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Hello and welcome to Gaze Reading and this episode of Spill the Tea, where today I am spilling the tea on lgbtq plus travel with Alicia Valenski, who wrote Lonely Planets LGBTQ Plus Travel Guide. As always, if you like what you're hearing, please share us with your friends. You could follow us on social media at Gays Reading. You could watch this episode over on YouTube. We're on Blue Sky, we are on Instagram or all over the place, If you are so inclined, leave us a five star review wherever you get your podcasts. We've had some fantastic episodes in the last couple of weeks, so make sure to check those out if you are new to us, if you've already listened. Fantastic. Thank you so much for listening, And all that being said, please enjoy my conversation with Alicia Valenski.

Jason Blitman: 0:48

So Valinski. Let's get into it the lgbtq plus travel guide interviews, itineraries and inspiration from Queer Insiders in 50 plus proud places.

Alicia Valenski: 1:02

Yes, that is my book.

Jason Blitman: 1:03

alliteration.

Alicia Valenski: 1:04

Yes. That's honestly probably one of my Achilles heels as a writer. But yes, we do.

Jason Blitman: 1:10

Fantastic. Can you elaborate a bit more as to what this book really is?

Alicia Valenski: 1:16

Totally. So originally I went to my literary agent with the idea for a book that I wanted to call around the world with 80 gays. She said, no. You cannot write that book. However, I do think that there's a kernel of something really interesting in there, which is interviewing queer people around the world about where they live and what makes it a good destination to visit if you're a queer traveler. So we workshopped the concept a bit, and essentially this is a community driven guide. So I. Absolutely did not want this to be like, oh my God. Like, Bye girl. Gives you her suggestions for places around the world like Honey? No. So I wanted it to be representative of the community. I wanted there to be like gay couples and lesbians and every identity under the sun. I wanted it to be different ages and different ethnicities and just as inclusive and diverse as possible to really be more representative of what is it like to exist as a queer person in this cultural moment? 2024 specifically was when I was writing the bulk of this, and then in these different destinations, what do these people actually do? Not when is the pride parade not, where are the clubs? What would somebody who lives here actually do? If you visited them and you were like, Hey, I've never been here before and I'm queer, where should I go? What would they personally tell you? What are their personal like? Tried and true recommendations. And so that was how it all happened. And it just became this really beautiful compendium of interviews. And it's not just their travel recommendations, right? It's like people's stories, like Angina heals telling me like I was overweight as a child and I was bullied. So now I like drag saved my life and it healed me. So I wanna heal other people. And I'm like, but also, where do I get good Thai food? And she's I can tell you that too.

Jason Blitman: 3:00

Yeah. And that's something that I was just gonna say. You're not just getting a list, you're getting people's real stories about this is who I am, this is where I'm from, this is why, or this is where I live. This is why I love this place. What was the moment for you where you were like, we need this thing.

Alicia Valenski: 3:17

So I. For me, as I've alluded to, I am a neurodivergent person, so I have this weird thing where I have to try to balance my A DHD and my autism. And my autism is like, Hey, we need to give as much. I. Clear information as concisely as possible. This needs to be super useful. Like they need to be able to plan a trip from this. And then my A DH ADHD is like, but people's stories and distractions and look at the pretty pictures and let's make this really nice. And so for me, I needed to satisfy both of those sides and I had to satisfy my anxiety with the whole section on what to do in case of emergency. What are the numbers you can contact for your safety around the world? Like this needed to be practical. But in addition to being practical and obviously touching on safety, I wanted it to be celebratory. I wanted it to be queer joy because like we know we're in danger all the time. Like we know that there are places that we could get fined or jailed or murdered for literally existing. We know that like we have to touch on it eventually, but it does not need to be this entire book. So focusing on people and focusing on their communities and what makes them amazing was such a like positive tone shift. I think for me, working with Lonely Planet was such a joy because this is just not something like anything they've done before. This was not a, it's not a coffee table book, and it's not a guidebook, but it's got parts of both to your point. And so it really became its own category. Like I, I don't quite know how it happened other than I was really adamant in arguing for different parts of this book that needed to exist and for the way that it should exist and. It's a real choose your own adventure.'cause it's okay, do I know that I just wanna go to islands? So I'm gonna go to the inclusive Island Escapes section. Do I just wanna read people's stories and know that maybe I'm gonna be drawn to Europe? I could start there. Like you can go wherever you want to begin this book. It doesn't have to be read from start to finish. So I don't think I answered your question, but it's just, it's been absolutely nuts and such a delight and so exciting to see people's response.

