Pocket Pride: Essential Apps for the LGBTQIA+ community

Pride Month, with a cynical eye, could be seen as a time of the year when big corporations slap a rainbow on their adverts. But there is so much more to pride than a brightly coloured flag. 

Pride is a celebration. A festival of equality and visibility, of self-affirmation, and a look back at the struggles the LGBTQIA+ community faced in the past. It is a celebration that, for many, continues through our day-to-day lives, and as we travel the world. 

Since coming out myself, as a trans woman and member of the LGBTQIA+ community, the world of travel is a dramatically different minefield (not least because my travel luggage is now twice as heavy). Navigating the laws and policies and restrictions can be a migraine of an issue, and those doom-and-gloom news articles don’t help. 

Luckily (cue smooth transition) there are several apps for your phone and gadgets that can make travelling as a queer individual safer and easier, and offer a valuable connection to the LGBTQIA+ community. There are apps providing up-to-date information on queer-friendly locations, some providing a place to find kindred spirits, others safety or mental wellbeing tools. With an array of apps to choose from, what’s to follow is a carefully selected list that can provide most of what a member of the LGBTQIA+ community may need. 

Queer, There & Everywhere

When finding yourself in a new city, be it in a far-flung country or at home in the UK, it can be difficult to get your bearings and find queer-friendly places. These apps can make that difficult task a breeze. 

Everywhere is Queer

In the age of big corporations and markets, there has been a drive in recent years to support small businesses. Everywhere is Queer is an app that provides a means to locate and support small businesses. The app advertises itself as a public resource with an expanding map showing the locations of shops, restaurants, gaming venues, and event venues.

Everywhere is queer offers a fresh, inviting map for LGBTQIA+ travellers and ally travellers  to find small queer-owned businesses, where people can feel represented, supported, and safe.

Where available: Apple Store, Google Play Store

Flokkr Go.

Billed as an essential LGBTQIA+ app for travel, business and events, Flokkr Go offered a wide range of useful information when you’re on the go travelling, or local to your home. Allowing users to rate and review places and events, Flokkr Go has build an queer-info community. The app offers guides for over 30 cities within Europe and the US. Users can check into the places they visit and get a glimpse of what’s happening around them in the LGBTQIA+ community, ranging from bars and nightclubs, bookshops and restaurants, and support groups and charities. Flokkr Go could easily become your go-to app when you’re on the move with the amount of information on offer.

Where available: Apple Store

GayCities

It’s sometimes said that a city is only as good as the places you can go, and GayCities can help with that. As the name suggests, GayCities is an app that helps you find LGBTQIA+ locations nearby. With over 230 cities worldwide on the app, with recommended gay bars, shops, and even gyms, with plenty more to discover. Each location is accompanied by photos, descriptions and reviews, helping you pick the place that’s right for you. The addition of information of each location (such as website, contact number, and directions) makes it even easier to enjoy yourself, instead of spending several hours trying to navigate new lands and finding yourself entirely lost.

Where available: Apple Store

Gaggl

Gaggl is a unique app in its approach to LGBTQIA+ events. It firstly allows users to explore events local to you, from nightlife, to celebrations, to shows, with a curated selection of events for you to consider. Secondly, it allows users to rate and critique LGBTQIA+ events. The app is welcoming for both members of the LGBTQIA+ community and allies, providing an extensive range of queer and queer friendly events local to your location, rated by the community.

Gaggl is a great app to download and take with you on your journeys, whether you’re looking for a pride celebration, a nightlife scene, or something new.

Where available: Apple Store

MisterB&B

MisterB&B is the most travel-focused app on this list. It provides listings for private rooms to rent in LGBTQIA+ friendly hotels in 200 countries. The app’s intention is to provide the queer community the ideal places to stay, providing the opportunity for both luxury and safety around the world, but also offered users to host LGBTQIA+ travellers and to earn income. Each location is rated and reviewed by app users, and boasts one of the largest gay travel communities. MisterB&B as a company also makes donations to many LGBTQIA+ organisations and charities, meaning that by using MisterB&B users are also giving back to their community.

Where available: Apple Store, Google Play Store

A Found Community

Community and LGBTQIA+ go hand-in-hand. The sense of a found community, of like minded, kindred souls is important to the queer community. It can provide solace when at times it’s hard to find any. These apps can help LGBTQIA+ individuals connect to others wherever they are. 

Lex

Where some social queer apps focus on swipe-culture, Lex aims to provide and build a community for anyone who identifies as part of the LGBTQIA+ community, with a focus on safety for trans people. Lex is a queer social network, a safe place for people to meet and to find friends, as well as events. It provides a digital LGBTQIA+ community, available in over 200 countries.

