A.Y.O.R. – “At Your Own Risk.” That was my favourite of the many codes provided by early gay travel guides. It marked, for the alert homo tourist, situations both sexually tantalizing and sinister. It always brought to my mind sleazy waterfront bars where Genet-inspired thugs might seduce me, then slit my throat. But, I felt, at least it would mean something. The more mundane reality, of course, included local cops who might have to be bribed to leave you alone, or very adroit pickpockets or, yes, toughs who might well slit your throat but who wouldn’t have the grace to talk about it first. Or seduce you, for that matter.

Information of that kind has always been critical to the queer tourist. Not that we travel only for sex (there’s opera too, you know), but we do travel to meet each other. That’s not easy if you’re an invisible minority. And it’s even tougher if your destination is not as accepting of gay people as some Western democracies have become – or worse, still criminalizes and punishes homosexual behaviour.

So – any gay travel guide can be an adequate gay travel guide if it gives you just the basics: an index, maps, a rating system, and a publication schedule regular enough to suggest the information is moderately reliable (nothing changes faster than a commercial gay scene, particularly in countries that aren’t supposed to have one). A good gay travel guide will add that captivating, irritating, and possibly amusing extra – an opinionated, authorial voice.

That’s been rare. The granddaddy of all gay guides – Spartacus – has reached its 25th edition but, partly because it’s trying to cover the entire planet, it’s little more than a densely packed, 1,200-odd-page-book of listings. But it’s still the bible of world travel – where else will you find listings for Zimbabwe and Paraguay and Laos and, lordy, the Cook Islands? There’s a good index, every significant city gets a decent map and the whole thing is kind of fun to leaf through in the way that an atlas can be – for gay men, anyway. There’s not much here for lesbians, but then the cute guy on the cover might give that away. I’m happy to report that the coding system is still intact (there are 45 different ones, including “p” for “you must ring to enter”), and that Toronto gets three A.Y.O.R.s, though the Cloverdale Shopping Mall in Etobicoke, which rates as a “Cruising Area,” ought to have got one too, at least on esthetic grounds. Spartacus is published in Germany and, given the American dominance in virtually every other published guide, is refreshingly Eurocentric (Germany gets 189 pages; the USA only 174).

Which makes it most unlike its closest competitor, Odysseus ’96: The International Gay Travel Planner. Published in the U.S. and in its 12th year, it’s a bargain-basement Spartacus: no index (except of advertisers, and doesn’t that just scream “American”), inadequate maps (Toronto’s shows only four places, and one of them is a travel agency), and a code system that is positively obsessed with breakfasts (DB=Dutch Breakfast; HB=Hawaiian Breakfast; CnB=Canadian Breakfast). Like Spartacus, though, it has little to offer lesbians, and again, the cover boys (one of them sporting a maple leaf on his bulging briefs) make that clear.

The Ferrari Guides are also American, but they are significantly better than Odysseus. The company publishes “pocket guides” (though they presume rather capacious pockets) for both men and women, and Inn Places: A Worldwide Gay & Lesbian Accommodations Guide. The pocket guides lack maps or an index, but they have several features none of the others does. The women’s guide, Women’s Travel in Your Pocket, for example, has 35 pages of tour operator listings, and if you’d always hoped there’d be a tour called “Mystical Ireland for Women,” well, there is. Even more useful is a “Trip/Events” calendar in the women’s guide (though not in the men’s, titled Men’s Travel in Your Pocket). The listings for September 1996 alone take up three pages.

Inn Places seems less useful, if only because I suspect that the inns and hotels included are there because they paid to be. Toronto, for example, seems to have only three places to stay (and one of them is in Muskoka), though it’s clear from the pocket guides that Ferrari knows the city has more on offer than that.

Ferrari is really pushing its World Wide Web presence (www.q-net.com), and that, it seems to me, is the most important new development in travel guides. Only Fodor’s (www.fodors.com) of the guides reviewed here, mentions a Web site, but is clearly not trying to give it the kick-start Ferrari is.

The Bent Guide to Gay/Lesbian Canada 1995/96 was researched and written by two gay men and two lesbians, so what there is of interest to gay women in Canada (and there’s not a lot, compared to what’s out there for the guys) does get noted. There’s no index (admittedly less of a problem here than with the larger guides); the maps are next to useless (Toronto’s locates the Skydome and Union Station, but doesn’t mark the gay ghetto); and though it’s fun to find listings for places like Bathurst, New Brunswick, and Acton, Ontario, this is a dull, ugly little book featuring descriptions like: “Manitoba, the province located almost in the dead centre of the country, is a province steeped in turbulent history.”

Compare that to: “Blue-haired old ladies and bleached-blond fags: two great things that go well together.” That’s from a restaurant review in Fodor’s Gay Guide to the USA and, though I hate to admit it, the money and resources of the Fodor empire have produced what is undoubtedly the best of the guides to American gay life. The basics – index, maps, organization, rating system – are very fine and up to the standards set by its more mainstream companions. Though author Andrew Collins notes that there are 10 times more places catering to gay men than to women, he goes out of his way to find what is out there (and doesn’t ignore the leather, young, or middle-age scenes either). I was most interested, of course, in seeing whether corporate squeamishness would prevent the inclusion of sex-clubs, parks, and bushes, but they’re there, grouped together in a category called “On the Wild Side.” Best of all, though, is Collins himself and his natty, opinionated, and occasionally bitchy voice (“The list of do’s and don’ts [in one leather club’s dress code] is about as long as The Communist Manifesto, and at least as interesting”).

Author Richard Laermer tries hard in The Gay and Lesbian Handbook to New York City, but ends up sounding just a little bit queeny and a little bit dull. The book is indexed though, and has a nice community spirit to it, stressing, as he says, “the social, political and sexual aspects of a group that I report on as a participant.”

George Hobica’s guide calls itself Gay USA, but restricts itself to 10 cities and 7 resorts. It’s fine enough but doesn’t do anything Fodor’s doesn’t do better.

Vacationing is something gay people do, frequently with a public presence in the company of people who are not gay. Gay life, at least in North America, is much less A.Y.O.R. these days. And though I’m happy to see that furtive sexual excitements still dot our maps, these guides mark our claim on territory that should belong to everyone – and I’m glad to see that too.