The new, annual GLBT travel and lifestyle magazine OutAloha and its companion website hit newsstands in February. As a point of full disclosure, I'm the editor in chief of this first-of-a-kind gay travel glossy on Hawaii, and I also wrote a few of the articles, including a feature on one of my favorite parts of the state, the famously scenic Road to Hana. This is the first of two new GLBT travel publications from the respected publisher SagaCity, which is also behind such mainstream regional lifestyle magazines as Portland Monthly, Seattle Met, Aspen Sojourner, Colorado Summit Magazine, Park City Magazine, Vail Beaver Creek Magazine, and several others. (I'm not on the staff of SagaCity, by the way - I edit OutAloha and the company's brand-new GLBT magazine on the Northwest, OutCity, on a freelance basis.)
I share this news in part because this weekend is the annual Honolulu Gay Pride Parade & Celebration, held on June 2 in Kapiolani Park - here's a preview of the celebration, as well as some details about this weekend's big GLBT Honolulu Rainbow Film Festival, and this September's other big Pride gathering in Oahu, Hawaii PrideFest, held Sept. 13-15. If you're in Honolulu or traveling elsewhere in Hawaii this weekend, or anytime really, I'd encourage you to check out the Island Guides section of OutAloha, which includes dozens of short reviews of gay and gay-friendly beaches, bars, restaurants, and hotels on all of the major islands. And I'd also suggest checking out my Gay Honolulu Guide and Gallery here on About.com, which includes many more cool spots around the city and surrounding region.
I'll blog again soon about the aforementioned OutCity, which comes out twice a year and just launched this week - the website will be up and running shortly, and will include City Guides with reviews of top gay-welcoming beaches, bars, restaurants, and hotels in Portland (my current hometown), Seattle, Vancouver, and Victoria. I've also written a comprehensive Wine Country guide to tasting and touring in Oregon and Washington, and other articles in this first spring-summer issue give the lowdown on weekending in the beautiful San Juan and Gulf Islands, attending the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in Ashland, exploring the secret treasures of Vancouver's Stanley Park, and plenty of other interesting places in the Pacific Northwest.
I'm obviously partial, but I firmly believe both magazines will be a great asset to GLBT travelers headed to Hawaii and the Oregon-Washington-British Columbia region. Of course, I'm continuing to write about all of these areas here at About.com - I'll be adding more guides and galleries to Portland, Seattle, and Vancouver in the coming weeks.