This New Boutique Travel Agency Offers Guides By Queer Icons and “It Girls”

13.07.2024 - 12:33 / cntraveler.com

Corinne Hamilton wants to bring the romance back to travel.

The visual artist and renowned Manhattan club kid devised her boutique travel agency and online magazine Haunt with the aim of helping people get out of the hotel and onto the streets. “I want to eschew the glossy tourism tropes of people who never leave a resort,” Hamilton tells me. “I want them to get their feet on the ground. Visit some authentic mom-and-pop places—places they wouldn’t normally think to go to.”

Haunt was established—purely by coincidence, says Hamilton—by and for queer people. Imbued with a gothic feminine touch, its website is populated with exclusive guides prepared by like-minded people she’s met on her travels: eccentric locals, esteemed artists, and “it girls” who share their favorite haunts in cities across the globe. “Through immersing myself in this realm of unconventional connections and sharing information, which I think a lot of trans women do to survive, that allowed me the agency to explore the world,” she says.

For the site’s debut—which Hamilton rang in this past May with a swinging electroclash party in Hollywood attended by Hannah Einbinder and other stars—queer icon Amanda Lepore wrote a personal guide to New York City, abundant in downtown nightclubs and public baths. Hamilton herself offers consultations, wellness retreats, and bespoke travel planning for up to 12 people per trip. A resident astrologer, Stevie Goldstein, is also available to consult on ideal timing and locations. “J.P. Morgan never did anything without an astrologer,” says Hamilton, citing the famed investment banker’s penchant for consulting the cosmos.

Shortly after the glitzy launch of Haunt, I caught up with Hamilton for iced coffees at Loupiotte Kitchen, a cozy French bistro in the Los Feliz neighborhood of Los Angeles. We spoke about building a global network of queer travelers, her favorite local discoveries, and how to plan the vacation of a lifetime.

A version of this article originally appeared in Them.

Corinne Hamilton celebrated the debut of Haunt this past May with a swinging electroclash party in Hollywood attended by Hannah Einbinder (right) and other stars.

What was your first major travel experience?

I am from Monterey, California. Big Little Lies territory. The kind of a town that is full of rich old white people masquerading as Democrats when they’re really conservative. That was interesting for me, being a little gay and trans kid. I always had these dreams of going to New York, then escaping to Paris... Not wanting to be wherever I was. [In high school,] I went on a trip to London for a theater trip, and that was my first exposure to any other culture that wasn’t American.

Since then you’ve become an artist,