Queer Travel: How to Research LGBTQIA+ Pride Events Around the World

In our prior blogs, we’ve talked a lot about June as Pride Month. And while a lot of places in- and outside of the United States celebrate Pride during June, not everyone does. 

For travel businesses or businesses with significant clientele outside of the United States, knowing when other local pride events are happening can help you decide to offer - for example - a trip package connected to Pride at a destination. Or it could help you know when to write Pride copy for that part of your community. 

In this blog, we will cover some tips on how to research Pride events around the globe so that you can prepare your copy or your offerings for those clients. And remember that queer travel is looking to be a multi billion dollar business by the end of this decade, so being plugged into Global Pride Events is a great way to reach out and connect with clients looking for that kind of travel.

And if you want to save yourself time and money by having someone to handle your queer travel copy or your Pride copy, book a 15 minute call with me. We will discuss your business goals near term and long-term and how I can help you increase your clientele by reaching your ideal clients.

Where Do You Find Out About Global Pride Events?

There are a couple of different ways to find Pride events outside of the United States. In this section, we’ll cover some of the most accessible places to look.

If you weren’t aware, there’s an annual event called World Pride. Next year (2025), World Pride is going to be held in Washington, DC. It starts at the end of May and goes through the middle of June. You can check out their website and learn more about what will be on offer and what kind of events that they will have. This would be a great event to keep on your radar for Pride copy (especially if it is ever hosted near you) and for planning trips and tours for queer travelers. All you have to do is run a search for the year and “World Pride” or visit the InterPride link for World Pride. 

Outside of World Pride, the International LGBTQ+ Travel Association (IGLTA) keeps a calendar of Pride events around the globe. This is a great place to start your research. The entries for each Pride event give you a link to the official site, and you can use this to dig in further.

I used this calendar myself when living in Switzerland. I knew I was going to travel throughout Europe, so I figured I might as well go when places were celebrating Pride. I’m going to walk you through using the calendar. Keep in mind that you’ll want to come back to the calendar frequently as they update it as events are submitted. (So right now, the offerings for 2025 look a bit slim, but they’ll fill out later.)

First, you would search for the city or location in the Keyword search next to the calendar. Or if you are looking to discover Pride events, I suggest scrolling through the listings instead of doing a search. 

Next, click on the link for listing and then on the link for the event’s official website. You want to do this because you want to make sure that the website is still up. Plus, it’s almost always better to get information directly from the organizers rather than through the calendar, just in case there are any mistakes in how the event is listed.

From there, if you need to, you can do more research into other Pride events around the same time so you have a good sense of all the things on offer. 

Other Ways to Discover Pride Events 

Another way you can find other Pride events that are happening is to connect with local queer groups. The two main places I find helpful for this are Meetup and Reddit. 

Meetup allows you to filter by location and use keywords such as queer, LGBT, or lesbian to find events and groups. In my own travels, I’ve used Meetup effectively to find events or connect to groups. 

One such group - which has a global presence and should be on your radar if your audience includes queer women and non-binary people - is the Ella community. It’s a great place to connect with people living in a city (whether originally from there or not) and find out what kind of events they’re hosting. It was really lovely to connect with that group. We went to museums and other cultural events as well as brunch. Meeting people while getting to experience the culture of Stockholm was a highlight of my time there.

Reddit is useful because it is a site filled with niche communities. You can look for local queer groups and follow their discussions. If it is a place where you don’t speak or read the local language, you can search for ex-pat groups, and see if they have discussions around Pride or other queer events. You can look for queer travel groups to see what kinds of places and Prides they are interested in experiencing. You’ll likely want to focus on one of these first just to save yourself from being overwhelmed by the information out there. But it’s definitely a great website to dig into.

If you’re looking for more than just Pride events, you can also use the same research tips that we discussed in the blog on researching your local queer community. If it is a place that is not an English-speaking country and you are able to research in the local language, that will expand the kinds of results you can get, especially for things that will be outside of the tourist circuit.

And while you are busy creating these new offerings for your clients, why not have an queer copywriter with expertise in travel copy and Pride copy handle the copy strategy for those offerings. Save yourself the time and stress. Just click on the link to book a 15 minute call. And we can discuss your goals, your business, your ideal clients, and how I can help get those new offerings in front of the right people. Let’s take them from lookers to bookers.

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