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On the Map: Taking the Provincetown Cure
By Mark McNease
On the Map is a travelogue of places, restaurants and landscapes for your travel considerations. Sometimes near, sometimes far, always interesting. Crossposted from LGBTSr.com.
Last year I said, ‘It’s been a year,’ never expecting 2021 to be just as stressful. New president, new Covid variant, new expectations, new disappointments.
What better way to get away from it all than with an annual trip to Provincetown, Massachusetts? We have a timeshare there. My husband Frank has had it since 1985, and among all the things he’s saved over the years is his first ID card for the complex, complete with a photo from 36 years ago. It’s reserved for us the 34th week of every year, which is always at the end of August. For most of our time together (15 years), we didn’t go. I’d never been to Ptown. I’d read about it, but I had no personal experience of the place. Then, four years ago, we started making the trip. And I love it! Except the excruciating drive, which I’ll explain.
The timeshare is in a complex called Eastwood at Provincetown. It’s a very nice place, with a variety of unit sizes. Ours is a one-bedroom, two-bath, with a full kitchen, living room, and a sofa bed that’s too narrow to comfortably lie on but works if you have more than two people staying there. Each unit has a small deck area outside, with a modest size swimming pool in the courtyard. We’re on the second floor, and it’s nice to sit outside having coffee while other guests are downstairs at the pool. A lot of those guests are lesbians and gay men. And being a timeshare, you often see the same people year after year, as well as ones you’ll only meet once.
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On the Map: Taking the Provincetown Cure
By Mark McNease
On the Map is a travelogue of places, restaurants and landscapes for your travel considerations. Sometimes near, sometimes far, always interesting.
Last year I said, ‘It’s been a year,’ never expecting 2021 to be just as stressful. New president, new Covid variant, new expectations, new disappointments.
What better way to get away from it all than with an annual trip to Provincetown, Massachusetts? We have a timeshare there. My husband Frank has had it since 1985, and among all the things he’s saved over the years is his first ID card for the complex, complete with a photo from 36 years ago. It’s reserved for us the 34th week of every year, which is always at the end of August. For most of our time together (15 years), we didn’t go. I’d never been to Ptown. I’d read about it, but I had no personal experience of the place. Then, four years ago, we started making the trip. And I love it! Except the excruciating drive, which I’ll explain.
The timeshare is in a complex called Eastwood at Provincetown. It’s a very nice place, with a variety of unit sizes. Ours is a one-bedroom, two-bath, with a full kitchen, living room, and a sofa bed that’s too narrow to comfortably lie on but works if you have more than two people staying there. Each unit has a small deck area outside, with a modest size swimming pool in the courtyard. We’re on the second floor, and it’s nice to sit outside having coffee while other guests are downstairs at the pool. A lot of those guests are lesbians and gay men. And being a timeshare, you often see the same people year after year, as well as ones you’ll only meet once.
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Gay Travelers Magazine Visits The Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex
This article first appeared in Gay Travelers Magazine
By Steven Skelley and Thomas Routzong
The Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex is a place that everyone should visit. Learn about the exciting “space race,” climb inside space capsules and a Space Shuttle, watch IMAX movies, dine on-site, eat with an astronaut or watch an actual thundering, ground shaking rocket launch.
Each year, more than 1.5 million guests from around the world experience their very own space adventure by exploring the exciting past, present and future of America’s space program at Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex. Built in 1967, today the Visitor Complex is one of Central Florida’s most popular tourist destinations.
SUGGESTED ITINERARIES
ONE DAY VISITS
One Day Visit: Family with Children Under 10 Years of Age
- Heroes & Legends featuring the U.S. Astronaut Hall of Fame® presented by Boeing® – 1 hour
- Kennedy Space Center Bus Tour including Apollo/Saturn V Center – 2 hours
- Space Shuttle Atlantis® with Shuttle Launch Experience® – 2 hours
- Journey To Mars: Explorers Wanted – 30 minutes
- Children’s Playdome for Junior Astronauts – 30 minutes
- Dining and shopping – 1 hour
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Rainbow Mountain Resort Still Has It: 5 Stars
This one’s for you, John Higgins“What I’ve always liked about Rainbow Mountain is that it attracts an older crowed. I’ll be 60 this year, and even though you’ll find plenty of young Qs there, it’s still a comfortable place to be older or, if you dare, old, and not feel like you’re on a gay cruise with thongs fluttering everywhere among a sea of pecs.”
I used to do restaurant reviews on my blog about a decade ago, giving them a ‘Yum’ rating (5 Yums was a must go, 2 was a stay away, 1 was a call an ambulance). I’m not crazy about stars, but I like them just a little better than thumbs. When I resume my restaurant reviews, look for those Yums to make a comeback.
That said, I’m giving Rainbow Mountain 5 stars, up, sideways, in the rearview mirror, whichever way you approach it. This LGBTQ-centric resort has been around since 1981 and, along with its fascinating history, it has a spirit you just can’t keep down.
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Travel Time: Amsterdam and Utrecht Travelogue, by Sue Katz
Reprinted with permission from Sue Katz’s Consenting Adult Blog
By Sue Katz
All photos courtesy of Sue Katz
May 19
The taxi driver at the Amsterdam Centraal Station tries to rip me off. That’ll be €20, he says. What? says I. No way. Oh, says he, I meant to say €10. Turn on the machine, I suggest. Too late, he says.
