Gay Vox is a relatively new site but one which is already making waves across the internet. That’s nothing particularly remarkable these days as many sites out there come on line and become a success over night. The thing that makes Gay Vox a bit more of an interesting story is that it is a French site. And not only that but it is written in French – but don’t let that put you off, I don’t speak much French and I was able to enjoy most of what it has to offer.

But what exactly is Gay Vox? Well, actually it’s several things. It’s a news and information centre for all things French and gay and worldwide and gay, it’s a guide to gay France, it’s a dating site and it’s a discussion board too. And all around the edges of all of that are interesting advertisements, galleries, links and snippets of information about gay lifestyle and health. Let’s start at the home page and work our way through:

On the home, ‘news’, page you are asked to log in, but this is not compulsory. You can still enjoy the site without being a member but signing up is free so you have nothing to lose by joining. As a member you will be able to see a little bit more and search for sexy French guys and girls looking for dates and chat, join in the forums and so on. There is also a search box for ‘Recontres’, which is what I would call ‘personals’, using this brings up pages of guys who are registered on the site but for a more detailed search there is a ‘Recontres’ section. Check the rest of the page before moving on and you’ll find links to various other sites and pages on a variety of themes: gay culture, news, articles, travel, shopping and health.

The next page along the top menu brings you a searchable database of events in and around France. Click the map to select your area and up comes the list of places, times and dates. This is a great function of you are going on holiday or taking a business trip to France; there is a drop down list where many of the themes are similar to the English: Sex-parties, Naturisme and Clubbing for example – simply choose what you’re looking for and click the area of the map you are visiting and there’s your list of things to do all laid out for you.

A more in depth description of what’s hot and what’s going on in the country can be found on the Guide page which again is image driven with a more detailed map. You could use the Forums to get into discussions about places to go and things to see, though you will probably need to read and write some French to do this. Or you could search out guys or gals near to your destination by using the personals part of the site.

Whether you speak French or not you should be able to find your way through Gay Vox and enjoy what it has to offer. The registration form is straightforward and if there are any words that don’t look familiar (many English words come from French so you may be surprised at how easy it is to follow) you could try using an on-line translator to help you along. One final thing to note, the personals database covers the entire world and not just France and French speaking countries so you are bound to find new friends who understand your language and who may even help you learn theirs. Like I said Gay Vox has become very popular very quickly and it’s easy to see why, even for non French speakers it’s a great site to visit.

The bottom line is you can basically Travel to France without being there and feel there culture.  If you have trouble with translating this site then download the Google Toolbar and just rightclick and that is the easiest way to see things in English or whichever language you prefer. You may also try Worldlingo.com which has a URL translation for pages of a site. You may also just have Google do it for you manually.