Before he became one-half of a popular influencer and content-creating couple with close to a million followers on social media, Matthew Schueller was bitten by the travel bug in a unique way.
He fell in love with an exchange student while in high school.
“I never left the country until I graduated high school,” said Schuller in a Zoom interview with News is Out. “So from the time that I was a baby to the time that I was 18 years old, I had spent nearly all of my time in Oregon.”
While in high school, Schueller met several exchange students and ended up falling for a friend he made from Sweden. This connection led to his first trip abroad at 18.
“I taught myself Swedish for eight months leading up to that trip on Rosetta Stone, downloaded from LimeWire, of course,” said Schueller. “I was so dedicated and wanted to know everything about his culture. When I got there, I went through all the stages of culture shock. I stayed there for two months, traveled around Europe a little bit, went to the UK, went to Denmark. It was a whole young European gay awakening experience.”
“It completely changed me and my life,” said Schueller. “Once I got a little taste of what travel was like, there was no going back.”
In an interesting twist of fate, Schueller’s husband, Dr. Michael Lindsay, discovered his love for travel in a similar way.
“He had a huge crush on a German exchange student, and he went abroad for the first time with that German exchange student,” said Schueller. “As far as falling in love with exchange students and traveling abroad and finding your gay awakening… I don’t know, it’s like a Eurovision love story.”
Schueller and Lindsay created their love story when they met as college students. Lindsay was just about to start Dental school in Nebraska, while Schueller was finishing up college in Seattle. After a while, Schueller closed the distance between them by moving to Nebraska to be with Lindsay while he attended dental school. This left the couple with an interesting opportunity to explore Middle America.
“You live in Lincoln, Nebraska; what are you going to do on the weekends?” said Schueller. “We had no clue unless we traveled somewhere. Being in the Midwest, you have Minnesota, Omaha, Kansas City and Denver, so we just drove everywhere. It was like every weekend we could, we were getting away to try to see other places and have these experiences together.”
A decade later, Schueller and Lindsay document and share their travels on Instagram and TikTok. The couple has traveled worldwide creating content in places like Australia, Thailand and South Africa.
Through Schueller and Lindsay’s travels, Schueller noticed a lack of opportunities for LGBTQ+ travelers in their 20s-40s for more intimate, group travel.
“Tons of my friends go on Atlantis and other cruise companies; that seems like one of the main options for LGBTQ+ people to get together and do a big travel event,” said Schueller. “I haven’t seen much else apart from that, where people my age can do a group queer tour itinerary together, specifically LGBTQ-focused. So, I saw that there was a gap.”
After talking with friends and followers, Schueller decided to take a leap.
“Oh my God, let’s just do it.”
Schueller and Lindsay are now hosting several trips abroad for LGBTQ+ people and allies. Schueller says these smaller and purposefully affordable group trips are meant to spark something in travelers.
“This is not travel in vain; it is travel with a purpose,” said Schueller. “We’re going to go have a great time, make some amazing memories, and you might learn something about yourself or the world.”
It turns out that this idea of community travel with a purpose and a sense of joy is proving quite popular. The couple’s first two trips to Greece and Costa Rica sold out. But their 2025 trip to Thailand still has some spots available, and there will be more to come. The trips are purposely less expensive than most LGBTQ+ travel company trips, as Schueller and Lindsay wanted to make them accessible to more of the community. For example, the Thailand trip costs roughly $2,400 for a seven day adventure, and includes the airfare from Bangkok to Phuket.
However, Schueller doesn’t believe that people need to wait until a trip starts to begin making connections and building community.
“That’s why as soon as people sign up for my trips, I’m inviting them into the group chat to meet the others,” said Scheuller. “I also host several group video calls in the months leading up to the trip so we have the opportunity to get to know each other better. Honestly, so many people want to get out there and travel but never have, and often the biggest barriers are not knowing how to travel safely or who your ‘people are’ to go with.”
So if you plan to travel with Schueller and Lindsay, you’ll be welcomed with open arms long before you actually get on a flight.
“The focus is really on finding community with people,” said Schueller. “Let’s go have conversations and get to know each other. ‘What brought you here? How can we be friends for the rest of our lives?'”