Andrew Collins has been roaming the globe as a travel writer and editor since 1991, originally as a staff editor for Fodor's Travel Publications, and since 1993 as a full-time freelancer. Andrew spends about 10 to 15 days a month on the road, and although he technically lives in Portland, Oregon (where he moved in 2007, after 7 years in Santa Fe and Albuquerque, New Mexico), he considers himself to be very much a perpetual nomad. And wherever his travels take him, from Austin to Zurich, he always sets out to find a destination's gay pulse.
You can see where Andrew is traveling and what he's working on by following him on Twitter and reading his blog, at TheCountyHunter.com.
Experience:
At age 23, Andrew conceived of and wrote Fodor's Gay Guide to the USA, which won a Lowell Thomas Travel Journalism award from the Society of American Travel Writers. He followed this with six regional gay guides for Fodor's, on destinations ranging from San Francisco to Amsterdam. Since 1996 he's written the syndicated gay travel column Out of Town, which appears in GLBT newspapers, and he's also Editor in Chief of two biannual GLBT travel magazines, OutAloha (on Hawaii) and OutCity Northwest (focused on Oregon, Washington, and British Columbia).
Andrew regularly writes and updates sections of the Fodor's guides on New Mexico, Arizona, Oregon, the Pacific Northwest, Colorado, Rhode Island, and New England. He's also authored guidebooks on New Orleans, Connecticut, and Rhode Island for Moon Handbooks, and has contributed to numerous other publications, including the Zagat guides, Orbitz.com, Travel + Leisure, Sunset, Frommer's Budget Travel, AAA Living, and New Mexico Magazine.
Education:
Andrew earned a B.A. from Wesleyan University, in Middletown, Conn., in 1991. He's also part of the faculty of New York City's Gotham Writers' Workshop, where he teaches online courses on travel writing, food writing, and how to freelance. Andrew's also a media member of the International Gay and Lesbian Travel Association.
From Andrew Collins:
I'll go anywhere that sounds intriguing - gay-friendly or gay-hostile, swanky or skanky, down the street or across an ocean. I have a slightly (okay, severely) obsessive passion for seeing as much of the world as I can - in fact, one goal I have is to visit every county in the United States. For the record, I've set foot in more than 2,100 (out of about 3,150) so far.
In writing about travel for the GLBT community, my goal isn't to create an "us" versus "them" dynamic, where we have only our particular destinations, and mainstream travelers have theirs. Rather, I try to encourage gay travelers to see as much of the world as they can, and to be themselves while doing it. I write about gay-exclusive, clothing-optional resorts as well as mainstream B&Bs. I cover areas with unfavorable laws and attitudes toward the GLBT community just as I report on some of the world's most gay-popular and progressive communities.
If it's out there, it's my aim to write about it here.