About Us
Hi friend!
Welcome to our website. Super glad to have you here 🙂
We’re Michael and Charlie, met on Tinder in the UK, had our third date in India, hitchhiked across Taiwan, cycled around Japan, celebrated our 6 months in Greece and got married in Denmark. We’ve visited 60 countries in the last decade which you can see highlighted below.
Right now, we are traveling Australia by van and are documenting our travels on YouTube and Instagram.
We started our van-life adventures in Sydney in December 2019. The original plan was to spend 8 months in the van before heading back to Sydney to settle down, get serious about our careers, and maybe even start a family filled with many dogs.
Yet here we still on the road, turning content creation into our “career” even though our backgrounds are in psychology and engineering! We’re super grateful to our online communities because we’re honestly being able to live a life we never thought possible.
If you haven’t seen our little van home yet on our YouTube channel, this video will show you how we live in a van and who we are.
Creating Inclusive Travel Content
There’s a huge lack of gay and LGBT+ representation in travel media, especially in Australia. If you type “travel inspiration” into google, you’ll rarely (if ever) see images of same-sex couples. You’ll most likely see an image of a straight chick with a hat on looking out into the distance (usually a mountaintop) and the wind in her hair.
So we’ve decided to create gay travel content of our own. We document our daily travel adventures on our Instagram and Youtube, but if you didn’t find this page from YouTube, check our our one minute YouTube intro video below and you’ll get more of a feel of what we’re about.
More than just the 'Pink Dollar'
On our travels, we met these lovely wives, who told us a story about how the celebrant that married them was super supportive of their wedding, right until it was over. After the wedding, the celebrant gifted them with a bible, so they could repent for their sins. This story is why we do what we do.
We are very aware that accommodation places and experiences will gladly take money from same-sex couples, but feel awkward when same-sex couples hold hands on their tours or in their space. This is the reason we are actively dedicating time and lives to finding accommodation places where the operators are more than just LGBT+ “friendly”, but rather LGBT+ welcoming and active allies for the community.
If you are an accommodation place or tour operator in the travel industry and are looking to include more representation of the LGBTQI+ traveller, we would love to work with you to create content that you are proud to place on your socials and/or website. Please get in contact with by sending us an email hello@gaysthattravel.com. Some examples of our favourite genuinely LGBTQI+ inclusive accommodations are below.
Travel Ideas around Australia
We document our daily travel adventures on our Instagram and Youtube and so we’ve devoted our time to making this website become a resource that you can use to plan some trips yourself. We know first-hand the struggles that LGBTQI+ people face when travelling, and want to create resources that make LGBTQI+ people feel safer and more welcome to travel in the same ways that we have.
Travel with Us!
Charlie’s come up with this crazy but super cool idea to have you join us for some of our adventures! We know the most inclusive tour operators in Australia that are just the BEST, and so would love to share these adventures with you! If you are interested in traveling with us in the future, just put your name below and let us know!
Want to travel with us?
Enter your email below and be the first in line for future trips we plan! We’re starting with World Pride Sydney in 2023!
Help keep us on the road!
There is absolutely no pressure to financially support our channel and our goal of more inclusive LGBTQI+ representation in travel media. We totally understand that not everyone has the financial means possible.
To be honest though, we haven’t yet reached our goal of YouTube providing enough income for us (or any income) to keep ourselves on the road (although that is the dream!). Every day we spend on the road without a stable income means we’ll have to probably quit the content creation gig and head back to our previous jobs (Michael = cancer researcher; Charlie = business consultant).
So if you do wish to support our work in any way possible, it will definitely go a long way and help us continue to create content!
