January 25, 2025 • 35 mins
The question that started it all.... In the Season 4 premiere of The Traveling Black Women Podcast, Dr. Nadine C. Duncan takes us back to the very beginning, sharing the powerful story of why she founded the Traveling Black Women Network. From addressing the lack of representation in travel to creating a community where Black women feel seen, safe, and celebrated, this episode dives into the challenges and triumphs of building a movement.
Dr. Nadine explores the common question many Black women ask before traveling—"Do they even like Black people there?"—and unpacks the realities of navigating the world as a Black woman. With honesty and inspiration, she highlights the concerns Black women face in travel and how TBW is answering the call through resources, community, and curated travel experiences.
Discover the vision for 2025 which includes TBW’s new travel calendar. featuring intimate, small-group trips tailored for those seeking cultural activities, historical exploration, and authentic local experiences. Dr. Nadine also introduces the TBW Social Club, a safe space designed to foster connection and make travel accessible for Black women ready to explore, thrive, and expand their reality.
Join us for this inspiring episode as we reclaim our joy, own our narrative, and remind the world that Black women belong everywhere!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Welcome to the Traveling Black Women podcast, where we are talking to black women around
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the world.
I'm your host Nadine and I am so excited to take you on a journey with fearless black
women exploring the world.
Each episode we uncover hidden gems, share travel hacks and hear inspiring stories from
incredible travelers who look just like you.
So whether you're a seasoned flowchatter or planning your very first adventure, we've
got something special for you.
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So stay tuned and let's dive into today's episode.
Hello and welcome to season four of the Traveling Black Women podcast.
I'm your host Dr. Nadine Duncan, and I am thrilled to have you here.
This season is all about connecting deeper, exploring further and thriving as a community
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of women travelers, black women travelers.
Now let me tell you, this season is going to be a little bit different.
This season I'll be sharing insights, tips and stories to inspire you to get off the
beaten path and explore those places that just aren't all over Instagram yet.
We're going to talk about the power of exposure, how traveling changes our lives and why every
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black woman deserves a right to rest.
So if you ever felt like travel wasn't for you, I am here to tell you otherwise.
The world is waiting for you.
So we're bringing you more episodes, more interviews, more solo chats with me and stories
that are tailor-made just for us.
Stories about traveling off the beaten path, embracing rest and celebrating that power
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of exposure that I just mentioned.
We're going to kick off this journey today with an episode that's really close to my
heart.
The why, why we started.
So I know you're thinking, why traveling black women?
Why does traveling black women exist?
Why is it necessary?
Some of you, you know the answer to that immediately.
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Some of you are like, it's a conversation worth having.
But as far as I'm concerned, it's very necessary.
I started the traveling black woman network because I saw a gap, a huge glaring, frustrating,
undeniable gap.
Black women were traveling, thriving, breaking barriers across the world, but the representation
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was non-existent from ads to blogs to guidebooks.
We were just missing.
And after living in UAE for almost four years, my worldview had changed drastically.
I found myself traveling every chance that I got.
And it just made people question, how are you able to travel like that?
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To those who hadn't lived abroad, because there are plenty of black people abroad with
me, there was a huge African-American community, a huge black community in Abu Dhabi.
But those who had not experienced that, it just seemed like this complete anomaly for
a young black woman, I was in my late 20s at the time, to be traveling so freely.
You know, with my family being from Trinidad, which I often talk about, I have been traveling
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since I was a little girl.
So travel wasn't so much of a far-fetched ideal to me, but traveling to other countries
for leisure was.
Just traveling to Trinidad was just traveling home to see family.
It was just kind of commonplace.
But when I started traveling to explore different lands and to just be around different cultures,
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it really opened up something for me.
You know, people, and it's crazy because people thought I had a sugar daddy, I was selling
drugs, you name it.
And it's crazy because, you know, I know that they were joking.
And of course they said those things in jest and all of that.
But it was also clear that there was some kind of like just curiosity there, like how
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was she doing this?
How was she traveling?
And y'all, I was traveling off of my teacher's salary.
For example, I have one winter coat that I'm just getting ready this year to put into retirement.
You may have seen it on Instagram, you may have seen it on Facebook, but I'm putting
the coat into retirement because my mom washed the coat when we were coming back from Austria
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after being stuck in the rain a couple of times.
And of course it had that kind of like, you know, wet smell.
So she was like, okay, let me wash our coats and you know, all of that.
So okay, gave her the coat, did not even think about taking the hood off to preserve the
fur.
She brought it back upstairs.
And if that fur didn't look like one big dreadlock around my face, I was like, what happened?
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She was like the dryer burnt the fur.
I was like, oh my gosh.
Now granted, I had had that coat since 2019, so it's been six years and there were some
tears and some rips and the zipper was acting a little bit funny.
So it kind of was on its last leg, but I'm one of those people that's like, it's still
cute.
Like it doesn't look raggedy.
The little tears, I only, I can see it.
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There's no need for me to buy a brand new coat.
So I am that person who is going to not really do a whole lot of shopping.
When I do do shopping, I'm going to buy something that's quality.
It's going to last me a few years and I'm going to take that money and I'm going to
go somewhere.
You know, I don't have to sit in first class.
I don't have, I don't mind the budget airlines like Spirit or Frontier.
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You know, I am fine balling myself up in the back of somebody's plane and getting to where
I need to go so I can see as much as I want to see.
So because of that balance of how I spent my money, it surprised people because they're
thinking like, oh, well, travel is really expensive.
Why are you doing that?
And I'm thinking the same way you buy all that fancy stuff that you buy.
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Notice I am not very fancy at all.
I'll be cute now.
I'm going to be wrong.
I'll be cute.
But I don't have to have the Gucci's and this and that.
Like I am very fine with a no name brand.
As a matter of fact, I just found this, this sweatsuit on Amazon that was really, really
cute.
No name brand at all.
It's super warm and I absolutely love it.
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But that's me, you know, little $40 suit.
Perfect.
I don't need a name brand.
I don't need all these big flashy things, but that also affords me the ability to spend
my money on what I do love, which was travel, which is travel.
So at that time, when that started to become a reality for me and I started traveling,
people were like, girl, what are you doing?
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And how are you doing it?
Where's your sugar daddy?
Like who's paying for this?
Me?
What do you mean?
You know, and to be honest, you know, the Abu Dhabi UAE salary was pretty good considering
that I didn't have to pay for housing.
My light bill came every three months and that might've been $10 if that, you know,
really wasn't expensive at the time at all.
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And I, again, I didn't shop like that.
So it worked out.
But even with all of those things, we were so accustomed to just kind of seeing white
people in these travel spaces, in these tourism spaces.
So on top of, well, where are you getting the money to do this, there's also this idea
of like, why are you doing this?