Jason Blitman: 5:23

It's also not overwhelming. And that's, it's like you, you look for a recipe online and you have to read through pages and pages of a story before you get to the actual recipe. You're, when you talk about people are sharing their stories in this book, I wanna be very clear that it's not pages and pages of a story that then it's finally you get to their recommendations. No, it's like nice and succinct, but also very meaningful. So will share that as I was reading the book or I didn't, my A DHD didn't let me sit down and read the whole book because of all the pictures, because of all the places, because of all the titles. But as I was flipping through, I was getting emotional because I didn't know that I needed this. And you said, I don't know that I answered your question. That for me, the, I, I didn't even know that this was a book that I needed. Was there a moment, were you traveling somewhere? Were you trying to put together an itinerary for yourself where you were like, I need a resource, but that doesn't exist. Was there, did you have that light bulb moment?

Alicia Valenski: 6:26

So essentially I think it started with my own experience moving to Amsterdam because so many people would come visit me and the way that I would give them my recommendations. Again, my A DHD, I cannot give someone just like a bullet pointed list. I have to say so many things, all the fucking time. Like I just cannot shut up for one second. So I would lead in with a little bit of context and then be like, okay, but. Let me bold the points of interest so that if they wanna skim this, they can find that really easily. And like maybe I should include a map of the information in case they wanna view it that way. Maybe I should include some links of things. Maybe I should include pictures so they don't get bored. This is me just creating like a guest room book for my own apartment in Amsterdam, being like, you came to visit us now what? Here's where to go for breakfast, here's where to go for whatever. This is just, this book is how my brain works. And to be fair, not neurotypical. So I'm glad it's resonating with people, but I think it's just truly a shift of how you approach travel recommendations. It doesn't have to be a bulleted list. It doesn't have to be like super in depth. It can be information and storytelling. It's like I could never learn history in school, but the moment that I read like a literary version of historical fiction, it was like, oh, I get it. This is what happened with the Boin sisters. Got it.

Jason Blitman: 7:42

No, exactly. I wanna pull up my own email. Oh, I have an Amsterdam email. That I put together after I was in Amsterdam,'cause a friend was going right after me. similarly, I have links and I have like descriptions of why, and even I even have, I talk about how Amsterdam is known for their Indonesian food and I link to a restaurant that has since closed. But I was like, but it's important for you to know that this exists because go find something that's similar to this.'cause it was such a.

Alicia Valenski: 8:16

The Indonesian food and the ESE food, like that's such a good recommendation. It's really sorry, go look up who was colonized by the country that you're visiting and their food is gonna be really good in the place that you're visiting, which is so fucked. But also go patronize those businesses. Support them. Yeah, it makes total sense.

Jason Blitman: 8:33

But it's just so fun hearing how you are describing the origins of this, because that deeply speaks to me.

Alicia Valenski: 8:39

Yeah.

Jason Blitman: 8:39

Let's back up a tiny bit. You talked about your experience working with Lonely Planet and how they've never done anything like this before. I think so many people, I assume anyone who has traveled places thinks I wanna write a travel book, I wanna be a travel guide. I want, or they go eat in at a nice restaurant, I wanna be a food critic. There are these sort of fabulous. I don't wanna say over the top career aspirations, but there are, it's such a niche opportunity that people are like, I want to do this thing. It sounds so novel and exciting. What was that process like for you? What was it like working with Lonely, lonely Planet? What was it like writing a freaking travel guide,

Alicia Valenski: 9:18

absolutely wild. So first I got. So incredibly lucky with every step of this. Like I don't wanna be the person who's oh, I just got lucky. I, of course, also think that I'm very talented and did a good job at this, but more so than that. Like I got very lucky that I was pitching this at a time when Lonely Planet was. Already thinking about wanting more L-G-B-T-Q content and reaching out to them, having them be like, oh my God, we're so interested in this. Let us set up an interview. Like I spent a lot of time with my agent building out the proposal and really fine tuning it, making sure that it had like the appropriate demographic information, the appropriate comparative titles. Like why should this book be written by specifically you specifically now, specifically for us? We didn't just pitch to Lonely Planet, we pitched to a bunch of different publishers, and ultimately, the vision that Lonely Planet had for the book and the offer that they were able to present was just so incredibly compelling. I couldn't have dreamed that would even be a possibility. Like I'm writing this proposal thinking, I hope someone picks it up. If not, I guess I can self-publish and then it's like lonely fucking planet. So it's crazy. Absolutely crazy. But then in addition to getting the offer and starting the work to work with such an amazing editor, Becca at Lonely Planet is so phenomenal, so thoughtful. She just makes everything shine. The designer, Emily, is the reason that the book is so freaking beautiful. Every person I interviewed is why the book is interesting. So I'm certainly not doing that self-deprecating thing of it was everyone else. It wasn't me. It was definitely also me and logistics of this was a nightmare to pay everyone, get contracts signed and whatever, but.

