Turning Travel Into A Global Queer Party With Vivian Perez
Get ready to pack your bags — and your pride — because we're going on an adventure with Vivian Perez, the powerhouse behind Ladies Touch Events & Travel! In this episode, Vivian shares how she went from throwing epic lesbian parties in L.A. to leading unforgettable trips around the world — think Egypt, Puerto Vallarta’s first lesbian Pride, and beyond. We dive into how a simple feather turned into a symbol of empowerment, how Vivian’s shaking up the travel game for queer women, and why creating safe, badass spaces for women of color and the LGBTQ+ community is her jam. Expect stories, laughs, travel inspo, and a whole lot of heart. If you're all about authentic vibes, new adventures, and finding your people wherever you go, you’re gonna love this one!
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Turning Travel Into A Global Queer Party With Vivian Perez
Meet Vivian Perez, the East Coast native who turned a feather into a global lesbian travel revolution. Back in 2006, she looked at LA's queer women scene and thought, “Honey, we can do better.” Armed with nothing but a feather for that signature entrance stroke and a vision, she launched Ladies Touch Events. By 2016, she had a bigger question. Why should queer women have to choose between traveling alone or not traveling at all? Good question. Now, Ladies Touch Travel is crushing it, bringing 100 women living their best lives in PV in Puerto Vallarta Pridecation, making history with Cape Town's first-ever lesbian pride event, and casually taking 60 sapphics down the Nile, as one does. This is Pride Nomad Unleashed with Vivian Perez, as one feather stroke turned into a global sapphic travel empire.
That’s awesome. I love that.
From Feather To Flight: Launching A Global Queer Travel Empire
Tell me about the feather because I looked at the website, and it wasn't clear how the whole feather wrapped into things.
When we started Ladies Touch, we started it as entertainment, doing nightclub events and social events. That was in Los Angeles. I had just moved from New York. The feather was something that we wanted to create an experience, not just a man having drinks, partying, and finding the hot girl. We wanted people to feel a certain vibe and experience from the moment that they walked in. We picked a venue that was very lounging and sexy, had a nice ambiance, red in colors, and lighting. It had an Asian Bohemian decor. We played off of that. We say, how fun would it be to sit here and feather the girls as they walk in.
Years later, people were like, “Where's the feather?” I thought that having the feather at the events was something that created a certain synergy and energy in the space. It took away the negativity as people walked in because we know, as many women who were at our parties back then, we never had problems like fights or cattiness. It was a sexy, upscale feel that the women would experience when they were at our parties back then.
Are you back to feathers again?
We throw the feather in every so often. We had a boat party last year. We do a yearly white boat party. Everybody dressed in white in Los Angeles. We had our feathers. We had these beautiful models with big angel wings, and they would feather the girls as they were walking.
I think it's awesome because you get to be known. It's your branding, and people get to start. That's neat. That's very cool. Primarily, where's your favorite destination? First of all, let's get to that.
Top 3 Queer Travel Hotspots: Costa Rica, Brazil & Africa Explored
I always get this question. What's your favorite place? There are so many places I like for different reasons. If I had to sit here and break it down, I would say my top three, because it's hard to say the top one. I love Costa Rica for its nature and its airy vibe, or what they call the Pura Vida. Pura Vida means pure life, enjoying the little things. I love Costa Rica.
Where in Costa Rica?
In particular, I like Manuel Antonio. Manuel Antonio has a nice expat community and beautiful beaches. I love the mountains and the animals. You're sitting here and resting, and at 4:00 AM, you hear these howler monkeys that are crawling through the rainforest, not far from your window. I love that. It's unique. If I had to say a party place, that's Brazil. I love Rio de Janeiro. I love taking our girls there, and for people to experience not only the culture but also the festive energy that Rio de Janeiro particularly has.
