Watermark’s Most Eligible – Tampa Bay: Aaron Drake

Age: 31

Hometown: Tipp City, Ohio

How you identify: Gay

What’s your sign: Leo

It’s Aaron’s quest for adventure that led him to graduate high school early and leave his hometown behind to study abroad in college.

“I came out when I was 13,” he recalls, noting that “my family wasn’t originally supportive, so I could not wait to get out of there.” He remembers Tipp City as a “small, conservative, pretty much all-white, religious town.” It was studying overseas that taught him, “there’s a whole world out there that people from my hometown would probably never experience.”

He’d soon help others experience that whole world as a freelance travel writer, which he now describes as “pretty much my life.” Aaron uses his craft, and his love of travel, to write about hotspots around the globe and all that they offer.

“There’s just something exciting about being in a place that you’ve never been before, and having to find your way through that,” he says. His favorite destinations so far are Paris, Venice, Hawaii and Los Angeles, a city he once called home. “Everybody has their own story and their own culture, and it’s amazing.”

Aside from travel, Aaron’s German Shepherd Delilah and the beer lovers group he runs, St. Pete Queer Craft Brews, occupy his time. The group invites the LGBTQ community to try craft breweries around St. Petersburg, so he says “it’s a plus if you’re a beer drinker.”

For Aaron, “somebody with a sense of adventure, who’s not afraid to try things that are new” is a must. “I’m very passionate about what I do, and it’s definitely important that whomever I’m with is passionate. Ambition is a great thing.”

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