Jason Blitman: 10:58

Sure. But it does take a team to put a book together like this.

Alicia Valenski: 11:00

It's not just me by any means, and then there's like the sales and marketing team and the PR team. Like it takes a village to put a book into the world. It has been a dream, and I, since I was a child, wanted to be an author. Once I was an older child, I wanted to be Anthony Bourdain. This was kind of me going down that route, and it's just been surreal. It's been so cool.

Jason Blitman: 11:23

What was, you said you had to answer the questions, why me? Why now? Why this, why? Ones that you rattled off that I remember. You you shared little nuggets of that earlier on in this conversation. Can you unpack that a tiny bit more?

Alicia Valenski: 11:39

Let me back up. Now, my day job that is not travel writing, which has long been my side hustle, is an SEO. So I have worked in search engine optimization, which makes sense as a travel writer,'cause I can get eyeballs on my work also. It's really rad. But looking yeah, of course. Honestly, like I'm available for work, anybody but truly it was very obvious to me in doing the research for this book proposal, there just are not as many resources as you would think for queer travel online and the search interest in it versus the results that there are for those queries just don't match. And essentially the way that I phrased it in the proposal is. This is like a hole in the internet that's really a hole in our cultural fabric. Like, why are we not prioritizing content for this community? Why are we not making it as accessible as possible? Why are we not talking about anything other than the fact of these places are dangerous for queer travel, or these places have a pride parade sponsored by Heineken. Like it, it's always like corporate sponsored and rainbow washed or. It's really fear mon, so why don't we have something in between? And that was the big thing for me was this is a community that deserves to feel just as welcome around the world as any other community, and we should be enabling that to happen.

Jason Blitman: 13:01

You said Lonely Planet didn't really have a lot in this space, did they? do they have a standard practice? Do they, they've obviously they've created many travel guides, can you share a little, is there inside scoop of how the lonely planet specific process works? And then how did that, how did the sort of marriage, how did the gay marriage work?

Alicia Valenski: 13:26

Yeah. So I will say in a traditional guidebook that's like destination driven, there's almost always a section somewhere in the book that addresses L-G-B-T-Q culture and has recommendations in that space. So that exists. I. But it wasn't a thing that existed the other way around. It was like you had to have the destination first, and then there might be a section about it. Also had content on web that was based on L-G-B-T-Q travel, but they didn't really have it everywhere, so it was piecemeal. So it seems and I'm gonna assume. I should really check with my PR people before I give these answers. I'm gonna assume that the pandemic also probably impacted the speed at which Lonely Planet was able to pick this up as a priority. So I think if I had to guess, they were probably ready for this to be a thing in 2020 and then everything shut down and panic. So then for me to approach them in 20 23, 20 24 and be like, I'm ready to write this book, and here's how I envision it and here's why it's completely different from everything else on the market. It was a really good time for them to pick it up and they were really. Intentional and they cared a lot. Like this team really deeply cared about this being a resource for this community. And I'm so grateful for that because they could have just been like, hell yeah, we know those queer people have deep pockets. Let's go. Like they could have just been like totally money grubby, but they weren't. They wanted this to be really thoughtfully put together. And I think that shows.

Jason Blitman: 14:53

Did they have, I don't wanna use the word influence'cause that sounds aggressive, but were there cities or countries that were important to them to include because of whatever reason?

