Traveling While Queer — Crossing Borders and the Continual Process of Coming Out

Traveling the world solo is exciting. There is the anticipation of getting on the plane. Studying the people who share your flight, wondering what adventures await them. Navigating a new place, trying to make it to your accommodation without ending up in the wrong city, is exhilarating.

Your first night out. Breathing in the street life and trying to see how the locals do it. Trying often in vain, not to embarrass yourself. 

Still, there are many risks to consider. Will your bag be safe? You hear horror stories about lost or stolen luggage, mistreatment of travelers, or even people being harmed.

I usually travel alone. I enjoy the solitude, but being alone can also carry risks. Along the way, I’ve learned that making connections isn’t just a way to ease loneliness—it’s also a practical safety measure.

Out on My Own 

Solo travel carries risks regardless of sex or gender identity. As a queer traveler, those risks are always present, even in moments that appear ordinary. Meeting strangers alone in a hostel or a bar can sound reckless, even dangerous. Yet when you’re traveling solo, isolating yourself completely can be just as unwise. There is safety in numbers. Fellow travelers often offer invaluable knowledge: how taxis work, which neighborhoods to avoid, how to recognize when you’re being overcharged, and where to find the hole-in-the-wall restaurant that serves the best meal you’ll ever have. 

One way to find community is through queer-friendly spaces. Depending on the country, this can be an excellent—and relatively safe—choice. In more progressive places, queer establishments are visible and accessible. In others, they are not. While traveling in Malaysia, I received a Tinder notification warning that homosexuality was illegal and advising extra caution when exchanging information or meeting people. The message was jarring but clarifying. Context matters. If you’re in Spain, you can likely find a gay bar. If you’re in rural Ghana, the same options may not exist.

So you learn to create borders within yourself. You want to live your truth, but you also learn when discretion is necessary. There are parts of me I can’t hide, but there is a certain stealth that comes with being a fairly attractive AFAB person. I don’t love the word attractive, but it points to an uncomfortable truth: appearance carries privilege. And when traveling, that privilege is a double-edged sword. Humans are drawn to people who look healthy and approachable—but that instinct can lead you to trust those who don’t deserve it. Because of this, I’m careful. I don’t disclose my identity or sexuality unless I know I’m safe—from the woman at the homestay asking where my husband is, to the friendly, androgynous stranger at the bar who strikes up a conversation.

Meeting New People

Against the backdrop of today’s political climate and constant human rights debates, it’s safe to say that most people approach new friendships cautiously.

Travel changes that calculus. When you’re moving alone, connections form quickly and intensely. Imagine doing a solo trip through Thailand and Cambodia. You meet someone in a hostel who seems decent enough, and within days you decide to travel together. Suddenly, you’re splitting the cost of bad hotel rooms, sharing shampoo, and eating questionable meals. You're sharing the cost of shitty hotel rooms, shampoo, and questionable meals. You end up sharing beds on 15-sleeper buses. Giggling while the vehicle rocks dangerously side to side. These people help you keep your sanity while traversing territory that may as well be another planet.

Trust forms fast, forged by proximity and vulnerability, by moments that feel small but carry real stakes. It’s a kind of trust that only develops when safety is uncertain.

And then, one night over fried rice, they tell you the Earth is six thousand years old—and flat. They look just as shocked as you when you say you believe in science.

So if you’re wondering, Why would you spend time with people who don’t accept you? the answer is simple: sometimes, you don’t have a choice.

Of course, I don’t have to travel. I don’t have to leave my comfort zone. But if nothing difficult ever happened, it would be impossible to recognize what’s good.

The same is true of people. Comfort matters, and community is essential—I don’t diminish that. But difficult encounters sharpen your understanding of the communities that truly sustain you. Experiencing friction between ideas teaches you that life isn’t about ideological purity; it’s about navigating experience itself.

I’ve always been someone willing to push those limits.

Building Relationships

I was hooking up with a cis French man in Chengdu, China. By that point, I had been living there for a year.

One night, while spending time with close friends in an apartment in the city center, they asked whether I had told him that I was non-binary and bisexual. I admitted that I hadn’t—and that I didn’t plan to.

It wasn’t that I was trying to deceive him. I simply didn’t see the point. By then, after years of living abroad, I had learned to move through the world in layers. I had developed a system of checkpoints—unspoken thresholds that people passed before I felt safe letting them see more of me.

Sitting on my friend’s couch that night, I realized something unsettling: my external life didn’t match my internal one. I had the privilege of maintaining borders around myself—choices others might not have. At the same time, I wondered whether keeping my sexuality and gender identity guarded could appear subversive, or even dishonest, from the outside.

I am AFAB, and I present in a gender-fluid way. To many cisgender, heterosexual people, I register as “one of them.” Why wouldn’t I? That assumption is their default.

It’s an unfortunate global default.

I remember later telling this story to a friend while visiting them in Washington, D.C. They let out a soft, nasal laugh when I mentioned that I often passed as cis and straight.

“That’s funny,” they said, “in the context I know you.”

That was exactly the point. In the context they knew me—the one where I felt safe—I could be fully myself. That moment clarified something I hadn’t yet named: how much identity depends on context, distance, and perceived risk.

Where is My Pride?

It is often not safe to out yourself.

I am not ashamed of my sexuality or my gender identity. I am comfortable with who I am, and I don’t alter my expression to make others more comfortable. I let people think what they want. When queer topics come up in conversation, I don’t soften my views. I won’t agree with a bigot just because it makes life easier. And yet, there are many people who would call me a friend who don’t know that I am non-binary.

That’s not the ideal situation, of course. The best case is always openness, curiosity, and care. But realism matters.

In some ways, I prefer when people reveal themselves early. If someone says something awful right away, I can finish my beer and move on. What’s harder is when someone seems kind, even trustworthy, and only later exposes their prejudice. That kind of revelation hurts.

I remember sitting in a bar in Da Nang, Vietnam, when an acquaintance casually explained that they had left another place because the LGBTQ+ community there was “too active.”“You know how they can be,” he said.“Yeah,” I replied. “I mean, I’m a member.” He immediately changed the subject.

I had known him for over a year. That moment made it clear that not coming out had shaped our entire relationship—one-sided, incomplete, built on an assumption that was never questioned.

Sometimes, though, discretion works in my favor. An acquaintance once told me that a cis man was interested in me but afraid to ask me out because he thought I might be a trans woman. Good riddance.

In some cases, it’s better to let people sit in their ignorance. I want to experience the world, not debate gender identity with an old Englishman on a Mediterranean island.

When I’m with people who understand me, coming out feels unnecessary. They grasp the fluidity of gender and sexuality. They know it doesn’t matter who I’m sleeping with or how many folds and seams my clothes have. It’s simply a non-issue.

When you stay in one place, you can build and maintain community. It may grow or shrink over time, but ideally, you find a space where you can exist without the threat of violence. When you’re constantly moving, though, you’re always searching for safety. Sometimes you never find it. This is true, honestly, wherever you are.

Solo travel requires a certain kind of fearlessness. So does being queer and out. In the best circumstances, I answer ignorant questions, justify my existence, and let a few bigots pass me by. In others, I stay quiet—not out of shame, but out of survival.