Travelling with Rox and the Nomadic Boys
Rox and the Nomadic Boys talk about:
The importance of safe travelling for the queer community
Why they love exploring the world
The most memorable places they’ve been
Where the best Pride parties are
June marks the start of Pride season around the world. We invited queer influencer Roxanne Weijer (Rox) and blogger couple Stefan and Seby, better known as the Nomadic Boys, for a chat in our office. All three constantly travel around the world for their blogs. They had different reasons for swapping their everyday lives for the adventure of travelling, but their motivation for blogging about their travels is the same. In our interview, Rox and the Nomadic Boys explain that it can still be difficult for queer people to find out about the safety situation and laws in certain countries. Not every country is queer-friendly, and it’s not always safe to post photos on social media while travelling. However, they also explain why they feel it’s important not to avoid these countries. Read on to find out where they most like holidaying, how they choose their destinations and which city has the best Pride parties.
Roxanne on a trip through sunny Italy.
Hi, I’m Roxanne (or Rox), and I come from the Netherlands. After I finished studying, I went globetrotting with my former girlfriend. We led a nomadic lifestyle for three years. Travelling as a lesbian couple made me see the world differently. We started sharing our travel adventures on Instagram and the LGBTQ+ website Once Upon A Journey. There weren’t, and sadly still aren’t, that many online travel resources for queer women and lesbians. Via my Instagram account @roxonajourney, I aim to inspire other queer travellers and help them travel the world safely. My second great passion is cooking. Whenever I can, I try to reproduce vegetarian and vegan recipes that I enjoyed on my travels. I also share my favourite recipes on my blog Vega Recepten.
Hi, we’re Stefan and Seby, and we live together in London. Stefan is originally from Greece and Seby from Lyon in France. We met back in February 2009. Stefan used to be a lawyer and Seby was a programmer at Bloomberg. After five years, we decided to give up our lives and jobs in London and go on a grand tour of Asia. We started our blog Nomadic Boys so that our friends and family could follow us on our journey. One year into our trip, we started noticing that other people were following us too. Gay men from all over the world were googling practical things and coming across our blog. We realised that, due to the lack of good, up-to-date LGBTQ+ content online, our blog posts were getting high search rankings. We’ve now been to over 90 countries, covering each one on our website and on our Instagram @nomadicboys. We also recently published our first book. Out in the World is a travel guide full of tips on the best and safest destinations around the world. Our goal is to inspire queer travellers and help them plan a fun and safe trip.
Stefan (left) and Seby (right) have been travelling the world together since 2014.
Roxanne: In the Netherlands, everyone always seems (or just is) very busy. People’s diaries are booked up for months at a time. When I’m travelling, I always do things spontaneously. I live day by day, not knowing what might come next, which I find really exciting.
Stefan and Seby: Discovering a new place is always exciting. It’s fascinating to see just how different people can be in basic things such as the way they eat, the way they pray and the way they celebrate. Our best travel experiences almost always involve interactions with people.
Roxanne: I love to enjoy the moment, capturing it with my own eyes first and then photographing it with my phone or camera later. When I’m travelling alone, my tripod is my best friend. It’s a bit bulky, but the effort is worth it.
Stefan and Seby: These days, we use our smartphones to capture moments in photos and videos. When it comes to details, Stefan is a geek and loves to record things using the Notes app; later that will form the basis of a blog post.
Stefan and Seby: Thailand is our happy place, though Iceland and Bhutan are not far behind.
Thailand: Thailand has got everything you could want. First of all, it’s very gay-friendly. People are welcoming, no one flinches at the sight of two men together, and we’ve never had any problems booking a shared hotel bed there. It’s also set to legalise gay marriage later this year. Then there’s the gay scene in Bangkok. It’s one of the best in Asia and in the whole world.
Iceland: Iceland is one of the world’s most queer-friendly countries. People welcome us wherever we go, even in the most rural areas. Tolerance and diversity have deep roots in Icelandic society. Also, Iceland is just beautiful. The landscapes just blow your mind with their glaciers, epic waterfalls and fjords, not to mention the aurora borealis.
Bhutan: This remote Himalayan kingdom between Tibet and India has always fascinated us. They abolished their anti-gay law in 2021 and have been welcoming LGBTQ+ travellers ever since. It’s the most memorable place we’ve ever been.
Roxanne: My favourites are Thailand, Mexico and Mongolia.
