Chris Bryan Shares His Travel Stories and Advice

myGwork met Chris Bryan from Bayer UK & Ireland, who shared his favourite travel stories, tips and experiences in countries that aren't known for being LGBTQ+ friendly.

Hey Chris - thanks for chatting with us! Can you tell us a bit about yourself?

My name is Chris Bryan, and I am a sub-head within the IRT & Medication Management department in the Pharmaceuticals division at Bayer. I’m home-based in Nottinghamshire, UK and I’ve been at Bayer for 6 years.

Can you tell us a few of your favourite travel stories along with any tips you learnt along the way?

Slovenia: It’s such a beautiful small country where you can have an amazing city break with tons of things to see (Ljubljana) as well as having the luxury of losing yourself in its amazing green spaces. My top tip would be to include a trip to Lake Bohinj and not just join the busloads of tourists that go only to Lake Bled.

Lake Bohinj, Slovenia

Japan: I fell in love with all things Japanese at secondary school, and I finally managed to get there in 2016. I managed to cover 8 Japanese cities in Honshu as well as a trip to Seoul in 12 days, so although it definitely wasn’t a relaxing holiday, it will be eternally memorable. My top tips for things to see/do in Japan:

• Hakone: take a cable car over the sulphur-spewing volcano and see Mount Fuji on the boat across the lake
• Korakuen gardens in Tokyo
• Daikanyama district in Tokyo: a rare tourist-free space with an amazing brewery (Spring Valley)
• Kinkaku-ji Temple and Fushinmi Inari Shrine both in Kyoto, Hiroshima, and Miyajima island

USA (particularly the Southwest i.e. Arizona, Wyoming, Utah, Montana): it’s such a vast country and has destinations that cater to anything you’d ever want to do. Also, the fact that there is no language barrier makes things easier for us Brits. Top tips:

• Walk the Narrows at Zion National Park
• Take a guided tour of Monument Valley and Antelope Canyon in Arizona, using Page, AZ as your base
• Hike and try to see bears and elk in Grand Teton National Park
• And finally, stay in West Yellowstone (Montana) if you’re visiting Yellowstone; the locals are so welcoming, and the bars/restaurants are great, you might even get to see bison that have strayed away from the park.

Have you ever encountered homophobia while traveling?

Yes, I’d say that I have been ‘lucky’ in not experiencing any physical homophobic aggression, but I have had homophobic slurs directed at me in Paris, Venice and San Sebastian. Although, it might be that this has happened in other places I’ve visited, and I just didn’t know the local language.

Would you book a holiday in a country that is not LGBTQ+ friendly?

I try to avoid non-LGBTQ+ friendly destinations as I don’t feel comfortable contributing to the tourism economy of countries that legislate against our community, but there is also a part of me that feels that without the visibility of LGBTQ+ tourism, the slower the road to progress might be for that country. When I have visited non-LGBTQ+ friendly places, like Moscow, I felt more comfortable traveling alone, knowing that I would avoid the awkward conversations at hotels about sharing a bed with my partner and generally being less visible and reducing the likelihood of homophobia.

Does your company have relocation policies and benefits for same-sex couples?

Yes, my local (UK) Bayer policy covers ‘partners with whom the employee has cohabited in a common-law relationship for at least one year’, which would include any couple regardless of gender or sexuality.

Does your organization give LGBTQ+-related advice to its employees regarding safety? What advice do they give?

Yes, within the travel section of Bayer’s intranet, there is an ‘LGBT+ Legal Protections’ link to a Human Rights Watch web page which provides information on LGBTQ+ laws and includes a profile and report of selected countries’ LGBTQ+ laws (). However, there is more that we could do here. A more comprehensive resource could be referenced (e.g., https://www.equaldex.com/), which includes countries where anti-LGBTQ+ policies are not explicit (e.g., Russia), and we could make this information more accessible.

Would you move to a foreign country, which one, and why?

Yes, definitely, I lived in the French Alps during my university degree, so I would love to live in France again. I’m not a huge fan of the heat, so somewhere liberal with defined seasons would be ideal, like Berlin, Montreal, or Brussels.

Where is on your bucket list?

Alaska, Patagonia, and Costa Rica are at the top of the bucket list; hopefully, my partner and I will go to Costa Rica for our honeymoon, so I’ll need to re-organize the list at some point.