Africa has a special place in my heart, too. I don't think people could wrap their heads around how amazing Africa is. I still have yet to visit so many other destinations, but everywhere that I've been to, Africa so far has been breathtaking. I was in Zimbabwe and cried when we were leaving. I don't get those kinds of emotions from traveling to a place. Africa is one of a kind.
I've only done Kenya and South Africa. There's so much more, but either way, they were fabulous. I know Kenya has some LGBT rights issues, but I didn't go being gay. I went on a trip with cool people. I didn't feel any discomfort at all. This was many years ago. There's so much to see and do. It's insane. What is the bucket list for you? You gave me some of the three great places and good choices, by the way.
Bucket List Adventures: Vietnam, India & Polynesian Dreams
We have it on our calendar for next year. We're going out to Vietnam, which I'm excited about. I'm excited about India because India has a plethora of things. I think that people relate slums and poverty to India, but I know that there's a whole other world to India because I have a couple of Indian friends. They go, “You've got to check out this, this, and this.” Those two I'm excited about. This year, we're going to do the French Polynesian islands, which I'm excited about. We're doing it as a couple’s trip, getting other queer women couples out there. We're making it extra special by having a local Polynesian shaman do a love ceremony for us. I'm excited about that.
People couldn’t really wrap their head around just how amazing Africa is. It is just breathtaking.
I'm interested in Finland. I want to go up, have that Christmassy experience, go to Lapland and some sleighing, sit here, and ride with the horse and the dogs. Those are some of the things that are on my radar right now that I'm excited about exposing, not just to myself but to our community. When I started Ladies Touch Travel, I knew that the intention was to get more queer women to travel. I've been grateful to IGLTA, which has provided me with some amazing contacts around the world where we have done some great business and produced some good trips. Now, our list continues to grow and develop because we've been able to offer such good products. That's been exciting. I see the need. When I started getting into it, I didn't realize how this was all going to play out.
It's therapeutic if you think about it. Our market is LGBTQ digital nomads and those who aspire to be, which is a bigger audience than those who are nomadic. It is interesting. Everyone has a vision. Even if it's only a couple of weeks a year, they're doing something. I came back from the Gay Ski Week at Whistler. I see people every year going to that. I've been doing this event for 25 years or so. It's a fun week to go.
You're seeing people who have this as their week. You see the same people, which is not the drone of all those same people. I see the same people. I see my people, my tribe because it does give you that ability to experience new things with some familiar people as well. I did a year with Tony Robbins a year ago, and it was the same folks pretty much throughout the year. It was a very cool journey, which was neat. For you, doing that and giving people that experience, how does that feel for you?
Beyond Vacations: Empowering Queer Women Through Travel
I'm super grateful. It's honoring and humbling at the same time. I have all these different emotions, good emotions around it. As I said, I knew that the vision and the idea was to create more spaces for queer women and how I see everything unfolding. This is crazy. This is amazing. Especially because, with women of color in particular, it gets smaller and smaller as far as what quality options we have. I've had people in the industry say, “Queer women don't spend money. Women of color don't travel.” All these things that they have in their mind about what we are. I’m like, “Really? Let me show you the seven-figure business that I have. I don't believe what you think is true.”
It's so awesome. I love to see the joy in the eyes of the girls when they have these new experiences, and the tears standing right underneath the Sphinx of Giza. We're having an odd experience like being on a Safari in South Africa. I think one thing that 2020 has opened up for me is not taking moments for granted and living fully, all out. If we're going to do something, we're going to do it all the way. If we're going to have an experience, we're going to have the max experience because you don't know what the next day holds.
That's true. How big are the groups that you're bringing?
It depends on the project we have. I would say our typical group size is twenty. That's more for cultural trips. When we have trips that are around events like things around pride, we tend to have more, anywhere from 40 to 100 women, depending on the destination. It depends on the project. That's typically the size that we go for.
You get the intimacy for the cultural piece, the education, and the party. You want to be big because you want the energy. That's smart because I see people hoodwinking, structuring their business is strictly cultural. You're bridging both, which is cool.
