Welcome to Global Gaze, providing you with tips and tricks within the world of travel, including travel related event listings, destination spotlights, local adventures, profile pieces, global news items, and my personal recommendations. In this first edition we’ll give a snapshot overview of WorldPride coming to Toronto in June, along with ways to start gathering information for your next gay getaway.

In three months Toronto will play host to the first ever WorldPride www.worldpridetoronto.com festivities in North America. The inaugural WorldPride was held in Rome in 2000, followed by Jerusalem in 2006, and London in 2012. Toronto beat out Stockholm in votes tabulated by InterPride www.interpride.org to play host city. From 2014, the 45th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots, the event will be held on a five-year cycle. For those heading to WorldPride, Tourism Toronto www.seetorontonow.com can provide you with all that you need to know to plan your visit here, and Rainbow High Vacations www.rainbowhighvacations.com can handle all your travel requirements. Confirmed performers so far include Deborah Cox, Martha Wash, Melissa Etheridge, and Chely Wright. There will be something for everyone, including family-friendly programming, a substance-free area, transgendered specific programming, an international human rights conference, and of course the parades, beverage gardens, and fabulous drag performances. This year the festival runs from June 20th to 29th with full programming on two weekends, including outside City Hall, at Yonge-Dundas Square, and of course throughout the Church-Wellesley Village area.

For those planning to travel this year, there are plenty of LGBT owned tour operators and agencies to choose from. Toronto’s OUT Adventures www.out-adventures.com offers small group adventure based tours around the world, while Alyson Adventures/HE Travel http://hetravel.com, Zoom Vacations www.zoomvacations.com, RSVP, and Brand g Vacations www.brandgvacations.com are all American based companies. The International Gay and Lesbian Travel Association (IGLTA) www.iglta.org is also a great resource of information, as is Travel Gay Canada www.travelgaycanada.com and TAG Approved www.tagapproved.com

Thanks for stopping by. Until next time, safe travels!

About the Author

Bryen Dunn is a freelance journalist based in Toronto with a focus on tourism, lifestyle, entertainment and community issues. He has written several travel articles and has an extensive portfolio of celebrity interviews with musicians, actors and other public personalities. He’s willing to take on any assignments of interest, attend parties with free booze, listen to rants, and travel the world in search of the great unknown. He’s eager to discover the new, remember the past, and look into the future.