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Like, this is not something that's for us.
You know, I think we inherently assume that travel is just this far-fetched idea that
to pick up and just visit a different country and indulge in their foods and their activities
and their practices, you know, is weird, is different, is just not something that we do.
We kind of stick to our own.
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We stay in our comfort zone.
And I get it for historical reasons, but I think it's now a time where we can say, nope,
that's not my reality.
I'm about to go see the world.
You know, like whether it was going to do some adventurous activities like skydiving
or scuba diving or, you know, eating exotic food, you know, I couldn't tell you the number
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of times people would say to me, especially when I came back to America on vacation or
when I moved back completely, you know, people would say all the time, like, that's white
people stuff.
Like, you like to do those white people things.
And I'd be like, what?
You know, and at first I kind of laughed it off, like, ah, no, it's not.
Ha ha ha.
But after a while, it actually started to upset me.
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Like it started to get on my nerves because it was just like, there is nothing or nowhere
that should be off limits to me because I'm black and especially not because I'm a woman.
You know, it just didn't feel fair.
Like I am that girl that goes to the bar and orders the old fashioned orders in Manhattan,
orders the whiskey neat.
And people are looking at me like, you don't want to decorate?
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No, that's sweet and full of sugar.
I don't want that.
Bring me out the whiskey.
You drink like a man.
Why is everything so gendered?
Why is everything about what I look like, my identity?
So it's really interesting because a lot of people take for granted having to consider
your identity all the time.
You know, there are things that I like to do that someone somewhere is telling me is
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white people stuff.
There are drinks that I like to drink that someone else somewhere is telling me I drink
like a man.
I'm just like, why can't I just be?
And one thing about travel is that when I'm in the moment of traveling, especially when
I sell travel, those are the moments where I feel like I could just be.
I could be in a place and order a drink and no one's telling me that I drink like a man.
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You know, I can be in a place and try something and no one's telling me this is for white
people.
You know, I don't know how they see me.
I don't know what they're thinking in the back of their head.
Not my business.
I know in that moment, though, they're not vocalizing or treating me any differently
than a tourist who's just interested in what they have to offer.
And that allows me to feel comfortable wanting to experience everything that life has to
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offer is something that I think a lot of people don't recognize also requires you to be very
aware or keenly aware of how your identity shows up in that space, how your identity
shows up as you try to experience something that someone thinks that you should not experience,
that you would not experience or whatever.
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Let me be clear.
It's not always just about representation, too.
You know, when I talked to other black women, especially after I came home and there were
women who just had not really traveled like that yet, you know, I heard the same concerns
over and over, you know, not feeling safe in certain places, asking the question, do
they even like black people over there?
Like that was a classic question.
Do they like black people over there?
And I'm just like, one, they don't like black people here.
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We see that.
But two, how would they know?
Right.
How would they know they don't like black people?
I think it's really important for us to recognize that our presence alone, our very natural
human presence disrupts narratives.
So if you're asking, does someone like black people or does a country of people like black
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people or does a group of people like black people, they wouldn't know.
They wouldn't know until you show up.
Right.
They want to know what they like or what they don't like until you show up.
They might know some celebrities that they like or don't like.
They probably have made some assumptions of who you are and how you should show up.
But it's not until you actually do show up that they can then figure out, oh, wait a
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minute, my perception of what I thought a black woman was, especially a black American
woman is much different than what I thought.
You know, so I think that's a really interesting question that I have never quite been able
to answer because I always feel like they don't know if they like black people until
I get there.
And then more than likely, by the time things are done, they'll love us.
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You know, and then it's not always about that.
It's not always about like, oh, are they going to like me?
No, you go, you enjoy yourself and you have fun.
Most of the time, if you're connected to a tour guide or you're in a tour group, you
know, you're around a bunch of other tourists.
That's just what it is.
And everyone generally is going about the same activity, the same thing.
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I'm not saying that racism doesn't exist in these countries.
And I'm not saying that you go somewhere and everyone's going to be like, oh, hey, how
are you?
I mean, you're going to you're going to get some stairs and things like that.
But to not go somewhere for the fear that somebody may not like you is really limiting
yourself more than anything else.
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I really think it's important to make sure that it doesn't stop us from showing up and
disrupting whatever narrative is already in place.
And I feel like I've talked about that several times on previous episodes.
So just my little food for thought.
But in all of that, bring it back to the main topic, because of course, I went off on my
soapbox.
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I just knew that something had to change in the realm of creating those resources that
would allow black women, especially black women who have not traveled yet, the opportunity
to see what it was like.
You know, we really needed some resources to just help us gain the confidence to see
the world without that restraint, without that fear, without that limitation of thinking
like, well, what if they don't like me?
What if they treat me badly?
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You know, I just felt like we really needed a space to just let each other know, like,
what's your experience like?
What happened?
What did they say?
You know, I know in one of our travel guides, I believe it's the Morocco one, the author
Sitara, she talks about how, you know, she's talking to this guy in a club and he thinks
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it's cute to say, hey, I've never been with a black girl before.
That happens more often than you know.
And it's just like, one, why do you think that's okay to say?
Right.
But two, it also shows how much of like this exotic factor and not exotic in a good way,
but like this like way that people see us as this thing instead of this human being.
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And I go back to my point that I made before, where when you're showing up in these spaces
and you're showing up with all your authenticity and your humanist, then you disrupt that narrative
of someone thinking like thinking of you as some kind of object to be conquered, some
object to add to your list, like, oh, there's a black girl.
Let me see if I can date her so I can say, I've dated a black girl before.
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Like what?
This is not just, I'm not a checklist item, you know.
But it's very interesting to see how often that that happens.
It's something to know, but it doesn't make me say, oh, I'm never going to Morocco, because
guess what?
When I got there and I talked about this in the last episode, nobody was trying to holler
at me.
They were calling me Bob Marley all day.
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And I was just like, really?
Oh, okay.
Um, I don't know if that's an insult, if that's just, you know, complimenting my locks.
I don't know what this is, but I'm just going to give a little, you know, hand wave and
keep it moving.
As long as you're not over here bothering me.
So that I mean, that was my experience.
My experience was a little bit different, but it was definitely something where either
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way on either side, I was different and I was called out.
She was different and she was called out.
You know, so it's something to be aware of, but not something to stop you from wanting
to go.
Cause I had a blast those 10 days that I spent solo in Morocco.
Some of the other things that I always think about is just making sure that we're inspiring
each other to take this leap.
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You know, I think that's another reason that the traveling black woman network was so important
to me wanting us to experience these different things that really changed the way we see
the world.
So I began with the self published travel guide, diary of a traveling black woman, a
guides international travel.
I know it's a very long title, right?
I'm a nerd.