People don't realize that in different cultures, they have parties and fun, and in Egypt, on the Nile, dancing to Arabic music.
Years ago, I was in Nepal. My mom and I travel a lot together. We were in Kathmandu. Little did we know that the time we were there was for this very heavy-duty women's festival. It was called so. Forgive me for that.We met this young guy walking down the street, and he attached himself to us. First, our spidey sense was to better watch out, but it was lovely. We ended up hanging out with the women there. They're all dancing. This thing was wonderful. It was so spectacular. The girls have a party. The more you have, the better. It goes that way. Super smart. You said something about a seven-figure business. How are you building this business? How are you attracting these women to come on your trips and turn it into such a successful enterprise?
Building A Travel Collective: Co-Curated Trips & Influencer Collaborations
When I first started, I started with our branded trips. That led to us being more of a collective. What happened was that we worked with collaborators and influencers on our trips. They're like, “We like what you're doing. Can you create something like this for us?” We work with different content creators to put together these kinds of trips. What's unique is that we have a queer baseline. A lot of the tour guides that we work with are queer. They have to be queer-friendly. They need to know the queer culture to create the trips that we want for these groups.
Other companies out there create trips for content creators, but they're not going from that angle. It’s just, “Let me do this tour or this trip.” A lot of what we do is co-curate these trips with the content creator, depending on what their interests are. The group that we had here in Riviera Maya was more dedicated to wellness. It was an older group, mostly from Southern California. A lot of what we did with them was around healing work and stuff like that.
We have different things that we offer as far as co-management and curating. That helped us spread our wings a little bit. We don't just have our branded Ladies' Travel trips. We also manage and co-curate these other trips with other partners that we work with. It worked out that way. It's still the goal that I had from the beginning, which was to have more queer women traveling. It’s funny, I’ve said to myself. In my mind, I had a particular idea, but the universe, or whatever people may call it, directed it this way. The goal is still being achieved.
The thing that is important to me is, at Pride Nomad, we bridge both sides of the equation. We're certainly traveling as a component of being a digital nomad, obviously, but the people who are traveling that are truly nomadic still have to pay for their lifestyle. They are either location-independent workers for other companies, they're freelancers, or they have their own company. We're still a business side to the equation, location-independent business, and preferably independent location-independent business, as well as the whole travel piece, which is interesting. It seems like you're bridging both, too, because certainly, travel is your business, but by virtue of your lifestyle, how many days a month are you home?
Sometimes, I'm not even home. I would say out of the whole year, I'm probably at home about a month.
You're a digital nomad.
Here's the thing. Between actually managing the groups and then sitting here and scouting, we just finished this group trip. I'm in Tulum now, and I'm scouting here in Tulum because I have a client who wants to do something in Tulum next year. From Tulum, we go over to Puerto Vallarta because, in Puerto Vallarta, we have to tie up some loose ends for our group trip that's in Puerto Vallarta in May. In Puerto Vallarta, we're at home for four days, and then from home, we jump on a plane to Cape Town. We're in Cape Town for two weeks, then we are off to India for two weeks because we're scouting in India. After that, we're back home for a little bit, and then we take off. It's this constant movement.
Community & Connection: Fostering Belonging In Queer Travel
One thing, as I said, I got married. My partner, my wife, is as enthusiastic about travel. When we met, I loved that she was already world-traveled. When she saw the picture of what I was putting together, and she comes from a media background, she was, “We can do something together and build this.” The funny thing is that we have the same name. We're both Vivians. When we're traveling around the world and we're connecting with our groups, everybody says, “The Vivians.” We travel together. She documents a lot of the locations and things. All of these things, we're constantly moving, and it works for us. We don't have fur babies. We don't have children. It feels like our group travelers are our children. We're very fulfilled in that maternal way.