Alicia Valenski: 15:04

Super good question. No. And so the interesting thing is, and I think this was probably the scariest part for Lonely Planet, was in my proposal, I did not give destinations. I was like, here's what they could be maybe, but this was people first. I found the people then that informed the destinations that were featured. So I had this whole group of people that I'm like, I have either followed this person's work for a long time, or I've heard a lot about them, or I've seen them in different places, and I think that I can trust them to have good travel recommendations as a queer person. And I think that they have the authority to speak on this topic. And then I basically reached out and was like, hi, I'm doing this project and I would love to feature you for this destination. Would you wanna work together? I can pay you a little bit. And then basically, I either got a yes or a no from everyone, and that's how the table of contents got built out. So it was very much. I want it to be the right people first, more so than the destinations. Thankfully, it worked out beautifully. There are some really interesting destinations in that list, and it's not just New York and London, although they both are in there. It's also like Richmond, Virginia and Edinburgh, Scotland, and all these different places that I don't think are the first to come to mind for people when they think of queer travel, which was really cool.

Jason Blitman: 16:23

is where I just opened the book to

Alicia Valenski: 16:25

Yeah, there you go.

Jason Blitman: 16:26

things I wouldn't have thought I.

Alicia Valenski: 16:29

SGA Tuck Douglas in Michigan. It's if Gilmore Girls was on the lake, it's so weird. But it's like a gay mecca.

Jason Blitman: 16:37

Fascinating. I

Alicia Valenski: 16:39

Yeah,

Jason Blitman: 16:39

many where I was that's where the A DH ADHD kicked in. I was like, what's this place I wanna,

Alicia Valenski: 16:44

All the pictures, I'm like, I wanna go there. Yeah, of course.

Jason Blitman: 16:47

I know. Was there any, like this led to that this person led to that person situation?

Alicia Valenski: 16:53

Oh hundred percent. So honestly, once I got a yes from I. Two different groups within the queer community. Once I got a yes from the queer Nomads lesbian couple in London, all the other lesbian couples or queer women that I reached out to were like, oh yeah, if they're on board, we're on board. On the other side, it was like once I had two bad tourists in Madrid and I had couple of men in. Amsterdam, everyone was like, oh yeah, we all know them. If they're involved, this is probably fine. So it was really like building up those initial contexts. But then some were like completely unrelated and unaware of everything. Like it's not a book full of influencers. There's like a queer bookshop owner, there's a queer activist from Malta who's like works in politics. There's just people all over the map. And I wanted it to,

Jason Blitman: 17:40

people that you from Instagram or stumbled upon on Instagram or social media or the internet or

Alicia Valenski: 17:48

and that word of mouth situation, right? So many queer people. And this is in the forward from the book, which Paula Achman wrote, and she and I worked for the same publication like many moons ago. But she says word of mouth really is how this was spread for such a long time. It was the only way that we could find information that was,

Jason Blitman: 18:05

Yeah.

Alicia Valenski: 18:06

and so the recommendations that I got from the initial people I spoke to. Informed the little domino effect, so it was really interesting. My favorite was that when I was thinking about Thailand, especially as they were legalizing same-sex marriage, I was like, it would be so cool if I could have the RuPaul of Thailand vagina heels, but that would never happen. I reached out to the Thai tourism Board to be like, who would you like to see featured? I'm not as familiar with this market, and they fucking connected me with pan heels. And I was like, this is insane that this was your recommendation. I love this. Thank you. Can I be a guest judge on Drag Race, please?

Jason Blitman: 18:40

Seriously.

Alicia Valenski: 18:41

My God,

Jason Blitman: 18:42

a hug when you go

Alicia Valenski: 18:43

yeah. Honestly can I be in RuPaul's presence? That'd be cool. But Pina now will send me like little voice memos and be like, just wanted to say thank you again for including me in the book. Like really so thrilled to be a part of this project. I'm like, girl, you could have been so snobby and standoffish with me and I would've had no problem with it, but like why are you also the sweetest, most humble baby? I love this.

Jason Blitman: 19:05

That's so fun.

Alicia Valenski: 19:07

It's

Jason Blitman: 19:07

Are there any places that you needed to cut from the book?

