Valencia Gay Travel

Valencia gay travel recommendations for where to stay, gay nightlife, local gay beaches & top restaurants.

The Gay Travel Experience: Valencia, Spain

Valencia is rapidly gaining popularity as a prominent European gay holiday destination. With a fantastic restaurant scene, stunning architecture, extravagant gay nightlife and relaxing beaches, what’s not to love?

Ideal for a relaxing stay with friends, Valencia is a calmer city by day, but can certainly get wild at night. While it may not be that obvious, the Valencia gay nightlife scene is enormous.

Valencia is one of those European cities where everything feels perfect. The easy pace of Spanish life pervades the city. I adore the humming street cafés and the wonderful beaches, including the awesome local gay beach.

Whether you’re looking for a new destination, or you have plans to visit several cities in Spain, Valencia should be high on your list!

Gay Valencia: Hotels & Where to Stay

Where is the best place to stay in Valencia? Well, this city is much cheaper in comparison to Barcelona. Your Euros will go a lot farther, so staying in the city center is definitely worth it.

Valencia is quite walkable and offers public transport. I definitely recommend Valencia hotels right in the middle of the city.

I stayed right near the Colon metro station. Streets in this area are lined with cafés and restaurants. El Corte Inglés, a major shopping mall is a few minutes by foot. If you stay close to the center of the city, then you will find it easier to walk to all the city center attractions you’d like.

You may want to consider renting a car in Valencia. You can easily book a vehicle in advance to pick up at the VLC airport. Moving around will be easier, especially if you are staying out of the city center.

Getting to various spots like the City of Arts and Sciences as well as the gay beach will be more enjoyable. Public transport to the beach specifically can take quite a bit of time.

Valencia Gay Travel Experiences

Start out by strolling through Valencia’s Old City. Window shop the high-end fashion brands and peruse some local cafés.

The main city center is quite compact, so you can get the lay of the land in a few hours. Then you can make your way to other attractions.

Valencia Gay Beaches

Visiting Valencia between June and September? Head to Pinedo Beach.

Pinedo Beach is the main Valencia gay beach. Clean dunes and beautiful water make for a perfect afternoon of sun. There is a free nearby parking area and the walk to the shore is less than 10 minutes.

Bring enough water and food to the beach with you because there aren’t many establishments here. And don’t forget some good beach towels!

Even through September, the weather in Valencia is still perfect for laying in the dunes. Don’t be surprised if you see some naked people!

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Valencia Restaurants

Some of the cheapest restaurant food I’ve found while traveling the Mediterranean was in Valencia. My friend Jose, born and raised in Valencia, makes an interesting point—that going out to eat in Valencia usually ends up costing about the same amount as going to the grocery store and making your own meals!

This generally applies to restaurants you find in public plazas and main roads. Higher-end restaurants will obviously cost more.

Llar d’Empar is a picturesque seaside restaurant near Pinedo beach where I had the most delicious rice dish of my life. It was squid ink black rice with garlic sauce and I’ll never forget it! They have seating right on the water and also a covered outdoor area.

Sipping sangria while feeling the warm breeze off the ocean was like heaven. While they don’t have a website, here is the restaurant’s location.

I loved Llar Roman, and recommend this restaurant especially for groups. Llar roman is a high-end lunch and dinner restaurant that makes unbelievably good paella. I was lucky enough to join 7 gay Valencian locals for lunch here and I had such a fantastic time.

Closer to the city center, Ao Yama II is a fixed-price all you can order sushi restaurant. It’s about 20 Euros per person and you can order as many dishes as you like from the menu. My gay friend Jose and I ate so much that we needed to go straight home and nap.

Valencia Museums & Architecture

The City of Arts and Sciences was definitely my favorite attraction in Valencia. The campus of modern architectural buildings is breathtakingly beautiful

Designed by Santiago Calatrava, you will feel like you are on the set of a movie, or perhaps on another planet. Go during sunset to catch the stunning colors of a lifetime.

The awesome time lapse video below give a great quick view of the beautiful structures.

La Estrecha, the narrowest building in Europe is right here in Valencia! Measuring only 105 cm wide, it’s comical how small this thing is. I wish I could have gone inside! Great site to see, very close to many coffee shops and other attractions.

Café de Camilo is right around the corner, where you can smell the beans being freshly ground before your coffee is served.

Other great places to visit during the day are the Almoina Archeological Center, where you can check out some old Roman ruins beneath the city, as well as the Mercado Central de Valencia, an old-style grocery market.

If you’re thinking about visiting, here are 10 awesome facts about Valencia’s Central Market.

La Lonja de la Seda is also beautiful to check out, a Gothic style building with beautiful interiors. It only costs a couple of Euros per person.

Try Horchata

Don’t leave without trying some Spanish Horchata! Horchata is the traditional drink of Valencia. Refreshing and non-alcoholic, you can have it anytime, anywhere.

Many places will also sell you a liter of the stuff if you want to bring some home, so bought some to have with breakfast the next morning.

Valencia Gay Bars & Clubs

There are a ton of Valencia gay bars right in the town center, so it’s pretty easy to bar try more than one!

The Muse is a popular and relatively standard Valencia gay bar. They have plenty of space both indoors and out on the street earlier in the night. You can count on awesome DJs and a fun here at The Muse.

A favorite gay club in Valencia is Deseo 54. Deseo 54 is the only club space in Valencia that only hosts gay parties. Gay locals and gay travelers alike attend massive parties with world-renowned circuit-party style DJ’s.

While Moratin 7 is not so popular, it’s one final gay bar option. It has a convenient location, perhaps making a visit early in your night more convenient.

Valencia Gay Cruising & Saunas

Gay Spaniards also frequent Piccadilly Downtown Club for a rambunctious and upscale night out. While it’s not branded as a Valencia gay club, you’ll definitely find a lot of LGBT patrons there!

One of the most popular gay cruising spots in Valencia is a bar called Tête-à-Tête. While it’s a bit outside the city center, locals and tourists absolutely love Tête-à-Tête for its friendly atmosphere. They also host party nights, offering more than a typical gay sauna experience.

Spain Gay Rights

Back in the Roman Empire, marriage between men was actually commonplace! Later regimes were responsible for deeming same-sex activity illegal. Since 2005, MSM’s have been permitted to donate blood, gay marriage has been legal and LGBT adoption has been legal.

The workplace has protected sexual orientation discrimination sine 1995. Gender identity is protected in some regions, but not everywhere.

One of the highest acceptance rates of homosexuality is in Spain; 88% of the population supports it as of 2013. Rates of hate speech nationwide has slightly increased in recent years.

This has been taken seriously and in 2014, the government of Catalunya passed a law imposing fines over 10,000 Euros for any hate crimes against the LGBT community.

Discover more Spain gay travel destinations with wolfyy. Next, read about delicious tapas and local gay life in Seville.