Thailand: I think I’ve been to Thailand more than ten times already. I love the place, the food and the friendly people (it’s a truly smiley country). If I could, I’d book a ticket right now, so I could fly out there and go for a veggie Pad Thai. Also, I appreciate the fact that I always feel like I can be myself as a queer person.
Mexico: I have the same feeling about Mexico. It’s such a varied country with many places to explore. Whether you want to relax on the beach, have an adventure in the mountains, try delicious food or explore a super colourful town, the possibilities are endless. I even lived in Mexico City for a few months, which was amazing.
Mongolia: I visited Mongolia in 2017, and it’s truly the most unique place I’ve ever been. It’s one of the world’s most sparsely populated countries. You can travel for hours (and probably days) without encountering a single person.
Miles & More: How important is it to you that a holiday destination is queer-friendly?
Stefan and Seby
“It’s really important for us to know how queer-friendly a country is. It affects everything we do there.”
Stefan and Seby: It’s really important for us to know how queer-friendly a country is. It affects everything we do there. As gay travellers, we have to do extra research that our straight friends don’t. We need to check if a country has any anti-gay laws, how conservative society is there, whether PDA (public displays of affection) is acceptable, whether we can share a double bed in a hotel, etc.
We still visit countries that have anti-queer attitudes; after all, the majority of the world’s beautiful places can be found there. Take the pyramids of Giza in Egypt, for example. The country has a strict anti-gay law, which is actively enforced by the police, who use the Grindr dating app to target gay men. Before we go anywhere, we have to carefully research how public we can be and whether it’s okay for us to go there or not.
Roxanne
“In more than 75 countries, it’s still illegal to be out as queer. All the same, I’m not in favour of boycotting those countries.”
Roxanne: Navigating the world as a queer woman isn’t always easy. There’s a lot more think to about with regard to safety. And female travellers have to consider things male travellers don’t. In more than 75 countries, it’s still illegal to be out as queer and, across the world, there aren’t enough laws protecting queer people.
All the same, I’m not in favour of boycotting those countries as I don’t think that will help make the world a better place. There are queer people everywhere, including in countries where it’s illegal to be queer. A boycott wouldn’t help the local LGBTQ+ communities in those places.
Roxanne: Understanding the legal situation in a country helps me to assess the risks I might face and to make informed decisions about where I should (or shouldn’t) go, what activities to pursue and how to navigate interactions with locals. I usually get my information from Wikipedia, Lonely Planet, queer blogs and the Spartacus Gay Travel Index.
Stefan and Seby: In countries with anti-gay laws or strong anti-gay attitudes, we are extra cautious and avoid posting anything on social media before and during the trip.
Spartacus has been publishing the Gay Travel Index every year since 2012. The index rates some 213 countries and regions according to how queer-friendly they are. Alongside Malta, the latest edition has Canada, New Zealand, Spain and Portugal at the top of its rankings.
In a separate ranking for the United States, New York State was in first place.
Roxanne: Taiwan is very queer-friendly. It was the first (and is so far the only) country in Asia to legalise LGBTQ+ marriage. It’s definitely one of the most progressive places in Asia. It’s also one of the very few places in Asia that have laws against discrimination based on sexual orientation. Other places that are still on my bucket list are Canada, Argentina and Costa Rica.
Stefan and Seby: The best-known ones are Fire Island and Provincetown in the US and Puerto Vallarta in Mexico. In Europe, we’d say Gran Canaria, Sitges, Barcelona and Madrid. Many other cities are also known for their openness towards queer people, in particular Berlin, Amsterdam, London and Lisbon. Australia and New Zealand are similarly progressive, as are large parts of South America, including Argentina, Brazil, Colombia and Chile. And let’s not forget South Africa, particularly Cape Town and Johannesburg.
Roxanne: Maybe I’m biased, but my favourite is Amsterdam Canal Pride. I’ve also enjoyed Key West Pride, Berlin Pride, Utrecht Pride and Malmö Pride in the past.
Stefan and Seby: We love Pride events such as Madrid Pride (the second-largest after São Paulo) and Sydney Mardi Gras.
Roxanne: I’m planning a hiking trip in Norway with my girlfriend, and I’ll definitely be at Pride in Amsterdam.
Stefan and Seby: In summer, we regularly go to EuroPride, which is hosted by a different European city every year. In 2024, it was in Thessaloniki. That was a special one for Stefan as his family live in the city, so he’s spent most of his summers there with them.
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