I’m very lucky in that I grew up in a family, a school and surroundings where it was fine to be gay. Nobody really cared all that much when I told them and nothing much changed in my life. I know that I’m incredibly lucky in this sense. What it means for me is that I’m not all that used to specifically talking, or even thinking about being gay – it just is. I’m much more likely to bore you with stories about my trip to Africa or the plot of the latest Good Wife episode.

However, when you’re travelling, life is a nonstop shuffle of new people and new places. This means that recently I’ve been faced with situations and conversations that I’m not used to having all that often, and which newly remind me that I’m an LGBT traveller! Sometimes it’s great, and means I’m having a new cultural experience or have met a new travel buddy and sometimes it’s not so great because I’m trying to escape the creepy guy at the bar. So here are what I think are the Top 15 times you remember you’re a lesbian whilst travelling:

1. When you check into the all-female dorm at the hostel and the member of staff keeps looking up from the computer to double and triple-check that you are, in fact, a girl.
2. When foreign taxi drivers ask you ‘Why are you travelling alone? Where is your boyfriend?’ and you wonder how long this journey is going to be.
3. When your new roommate asks you if you have a boyfriend.
4. When Thai ladies stop you in the street to tell you you’re handsome.
5. When you log onto tinder, set your radius to 50km, and there are still no other gays to be found.
6. When you’re being a wingman for your roommate who is desperate to go home with the guy in the muscle vest and all his friends are also wearing muscle vests.
7. When you’re out with your travel buddy and two guys come over to buy you drinks and she gives you the look of ‘do your duty’
8. When girls look so great in shorts
9. When somebody drunk you’ve literally just met asks you to recite your entire sexual history
10. When a weird Icelandic couple invites you back to their bungalow. No Thank you.
11. When you tell the creepy guy who’s hitting on you you’re gay and he decides to see that as a challenge.
12. When you’re walking home at night and you suddenly remember that not all countries are cool with LGBT people and that you’re all alone and can’t exactly remember where your hostel is.
13. When all the ladyboys hit on you just in case.
14. When you accidentally hit on a ladyboy.
15. At the beach – when everyone is wearing a bikini and has a great tan and nobody can see you looking behind your sunglasses (You hope)