In conjunction with our upcoming re-launch of the Queer Girl City Guides, this summer’s quarterly issue will be The Travel Issue. Because it’s summer, get it?!

“She’s already got that kind of aggravated look that lesbians get in amusement parks in Ohio,” writes Lisa Kron about her girlfriend in “A Few Notes from the Midwest and Abroad.” It’s just one sentence in this larger piece that’s about but it’s the kind of sentence that says so much to a certain audience.

“So I wound up sitting on the plane on the runway in beautiful San Diego looking like someone who’s just had all the blood removed from her body,” writes Eileen Myles about her pre-flight routine, which included a restless night without sleep. “Plus I’m gay and in my fifties so the combination of whiteness and gayness just turns me into a scary freak. This is travel for me.”

What is travel for you?

We want stories about going weird places or feeling weird in aggressively normal places. We want funny trips and accidental self-discovery, unconventional perspectives on the how and why of it all, intense journeys and new ways of looking at old attractions. Trips you didn’t mean to take, destinations rarely sought out, investigations of the intersection of identity and location. Stories investigating queer migration, or the people making it easier, safer, and more realistic for us to move about the cabin/world.

Here are some inspirational examples of the kinds of things we’re looking for:

• Lost in Canada, by Eileen Myles for The Believer
• Drifters (Interstate 35), by Marya Hornbacher for Nowhere Magazine
• How To Survive a 10-Hour Flight Like a Lady, by Hilary Fischer-Groban for The Hairpin
• Final Destination: On Tinder, Travel and Faking It, by Jennifer Gersten for The Awl
• You Blow My Mind Hey Mickey!, by John Jeremiah Sullivan for The New York Times
• Everything included in The Best Restaurant In The World Is Disney’s Epcot Center, by Caity Weaver and Rich Juzwiak for Gawker
• Dragging My Gay Ass To The Top of Kilimanjaro, by David Duran for Into
• The Problem With Writing About Florida, by Kristen Arnett for lithub
• Journey Into Night, by David Sedaris for The New Yorker
• Notes On Snorkeling, by Rosa Lyster for Popula
• Why the Beach Is a Bummer, by Roxane Gay for The New York Times
• Eating Seafood With Your Hands, by Kayla Kumari for Autostraddle
• Cross Country Crutching, by Eliana Carmona for Argot
• I Break The Loop, by Cory Tamler for The Offing
• 12 Lesbian Resorts You Could Visit This Summer If You Have a Time Machine, by Riese Bernard for Autostraddle
• I Went to a Summer Camp For Adults And It was Weird, by Scaachi Koul
• The Scholar Mapping America’s Forgotten Feminist Restaurants, by Reina Gattuso for Atlas Obscura
• Pawhuska or Bust: A Journey to the Heart of Pioneer Woman Country, by Khushbu Shah
• 60 Days in China: Where Everything Else Seemed Upside-Down, by Emily Choo for Autostraddle
• Is Your Hair Still Political? by Audre Lorde (from “I Am Your Sister”)
• Eight Honest Things About New York City, by Laneia for Autostraddle
• Escape to Alcatraz, by S.J. Culver for Guernica

Payment:

We are an independent publication currently hanging on for dear life! So our rates aren’t the best out there, but relative to our budget they’re quite good. Depending on the piece (length, edits required, reporting involved if relevant), payment is between $50 – $300. Theme issues are also one of our favorite ways to find new regular contributors and staff writers — that’s how writers like Sarah Fonseca, Mey Rude and Reneice Charles first graced these pages.

We are, as always, especially interested in submissions from trans women and people of color.

Submissions are now closed. Thank you!

Before you go! Autostraddle runs on the reader support of our AF+ Members. If this article meant something to you today — if it informed you or made you smile or feel seen, will you consider joining AF and supporting the people who make this queer media site possible?

Join AF+!