to take away from this book.

Lindsey: So just a funny sweet story on this before we get into allies, but I was workshopping some of the chapters of this book with my writing group. And everyone in my writing group is like a straight white woman. And I was like, well, they’re going to have fun learning about me and my experiences, but like, I don’t know how much they’re going to relate to the book, right? And they loved it so much. And they were inspired and they were like, I just love what you’re sharing. And it’s so interesting. And like, you know, I’m learning all this stuff that then I want to share at dinner parties. Like, did you even know about this? And they just felt really like empowered, right? So even though I wasn’t talking to them and they were not like the audience for the book, they felt empowered by the messages to like, have more freedom and expand in the ways that they travel as well.

Aislyn: Do you think that that was because they felt like they understood more about the world and how to support other travelers or helping them understand their own identities, or was it a combination of those things?

Lindsey: I think that they were seeing themselves reflected in some of the things that I was talking about. And I think there’s overlaps, certainly, between the ways that queer people are taught to survey the world and determine their safety in the ways that women are taught to do that as well. The risks that we’re all socialized to be afraid of are very similar.

For allies who travel with queer family members and friends. I think that this book is going to really take them inside the experiences that we have, and that knowledge is going to allow them to just be so much more supportive of us when we’re traveling around together, which is exciting. And then I think more broadly, you know, for people who might be reading this book that don’t have LGBTQ plus loved ones that they go around traveling with, I think it allows them to be informed, and then they can use this information to be better advocates for the community.

Aislyn: Have you found that allies are already picking it up and kind of digging into this, or is it more that like queer travelers are like, hey, here’s a book you should read?

Lindsey: A little of both. I’ve had, um, bookstore owners book me for events and things like that at mainstream bookstores. And so I thought, you know, that’s great that they see the need and they want to bring me in. I’ve had allies show interest in just collaborating with me or having me on their podcasts and, you know, as well as LGBTQ plus run podcasts. I think people that are interested in thoughtful travel, responsible travel, ethical travel, things like that tend to be interested, you know, in stories from marginalized travelers and our experiences and wanting to either be more representational or to be better allies and advocates as well. And so there’s been a lot of fun crossover there.

Aislyn: Oh, that’s really nice to hear. How has writing this book changed the way that you travel or will travel going forward, or has it?

Lindsey: So I think that I often used to feel isolated when things would happen that maybe were confusing or hard for me. And the biggest difference is that I interviewed so many people for writing this book, and they all shared so many stories, good stories, challenging stories, scary stories, all kinds of stories. So many more amazing stories than I was able to include in the book. But you know, now when I travel around, I hear these stories and I hear these themes. And, you know, I think back on these conversations that I had. And so I just feel like so much more supported and connected as a result of the experiences that I had researching and writing. And I’m hoping to give readers a little bit of that feeling as well when they read the book to, to recognize experiences they’ve had and feel like they’re part of this global community.

Aislyn: Well, in that case, I think that we need to end with what is your next big trip? Where are you going to go? Where do you hope to go? Where are you planning to go?

Lindsey: So I’m very excited now. In August, my wife and I will be going to Sri Lanka.

Aislyn: Oh, cool.

Lindsey: And the funny thing about this, for anyone listening, is that I say in (Out) on the Road that I’ve never been anywhere where it’s illegal to be queer. And very soon I will have.

Aislyn: How are you feeling about that?

Lindsey: I’m mostly just dwelling in the excitement. This is a bit unusual for me. We’re going on a group tour, which I also don’t normally do, but I didn’t want to plan a huge, big trip after doing this book launch. And we found a tour where just every single activity was something I would actually love to do.

Aislyn: Who’s the tour operator?

Lindsey: It is a National Geographic Journeys, which is their collaboration with G Adventures.

Aislyn: Yes. Oh, G adventures is so great. I really like that company. And how long is the trip?

Lindsey: I think it’s like 10 days, but we’re going early.

Aislyn: Okay.

Lindsey: We have like a few days in Colombo and we have some fun things that we’ve planned to do there.

Aislyn: Good to do a touch base when you’re back. See how it felt. And I think it seems like a smart way to move into this, right. Traveling with a group, we ended up doing in Malaysia all those years ago, and it totally changed the tenor of the experience. You know, there is safety in numbers, truly.

Lindsey: Yeah. It’ll be my first time going on a group tour with my wife. I’ve been on group tours with my mom before, and that’s always just a bit different. Being the intergenerational element in, in a group that’s usually like pretty homogenous. So I’ll be very curious to see how we fare.

Aislyn: All right, well, I guess we’ll have to hear about that trip when you get back. Yeah. Lindsey:, thank you so much for joining unpacked. It was so wonderful to meet you, and congratulations again on putting this book out in the world.

Lindsey: Thank you so much. And thank you for having me on the show.

Aislyn: (Out) on the Road is out now. Wherever you get your books, you can find Lindsey and their work at Lindseydanis.com. If you’re looking it up, that’s Lindsey: with an E. We have links to both their book and their website in the show notes, so please use that as a resource and we’ll see you next week.

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This has been Unpacked, a production of Afar Media. The podcast is produced by Aislyn Greene and Nikki Galteland.

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