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And in that, during the time that I published this book, I was in my doctoral program.
And if you know anything about being in those doctoral programs, every single article that
you read is going to have a title and a subtitle.
And I was just in that space in that zone.
And I came up with this really long title.
It sounded great to me then.
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And then eventually I would shorten it to the traveling black woman network.
I'll talk about that in a second.
But yeah, I began with the self published travel guide, diary of a traveling black woman,
a guides international travel.
And I had a couple blurbs about my experiences, but I really wanted to talk about how accessible
it really is for us to travel.
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You know, the apps that you can use, how you can prepare.
Like it really was not the anomaly that people thought it was.
It really wasn't this big, strange thing.
It was really relatively easy.
You know, it was really relatively easy.
Like just get up and go type of thing.
I got the name because in summer 2011, I named a few of my Facebook albums, diary of a traveling
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black woman, followed by the country that I was visiting.
So it was like diary of a traveling black woman, Greece, diary of a traveling black
woman, Spain, you know, it was like that.
And it was obvious spinoff from Tyler Perry's diary of a mad black woman.
But I just thought it was so cool.
So cute.
Like, oh, this was a cool title.
And fast forward four years, it became the title of my first book.
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And now it is a title of the travel travel guide series.
You'll still see the title or the full title on like our Facebook page.
And of course, within our logo.
So if you look in the logo, it actually says diary of a traveling black woman.
And then in the center, it says a guide to international travel.
So the name is still there.
That is our original name.
It is not going anywhere.
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But because it is super long, I pluralized the woman to woman because I wanted to make
sure that I included everybody.
I wanted everybody to see themselves in this space.
Right.
That was really, really important to me.
And I'll go into why that was in a second.
But I really want everybody to see themselves in a space.
So then I created the traveling black woman network.
So the reason why I felt like I needed everybody to see themselves in their space is because
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and this is just me being a little bit transparent.
When I came back from Abu Dhabi, I felt extremely lonely.
And not just in the sense of being like, oh, I don't have any friends or my friends were
in Abu Dhabi now.
Not in that sense, but in the sense of conversation, interest, things like that, I felt like I
couldn't connect with people anymore without bringing up something that was obviously foreign
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to them.
And it made me very self conscious with do they think I'm bragging or, you know, can
I share that?
You know, I started to hear responses like, oh, must be nice, you know, things like that,
and it made me say, oh, maybe I shouldn't have shared that, you know, people are sitting
around talking and this kind of like shook me like, gosh, my experiences are completely
different now.
Like I am a different person in my own body.
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I was sitting around, I had gone to a meetup and they were talking about like fruits from
Publix and Kroger and they were comparing like, oh, Publix has better fruit and da da
da da.
And we went into talking about pineapples and the best pineapples were at this Publix
and yada yada yada.
And my happy self hops in like, oh, the best pineapples I had were in Sri Lanka and da
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da da da.
And they were so sweet and we got them out the ground and they cut it up right in front
of us and it was kind of like this awkward, not quite silence.
It wasn't really silent, but it was kind of an awkward energy just kind of came over the
conversation.
And I remember being very aware of it and feeling like, oh, I don't want to be that
person that's just like, oh, and when I went to Rome and Paris and Italy, you know, I don't
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want to be that person.
But at the same time, I had become that person, right?
I had had these experiences that had changed me and I had no one to talk about them with.
And when I did talk about them, I felt very, very self conscious about being that person
who was bragging or who was, you know, just ick, you know, and that didn't feel good.
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And it made me start to think like these women that I hang out with or these people that
I'm around, you know, they spend a lot of money on things that I would never spend money
on, like I was saying in the beginning, right?
At the same time, they look at me and my travels and they think that I have all this money,
but I don't.
So how can I bridge that gap so that way they can see that travel is attainable to them
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too?
And importantly, I also think that it may help with the limited way that we move through
life.
I was looking at how the same, I guess you can say, everyone thought everyone operated,
especially my colleagues.
And when I went back into teaching in Atlanta public schools, it was just like everyone
seemed to be like separate wise, but black, you know, like y'all not thinking differently.
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Y'all not doing anything differently.
Like everybody has this linear way of doing things.
You know, black or white type of thinking, you know, everything that is not fitting into
the cute little bubble that they expect it to spit in is weird, is wrong, is something,
you know, it was just so much.
And I was just like, dang, these people that I'm working with have a very small mindset
and that is affecting the children that I teach.
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I remember having a conversation with a math teacher and they ended up kind of blowing
up at me and saying, you know, you think you, you think you all that because you went over
there and taught them rich kids in Abu Dhabi.
And I was like, whoa, not what I'm saying at all.
And as a matter of fact, even though those kids were rich, they still acted like these
kids right here.
They still didn't have behavior.
They were still cutting up and they still didn't know the material that they were trying
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to be taught.
So a lot of the things are actually parallel.
Like give me a moment.
I'm not trying to, you know, but problem that I was having was that I kept saying, well,
when I was in Abu Dhabi, well, I wasn't, you know, and it kind of, I can see why it made
it seem like girl, we don't want to hear about that anymore.
But I also felt in my heart of hearts that I had had this experience and it'd be really
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great to bring this experience back and see how I could implement it in the classroom.
And wasn't nobody trying to hear me.
Wasn't nobody trying to hear me about that.
So I was like, all right, let me leave that alone.
But to be completely transparent and honest, I did feel like if some of these teachers
were just to leave this bubble for a little while, you know, some of them are looking
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at 20 years working in the same school in between the same couple of classrooms, you
know, they haven't been anywhere.
They haven't experienced anything and they're responsible for teaching the next generation
and they're kind of regurgitating the same information that keeps us clock in these same
cycles of lack and limitation.
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And I remember thinking like, if I could just get them to go somewhere, inspire them to
go somewhere, that would not only change them, but that will change these kids that they
affect day in and day out.
And it was super idealistic.
I started off with trying to do a nonprofit that didn't quite, you know, that didn't quite
work out, but it was just a matter of feeling like exposure is the common denominator between
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those that make it and those that just maintain the cycle, maintain the status quo.
Having created this network, you know, I really wanted black women who were interested in
travel because I wasn't about to try to, you know, convince everybody.
But I know that there were some people that were interested, but just saw that as far
fetched.
And in essence, that's just how TBW was born, you know, all those things.
I just really wanted to create a space that just not only celebrated black women travelers,
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but also equipped us with the tools, resources, the encouragement, whatever we needed to explore
the world on our own terms.
Since then, I could say that I'm proud of the evolution that TBW has made over the last
10 years.
Sometimes I get sad and feel like I'm not moving fast enough.
I don't have 100,000 followers.
I don't have like this million dollar company, you know, and I look at other influencers
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and people who have zoomed right past me and I get in my feels a little bit.