The delightful flat where we’re staying is up two narrow steep flights of steps and luckily my friend Sue has already arrived and comes to help me wrestle my modest suitcase up. The problem is that the width of the first flight is cut in half by the rails of a Stairmaster. And it is also missing a bannister. Bannisters are essential to anyone who does not bounce up stairs with athletic buoyancy and tightrope walker balance.
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Travel Time: Vienna Travelogue, by Sue Katz
Reprinted with permission from Sue Katz’s Consenting Adult Blog
By Sue Katz
All photos courtesy of Sue Katz
May 15, 2018Because in the last election, the neo-Nazis became part of the ruling coalition, I decided that I wanted to see gorgeous Vienna one last time before it tilted any further towards fascism. I have been in Vienna two or three times before, but not since the 90s. I find a three-bedroom Airbnb with a rather parsimonious landlady (“Look it up on the internet” was her answer to any question – whether about the phone number of a taxi company or the location of recommended local restaurants). Two friends join me: Jaya, the sculptor from Italy and Sandy, the paper artist from the California redwoods.
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Gay Travelers Magazine: Provincetown – Where LGBTQ+ Can Be Themselves
Reprinted with permission from Gay Travelers Magazine
By Steven Skelley and Thomas Routzong
Provincetown, Massachusetts stands out in history as not only the first place where the Pilgrims landed, it is constantly evolving to accept those who seek refuge, a place to be free and a place to be themselves. We asked locals to give us the inside scoop on the past, present and future of LGBTQ+ Provincetown.
How would you describe Provincetown in one sentence?
From Tony Fuccillo, Director of Tourism:
Provincetown is a place where you feel you can truly be proud of being gay; all LGBTQ+, yes everyone is welcome in Ptown and can be themselves when they are here without any judgment from anyone.
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Travel Time: What Venice Taught Me, by Sandra de Helen
Sandra de Helen, photo by Bev Standish Travel Time is a regular feature at LGBTSr, highlighting destinations, travel suggestions and travelogues for the LGBTQ traveler.
What Venice Taught Me
By Sandra de HelenThe only place outside the United States my mom dreamed of visiting was Venice, Italy. She was entranced by this city built on water. As for me, I wanted to go everywhere, see everything. But we were working class poor, living in rural Missouri. We became even poorer when my father died at age forty-two leaving my mom who was nine years younger with two little girls, one of who wasn’t quite two years old. I was the other daughter, and I was seven. Any traveling we did was through reading. Every book offered another world. I spent my childhood dreaming of those worlds.
My first trip out of state was to New Orleans. I was eighteen. At twenty-one, I flew to Alaska and stayed for two months. Later that year I moved to Texas. Over the next decade, I lived in Alaska, Kansas, Arizona, and Missouri again. By the age of thirty-two, I had visited seventeen states. I was ready to go to Europe. When my credit union offered a chartered trip to Seefeld, Austria for only five hundred dollars for eight days, I placed a down payment and invited a friend to join me.
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Travel Time: What Venice Taught Me, by Sandra de Helen
Sandra de Helen, photo by Bev Standish Travel Time is a regular feature at LGBTSr, highlighting destinations, travel suggestions and travelogues for the LGBTQ traveler.
What Venice Taught Me
By Sandra de HelenThe only place outside the United States my mom dreamed of visiting was Venice, Italy. She was entranced by this city built on water. As for me, I wanted to go everywhere, see everything. But we were working class poor, living in rural Missouri. We became even poorer when my father died at age forty-two leaving my mom who was nine years younger with two little girls, one of who wasn’t quite two years old. I was the other daughter, and I was seven. Any traveling we did was through reading. Every book offered another world. I spent my childhood dreaming of those worlds.
My first trip out of state was to New Orleans. I was eighteen. At twenty-one, I flew to Alaska and stayed for two months. Later that year I moved to Texas. Over the next decade, I lived in Alaska, Kansas, Arizona, and Missouri again. By the age of thirty-two, I had visited seventeen states. I was ready to go to Europe. When my credit union offered a chartered trip to Seefeld, Austria for only five hundred dollars for eight days, I placed a down payment and invited a friend to join me.
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‘Travel Time’ Feature Added to LGBTSr
Have a tip? Share a trip? Email me at Editor @lgbtsr.org, I’d love to spread the word.- Mark/Editor
It’s spring. It’s travel time, let’s get out that sunblock, the rain poncho, our Google map apps, and a book bag stuffed with all the reading that brings us joy.
I’ve added a Travel Time feature to the site, as if the menu could get any tastier! It will also be included with The Weekly Readlines, listing three or four good travel articles each week. I might have to get a second image for the colder months, but let’s get started now with Bears En La Playa Bed & Breakfast, Chelem, Yucatan, Mexico.
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Travel Time: Bears En La Playa Bed & Breakfast, Chelem, Yucatan, Mexico
Travel Time joins Q Audiobooks as a regular feature at LGBTSr, highlighting (in this case) destinations and travel suggestions for the LGBTQ traveler.
Hat tip to reader John H. for referring this fabulous B & B.
Bears En La Playa, located in Chelem, is a small bed and breakfast right on the beach. Chelem, Yucatan is a small fishing village just outside the port town of Progreso. We are 30 minutes from Merida, a city of about 1 million people. A better description might be that we are three and a half hours from Cancun.