Alicia Valenski: 19:11

amazing to cut from the book. No, thankfully there were places I was never gonna include in the first place. I would never put like Saudi Arabia or like Yemen because it's like we would literally get murdered if we went there. No. I will say I had the toughest time including I wanted to include as many different locations as possible, of course, and be like widespread throughout the world. But there is still a lot of contention around queer rights in a lot of countries in Africa and in a lot of countries in Asia. So it was a little bit harder to. How can I put it? I want to include those spaces, but not at the peril of the reader. So that was ultimately what I was thinking was like. Even if there is like a really tight-knit subculture of a queer community here, if overall the sentiment in that country is negative toward the L-G-B-T-Q community, then I don't feel safe sending you there.'cause I want you to be safe. So that was a little bit challenging. So I was so grateful to be able to include Cape Town and Johannesburg and South Africa. I was so grateful to be able to include Bangkok in Thailand. There's a bunch of other destinations that are included in kind of the hit list of like adrenaline pumping adventures and like those family friendly festivities, all of those we got to be a little bit more inclusive in that section, but for the main profiles we were a little bit more limited, I would say to people who felt really comfortable recommending their destination. And even in Cape Town, Lya says, I don't know that Cape Town is the most queer friendly, but it is beautiful and worth visiting. I think you should go to Johannesburg while you're there.'cause that's where you're gonna find queer community. So it's like the combination of them and being so transparent and for real with the reader. It's like an influencer. If they're like, oh my God, go to this restaurant. It's amazing. And you go there and it sucks because they just got paid to say that, no, you don't want that. So I wanted this to be the antithesis. Yeah.

Jason Blitman: 20:56

them. Were there places where, you talk about Yemen, like I think, I don't wanna say that's quote unquote obvious, but I think there are places that are top of mind, places that we might not want to ever visit. Were there places that you didn't think that and it surprised you?

Alicia Valenski: 21:15

This is maybe a little bit dark, but the US at this point, I feel a little bit weird about. I know, sorry. But at this point, the only ones that I'm like, shit now I'm a little bit nervous, I am telling people to go to the former capital of the Confederacy, Richmond, Virginia, or to go to Tiny blue.in the Big Red Sea of Austin, Texas, makes me feel a little bit nervous. Those places individually are very safe surrounding areas. I'm not so sure. So that's been a little bit tough. And it's also changed since when I wrote the book, like when I wrote the book, we were not in this weird dystopian hellscape that we're in right now with all the bullshit happening in Washington, but like we are now. And so what does that mean for this book? I'm not totally sure.

Jason Blitman: 21:58

Yeah. In, in any sort of direction, was there something that surprised you?

Alicia Valenski: 22:04

Oh yeah, for sure. All over the place. I would say the biggest one for me was I lived in Spain for a year. I was in the South in Seve and absolutely loved it, but it was like Catholic as hell. So I remember being there for Sam Santa the Holy Week leading up to Easter. Oh my God. Like. All of the processionals of people that are not in the K K, but really look like they're in the KKK with the tall pointy white hats super freaky. And I was like, this place is so religious. This is, I'm not religious at all, but like this is wild to observe. So in my head I assumed, okay, cool. So queer thing, probably not something I should bring up while I'm here. Like the culture was very machismo at that point. This is 10 years ago, to be fair, but I was just under the assumption this country as a whole is very religious and this probably won't be chill here. Come to find Madrid is like absolutely a queer travel destination that people love. And specifically the neighborhood of Chica and Madrid is like known for being super gay friendly. So it was just me learning. Not every single city in one country they're not, it's not a monolith, the culture overall.

Jason Blitman: 23:12

Yeah.

Alicia Valenski: 23:14

Of course there are certain places that are really religious and still tolerant of the queer community, and that's great. But yeah, learning that Madrid was not something that I needed to be afraid of as a queer person was great.

Jason Blitman: 23:25

No, that's a very Thoughtful takeaway.

Alicia Valenski: 23:28

Yeah.

Jason Blitman: 23:30

I don't, this is picking a favorite child is upon finishing the book, there a place where you're like, oh, wow, I have to go there next?

Alicia Valenski: 23:40

Yes. I really wanna go everywhere, obviously, but

Jason Blitman: 23:43

yes, of course we all wanna go everywhere. But if you had to pick,

Alicia Valenski: 23:46

Exactly.

Jason Blitman: 23:47

three in no particular order that

Alicia Valenski: 23:49

Ooh.

Jason Blitman: 23:49

be fair.

Alicia Valenski: 23:50

Okay. So for my interests specifically, I am like an indoor cat. I am like, not usually a very extroverted type person. I'm much better one-on-one. And I am generally just a quiet queer, I'm not looking for nightclubs. I basically wrote this book for myself essentially being like, I cannot go to the parades in the clubs. What can I do? So essentially learning that Edinburgh is like this. Literary queer city with all of this history was super cool. So that was definitely one that struck me as, oh, I bet you I could spend a lot of time there exploring everything. And thankfully I'm having my UK book launch event there, so that's happening very soon. So I'll check that one right off the list. Yeah, super stoked about that. I think too, I haven't done any travel in, oceania. I haven't been to New Zealand or Australia, so I would love to go to Melbourne and hang out with Aurelia and just see everything that she recommended there. It seems just like such a, an idyllic, rad place. There's so much to explore in nature. There's a lot to be done in like. All of the different comedy events and like plays and things like that too. So really interesting destination there. I think the last one then, for me, I've done a lot of travel in Latin America, south America, Sao Paulo looks like so much fun. I think I've avoided it because I speak Spanish and I don't speak Portuguese and I feel ashamed about it, but I think that we can probably get past it. I think it'll be really fun.