I'm not even going to lie.
And I think, man, what is traveling black women missing?
But as the years go on, especially now that I've quit teaching, I'm learning so much more.
You know, I was able to be a part of two fellowships run by black women.
One was with our village United in Atlanta, Georgia.
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The other one was the boss network with Dr. Kameeka Smith.
And being a part of those two fellowships, that was life changing.
To be quite honest, I got connected to an amazing accountant, Dr. Celia with GIP financials.
I mean, she is amazing.
And the way that she teaches accounting is like, oh, okay, I got it.
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I got this.
Yeah.
Okay.
And now, you know, she's just amazing.
Being able to talk to some of the other people that they connected us with, you know, they
even gave us some business entrepreneur therapy.
And that was really good because there was also a conversation that we were able to have
about, you know, the guilt that you feel when you think that you're you just owe the world
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so much, you know, and it's like, where does that come from?
Why do we feel like we owe anybody anything?
I don't know.
But being able to talk some of those things out really helped me to start looking at how
I want the traveling black woman network to evolve.
And I'm just proud of how it's gone.
You know, I'm starting to recognize that it really is about more than just travel.
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I mean, I knew that, but now I feel like it's obvious.
And that makes me happy.
You know, it's about reclaiming our joy, owning these narratives, like I've been saying, and
just making the world see us.
But like I said before, it's not just about us showing up in these spaces and expanding
our mind and, you know, transforming ourselves.
But it is a mutual exchange, because when we show up in these spaces and people don't
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know what to expect and they see who we are, we have changed the narrative.
We have owned our narrative.
We have told our story.
You know, we've been able to say, I'm not who you see on TV.
I'm Nadine and we're here and we want to involve ourselves in whatever you got going on.
We want to try the food.
We want to be a part of this.
We want to be a part of that.
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And one thing that I think has been commonplace when I travel, especially when I travel with
my small group, it's three of others of us or the episode where we're chatting it up
on season two.
But when we travel together, it's very interesting to see how people receive us because they
enjoy us.
Like they enjoy us wanting to be a part.
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They enjoy our questions.
We sit and we talk.
It's not just a kind of show up with tourists and, oh, I need this and that.
Now it feels great to have somebody come in and cook for you.
Let me tell you that.
But to actually stand there in the kitchen and have conversations and ask them about
what they're cooking and, you know, things like that, you can see that they kind of shift
like, oh, you're interested in what I'm doing.
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You're not just here to, you know, vacate to be on vacation and that like, no, that's
not how we travel.
And realistically, when I think about how most of the other Black women I travel with,
none of us are really like that.
We want to know what's going on.
We want to be a part of the culture for the time that we're there.
We want to learn about you and your reality and the things that are going on.
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And I think that also brings a different dynamic to what tourism has been.
It brings a more authentic vibe.
And I would really think that there's probably some places that are probably looking like,
bring me to Black tourists.
I like them.
You know, hey, I'm just I'm just I'm just saying what I've been saying now that I'm
seeing much more people travel, especially since 2015 when I wrote that first guide,
(27:14):
that we are really, really changing this narrative.
We've got Black Travel Alliance out there.
You've got the Blacks in Travel and Tourism.
You know, you've got culture travels.
You have all these different travel group nomadness, Black travel movement, just all
these different groups that are out there.
(27:34):
So I really like the fact that there are so many of us out here who are really carving
out spaces to make sure we have the opportunity and the resources to travel as a community,
whether you're on social media or our private social group.
You know, it is a sisterhood to really lean on, to laugh about things that, you know,
(27:55):
you might feel like you're bragging, like I was sharing before, you know, having somebody
to connect with and say, oh, yeah, girl, I did.
I didn't go to Sri Lanka yet, but I had some really good pineapples in Australia.
That's the conversation I want to have.
I don't want everybody looking at me like, girl, who you think you are?
No, tell me where yours was, because maybe you know something more than I do.
And now I got to put something on my list.
(28:17):
You know, I want to have those conversations.
And then ultimately to uplift each other, to go somewhere else.
Hey, sis, it looks like you're having a hard time.
Like, take a trip.
You need a break.
You know, you deserve a break.
You deserve rest.
You know, it's not escape.
Sometimes people want to guilt you into feeling like you're running away from your problems.
I need a break.
I need a break.
No one's running away from anything.
(28:38):
You know, I need to go somewhere and just be present with something else instead of
whatever has been bogging me down for however long.
And I don't think there's anything wrong with that.
A lot of times that's exactly what you need to hit the reset button, come back and be
ten times as better than you were before.
What's next for a traveling black woman?
It's not just about the travel guides, the blogs, the socials, YouTube or a podcast,
(29:03):
which we absolutely love providing all of those things.
But it's about building a movement, you know, and with us launching the TVW Social Club,
it is about that connection and community.
You know, in our last bonus episode in season three, you had the opportunity to meet our
amazing community curator, Jabrila Carr, you know, and make sure you check out that episode
if you haven't already.
But inside our social club, you'll find that we have the curated travel opportunities that
(29:27):
you've been looking for, meetups, check-ins for solo travelers.
You know, it's really a safe space to dream, to plan and just to make those different trips
happen for yourself.
And then speaking of curated travel opportunities, our 2025 travel calendar is here.
Small group trips are now all open for booking starting in March, going all the way to December.
(29:48):
We have one trip per month.
And these trips are specifically curated for travelers who are all about cultural activities,
exploring historical sites and indulging in local food and drinks.
You know, they're for the women who want much more than just a simple vacation.
You know, they want the opportunity to expand.
They want the opportunity to be exposed to new things.
(30:08):
They want to shift their reality and connect with the world.
And they want to leave the trip feeling inspired, transformed, all the things.
Now you might be wondering why small groups?
Back in September, September 2024, we actually surveyed the community and the data for the
people that answered was very clear.
Most of you preferred smaller, more intimate group trips.
(30:31):
So we listened and our groups range from six to 10 travelers each, which is why we have
so many opportunities.
With these six to 10 travelers, we're creating this more personalized experience where you
truly have the opportunity to connect with your fellow travelers and immerse yourself
in the culture.
You know, think about it as like small groups also make it easier to just dive off the beaten
(30:52):
path and do different experiences real quick.
You know, you're able to kind of shift things on the itinerary as they happen.
There's space in every itinerary for the people on that trip to say, hey, can we do something
different today?
Or for the leaders of the trip to say, hey, I'm seeing the vibe of this group.
I want to show you all this.
And that is what I want.
(31:12):
You can't do that with 20, 30 people.
You can't do that with any more than 10 people, really.
So all of our groups are six to 10 people each.
All right.
I have been running my mouth.