It's special that way. The underlying reason why I even created this whole thing was that I'm single. I've been single way too long. I want the right husband. The right husband is going to be someone like your Vivian. Your Vivian is someone who loves to travel, someone who can go on a dime. It's not going to be a chiropractor in Cleveland, for example, because they're stuck. It's got to be someone who is, “Wait, something is happening in Paris this week? Do you want to go?“ or “I've already booked. I've booked ourselves a trip down to Rio. Paris next.” That's the kind of person you want to be with. That’s awesome. Pride Nomad has turned into much more. Now, it's about being on a mission because certainly, what I'm seeing right in the world, we need to be so excited.
People want to be heard and people want to be understood.
We need to be able to tell people, “You can try and take all the rights away from us, but we have a better life than you do anyway. You miserable one.” I've been writing a lot of copy lately. I'm in a very aggressive mood at the moment because what we're doing is about changing the world, helping you get more women on the road, experiencing this lifestyle, and empowering you to live your best life is the most important thing out there. The only way we're going to change the world is by getting our message out, by letting people in Vietnam, in Kenya, in wherever see that there’s nothing to be afraid of. We're even more fun than they are, so they'd better hang out with us.
We've had that experience. It's a two-way street. I think that a lot of times, people have been surprised also because although we go to these destinations and they change our lives, we also change theirs. We change their perceptions. When they realize all this is normal, they're cool. We've had so many people who have been on our trips who cry when we leave because of the impact that we make on their lives equally. That is sitting here and exposing people to all these different things on both sides. I agree with you.
I think that what people forget and with everyone I interview, I learn something new, or I'm reminded of fundamental things that I've taken for granted. What's true for you is that you don't just provide travel, you change lives. You give these women experiences that they will never forget, that will transform who they are, that will give them a different vision of themselves and be of the world, and see what's possible for themselves as well. That's a big deal. I don't know that everyone, even you, recognizes the massive impact that you're making because it's pretty amazing. I want to acknowledge you for that because it means a lot. You take it in stride. You are changing the lives of people every single trip.
Trip Disasters & Triumphs: Navigating Travel Industry Challenges
Even when you're doing a fam trip, and even when you're doing a scouting trip, you're still making that difference. You're going out to look for experiences, and you're talking to people or influencing them. It's a big deal. I want to acknowledge that. I know I'm getting metaphysical here, but you breathe it in. Whether a flight is missed or there are challenges, what drives you past that? What has been the biggest challenge you've experienced to date, the biggest disaster, and how did you overcome it? Listen, queers are drama queens. Come on, we've got to get it.
I'll tell you something that happened on this trip. When we plan these trips out, we usually plan them a year in advance so people can do their payment plans and so on and so forth. We picked two venues that we thought would be a good fit for the healing wellness that the host wanted to convey to her travelers. When we do the trip and we're there, it's so different than what we signed up for. When I was at the hotel in 2024, I tasted the food, and the food was amazing. The rooms are nice. This is a good spot. A year later, the food tastes like crap. The rooms are meh. It wasn't cheap. Some of the rooms were even close to $500 a night. It wasn't a cheap venue.
Anyway, the point is that we had that venue, and then the second venue, which was more rustic and inland. It was the same thing. We looked at the website, everything, the reviews. When we got there, water's trickling, there's no water, or the toilet doesn't flush. The only thing functioning in the second venue was the food. At least the food was decent compared to the first one. A couple of the clients were freaked out and wanted to leave.
How did you manage that?
One, I listened. One of the things I've learned in doing my own personal development work is that people want to be heard, and people want to be understood. I was very transparent with them. I was like, “Look, this wasn't what it was last year. There could be different factors for why. I'm not sure why, but this is what it is right now.” Acknowledge how you feel. We would talk through it. I tried to make sure that I could do the best that I could.