As Lex uses your location to keep you in the loop of nearby events and people, it makes for a perfect queer app whilst travelling.

Where available: Apple Store, Google Play Store

Spectrum – Queer Community

Where Lex offers a direct connection to others in the community, Spectrum looks to offer an all-round centre of information, connections, and locations, which separates it from other “what’s nearby” apps. Spectrum – Queer Community provides an easy to filter map of places in any area, meaning that you can plan your trip before you’ve even stepped on the plane. Users can rate and review each pinpointed location, providing other users insight into who the place would be great for (gay, trans, non-binary, lesbian, etc.), and rate multiple aspects from cleanliness to acoustics. 

What could be considered Spectrum’s unique angle is its Quick Contact section. This provides a one-touch link to health services, helplines, and urgent services, which can be vital when travelling. 

Where available: Apple Store, Google Play Store

Safe & Sound

Whilst travelling the world should be a thrilling, joyous experience, your safety is paramount. Travel Insurance is, of course, an important factor in protecting yourself whilst exploring, but these apps can provide you with a little more security when travelling as a LGBTQIA+ individual. 

Zoteria

With the rise of hate crimes against the LGBTQIA+ community in recent years, it’s important to know how to stay safe wherever you travel, and how to report something that’s not right. Zoteria provides and promotes safety in the queer community, as a platform for reporting hate crimes and hate incidents, gain access to support services, and obtain LGBTQIA+ information.

Zoteria takes the safety of its users extremely important from the word go, “hiding” the app being a quotes app, providing a secret mode, and quick exit button.

Where available: Apple Store, Google Play Store

BOBU: Back Off Back Up

BOBU is the outlier amongst these other Queer apps, in that it offers a service for LGBTQIA+ individual as well as non-LGBTQIA+ individuals who have ever felt unsafe on a walk home. 

Back Off Back Up (or BOBU) provides a free to use map with pinpointed locations with several cities. The pinpointed locations are safe spaces for individuals experiencing harassment, or feel unsafe and in need of refuge, where staff have been trained in offering support. BOBU is built for anyone to feel safer at anytime, and Across Rainbows (the company behind the app) work with small businesses and big brands to provide more locations. 

Where available: Apple Store, Google Play Store

Mind & Wellness

Whilst finding LGBTQIA+ events, communities, and safe spaces whilst travelling can be an important factor in your trip, your mental wellness should always take priority. These apps can help keep your mind at ease whilst out on the road. 

Voda

Voda offers a different queer app, created by LGBTQIA+ psychotherapists, the app utilises their expertise along with AI to provide accessible, inclusive support. It offers daily advice, self-therapy, and mediation, exercises to manage stress and anxiety, as well as options to connect with others.

Whilst travelling, this highly praised app could provide that respite and reset that your mental wellness may need.

Where available: Apple Store, Google Play Store

Kalda

With a bright, vibrant interface, daily affirmations and reflections, Kalda is an app with a strong identity mirroring the LGBTQIA+ community it aims to provide support for. Offering several guided programs and mindfulness sessions for all LGBTQIA+ individuals, with multiple parts, meaning that the services offered can be used whilst on the move, at a pace that best suits you. Covering areas from gender identity to sexuality, with more to come, Kalda is an app providing a uniquely queer mindfulness experience that could be a colourful breath of fresh air for your mental wellbeing whilst travelling. 

Where available: Apple Store

Why These Apps?

Many of these app recommendations lean towards a sense of community. In a world which seems to be implementing restrictions and changing laws for the worse, having apps on your phone or gadgets that can provide you with advice and information on safe spaces and communities can be invaluable.

Whilst there is a plethora of apps out there aimed at the LGBTQIA+ community (with some being a little more well known than others), those listed within this article have been chosen for what they bring to the travel experience of any queer-identifying individual. Voda and Kalda provide that break your mental wellness may need whilst travelling. Zoteria and BOBU promote safety within the community, offering advice and aid when needed most.Flokkr Go, Gay Cities, Everywhere is Queer, Mister B&B, and Gaggl each provide a similar service with their own twist. Helping you find locations both welcoming, interesting, and inclusive wherever your journeys find you. 

These choices also come from a place of necessity. As a queer individual myself, the world can seem an overwhelming, scary, and exciting place all at once. Having apps on my phone, a bit of pride in my pocket, that can help me easily find safe locations, queer-friendly establishments, like minded friends, or even a 5 minute meditation, provides a peace of mind that other apps cannot.