This is this is different for me because, you know, usually I do these interviews and
I get to kind of ask questions and I'm a I'm a real listener.
Like I like to listen to people tell stories.
(31:34):
So a lot of times when I'm interviewing, you know, I just let people talk.
I let them share their experiences and I enjoy hearing, you know, what it is, even when I
kind of play it back to myself, I'm like, oh, man, that that was a really good conversation.
I'm really glad I learned X, Y, Z about this person.
So today it feels like, oh, my God, I've been talking for forever.
I've been rambling.
You know, here we are.
So before we wrap up, I just really want to invite you to join the movement.
(31:57):
You know, head on over to WWW traveling black women dot com and just learn more about the
TVW social club.
You know, like I said, we have an episode on it.
We have some videos on YouTube about it.
We have a couple of reels about it.
So, you know, or you can also just send us an email at info at traveling black women
dot com and say, hey, I want to know a little bit more about the traveling black women network,
(32:21):
the social club and all the things.
Right.
Also check out our upcoming trips.
So again, they're small groups.
So if there's something that you see on there as you want to book, go ahead and book ASAP
because I would hate for you to wait.
And then it's sold out like Peru.
Peru was right around my birthday.
I made one mention of it and in that instance, the max amount that I could bring on that
(32:44):
trip had already signed up plus one.
So I'm hoping I can get to 11 for that one, you know, but the reality of it is they're
small.
So make sure you sign up.
All that being said, you'll find everything you need on our website.
So I am not the expert.
I know a lot.
I've experienced a lot.
I've seen a lot and I can share a lot, but there's always going to be times where somebody
(33:07):
knows more than me.
So if you've traveled often, we still need you in this network, whether it's part of
the social club, the Facebook Facebook group, or just answering questions on one of our
social media platforms, please feel free to be present because another black woman somewhere
needs you in the same vein.
If you have not traveled and you've been thinking about it, especially with this year, this
(33:28):
kind of being the year of rest for the black women, you know, definitely tap in, ask questions.
There's no question that's too dumb.
So with that said, I'm going to wrap it up.
My mouth is getting dry.
I got, I need some water and I've really enjoyed this first episode.
Thank you all for listening and welcome to season four until next time.
(33:52):
Keep exploring, keep thriving and know that this is your space to transform your reality
through the power of exposure.
Again, make sure to subscribe, leave a comment, send the message about topics you want to
cover, whatever.
Just send me a message.
Let's make an unforgettable season.
This is, this is our time.
This is our year.
We're going to rest.
(34:12):
We're going to prioritize our leisure.
We're going to embrace travel as a lifestyle.
We're going to make some things happen.
All right.
Y'all take care.
Thank you so much for tuning into the traveling black women podcast.
You can find us online at www traveling black women.com and there you can find plenty more
(34:38):
travel resources to help you plan your very next trip.
We've got travel guides.
We've got a blog.
We got our blog and you just listened to our podcast.
I look forward to seeing you around.
Thanks for tuning in.
We'll see you next time.
Welcome to the Traveling Black Women podcast, where we are talking to black women around
(00:16):
the world.
I'm your host Nadine and I am so excited to take you on a journey with fearless black
women exploring the world.
Each episode we uncover hidden gems, share travel hacks and hear inspiring stories from
incredible travelers who look just like you.
So whether you're a seasoned flowchatter or planning your very first adventure, we've
got something special for you.
(00:37):
So stay tuned and let's dive into today's episode.
Hello and welcome to season four of the Traveling Black Women podcast.
I'm your host Dr. Nadine Duncan, and I am thrilled to have you here.
This season is all about connecting deeper, exploring further and thriving as a community
(00:58):
of women travelers, black women travelers.
Now let me tell you, this season is going to be a little bit different.
This season I'll be sharing insights, tips and stories to inspire you to get off the
beaten path and explore those places that just aren't all over Instagram yet.
We're going to talk about the power of exposure, how traveling changes our lives and why every
(01:20):
black woman deserves a right to rest.
So if you ever felt like travel wasn't for you, I am here to tell you otherwise.
The world is waiting for you.
So we're bringing you more episodes, more interviews, more solo chats with me and stories
that are tailor-made just for us.
Stories about traveling off the beaten path, embracing rest and celebrating that power
(01:42):
of exposure that I just mentioned.
We're going to kick off this journey today with an episode that's really close to my
heart.
The why, why we started.
So I know you're thinking, why traveling black women?
Why does traveling black women exist?
Why is it necessary?
Some of you, you know the answer to that immediately.
(02:03):
Some of you are like, it's a conversation worth having.
But as far as I'm concerned, it's very necessary.
I started the traveling black woman network because I saw a gap, a huge glaring, frustrating,
undeniable gap.
Black women were traveling, thriving, breaking barriers across the world, but the representation
(02:23):
was non-existent from ads to blogs to guidebooks.
We were just missing.
And after living in UAE for almost four years, my worldview had changed drastically.
I found myself traveling every chance that I got.
And it just made people question, how are you able to travel like that?
(02:46):
To those who hadn't lived abroad, because there are plenty of black people abroad with
me, there was a huge African-American community, a huge black community in Abu Dhabi.
But those who had not experienced that, it just seemed like this complete anomaly for
a young black woman, I was in my late 20s at the time, to be traveling so freely.
You know, with my family being from Trinidad, which I often talk about, I have been traveling
(03:10):
since I was a little girl.
So travel wasn't so much of a far-fetched ideal to me, but traveling to other countries
for leisure was.
Just traveling to Trinidad was just traveling home to see family.
It was just kind of commonplace.
But when I started traveling to explore different lands and to just be around different cultures,
(03:31):
it really opened up something for me.
You know, people, and it's crazy because people thought I had a sugar daddy, I was selling
drugs, you name it.
And it's crazy because, you know, I know that they were joking.
And of course they said those things in jest and all of that.
But it was also clear that there was some kind of like just curiosity there, like how
(03:53):
was she doing this?
How was she traveling?
And y'all, I was traveling off of my teacher's salary.
For example, I have one winter coat that I'm just getting ready this year to put into retirement.
You may have seen it on Instagram, you may have seen it on Facebook, but I'm putting
the coat into retirement because my mom washed the coat when we were coming back from Austria
(04:14):
after being stuck in the rain a couple of times.
And of course it had that kind of like, you know, wet smell.
So she was like, okay, let me wash our coats and you know, all of that.
So okay, gave her the coat, did not even think about taking the hood off to preserve the
fur.
She brought it back upstairs.
And if that fur didn't look like one big dreadlock around my face, I was like, what happened?
(04:39):
She was like the dryer burnt the fur.
I was like, oh my gosh.
Now granted, I had had that coat since 2019, so it's been six years and there were some
tears and some rips and the zipper was acting a little bit funny.