Jason Blitman: 25:19

My friend Tiago is from Brazil and he is an avid gaze reading listener, and I think we'll be thrilled to hear Brazil high up on this list. And he, I know would be, a champion of visiting as well.

Alicia Valenski: 25:34

Amazing. Honestly, tell him to read that chapter because clo the local person sweetest, angel, baby, love him so much. Just absolutely excellent human being with great recommendations.

Jason Blitman: 25:44

a good friend, I have to ask if he's single and looking and willing to move to

Alicia Valenski: 25:48

Single. No, but I'm not con, I'm not certain that he's in like a closed relationship. Maybe look him up. who among us, right? Yeah.

Jason Blitman: 26:02

You talk about being an indoor cat, an indoor queer. I am, were there, I'm also not a huge nightclub person, and I think it's hard to even think about what to do.

Alicia Valenski: 26:17

Yeah.

Jason Blitman: 26:18

I know that was like obviously part of why you created the book, but were there things that you were specifically seeking out where you're like, oh, what's a great queer coffee shop, or, oh, like I, my brain, I like literally can't think of another place. So how did you get to those sort of alternative places?

Alicia Valenski: 26:32

So a lot of this came down to the interviewing, and I think that's what I like about this book too, was like. I am just naturally very curious. And for me, like when I went to journalism school, my strongest skill set, aside from writing and editing was the interview process. Like I take it very seriously to make someone feel comfortable opening up asking questions that kind of get to the root of things. So for me, I would start with, okay, how did you end up where you are right now? And so that would be like laying the base for the story. How did you decide that this would be the place that you would settle down? So we would start there. Then essentially. Okay. If you had one day to tell someone or show someone as a tour guide all of your favorite things, what would that look like? I. Then from there, okay, what if they came and they had kids? What's like a family friendly option? What if they're coming to celebrate like an anniversary? What's something romantic? What if they're like very active and outdoorsy? What if they just wanna party? Like I would just bring up what if? Until we got to the end of it. And so eventually I would probably be like. I'm an indoor cat. I like to read and be boring and go to museums and shit. What would you recommend for that? And then that's how we would get there. And then I would essentially say, I always liked to end with. Is there anything that will immediately tell you that someone in your city is a tourist, and if so, what? Also, are there any Absolutely. Do not do this type things in your destination that people need to know. Like in Amsterdam, do not get your phone out while you're in the Red Light District because a sex worker will throw it into a canal like, don't do it. It's illegal. They won't get in trouble. You'll just look like an idiot. That kind of thing. So yeah, I, that was getting to the root of everything was what if different types of travelers have you had, like your parents visit, what did you do with them? Have you had your partner's visit, friends visit, whatever. And it was really cool to hear everyone's different ideas for those. And I sent them a general outline of the questions that I had in advance so that they had time to think about it and didn't have to rack their brain in the moment.

Jason Blitman: 28:33

Yeah, my question of are there specific destinations that you would go to go even deeper? Are there indoor cat places that are not the typical museums, plays, et cetera, that you, that were surprising to you that are worth shouting out about?

Alicia Valenski: 28:52

Totally. So I think a lot of the ones that I identified to your point, were like places to get coffee. So places to get coffee or to get like a light bite places to walk outside essentially. So like parks and along like bodies of water. And then another big one was.

Jason Blitman: 29:08

than any of those things, were you like, oh my God, I would've never thought about the giant Ferris wheel in such and such, right? Just were there, was there like a specific thing where you're like, what that exists? Because I think,

Alicia Valenski: 29:20

Interesting.

