It's time to leave the bar stool or skip the booze cruises in search of LGBT companionship.
All over there's an increasingly healthy demand for adventure travel, which immerses those seeking excitement into exhilarating and intimate experiences with fellow active travelers and local color and culture.
Outings and Adventures, run by former corporate chocolatier Robert Geller, has been for years organizing nontraditional events for gay men to get them onto bikes, in kayaks and out of the bars.
“It's hard to bike when you're drinking all night,” said Geller, an avid fitness practitioner who says he exercises 10-12 hours a week.
Now his travel and physical pursuits are going global with acclaimed adventure-travel company Austin-Lehman Adventures, which has provided top-flight active-travel experiences for 38 years.
“I've kissed a lot of frogs,” Geller said as he sought a partner to expand his vision of giving gay men something else to do besides knock back cocktails and wave dollars at drag shows.
It was over cosmos when “Outings and Adventures” was born four years ago prior to a screening of the first Sex in the City film.
Later, an ice cream social attracted the new-to-town Tommy Faricy, who would follow up that gathering with hiking trips, hay rides and the many outdoor doings across central and western Florida.
“This was always his vision,” Faricy said. “Starting from all the smaller events in the beginning.”
Now, thanks to Austin-Lehman, Geller's gay active-travel company is going to the gorgeous California wine country for biking, hiking, paddling, gourmet food, wine tasting, and if there was any doubt this was a gay adventure, a cruisy stop at the Folsom Street Fair.
Austin-Lehman has been running that trip for years but Geller tweaked it with various LGBT touches, including of course, Folsom.
“His commitment to his client easily parallels our own,” said Dan Austin, whose active-travel company has won numerous awards best-list appearances despite being a smaller-sized company.
The adventure groups themselves stay intimate with no more than 18 people per tour, so the ratio of guides to guests is high. It's one of the way Geller ensures satisfaction”not to mention the “over-the-top” details”like some delectable treat at the end of a bike trip”as his active vacations sear themselves into indelible memories.
“We are not sitting on couches,” he said. “On the road, there is no DJ. The only person spinning is you.”
Should stopping the journey short and riding in the van appeal or flat-out staying back and hanging at the spa, Geller said the vacation's exertion level is fully customizable.
For 2013, break out the passport and the protection”sun and otherwise”as Geller's entertaining a host of European-themed cycling adventures as well as multi-sport adventures in Costa Rica, Mexico and Alaska.
Since creating the product requires testing it, Geller admits he loves what he does.
“But the camaraderie is the best part of it,” he said. “Bringing together hundreds and hundreds of like-minded gay men has been really rewarding.”
And with the United States and the rest of the globe opening up for him, it looks like Geller's “Outings and Adventures” will be enthusiastically leading the gay adventure brigade for years to come.