So it kind of was on its last leg, but I'm one of those people that's like, it's still
cute.
Like it doesn't look raggedy.
The little tears, I only, I can see it.
(05:01):
There's no need for me to buy a brand new coat.
So I am that person who is going to not really do a whole lot of shopping.
When I do do shopping, I'm going to buy something that's quality.
It's going to last me a few years and I'm going to take that money and I'm going to
go somewhere.
You know, I don't have to sit in first class.
I don't have, I don't mind the budget airlines like Spirit or Frontier.
(05:24):
You know, I am fine balling myself up in the back of somebody's plane and getting to where
I need to go so I can see as much as I want to see.
So because of that balance of how I spent my money, it surprised people because they're
thinking like, oh, well, travel is really expensive.
Why are you doing that?
And I'm thinking the same way you buy all that fancy stuff that you buy.
(05:46):
Notice I am not very fancy at all.
I'll be cute now.
I'm going to be wrong.
I'll be cute.
But I don't have to have the Gucci's and this and that.
Like I am very fine with a no name brand.
As a matter of fact, I just found this, this sweatsuit on Amazon that was really, really
cute.
No name brand at all.
It's super warm and I absolutely love it.
(06:07):
But that's me, you know, little $40 suit.
Perfect.
I don't need a name brand.
I don't need all these big flashy things, but that also affords me the ability to spend
my money on what I do love, which was travel, which is travel.
So at that time, when that started to become a reality for me and I started traveling,
people were like, girl, what are you doing?
(06:28):
And how are you doing it?
Where's your sugar daddy?
Like who's paying for this?
Me?
What do you mean?
You know, and to be honest, you know, the Abu Dhabi UAE salary was pretty good considering
that I didn't have to pay for housing.
My light bill came every three months and that might've been $10 if that, you know,
really wasn't expensive at the time at all.
(06:50):
And I, again, I didn't shop like that.
So it worked out.
But even with all of those things, we were so accustomed to just kind of seeing white
people in these travel spaces, in these tourism spaces.
So on top of, well, where are you getting the money to do this, there's also this idea
of like, why are you doing this?
(07:13):
Like, this is not something that's for us.
You know, I think we inherently assume that travel is just this far-fetched idea that
to pick up and just visit a different country and indulge in their foods and their activities
and their practices, you know, is weird, is different, is just not something that we do.
We kind of stick to our own.
(07:34):
We stay in our comfort zone.
And I get it for historical reasons, but I think it's now a time where we can say, nope,
that's not my reality.
I'm about to go see the world.
You know, like whether it was going to do some adventurous activities like skydiving
or scuba diving or, you know, eating exotic food, you know, I couldn't tell you the number
(07:56):
of times people would say to me, especially when I came back to America on vacation or
when I moved back completely, you know, people would say all the time, like, that's white
people stuff.
Like, you like to do those white people things.
And I'd be like, what?
You know, and at first I kind of laughed it off, like, ah, no, it's not.
Ha ha ha.
But after a while, it actually started to upset me.
(08:17):
Like it started to get on my nerves because it was just like, there is nothing or nowhere
that should be off limits to me because I'm black and especially not because I'm a woman.
You know, it just didn't feel fair.
Like I am that girl that goes to the bar and orders the old fashioned orders in Manhattan,
orders the whiskey neat.
And people are looking at me like, you don't want to decorate?
(08:39):
No, that's sweet and full of sugar.
I don't want that.
Bring me out the whiskey.
You drink like a man.
Why is everything so gendered?
Why is everything about what I look like, my identity?
So it's really interesting because a lot of people take for granted having to consider
your identity all the time.
You know, there are things that I like to do that someone somewhere is telling me is
(09:03):
white people stuff.
There are drinks that I like to drink that someone else somewhere is telling me I drink
like a man.
I'm just like, why can't I just be?
And one thing about travel is that when I'm in the moment of traveling, especially when
I sell travel, those are the moments where I feel like I could just be.
I could be in a place and order a drink and no one's telling me that I drink like a man.
(09:26):
You know, I can be in a place and try something and no one's telling me this is for white
people.
You know, I don't know how they see me.
I don't know what they're thinking in the back of their head.
Not my business.
I know in that moment, though, they're not vocalizing or treating me any differently
than a tourist who's just interested in what they have to offer.
And that allows me to feel comfortable wanting to experience everything that life has to
(09:51):
offer is something that I think a lot of people don't recognize also requires you to be very
aware or keenly aware of how your identity shows up in that space, how your identity
shows up as you try to experience something that someone thinks that you should not experience,
that you would not experience or whatever.
(10:13):
Let me be clear.
It's not always just about representation, too.
You know, when I talked to other black women, especially after I came home and there were
women who just had not really traveled like that yet, you know, I heard the same concerns
over and over, you know, not feeling safe in certain places, asking the question, do
they even like black people over there?
Like that was a classic question.
Do they like black people over there?
And I'm just like, one, they don't like black people here.
(10:37):
We see that.
But two, how would they know?
Right.
How would they know they don't like black people?
I think it's really important for us to recognize that our presence alone, our very natural
human presence disrupts narratives.
So if you're asking, does someone like black people or does a country of people like black
(10:58):
people or does a group of people like black people, they wouldn't know.
They wouldn't know until you show up.
Right.
They want to know what they like or what they don't like until you show up.
They might know some celebrities that they like or don't like.
They probably have made some assumptions of who you are and how you should show up.
But it's not until you actually do show up that they can then figure out, oh, wait a
(11:21):
minute, my perception of what I thought a black woman was, especially a black American
woman is much different than what I thought.
You know, so I think that's a really interesting question that I have never quite been able
to answer because I always feel like they don't know if they like black people until
I get there.
And then more than likely, by the time things are done, they'll love us.
(11:44):
You know, and then it's not always about that.
It's not always about like, oh, are they going to like me?
No, you go, you enjoy yourself and you have fun.
Most of the time, if you're connected to a tour guide or you're in a tour group, you
know, you're around a bunch of other tourists.
That's just what it is.
And everyone generally is going about the same activity, the same thing.
(12:05):
I'm not saying that racism doesn't exist in these countries.
And I'm not saying that you go somewhere and everyone's going to be like, oh, hey, how
are you?
I mean, you're going to you're going to get some stairs and things like that.
But to not go somewhere for the fear that somebody may not like you is really limiting
yourself more than anything else.
(12:25):
I really think it's important to make sure that it doesn't stop us from showing up and
disrupting whatever narrative is already in place.
And I feel like I've talked about that several times on previous episodes.
So just my little food for thought.
But in all of that, bring it back to the main topic, because of course, I went off on my
soapbox.
