Congratulations to the winners of this year's PlanetOut Travel Awards!

Since 1994, our annual awards have recognized the best of the best in gay travel. The 2008 PlanetOut Travel Awards found the best of the buzz-worthy resorts, airlines, cruises, film festivals and more. Check out the winners (and runners-up) in our top ten categories by clicking on the links below. (Check back throughout the summer for winners in more categories.)

Country of the year
Best international city
Best domestic city
Best domestic gay resort town
Best gay resort
Best hotel collections
Best film festival
Best small and large tour operators
Best cruise company
Best airline

Awards background
Founded in 1994, this is the 15th annual awards presentation. We also feature gay and lesbian travel information on Gay.com Travel and PlanetOut.com Travel. In addition, PlanetOut, Inc. (the parent company of this website) offers the acclaimed quarterly gay travel magazine The Out Traveler and the new LGBT travel blog The Out Traveler GPS.

How we choose the finalists and winners
In addition to our panel of LGBT travel experts from all walks of personal and professional life, we include input from online members at Gay.com and PlanetOut.com via surveys and polls.

Our gay travel experts
We've assembled a panel of gay travel experts both inside and outside the world of PlanetOut, Inc. to help compile worthy finalists and vote on the winners. This group includes the following:

David Alport
David Alport is something of a gay travel guru. In 1992 David launched the breakthrough gay travel newsletter Out & About, which PlanetOut, Inc. purchased in 2000. Today, he provides strategic planning consulting for the travel industry. David enjoys a week in a tent at Burning Man as much as a week in a villa at the Four Seasons in Sayan, Bali. Read more at his travel blog: www.uprightandstowed.com.

Andrew Collins
Andrew created the first GLBT guidebook series for a major publisher (Fodor's, in 1996) and currently produces all of the content for The New York Times-owned travel site www.gaytravel.about.com. Also, since 1996 he has written the biweekly travel column "Out of Town," which appears in several gay and lesbian newspapers, and he's a contributing writer to Out Traveler.

Darren Frei
Darren Frei is the executive editor of ShermansTravel.com, a leading online guide to top travel deals and destinations. Before relocating from Los Angeles to New York City in 2007, Frei was the editor of The Out Traveler magazine, Gay.com/Travel and PlanetOut.com/Travel. He has also been entertainment editor at Genre magazine, editor in chief of Cybersocket Web Magazine and editor at IN Los Angeles magazine.

LoAnn Halden
LoAnn Halden is the associate editor of The Out Traveler, a contributing editor to gay.com/Travel, and the author of the upcoming Miami Eat guidebook, part of a new series from Globe Pequot Press. The Fort Lauderdale-based travel writer also contributes to Fodor's, TripAdvisor, ShermansTravel.com and numerous South Florida-based publications.

Derek Hartley
Derek Hartley has spent the past four years as co-host of the popular "Derek and Romaine Show" on Sirius Satellite Radio. Prior to the launch of "Derek and Romaine," Hartley had been a syndicated columnist for nearly a decade. His widely-read columns have appeared online and in print across the U.S. and around the world. His popular relationship column, FantasyMan Island, appeared weekly on PlanetOut.com for nine years.

Kenneth Kiesnoski
Kenneth Kiesnoski is editor for destinations at leading travel trade newspaper Travel Weekly, managing a global network of reporters and editors covering 21 destinations worldwide. Previously, he worked as a senior editor covering Europe, Mexico and the Caribbean, as well as gay issues, at Travel Weekly and other travel publications. Kiesnoski has also written on a freelance basis for gay media outlets such as The Out Traveler and Gay.com.

Michael Luongo
Michael Luongo has written about and photographed 80 countries and all seven continents. His gay travel work spans the glamorous to the dangerous, with coverage of South American beaches to Middle Eastern battles. His credits include The New York Times, Bloomberg News, Out Traveler, PlanetOut, Condé Nast Traveler and many others. He has several travel books, including Frommer's Buenos Aires, the U.S.'s best selling guidebook to the Argentine capital, and the thought-provoking Haworth Press book Gay Travels in the Muslim World. Visit him at www.michaelluongo.com.

Aefa Mulholland
Aefa Mulholland is a contributing editor with PlanetOut and TripAdvisor and editor at large with The Out Traveler. Her work has appeared in publications from the Miami Herald to the Irish Times, and on BBC Radio 1 and Ireland's Radio 1 and 2FM.

Frank Ruiz
Frank Ruiz is Lonely Planet America's public relations manager. A native Californian, his love for travel began at an early age with family vacations to the beach and Yosemite. As an adult, his ventures have taken him far beyond California's West Coast, to lands far and wide. His exploration of the world at large has helped him enjoy and appreciate the rewards of travel. From Andalucia to Zimbabwe and everywhere in between, Frank has been promoting Lonely Planet and encouraging people to make a connection wherever they travel.

Ed Salvato Salvato is PlanetOut Inc.'s corporate director of travel media and the editor in chief of the glossy quarterly print publication The Out Traveler. He oversees all travel content across PlanetOut's various platforms, which includes Gay.com, PlanetOut.com and Travel Guides. He's frequently quoted in the media as an expert in travel (gay and mainstream), writes several regular newspaper columns on travel and appears on both Sirius Satellite Radio's Sirius OutQ and XM radio's "The Agenda."

Paul Tomasiello
Based in San Francisco, Paul Tomasiello is responsible for a portfolio of airline relationships for Expedia Partner Services Group, ensuring that Expedia brands have the best assortment of airfares and products available. Previously, Tomasiello served in a variety of roles for Hotwire and America West Airlines. When not fulfilling his passion for aviation by traveling, he fills his time pursuing an MBA from the University of California, Berkeley.

Congratulations to all finalists and winners!