Jason Blitman: 29:21

Know that those are things, right? But where you're like, oh my God, I didn't even know. I I didn't know that Merab existed,

Alicia Valenski: 29:28

Yes. I was just gonna say I would ask are there performance spaces that are not specifically for music? So like spoken word or anything like that? Those would be questions.'cause people, even if they don't go to them, they usually know what they are and that they exist. That I would usually ask about comedy.'cause that's one thing I do really enjoy as a comedy show. I often asked about drag, which it's a. Like a middle ground between going clubbing and being an indoor cat like you are sitting and watching. You don't have to participate if you don't want to for the most part. And then for me, I would almost always ask about like bookshops and board game related places. So there's a board game bar in Amsterdam that we love, that I would be like, if that existed other places, I would love that. So a lot of those types of things. I think the biggest surprise for me was learning that in Australia, they have like big things as like a, an attraction on driving around. So like the giant tennis ball or like a giant like fish and they're just, they're attractions to get you to road trip around the country instead of flying. That was one that I'm like, that's rad, but super weird.

Jason Blitman: 30:34

we oddly have that in the United States too.

Alicia Valenski: 30:37

What?

Jason Blitman: 30:38

Yeah. So I used to work for this company that toured shows for kids around the country, and it was these professional actors and they would like literally drive in a van around the country and they would stop at like the world's largest ball of twine.

Alicia Valenski: 30:56

Oh

Jason Blitman: 30:56

largest mailbox. Yeah. Like those are

Alicia Valenski: 31:01

Incredible. I love that it feels like something from the bygone era where like we all really cared about Guinness World Records. That feels like it's leftover from then. Yeah,

Jason Blitman: 31:11

What happened to those?

Alicia Valenski: 31:12

I don't know. No one cares anymore. I don't know. Like I, it's still in my bucket list to get one, but I have no idea what the hell it would be at this point. They must all be achieved.

Jason Blitman: 31:23

I doubt it.

Alicia Valenski: 31:24

What? I'm gonna grow my fingernails longer than that one guy. That's absolutely not.

Jason Blitman: 31:28

unrelated

Alicia Valenski: 31:30

You just make something up.

Jason Blitman: 31:31

yeah.

Alicia Valenski: 31:33

You don't think we've reached the limits of human creativity? I worry about that sometimes.

Jason Blitman: 31:38

What? I don't know. There's

Alicia Valenski: 31:39

Sorry, that got dark really fast.

Jason Blitman: 31:40

no, the person, like the person who wore clown makeup the longest, like

Alicia Valenski: 31:45

True. It might though. That's my problem. This is my issue.

Jason Blitman: 31:49

but did they reach out to Guinness? Probably not.

Alicia Valenski: 31:51

Okay. Fair. That's a fair point. I just worry we're all just monkeys at typewriters and Shakespeare is coming out somewhere. Like somebody might have thought of that because you thought of that. It's like that awful rule with porn rule of 34. If you can think of it to say out loud, it exists.

Jason Blitman: 32:07

tell me more. What is that?

Alicia Valenski: 32:09

I don't know where it, why am I here? Yeah, it's, I.

Jason Blitman: 32:14

here. You talk about the 34 rules of porn, and I'll hold up your book so that it feels relevant.

Alicia Valenski: 32:20

Perfect. Thank you. So as you know of course I don't even know where this originated, but it's called the Rule of th 34. If you look it up, it basically says, it's like one of those principles, like anything that can go wrong, will go wrong. Murphy's Law. So rule of 34 is if you have the thought, do you think porn exists for insert topic? If you have the thought it exists.

Jason Blitman: 32:43

does.

Alicia Valenski: 32:44

And working in SEO can confirm. Gross. Everyone is so gross on the internet. It's awful.

Jason Blitman: 32:51

Let's not shame people. They're not gross. They're, curious.

Alicia Valenski: 32:54

no. Sometimes it's like murder porn. I get really sad.

Jason Blitman: 32:57

yeah. If it's illegal or

Alicia Valenski: 33:00

I'm not gonna kink shame. I'm not here to yuck anyone's yum, but like maybe not murder.

Jason Blitman: 33:05

Yeah. Let's not murder.

Alicia Valenski: 33:08

I'm glad we agree.

Jason Blitman: 33:09

SEO What is like the craziest thing that you've discovered?

Alicia Valenski: 33:12

Oh God. It's all either sad or gross. The, it's really just, oh, no. Plenty of exciting things. I would say a, just that most searches are NSFW. B, Sometimes it's really dark, like you have to consider, most people aren't thinking about the fact that down the line someone can see their search queries not associated with them, but there is a database of this query has been searched this many times overall and on average per month. It's searched this many times and it's sometimes really sad, like. How to kill yourself was one of the hardest days I had. I was like looking up something completely unrelated and I was like, oh no, this makes me so sad that this exists. But like other times I'm looking up like something about family relationships and it's like stepmom porn, and you're like, no, stop. I didn't say that. Why are we talking about that now? Or like stepsister and stepmom together. Like what? No, stop.