(12:46):
I just knew that something had to change in the realm of creating those resources that
would allow black women, especially black women who have not traveled yet, the opportunity
to see what it was like.
You know, we really needed some resources to just help us gain the confidence to see
the world without that restraint, without that fear, without that limitation of thinking
like, well, what if they don't like me?
What if they treat me badly?
(13:07):
You know, I just felt like we really needed a space to just let each other know, like,
what's your experience like?
What happened?
What did they say?
You know, I know in one of our travel guides, I believe it's the Morocco one, the author
Sitara, she talks about how, you know, she's talking to this guy in a club and he thinks
(13:29):
it's cute to say, hey, I've never been with a black girl before.
That happens more often than you know.
And it's just like, one, why do you think that's okay to say?
Right.
But two, it also shows how much of like this exotic factor and not exotic in a good way,
but like this like way that people see us as this thing instead of this human being.
(13:50):
And I go back to my point that I made before, where when you're showing up in these spaces
and you're showing up with all your authenticity and your humanist, then you disrupt that narrative
of someone thinking like thinking of you as some kind of object to be conquered, some
object to add to your list, like, oh, there's a black girl.
Let me see if I can date her so I can say, I've dated a black girl before.
(14:11):
Like what?
This is not just, I'm not a checklist item, you know.
But it's very interesting to see how often that that happens.
It's something to know, but it doesn't make me say, oh, I'm never going to Morocco, because
guess what?
When I got there and I talked about this in the last episode, nobody was trying to holler
at me.
They were calling me Bob Marley all day.
(14:32):
And I was just like, really?
Oh, okay.
Um, I don't know if that's an insult, if that's just, you know, complimenting my locks.
I don't know what this is, but I'm just going to give a little, you know, hand wave and
keep it moving.
As long as you're not over here bothering me.
So that I mean, that was my experience.
My experience was a little bit different, but it was definitely something where either
(14:53):
way on either side, I was different and I was called out.
She was different and she was called out.
You know, so it's something to be aware of, but not something to stop you from wanting
to go.
Cause I had a blast those 10 days that I spent solo in Morocco.
Some of the other things that I always think about is just making sure that we're inspiring
each other to take this leap.
(15:14):
You know, I think that's another reason that the traveling black woman network was so important
to me wanting us to experience these different things that really changed the way we see
the world.
So I began with the self published travel guide, diary of a traveling black woman, a
guides international travel.
I know it's a very long title, right?
I'm a nerd.
(15:34):
And in that, during the time that I published this book, I was in my doctoral program.
And if you know anything about being in those doctoral programs, every single article that
you read is going to have a title and a subtitle.
And I was just in that space in that zone.
And I came up with this really long title.
It sounded great to me then.
(15:55):
And then eventually I would shorten it to the traveling black woman network.
I'll talk about that in a second.
But yeah, I began with the self published travel guide, diary of a traveling black woman,
a guides international travel.
And I had a couple blurbs about my experiences, but I really wanted to talk about how accessible
it really is for us to travel.
(16:16):
You know, the apps that you can use, how you can prepare.
Like it really was not the anomaly that people thought it was.
It really wasn't this big, strange thing.
It was really relatively easy.
You know, it was really relatively easy.
Like just get up and go type of thing.
I got the name because in summer 2011, I named a few of my Facebook albums, diary of a traveling
(16:36):
black woman, followed by the country that I was visiting.
So it was like diary of a traveling black woman, Greece, diary of a traveling black
woman, Spain, you know, it was like that.
And it was obvious spinoff from Tyler Perry's diary of a mad black woman.
But I just thought it was so cool.
So cute.
Like, oh, this was a cool title.
And fast forward four years, it became the title of my first book.
(16:57):
And now it is a title of the travel travel guide series.
You'll still see the title or the full title on like our Facebook page.
And of course, within our logo.
So if you look in the logo, it actually says diary of a traveling black woman.
And then in the center, it says a guide to international travel.
So the name is still there.
That is our original name.
It is not going anywhere.
(17:17):
But because it is super long, I pluralized the woman to woman because I wanted to make
sure that I included everybody.
I wanted everybody to see themselves in this space.
Right.
That was really, really important to me.
And I'll go into why that was in a second.
But I really want everybody to see themselves in a space.
So then I created the traveling black woman network.
So the reason why I felt like I needed everybody to see themselves in their space is because
(17:39):
and this is just me being a little bit transparent.
When I came back from Abu Dhabi, I felt extremely lonely.
And not just in the sense of being like, oh, I don't have any friends or my friends were
in Abu Dhabi now.
Not in that sense, but in the sense of conversation, interest, things like that, I felt like I
couldn't connect with people anymore without bringing up something that was obviously foreign
(18:03):
to them.
And it made me very self conscious with do they think I'm bragging or, you know, can
I share that?
You know, I started to hear responses like, oh, must be nice, you know, things like that,
and it made me say, oh, maybe I shouldn't have shared that, you know, people are sitting
around talking and this kind of like shook me like, gosh, my experiences are completely
different now.
Like I am a different person in my own body.
(18:27):
I was sitting around, I had gone to a meetup and they were talking about like fruits from
Publix and Kroger and they were comparing like, oh, Publix has better fruit and da da
da da.
And we went into talking about pineapples and the best pineapples were at this Publix
and yada yada yada.
And my happy self hops in like, oh, the best pineapples I had were in Sri Lanka and da
(18:48):
da da da.
And they were so sweet and we got them out the ground and they cut it up right in front
of us and it was kind of like this awkward, not quite silence.
It wasn't really silent, but it was kind of an awkward energy just kind of came over the
conversation.
And I remember being very aware of it and feeling like, oh, I don't want to be that
person that's just like, oh, and when I went to Rome and Paris and Italy, you know, I don't
(19:13):
want to be that person.
But at the same time, I had become that person, right?
I had had these experiences that had changed me and I had no one to talk about them with.
And when I did talk about them, I felt very, very self conscious about being that person
who was bragging or who was, you know, just ick, you know, and that didn't feel good.
(19:37):
And it made me start to think like these women that I hang out with or these people that
I'm around, you know, they spend a lot of money on things that I would never spend money
on, like I was saying in the beginning, right?
At the same time, they look at me and my travels and they think that I have all this money,
but I don't.
So how can I bridge that gap so that way they can see that travel is attainable to them
(20:03):
too?
And importantly, I also think that it may help with the limited way that we move through
life.
I was looking at how the same, I guess you can say, everyone thought everyone operated,
especially my colleagues.
And when I went back into teaching in Atlanta public schools, it was just like everyone
seemed to be like separate wise, but black, you know, like y'all not thinking differently.
(20:29):
Y'all not doing anything differently.
Like everybody has this linear way of doing things.
