Hotel Gaythering: Miami’s gay hotel with a real community spirit
Stepping out of our 20-minute taxi from the airport onto the hot Miami pavement we are faced by Hotel Gaythering, a property catering for the LGBTQ+ community – the hint is in the name.
The hotel is only three storeys high, and it looks more like a motel than a hotel with the rooms’ doors connected by an external balcony rather than an internal hallway.
Walking into the lobby we are met by the incredibly friendly staff. To the left of the lobby desk is the bar and to the right is a room which acts as a space for viewing parties and a gallery, with many pieces of art from the hotel’s annual Art Gaysel event, a play on Miami’s Art Basel festival. Each December, the hotel closes so they can fill it with queer art for the event. There is also a mannequin wearing Monet X Change’s infamous sewing challenge sponge dress.
You’ll also find the entrance to the men-only sauna – inside it is small with a jacuzzi, sauna, showers and a corridor of rooms for other activities. The sauna is very clean and popular with guests and locals. Hotel guests can use the sauna for free.
While the sauna is men only, the hotel welcomes the whole LGBTQ+ community and actively tries to steer the straight community to other hotels. During our stay, we met a cute lesbian couple as we rode the lift to our floor and many more during the evening events in the bar. The hotel design, like its staff, have a fun, cheeky sense of humour and the three floor buttons in the lift are labelled ‘Bottom’, ‘Top’ and ‘Vers’ for the middle floor.
“The bed is big and comfortable, and the air conditioning keeps us cool”
We have one of the bigger rooms and there is an industrial vibe and a red, black and steel grey colour story throughout. The bedside tables have legs made of metal piping and the chest of drawers is an actual red Husky tool cabinet with 10 drawers, which was surprisingly efficient at storing our clothes. The bed is big and comfortable, and the air conditioning keeps us cool during our time in the city, when even the locals are complaining about the heat. On the wall we found a small ‘medical cabinet’ with condoms inside, and in the bathroom the shower featured a semi-transparent red PVC shower curtain. The room is full of little sexual innuendos and – not surprisingly – the property is a popular location for OnlyFans creators.
During our stay we also got to view one of the rooms with a little kitchenette, as well as the ‘crate rooms’, which are a set of 64-sq-feet rooms with 7-foot-high plywood walls. They call it Miami Beach’s “anti-hostel”, so if you are on a tight budget and don’t mind a shared bathroom between five units, it could be a great choice.
Drag bingo, karaoke and more in the hotel bar
We head down to the hotel bar for drag bingo, which gets a good turn out for a Thursday night. The bar’s ‘It’s Giving Crafties’ cocktail menu offers up plenty of cocktails to wet our whistles as we dab away at our bingo cards like a pair of grannies. The bar also hosts karaoke on Mondays, a trivia night on Wednesdays and RuPaul’s Drag Race viewing parties when it is on.
In the morning, we are back in the bar, where the complimentary breakfast is served. Cereal, yoghurts and fruit are available, along with a few hot items made to order.
Miami Beach is famous for Ocean Drive, the road where the Art Deco hotel’s face the long sandy beach. Hotel Gaythering is an eight-minute taxi to the beach, but the hotel offers complimentary beach towels, chairs, seats and coolers, as well as a bike to get you there or explore the city. We decide to walk, which is perfect as the hotel is at one end of Lincoln Road shopping district made up of eight blocks of shops and restaurants which takes you all the way to the beach.
Exploring the neighbourhood
At either end of Lincoln Road, we discover eight big stone planters covered in Progress Pride flag covers and at the midway point we find PRIDE247, a three-month installation featuring ribbons strung between several palm trees to form a rainbow by a Miami-based artists Laz Ojalde and Natalie Zlamalova.
Along the way to the beach, we visit many of the shops which range from high street brands to high end boutiques. We also stop at Harry’s Pizzeria, just off Lincoln Road, for lunch. The pizzeria was opened by James Beard Award-winning chef Michael Schwartz, who prioritises top quality ingredients for their pizza toppings and installed a huge pizza oven to promise a quick-fired crust. And each month, they partner with another restaurant to create a unique pizza of the month, so there is always something fresh on the menu.
Once we get down to the beach, we walk the beautiful boardwalk and visit the rainbow-painted 12th Street lifeguard tower which marks the area’s gay section of the beach. Then we head to Axel Beach Miami for an afternoon by the pool. Axel is a “hetero-friendly” hotel chain, and we found the clientele around the pool was a 50/50 split queer and straight. Hotel Gaythering doesn’t have a pool or a gym, so a visit to the beach or a day pass somewhere like the Axel is a good way to fulfil your sunbathing needs.
Conclusion
During our four nights at Hotel Gaythering we enjoyed the neighbourhood location, and the staff was always friendly and chatty. While it lacked a pool or beachfront location, its charm and welcoming atmosphere more than made up for it. The hotel was also just listed on Hotels.com’s Perfect Somewheres 2024 campaign, which selected the top 1% of hotels on its platform based on customer reviews.
For more info, visit hotelgaythering.com.
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