Jason Blitman: 34:13

Again, not yucking, anyone's yum, but

Alicia Valenski: 34:17

We've all seen clue.

Jason Blitman: 34:18

Oh my God. Yeah, I've seen, I saw something on Instagram the other day and it was a screenshot of one of those like Google dropdown things where it, starts and then you see what the next 10 are or whatever, and it was how to convert to, and it was like Christianity, Judaism, Islam, A PDF, and then more religions.

Alicia Valenski: 34:38

Yes, truly. And it's like all these questions that you've never ever thought of. Like when I used to work at The Skim and I was doing their SEO and we were trying to inform like our wellness section. It was stuff like, what is my like period, blood being this color mean, like stuff that you would not think about. But yeah, of course people are searching that'cause what are they gonna go talk to their doctors without Googling at first? Like of course not. So it's really fascinating and I think that's part of why I like doing it for a day job. But yeah, the inside of people's minds exist in SEO data.

Jason Blitman: 35:13

We're not here for a brainstorming session. However, the book of the like weirdest searches and answers I would totally read.

Alicia Valenski: 35:23

that's a really good idea. I should bring that up. Ooh, thank you. Thank you for this gift that you've given me. Honestly, that

Jason Blitman: 35:31

welcome.

Alicia Valenski: 35:32

was part of why I wanted to call this book. The L-G-B-T-Q Travel Guide, if we're being real, is like SEO O values.

Jason Blitman: 35:39

Yeah, absolutely. I was actually just gonna say to, loop it back to the book. If L-G-B-T-Q travel Guide is a perfect thing to search. But I don't know. I was gonna try to come up with a clever like search metaphor. It's gone. It's

Alicia Valenski: 35:57

I wanted to call it eat gay love. It was already taken, like every fun thing I thought of, somebody was like, no. And I was like, fine, we'll do SEO. No, I love it. It worked out perfectly. But yeah, the the world of gay books, most of the fun puns have been taken, so I'm gonna have to keep thinking

Jason Blitman: 36:14

Around the world with 80 gays though,

Alicia Valenski: 36:17

right.

Jason Blitman: 36:17

pretty good. Pretty

Alicia Valenski: 36:18

Even 30 something for this book was so much to coordinate for my A DHD ass. I don't think I could have done 80. It would've been insane.

Jason Blitman: 36:26

I know I cannot wait to like, continue to sit down and flip through it. Like I said, it is digestible. It is beautiful. It is succinct. And we all need it.

Alicia Valenski: 36:37

I think so too. I'm so glad you love it. Fun little fact. If you look at it from the side, each of the main profiles is a different color, so it looks like a little rainbow.

Jason Blitman: 36:46

Yes it does. Oh my god,

Alicia Valenski: 36:47

Yet also all the people on the cover are people interviewed in the book. Fun fact for that as well.

Jason Blitman: 36:53

I was also just gonna say at the very least, even if you, let's say you hate traveling, which, that's a different conversation. It is. This book is such a great time capsule of queer community and queer life at this time in the world. And I think that in and of itself makes for a very special experience. Thank you for sharing it with us.

Alicia Valenski: 37:17

Thank you. I really appreciate you. Getting what is special about this book and also just sharing your emotional response to it. It's the most rewarding thing for me. Like I should probably care about sales. That's probably true, but really I care about people telling me how they feel about this book and like the response being so emotionally driven and so community focused has just been so uplifting, especially in a time where everything feels like it's on fire. Just what a joy to watch this unfold. So I hope everyone will read it and love it.

Jason Blitman: 37:49

Yes. Thank you for sharing how a travel book comes to be. I think it's so fascinating because I certainly had no idea. But also I hope that people A, travel to these places and b remember to treat people with kindness and empathy and all the things that we need in this moment. And I think the book also really highlights and share some of that too. So

Alicia Valenski: 38:11

Thank you so much. I really appreciate this, and also I'm so excited. To see how this episode turns out'cause we went down a lot of twists and turns.

Jason Blitman: 38:19

Me too. Alright. Alicia Valinsky, thank you so much for being here. The lgbtq plus Travel Guide from Lonely Planet available now. Wherever you get your books, I can't wait for you to check it out.