今日吃瓜

The Kimberley is one of the world鈥檚 last remaining pristine wildernesses. Breathtaking sandstone cliffs, stunning gorges and a tropical paradise await the city weary traveller.
Stretching across the remote northwest corner of Australia鈥檚 vast island continent, the Kimberley is a world away from the hustle and bustle of our booming urban centres, such as Sydney and Melbourne. The Kimberley is a land mass twice the size of Victoria, the population of the Kimberley is less than 40,000, and half of the inhabitants are Aboriginal.

This May, LGBTQIA+ owned and operated cruise company VACAYA is . Setting off from Darwin aboard a luxury cruise ship, the tour will head west along Australia鈥檚 rugged northwestern coast on an 11-day adventure, from the Timor Sea to the Indian Ocean. The cruise winds up in Broome in Western Australia, 2600 kilometres north of Perth and 2,100 kilometres south of Jakarta. Along the way travellers will see unspoiled coastline, saltwater crocodiles, sacred Aboriginal cave art, dinosaur footprints and the world鈥檚 only horizontal waterfall.

Over nearly seven years, VACAYA has taken close to 20,000 LGBTQIA+ travellers to almost every continent on earth. But this is the cruise company鈥檚 first trip to the land Down Under, the last of the seven continents to be conquered by VACAYA. So how did the cruise company decide to go to the Kimberley?

Star Observer chatted with VACAYA鈥檚 co-founder Randle Roper, who is based at the opposite end of the planet in Oslo. What on earth is he doing in freezing, faraway Norway?

鈥淢y husband is the first secretary to the US Ambassador to Norway,鈥� explains Randle. 鈥淪o, we’re here for three years. Our time is all heading back to [Washington] DC in just a couple of months.鈥�

So 鈥� why is he organising a tour of the Kimberley?

Randle spilled the tea: 鈥淚 don’t know that there’s a more beautiful pair of cities than Sydney and Melbourne. They’re just gorgeous. But we wanted to do something different for our seventh continent. So, I was talking with our different cruise line partners, and I kept hearing it from multiple ones: Kimberley, the Kimberley, the Kimberley. I had never heard of it.

鈥淪o, I started Googling and reading all about it and looking at the photos and seeing the adventure that seemed to unfurl with every single photograph. And I’m like, 鈥榃ell, that’s it. That’s where we’re going鈥�.鈥�

It is an indisputable fact that our community knows a thing or two about cruising. But how is an LGBTQIA+ cruise experience different to other options floating on the market?

鈥淲hat’s really quite unique about what we do is that we get to craft the experience from top to bottom,鈥� Randle explained. 鈥淰ery little of what the cruise lines typically do for their standard passengers stays. So, obviously, the food service stays, the housekeeping stays, but everything else we kind of imagine here and come up with a really great experience for our LGBT+ market, and that’s really cool. So, it’s a mix of entertainment, of parties that sometimes go all night long, which is really great.鈥�

And what makes VACAYA different to other LGBTQIA+ cruise companies? Inclusivity. As Randle explained, he met his business partner and co-founder Patrick Gunn when they both worked at Atlantis.

鈥淚 loved my time at Atlantis. It really opened the world to me, but our community was evolving at an absolutely rapid pace. But unfortunately, the experiences that we were creating there, they just weren’t evolving for me fast enough; recognising that the LGBT+ travellers are just LGBT+ folks in general. They weren’t staying in their sort of homogenous little groups. Especially the younger generation. They had friends of all the letters, right? They hung out with everybody.”

鈥淎nd I saw that as truly the evolution of travel, and that’s why we sort of took on the moniker as the first and only large scale vacation company that caters to the entire LGBTQIA+ community, and we really made a concerted effort to cater to all of those under or not-represented letters that have never had an option. If you’re trans, if you’re bi, even intersex, polyamorous, pansexual, you never really had a place to go.鈥�

VACAYA offers luxury getaways to everyone under the rainbow. And what could be more romantic than leaving your worries behind and setting sail to a breathtaking destination with a bevy of like-minded travellers? With sumptuous gourmet meals, cocktails, lounge chairs and a pool, magic moments are bound to happen.

So how many people have found love on a VACAYA cruise? Randle says: countless.

鈥淚 wish I could give you a hard and fast number, but the reality is probably countless at this point, because we’ve had close to 20,000 people who have travelled with us in our first six and a half years of doing these trips. I would venture to say it’s probably close to 1000.

鈥淭here is a bit of a cliche, if you go back to the 1970s and 80s with the Love Boat, there’s just something very romantic about being on a ship under the stars in beautiful locations that just, it just gets all of those things inside you flowing.鈥�

After conquering the Kimberley, VACAYA will have cruised every continent on earth. What were the highlights? Randle reminisced, 鈥淲e were the very first LGBT+ full ship charter to go to Antarctica. That was an incredible moment. We had a gay captain, mostly gay crew, and all LGBT guests. So that one probably stands out for me as a true highlight.鈥�

鈥淭hat being said, I love all of the great Mediterranean destinations. I’ve travelled all over the world with the gays, and you know, there’s not a bad destination, to be honest with you,鈥� Randle continues.

鈥淚 was scared to death in 2023 we were doing what we called the Ancient Wonders cruise, which started in Jordan, went to Egypt, Israel, all through the Middle East, and I thought this is either the worst decision when you’ve ever made, or it’s going to be a great one 鈥� and it turned out to be a great one. The people of that region could not have been more welcoming to us. Yes, we were taking extra vigilant care of everyone, but to see those sites with a large gay group was really tremendous.

鈥淲e have a philosophy at VACAYA that it’s important to get across. For far too long, LGBT+ travellers have been denied certain destinations, and we don’t think that’s right,鈥� Randle explains. 鈥淭he treasures of the world belong to us too, and one way we can see them is together, and there’s safety in numbers.鈥�

So, pack your budgie smugglers, trunks and bikinis and climb onboard. Once you鈥檝e cruised the Kimberley, who knows where VACAYA will bring you next. Alaska? Spain, India or the Caribbean?

The world is our oyster baby, and VACAYA is the pearl of LGBTQIA+ cruise companies.

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