About Us

We can help you find genuine gay friendly hotels, accommodation and B&Bs. We like exploring and discovering, often off the beaten track, and finding the right place to stay with personality and a warm welcome can be a challenge. The internet provides a wealth of choice but often fails to distinguish real quality and character from the rest, and the phrase ‘gay friendly accommodation’ is often overused and meaningless.

When we use the term gay friendly, we simply mean that each of our hand-picked properties, in addition to their quality, location & service, provide the same welcome to their gay guests as they do to all others. We also believe that ‘inclusivity’ works both ways and so none of our properties are exclusively gay.

We launched in January 2010 with just over 30 properties in the UK and we now feature over 130 properties in eight countries. Our collection is growing and expanding all the time but we tightly control the quality of the places that appear on the site which come to us through our own visits or from trusted sources.

As we have grown we have forged relationships with reviewers in different parts of the UK and in other countries who act as our eyes and ears. We will be revealing them to you very soon.... so watch this space.

The Further Afield office is based on a small five acre farm near the town of Hay On Wye on the English Welsh border. This is where the Further Afield core team meet on a regular basis.

Happy travels!

our reviewers

Sean Naughton: Stockholm, Sweden

Ok so my name dosn’t sound exactly Swedish. That’s because my father is American and my mother is Swedish. I have lived in Stockholm for 20 years and consider myself Scandinavian to the bone. I love snow - what more proof do you need?

Stockholm is a very gay friendly city and I am proud to call it my home but I also love to travel across Scandinavia and internationally. My background is in customer service in hotels so I am always on the look out for places to stay which reflect the values of caring owners who go the extra mile. It is often the little things that guests remember – the helpful restaurant recommendation, the kindnesses and the personal touches.

Sophie Hartman: India and the Welsh Borders

It would be very hard for me to say exactly where my heart resides, having spent half my life flitting between the UK and India. My love affair with the subcontinent took a professional turn a few years ago when I happily took on a part time job helping to run a small travel company in the central Indian state of Chhattisgarh.

During my travels I have discovered some wonderful, often fairly remote, places to stay and built many strong deep friendships. I speak Hindi (and am studying for an MA in Hindi and Bengali Literature at SOAS) which has enriched my experience of being in India immeasurably. It has also helped me to connect with hotel owners and their staff which has proved invaluable when assessing the ethical values and credentials of any hotel or guest house.

Helen Parkins: Kent

Brought up on the family maxim that “change is as good as a rest”, I have spent most of my life trying to pack in as much change as possible, from dancing in the only puddle in Death Valley, through treading water with a turtle in the Maldives, to gazing at geysers in New Zealand. Also renowned for my ability to hunt down the best eateries wherever I go with the kind of commitment a truffle-hunting pig would find hard to beat. Particularly fond of Japan and Scandinavia; loathe surly service and miserable, over-priced breakfasts. When not on the road, I can be found in my kitchen cooking up food inspired by travels both at home and abroad.

Peter friend & mark barber: France

Most people celebrate their 40th birthday with a party but not us. We bought an eight bedroom period “maison bourgeois” in need of massive renovation in SW France from where we now operate one of the country’s most successful guest houses – Villa de Mazamet. The whole process of finding the right property took us from Cornwall to Andalucía, to Brittany and then to SW France. A huge journey - metaphorically and literally – taking three years before we found our dream renovation project.

When time permits we like to travel and explore across our adopted home country. Running a guest house gives you a keen eye on what to look for in a great place to stay and one of the most important aspects is genuine hospitality and a warm welcome for all.