Wonderment and Wanderlust Make Ravi Roth Our Fave Professional Wanderer
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While Covid restrictions and spikes combined with the Delta variant strain of the virus continue to hinder pre-pandemic heights, slowly but surely people have been returning to air, sea, and road travel.
And no one is more excited to help you get moving than Gay travel expert Ravi Roth.
Ravi has trekked the globe, exploring queer culture in over 32 countries and documented his travels via his YouTube channel, Ravi Around the World and his on his Instagram. His itinerary for each destination is based on the experiences of the people who actually live there. Unapologetically queer, Roth captures and uncovers LGBT history via a local perspective, as well as where to stay, play, eat, and more.
Roth talked to #GayNrd about what Pride means to him, why continuing to host the digital travel show Gaycation during the pandemic was probably more important than ever, as well as the best destinations to travel to in 2022.
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What sparked your passion for travel? The first time I left the country was when I was 26. So I didn’t have the travel bug growing up. We went to a few cities in the United States with my grandma. But when I was 26 I went on my first trip ever abroad with my ex, and we went to London, Paris, and Barcelona. And I was blown away, but also I had no plans, and I didn’t know, he planned everything. I had no idea what we were going to do. And I decided that I was going to blog it. Take some video footage, but I didn’t know, like I never YouTubed at that point, but I was on this trip and I made these little videos, whole videos, and I came back to NYC and I was like, “wow this is so cool and fun” and I showed my talent manager, cuz I’m also an actor. And my talent manager was like, “You are like an idiot abroad. This is genius. You could have a travel show”. Granted at that time I didn’t think I could have a travel “show,” but I did love travel. So that started the “Bug” for it and it started the idea of….
After my manager Jeremy Katz said that I could do travel shows, one of my best friends in life called me and asked me what I was doing the next day, and I said I was catering. And she said, “You are getting on a private jet and we are going to the White House correspondents dinner.”
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This was during the Obama Presidency. She said I could tape the whole thing and then I figured I could put together a little reel.
It was my first attempt and honesty it wasn’t very good. But then I had the opportunity to take another stab at it after being invited to Istanbul, Turkey and Bali. I met Anna Garwood, who used to work at the Travel Channel, and she took me under her wing, and she was like, “you have star quality, but your format is all over the place.”
Anna helped me develop my show from the ground up. And then I got to go to Barcelona, where I worked with the Tourism board there which led to to invitations to a bunch of conferences for the IGLTA International Gay and Lesbian Travel Association. At those conferences I kinda of just schmoozed my way into these tourism boards saying like, “Yes, I know I don’t have high social media numbers, or youtube video count numbers, but I have a really good idea of what I want to do with your city, and how to tell the story of your city. I want to tell the story of the people that live there and highlight your unique queer culture.”
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And most agreed to the idea. So 32 countries later I really started thriving with this thing Ravi Around the World and that was right before Covid hit.
Why do you think your approach resonates? What makes you connect in ways that other travel videos don’t? I think it’s my fearless approach. I will talk to anyone. I will start up a conversation with anyone. And it is, I think, my sense of wonderment that is really, a different perspective than people that just blog their experiences. And there is nothing wrong with other folks blogging their experiences, but mine comes from a more, personal approach. I get to know the city through the lens of the locals. It’s a much more endearing and authentic approach to be talking with the denizens of each destination. Getting to know a destination through their lens, rather than just being the influencer that takes the shots, gets kissed under a rainbow, and just makes it about myself.
What’s one thing that really stands out in all the places you have been and why? What was your most favorite or most exciting? Istanbul. Eight years ago there was virtually nothing on any apps about what queer culture there consisted of [this is a direct result of Turkey’s homophobic dictator President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan]
I went on Google and I found out that there were seven queer bars. Four of the seven didn’t exist. Two of them had the wrong address. And then there was just one that existed in an apartment building. And it looked kind of sketching going in, but I went inside and I got to really get to know about the queer underground culture of Istanbul. And it’s not accepted and it’s not condoned. And you have to be smart about how you are PDA wise. And I learned virtually all I needed to know about the city’s queer culture from this small little “hole in the wall.” And from there they told me about all these small little underground places to go in Istanbul. So at that point I was like, “There needs to be some kind of video about this.”
You know there was such a vast amount of writing about queer travel, but videos of Istanbul were virtually non-existent at that point. That was when things really started gelling for me.
The other place that really captured my imagination was P-Town. We all know Provincetown, Mass as a “Gay Disneyland.” But it’s still a remarkable achievement and a special place. This tiny Cape Cod town that’s about the furthest most eastern point in the United States. The fact that everyone feels comfortable there, anyone in the LGBQT umbrella. You really can identify however you want. There is something for everyone.
I still find it remarkable.
What’s one trip or place that you didn’t think much of before arriving but surprised you? Cedar Rapids, Iowa. It really blew me out of the water. Every place we went to there was someone affiliated with the queer community. Whether it was a pottery class, whether it was a llama farm, and the restaurants were top notch. I mean I’m a vegetarian so going to the midwest I was like, “eww, I don’t know if there’s going to be many options for me there…” but the “Farm to Table” originated in the Mid West. So it lit me up being in this type of city with many of the amenities of a big city.
When I was traveling during and after college in the late 90s early 2000s, to find the gay places you used to get a Spartacus Guide and 99% of gay travel revolved around sex. Now it seems to be more family friendly. Do you think that we’ve lost something? That queer culture is diluted? I think it’s different for everyone. And I think we have to remember who paved the way for us. Being gay wasn’t legal to the Baby Boomer generation and they had to go to some un-safe spaces in order to be able to have sex, to be able to explore their sexuality. So yeah, there was a huge element of sex involved in travel for the generations that have paved the way for us to be able to “Live out Loud.”
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Gen Z grew up with, is growing up with, being able to identify however they want, using whatever pronouns the want and having the privilege of expecting consequences anyone says anything derogatory. That wasn’t the case for me. I’m a Millennial. I grew up without having any type of queer role models, so it’s like a give and take. Growing up I wasn’t able to express myself. I wasn’t able to be myself. And I think that hosting the Gaycation travel show, Ravi Round the World, and the upcoming, Ravi’s Road to Pride I think now, I finally can be me. And when heading to destinations where it is maybe not 100% OK to be outwardly you know, wearing rainbows and such, I think telling the stories of people and telling the stories of those destinations, make it so much easier for the other generations to come along as well if that makes sense.
That’s a huge part about what I love doing with the shows and being myself. Being my authentic self is so freeing now. It’s so freeing as opposed to when I was growing up.
Ravi Roth has been named as GayCities “Best Insta Traveler of 2019,” and Metrosource’s “People We Love in 2020,” and has been a frequent collaborator with Orbitz, a featured speaker at the New York Times Travel Show, LGBT Week, Google, and more.