We had to go tell management, “Come change the mattresses. The mattresses are bad.” All these different things. This wasn't what we anticipated. The owner was a Mexican female. She came and apologized. She said that she's had some financial challenges and this and that. The girls were able to troop it up for a couple of nights, but I know it was tough for them. I don't know if that would be the biggest disaster, but it was like, “God, here we go. “
Egypt's Hidden Gems & Travel Secrets: Closing Thoughts & Offers
What was your biggest pleasant surprise? You went somewhere and had no idea this was that amazing.
Egypt. Hands down. I was so hesitant to do Egypt because I was going to take a bunch of lesbians to Egypt. What is that like? Again, IGLTA has provided me with some amazing contacts. I had a sit-down with Ramez, who is the business developer for High End Journeys. I don't know, but something about him said that we would be okay. I trusted him. The good thing is that the first group that I had was my regulars. If anything were to go wrong, it was my regulars who trusted me.
We did the trip, and it was life-changing. These girls were so touched by the people, by the experiences, by the culture, everything. I keep learning even more about Egypt. In 2024, we were in Gouna and in Soma Bay, which is like the Caribbean, stunning. You don't see any Americans there. I think we were the only Americans on that side of the country. What a gem that people don't know about. That's amazing.
I've never even heard of that. I'm not in Egypt yet.
I'll send you those places. You could check them out because it'll blow your mind. We went snorkeling. It was beautiful, and the beach was the color of my dress.
I'm excited now. Every time I do an interview like this, it's like adding one more place. I don't know how I'm going to even run my life now. I want to go here, I want to go there. I don't want to do it for two days. I want to do it for two weeks at a time because I want to be able to breathe it in. It becomes a challenge, but it's fun. You've been home maybe a month out of the year. A lot of times, when I was doing that, my pets didn't know who I was because I was gone so much.
Our time is fun. I can't believe we're so way over time. I've had a blast with you. I love to have you back more. It was a bunch of fun. I know you've got a couple of special offers for people. I'm going to leave it as a surprise to everybody. All you have to do is go to the show notes, and there'll be a link to Vivian's website and to what Vivian has decided to do for you guys. It's also to protect her because if she wants to make it better or even more exciting, she can. This will be evergreen.
You'll see her offer a link to her site and everything. Tell her that you saw this episode, so she knows where you came from. Go travel with her because, as you can tell, she's a riot. Unfortunately, I don't have the right body parts to join you guys, but either in spirit. We should probably have had you do some joint venture trips where you've got the girls' group and the boys' group. You go do your separate things, then you meet together. That's something to play with. You have a very fun trip, because why should we be denied? Vivian, thank you so much for joining us.
My pleasure. Thank you for having me.
Thank you so much. We'll see you guys next time.
Important Links
About Vivian Perez
Founded in 2006, Ladies Touch Events & Travel started as a space for LGBTQ women to connect through inclusive and vibrant events in Southern California. Over the years, we became known for hosting some of the most celebrated LGBTQ women’s gatherings, creating a community that thrives on connection, celebration, and adventure.
In 2016, we expanded into travel, bringing that same sense of community to curated group experiences worldwide. Since then, we’ve taken travelers to stunning destinations like Brazil, Egypt, Greece, Mexico, and Thailand—creating spaces where LGBTQ women can explore, connect, and celebrate life.
Our impact continues to grow:
Puerto Vallarta Pridecation: Hosted up to 100 guests for an unforgettable Pride experience.
South Africa: Brought 100 travelers in just two years.
Egypt: Welcomed 60 travelers in the past two years.
Cape Town: Proudly hosted the first-ever Lesbian Pride event in 2023.
2025 Bookings: Over 300 travelers already confirmed for our branded and collaborative trips.
2026 Expansion: Ladies Touch Travel is gearing up for new adventures in even more destinations like Vietnam, India, Roatan, and Morocco.
What sets us apart? Our trips blend cultural immersion, adventure, and connection. Whether sailing down the Nile, partying at Pride in Amsterdam, or exploring ancient ruins in Machu Picchu, every experience is designed to foster community, good vibes, and lifelong memories.
