Before I visited Maspalomas, I had heard about how the super gay Spanish resort town was built around a giant mall full of gay pubs, gay show bars, gay cruising bars, sex clubs and underwear boutiques, which also contained multiple levels of mainstream shopping and restaurants. It seemed unlikely to me. But it exists: Yumbo Centrum, with more than 30 LGBTQ+ nightlife spots, envelops you like a Las Vegas casino, but with gay men instead of slot machines. If you like what you see, you’ll never want to leave.
But then again, there’s so much unlikely about Maspalomas, one of the gayest and also weirdest beach resort destinations in the world, Yumbo Centrum makes perfect sense. Please note: I’m going to first complain about Maspalomas, then get to what makes it a fun place to visit.
Located on the south end of the island of Gran Canaria, one of eight main islands in a Spanish-governed archipelago just off the coast of Morocco, Maspalomas was developed in the 1960s to be a special kind of tourist destination. Much of the architecture is Brutalist concrete, in which the businesses seem kinda lost. No thatched-roof tiki-style kiosks here. The layout of the town itself mostly ignores the huge beaches that purportedly provide the reason for its existence. Visitors who are spending most of their time in or near Yumbo wouldn’t even know they were in a beach community. While there is a cliff-top walkway along the main beach, Playa del Inglés, it’s mostly not commercially developed, and not lively, like a Malecón you’d expect in other beach resorts. You can walk the promenade for ages without finding a staircase that will take you down to the beach itself.
Along the main street, Avenida de Tirajana, many of the businesses are tucked behind parking lots or other structures, or require customers to go up or down stairs to reach them. The businesses themselves seem kinda lazy—so many mini grocery stores and half-assed restaurants with something for everyone on the menu.
Though Maspalomas does have hotels—and even gay clothing-optional resorts (see the listings below)—the accommodations are mostly bungalow rentals. These small detached mini-cottages are crammed together in low-rise gated subdivisions that are scattered in odd configurations around Yumbo Centrum. These subdivisions are mostly pedestrian-only, making them, on one hand, surprisingly walkable. On the other hand, because non-residents have to walk around these gated communities, the subdivisions create large obstacles to be circumnavigated to get from one part of Maspalomas to the other. Over the tops of the bungalows, you can see the mall you’re trying to get to, but you can’t walk toward it in a straight line.
The destination’s key natural attractions, aside from the beaches, are gigantic sand dunes, which are protected as part of a natural conservation region. They make you think of the Sahara desert because they are, indeed, part of the Sahara desert—sand blows from the Western Sahara out into the Atlantic Ocean and accumulates at the southern tip of Gran Canaria. Since the town is not built to focus on the beach, you might be thinking it’s built to focus on the dunes. But no, the urban planning ignores the dunes, too. The easiest way to reach them is walking through the Hotel Riu Palace Maspalomas, a posh hotel that marks the edge of town. Following a path through the hotel property, visitors arrive at an amphitheatre-like viewing platform.
Behind the huge sweeping dunes that are the subject of so much photography, there is a vast area of smaller dunes, punctuated by trees and bushes. These have become famous among gay men for being a cruising grounds, a controversial one because it is a conservation area.
And it’s true—guys have sex out here all the time. But the spots for cruising are less easy to find than a newbie might be comfortable with. The area is huge and looks the same no matter which direction you’re pointed in—guys have been known to wander around here for hours looking for action and never finding it. One afternoon I gave a Polish couple directions to an area where I had seen some cruising, and when I saw them the next day they told me they got confused by my directions and wound up at a golf course. Walking on the official marked trail through these dunes, you’ll sometimes see frustrated guys tugging at themselves, not knowing they have to wander much, much further from the path.
The marked trail through the dunes is the fastest way to walk to the gay clothing-optional section of the beach, located around kiosco number five. Because of the 20-minute walk, it first feels remote, hidden away from the rest of the world. A gay utopia? But it’s actually in the middle of a waterside pedestrian route people use to go back and forth from Playa del Inglés to Meloneras, a straighter and more upmarket section of Maspalomas. So take off your trunks and expose yourself to the parade of straight families out for a late-afternoon stroll to the lighthouse. Yikes.
