Gay Bear Travel Hacks

Common Bear Travel Hacks

  1. Maintain your community relationships
    • In a group it's easy to split the cost of an entire apartment or a larger room in a hostel.
    • If you're well-connected, it's easier to find a place to stay directly with friends in that location.
    • Travelling together is more fun, apart from the fact that you can get a cheaper group ticket on the train, for example.
  2. Buy travel tickets as soon as possible, as they tend to get much more expensive as the travel date approaches.
  3. Find out in advance how public transport works in your area and take advantage of cheap daily or multi-day tickets for public transport.
  4. When you arrive, just take a small sip of tap water. This shouldn't "kill" you, but allow your body to better adapt to the local composition of the water and the bacteria it contains.
  5. When travelling by plane, take an empty 0.5l PET bottle in your hand luggage - you can refill it with drinking water after security check and save money on overpriced bottled water at the airport.

Bears Sitges Hacks

Why Sitges?

Bears Sitges Week is one of the largest week-long bear festivals in the world.

This festival, held every year in Sitges, Spain, 35km south of Barcelona attracts more than 8,000 visitors, bears of all types, their fans and admirers.

How To Get There?

  • Simply purchase a flight ticket to Barcelona (from our location we prefer to use the Spanish airline Vueling)
  • There are two terminals at the airport (T1 and T2), between which you can take a free shuttle-bus, just follow the pictograms at the exit of the terminal.
  • There are coaches Bus Garraf that run directly from the terminal T1 to Sitges.
  • From the terminal T2 you can take train RENFE R2 Nord.
    In any case it can be more convenient, although you need get off at the first stop El Prat de Llobregat and change to the train to Sitges.

    Be extra vigilant when boarding the train at the airport and at the El Prat de Llobregat station - sometimes there are gangs who can steal your wallet or luggage.

    Besides, we like to take this train, which is even slightly cheaper than the bus.
  • Use also services of Partners of Bears Sitges Week, we would like to highlight Lemon Transfers as a pleasant and reliable transport.
  • If you are staying in an apartment, ask the owner, they are often able to offer you their own transport at a reasonable price.

Bear Package - Yes or no?

  • the bear package contains an official t-shirt
  • other gifts, discounts and vouchers from partners
  • on top of that it contains a ticket for the official dinner, which is rich "all you can eat"

With the T-shirt of Bears Sitges and The Official Dinner we find it very valuable, for us it is must-have and we buy it every year.
We strongly recommend :)

Suitable Location of Accommodation

Sitges is a relatively small town. All the important things are within walking distance of the centre, which is probably the Plaça del Cap de la Vila.
Therefore, if you choose any accommodation in Sitges within 1 km of the Renfe Sitges train station heading south towards the sea, you'll get everywhere you need to go just fine.

If you love being on the nude beach during the day, accommodation further east behind the church of Ermita de Sant Sebastià may be even more suitable, from where it's really a short walk to the nude beach of Platja dels Balmins, which literally turns into a bear parade during the festival :)

If you don't have your own car, we definitely don't recommend staying in places away from the centre, like car-camps and smaller hotels towards Vilanova, as you will isolate yourself from the main events and you won't be happy.

Visit Barcelona?

Don't make the mistake that many bear tourists make every year - splitting up their accommodation for a few days in Barcelona and then move to Sitges.

We highly recommend not doing this.

Barcelona is very easy to reach from Sitges by train RENFE every 30 minutes from 5:40AM in the morning until 11:30PM in the evening.

  • ideal to go sightseeing on a day when the weather is not suitable for lounging on the beach or even when the red flag is up
  • by not having a fixed time when you have to be in Barcelona, you get flexibility in when to go into the city, making the best use of the time and the weather
  • one accommodation for the whole time in Sitges will work out cheaper than two accommodations including the time lost with double check-in/checkout and arranging transportation with luggage

Low-Cost Sitges Hacks

First of all, we would like to dispel the often spread myth that Sitges is "terribly expensive".

Although it is a tourist resort, we don't find the prices to be exorbitantly high, probably one could say that they are similar to those in Germany - that is, e.g. services, restaurants, bars have slightly higher prices, while in the supermarket you can find cheap but good goods.

When staying in an apartment where you can even cook for yourself, you're sure to find a way to combine your meals with a few visits to a restaurant serving excellent local cuisine and regular supermarket food.

The low-cost approach can be complemented by the previously mentioned package containing a ticket to a lavish all-you-can-eat dinner, especially if you can't afford another visit to a better restaurant.

Accommodation as cheap as possible

  • As we mentioned in common bear hacks, the trick is to have group accommodation
  • For a good price, book your accommodation as early as possible, no later than March
  • Ideally, the moment the event is over, book accommodation for the following year immediately
  • If you will be looking for accommodation from May onwards, the prices will already be very high and it will even be difficult to find accommodation, then you have no choice but to wait, until someone cancels and the comes up for bid
Booking.com

Buying groceries

Don't worry, Sitges is still a town where ordinary people live.
We mostly use:

  • Mercadona, Carrefour, Lidl
    • Those who like to cook will appreciate Saturday's deep discounts (especially on seafood) before Sunday's closing day
  • A juicy grilled chicken (whole ~€10) can also come in handy, La Oca will pack it to go
  • Also take advantage Partners of Bears Sitges Week, many of them have special offers, such as a huge triple XXXL burger, just right for a bear stuffing :)

Free admission events in Sitges

Except for special events and occasions prepared by Partners of Bears Sitges Week, venues are free, including the famous Bear Village in the evening.

  • There is no charge for beach admission, but if you want a good spot on the beach, it's a good idea to arrive early (by about 11AM)
  • Since it's a small town, you can get around on foot for free
  • You can also join the tourist trips prepared by bear organizations in the official program for free, like:

Any other beaches?

In the neighbouring town of Vilanova i la Geltrú there are also nice, large and even naturist beaches.

  • The best way to reach them is to take the train to Cubelles and then walk to Platja Llarga
  • They can come in handy especially for the days of the last weekend, which is usually very busy in Sitges

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