After twelve years of hosting travelers during the Fiestas de la Calle San Sebastián—and spending most of those years navigating the festival with increasing levels of sobriety myself—I've learned something crucial: you don't need a liter of rum to enjoy Puerto Rico's answer to Mardi Gras. You just need better strategy than the tourists (queer, straight, or otherwise undecided) stumbling down Calle San Sebastián at 2 AM looking for a bathroom that isn't being actively cleaned by an attendant who's clearly seen too much.
A local host's map to authentic LGBTQ+ life in Puerto Rico's rainbow capital
After twelve years of hosting conscious travelers in my Miramar home, I've learned something crucial: the best queer travel guides aren't written by tourists passing through—they're whispered between friends over morning coffee, shared during late-night kitchen conversations, and earned through years of showing up.
This isn't your sanitized, corporate Pride guide. This is the real San Juan—the one where we live, love, organize, and occasionally lose our minds dancing until sunrise. ¡Wepa! (Translation: an enthusiastic exclamation of joy, roughly equivalent to "Hell yes!" but with more Caribbean soul.)
