The LGBTQ+ Travel Guide Author, Alicia Valenski
By Felicia Fitzpatrick
Alicia Valenski is a writer, speaker, and the author of The LGBTQ+ Travel Guide for Lonely Planet, “a comprehensive and inclusive exploration of over 50 LGBTQ+ friendly destinations” across the globe. She is a Pennsylvania native and has lived in several cities in the U.S., including New York City and Richmond, Virginia, before moving to the Netherlands. She currently lives in Amsterdam with her husband, Andrew.
Felicia Fitzpatrick: Tell me about your journey to identifying as bisexual.
Alicia Valenski: I knew from a very young age. I’m not totally sure if this goes back to also being neurodivergent, but I was just very curious as a kid. I wanted to understand things and evaluate different experiences. In kindergarten, I was like, “I’m going to kiss boys and girls to get some data.” As I got older, everyone started judging each other, so I did the super sneaky secret thing of saying, “Let’s play Truth or Dare,” or the classic, “Let’s teach each other to kiss so that we’re ready for boys.” It wasn’t until I was in early high school that I started actively hanging out with girls to hook up.
Once I got to college it was so much easier to not need to hide. I started dating [my husband] Andrew in my sophomore year. During our first conversation, I let him know that I was also into girls, and he was totally fine with it. I wasn’t publicly bi for a long time, and in my mid-twenties there were really important conversations happening around marriage equality and LGBTQ rights, and I became really tired of not talking about it. I wrote “9 Things You Shouldn’t Say to a Bisexual Woman In a Relationship With a Man” for Elite Daily, and that was me coming out.
Alicia Valenski and Felicia Fitzpatrick met as summer interns for DoSomething.org in 2013 and both wrote for Her Campus.
FF: Do you feel like identifying as bisexual is a different experience in the Netherlands versus the U.S.?
AV: I think there’s less of a dependence on labels here. My experience seems to be that if you say, “I’m queer,” or whatever label you use, it’s accepted at face value. No one’s pressuring you. I will tell people that I’m bi, and then they’ll see Andrew, and no one here does that thing that people in the U.S. do where they say, “You’re bi. You’re married to a guy. What does that mean?” Andrew even will refer to me as his “gay wife,” and no one’s concerned, or policing, or gatekeeping the labels.
FF: Is there a bi-specific culture or are there bi+ spaces in Amsterdam?
AV: There’s been a very intentional effort to build up spaces that go beyond just gay male spaces. Bar Bario is a great example of prioritizing queer women, ace women, and intersex people. They’re asking, “How do we make this an accessible space for all?” They prioritize intersectionality a lot, and letting Brown and Black people know, “You are safe here.” It’s a beautiful space. I’m so impressed with the work that they’re doing. I love going there. It’s always a great time.
FF: Tell me the origin story of your book The LGBTQ+ Travel Guide.
AV: [When I was laid off from my job,] one of my best friends who is a literary agent said, “Maybe it’s time to come back to your book conversations. I know you’ve been wanting to write about queerness.” The idea that kept rumbling around in my head was ‘Around the World with 80 Gays.’ It became interviews with people around the world saying, “I live in this place. Here’s what made me settle down here as a queer person and what makes it feel like home for me. This is what I would suggest other people do when they visit.”
Lonely Planet was the publisher that really got what we were going for, and they felt that this concept was so fresh and original. We fleshed out how queer travel is distinctly different from straight travel and how I would elevate the voices of every single letter in the LGBTQ+ community. This needed to be from the community, for the community, and by the community. I wanted to make sure that I was not talking to just young, hot, thin, able-bodied people, but people of all sizes, ages, races, ethnicities, gender identities, and sexualities.
FF: What are the differences between straight and queer travel?
AV: Straight people genuinely do not have to consider whether it is legal for them to exist in a certain place. Not just could you get jailed or fined, but you could quite literally be killed. For a person in the LGBTQ+ community, it’s crucial to first check local laws and sentiments before traveling. While writing, I tried really hard to not lead with the fear because most of us know that already. We know that we’re not going to be accepted in so many places. The job that we have is to find the places where queer joy exists and where we don’t have to be afraid. I wanted this book to lead with joy, because we deserve it.
Felicia Fitzpatrick (she/her) is a New York City-based writer, interviewer, and content creator. When she’s not writing, you can find her taking dance classes at Alvin Ailey, rewatching Gilmore Girls, or wishing for The Cheesecake Factory to open in Manhattan.