And yet, and yet.
As much as we seek out picture-perfect vacation destinations, the ultimate test of a perfect holiday is who we met and how we spent our time with them. While Maspalomas seems to have been designed by people who hate the beach and hate holidays, visitors to Maspalomas come here for a very, very good time. Cheap flights bring in LGBTQ+ people from Germany, which comprises the largest group of visitors, the United Kingdom, Scandinavia and other parts of Europe. Even from Spain itself. They come singly, in couples and groups and they’re as open as they’ll ever be to a good time with new people.
Because so many of the bars are indistinguishable from one another, it’s always a case of a crowd attracting a crowd: one promenade around Yumbo and you’ll know exactly where you want to go, even if you pay no attention to the names of the bars or their purported themes. Listen to what language patrons are speaking—perhaps they are speaking German or Swedish? Can you speak German or Swedish? If not, move on until you hear a language you can speak.
The sex clubs are full of guys who would, perhaps, never do such things at home but are given permission by the blatant presentation of these venues; you can check out the sandwich board outside Noxon to see if it’s watersports night without having to get up from the grilled shrimp you’re dining on at one of Yumbo’s dozens of near-identical restaurants.
Take this vacation-mode readiness for adventure and double it during Pride, which next happens May 8, 2024, and Winter Pride, this year running November 6 to 12. Swarms of hedonists arrive from all over Europe to revel in the good weather and affordable prices. With the right frame of mind, you can make many new friends.
Because Maspalomas, which has a population of about 36,000, is not so big, and so much of it is in Yumbo Centrum, and most of the restaurants are passably unmemorable, recommendations aren’t as useful here as in other destinations. Here’s an anecdote that tells the tale: When a friend and I stood looking at a menu of one Yumbo restaurant, the host told us: “You eat here tonight, you eat over there tomorrow. Menu is same, prices are same, one Euro more or less. You can try them all, all are same.”
So true. But here are a few tips worth having in your pocket.
Maspalomas highlights
Bar Strand-Apo-Theke (Plaza del Faro 36, near the lighthouse, aka Faro de Maspalomas) is, can you believe it, the only gay bar on the beach, the only one from which you can look out at the ocean. It’s the perfect spot for watching the sun go down. And it’s a hoot. German patrons sing along to camp Euro hits and assorted Schlager while the friendly bar staff pulls pints and serves burgers. Wünderbar.
Club Torso Gay Resort (Avenida Touroperador Kuoni 8) is a clothing-optional gay-male resort and many of the rooms look out onto the swimming pool. There’s a gym and a cruising area, and they offer a day pass, so there are opportunities to meet non-guests.
AxelBeach Maspalomas (Av. Tirajana 32, Maspalomas). Even in this outré Atlantic outpost, this Barcelona-based “hetero friendly” chain manages to be stylishly sexy. The adults-only complex, in prime Playa del Inglés, has 92 modern apartment.
Sakura III (Av. de Tirajana 10, Maspalomas) serves decent well-priced Japanese food.
Though most of the cruising clubs are in Yumbo, where it’s easy to see which ones are busy or not, one of the biggest and best, Reds (Barbados II, Av. de Tirajana, 17, Playa del Inglés), is not in the mall, but out on the main street. On their website they have a complex calendar of theme nights but it all melts down to either a) naked or b) underwear. If you brought fetish gear you want to show off, just wear it. No one will judge you for going off-theme.
All right, if you insist, one Yumbo recommendation. Bar Na Und attracts an older German-speaking crowd who know how to dance. We’re talking waltzes, flamenco, salsa. Grab a partner and try out a few steps.
Get out of town. You’re on an island that has lots of natural beauty. Take a bus up into the mountains to the village of Tejeda or to the Risco Caído pre-Hispanic archeological site. You can also catch a bus to the island’s capital, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, which has better shopping, better restaurants and historical sites to visit.