You know, black or white type of thinking, you know, everything that is not fitting into
the cute little bubble that they expect it to spit in is weird, is wrong, is something,
you know, it was just so much.
And I was just like, dang, these people that I'm working with have a very small mindset
and that is affecting the children that I teach.
(20:51):
I remember having a conversation with a math teacher and they ended up kind of blowing
up at me and saying, you know, you think you, you think you all that because you went over
there and taught them rich kids in Abu Dhabi.
And I was like, whoa, not what I'm saying at all.
And as a matter of fact, even though those kids were rich, they still acted like these
kids right here.
They still didn't have behavior.
They were still cutting up and they still didn't know the material that they were trying
(21:14):
to be taught.
So a lot of the things are actually parallel.
Like give me a moment.
I'm not trying to, you know, but problem that I was having was that I kept saying, well,
when I was in Abu Dhabi, well, I wasn't, you know, and it kind of, I can see why it made
it seem like girl, we don't want to hear about that anymore.
But I also felt in my heart of hearts that I had had this experience and it'd be really
(21:37):
great to bring this experience back and see how I could implement it in the classroom.
And wasn't nobody trying to hear me.
Wasn't nobody trying to hear me about that.
So I was like, all right, let me leave that alone.
But to be completely transparent and honest, I did feel like if some of these teachers
were just to leave this bubble for a little while, you know, some of them are looking
(21:58):
at 20 years working in the same school in between the same couple of classrooms, you
know, they haven't been anywhere.
They haven't experienced anything and they're responsible for teaching the next generation
and they're kind of regurgitating the same information that keeps us clock in these same
cycles of lack and limitation.
(22:18):
And I remember thinking like, if I could just get them to go somewhere, inspire them to
go somewhere, that would not only change them, but that will change these kids that they
affect day in and day out.
And it was super idealistic.
I started off with trying to do a nonprofit that didn't quite, you know, that didn't quite
work out, but it was just a matter of feeling like exposure is the common denominator between
(22:44):
those that make it and those that just maintain the cycle, maintain the status quo.
Having created this network, you know, I really wanted black women who were interested in
travel because I wasn't about to try to, you know, convince everybody.
But I know that there were some people that were interested, but just saw that as far
fetched.
And in essence, that's just how TBW was born, you know, all those things.
I just really wanted to create a space that just not only celebrated black women travelers,
(23:08):
but also equipped us with the tools, resources, the encouragement, whatever we needed to explore
the world on our own terms.
Since then, I could say that I'm proud of the evolution that TBW has made over the last
10 years.
Sometimes I get sad and feel like I'm not moving fast enough.
I don't have 100,000 followers.
I don't have like this million dollar company, you know, and I look at other influencers
(23:30):
and people who have zoomed right past me and I get in my feels a little bit.
I'm not even going to lie.
And I think, man, what is traveling black women missing?
But as the years go on, especially now that I've quit teaching, I'm learning so much more.
You know, I was able to be a part of two fellowships run by black women.
One was with our village United in Atlanta, Georgia.
(23:52):
The other one was the boss network with Dr. Kameeka Smith.
And being a part of those two fellowships, that was life changing.
To be quite honest, I got connected to an amazing accountant, Dr. Celia with GIP financials.
I mean, she is amazing.
And the way that she teaches accounting is like, oh, okay, I got it.
(24:15):
I got this.
Yeah.
Okay.
And now, you know, she's just amazing.
Being able to talk to some of the other people that they connected us with, you know, they
even gave us some business entrepreneur therapy.
And that was really good because there was also a conversation that we were able to have
about, you know, the guilt that you feel when you think that you're you just owe the world
(24:37):
so much, you know, and it's like, where does that come from?
Why do we feel like we owe anybody anything?
I don't know.
But being able to talk some of those things out really helped me to start looking at how
I want the traveling black woman network to evolve.
And I'm just proud of how it's gone.
You know, I'm starting to recognize that it really is about more than just travel.
(24:59):
I mean, I knew that, but now I feel like it's obvious.
And that makes me happy.
You know, it's about reclaiming our joy, owning these narratives, like I've been saying, and
just making the world see us.
But like I said before, it's not just about us showing up in these spaces and expanding
our mind and, you know, transforming ourselves.
But it is a mutual exchange, because when we show up in these spaces and people don't
(25:24):
know what to expect and they see who we are, we have changed the narrative.
We have owned our narrative.
We have told our story.
You know, we've been able to say, I'm not who you see on TV.
I'm Nadine and we're here and we want to involve ourselves in whatever you got going on.
We want to try the food.
We want to be a part of this.
We want to be a part of that.
(25:45):
And one thing that I think has been commonplace when I travel, especially when I travel with
my small group, it's three of others of us or the episode where we're chatting it up
on season two.
But when we travel together, it's very interesting to see how people receive us because they
enjoy us.
Like they enjoy us wanting to be a part.
(26:07):
They enjoy our questions.
We sit and we talk.
It's not just a kind of show up with tourists and, oh, I need this and that.
Now it feels great to have somebody come in and cook for you.
Let me tell you that.
But to actually stand there in the kitchen and have conversations and ask them about
what they're cooking and, you know, things like that, you can see that they kind of shift
like, oh, you're interested in what I'm doing.
(26:28):
You're not just here to, you know, vacate to be on vacation and that like, no, that's
not how we travel.
And realistically, when I think about how most of the other Black women I travel with,
none of us are really like that.
We want to know what's going on.
We want to be a part of the culture for the time that we're there.
We want to learn about you and your reality and the things that are going on.
(26:50):
And I think that also brings a different dynamic to what tourism has been.
It brings a more authentic vibe.
And I would really think that there's probably some places that are probably looking like,
bring me to Black tourists.
I like them.
You know, hey, I'm just I'm just I'm just saying what I've been saying now that I'm
seeing much more people travel, especially since 2015 when I wrote that first guide,
(27:14):
that we are really, really changing this narrative.
We've got Black Travel Alliance out there.
You've got the Blacks in Travel and Tourism.
You know, you've got culture travels.
You have all these different travel group nomadness, Black travel movement, just all
these different groups that are out there.
(27:34):
So I really like the fact that there are so many of us out here who are really carving
out spaces to make sure we have the opportunity and the resources to travel as a community,
whether you're on social media or our private social group.
You know, it is a sisterhood to really lean on, to laugh about things that, you know,
(27:55):
you might feel like you're bragging, like I was sharing before, you know, having somebody
to connect with and say, oh, yeah, girl, I did.
I didn't go to Sri Lanka yet, but I had some really good pineapples in Australia.
That's the conversation I want to have.
I don't want everybody looking at me like, girl, who you think you are?
No, tell me where yours was, because maybe you know something more than I do.
And now I got to put something on my list.
(28:17):
You know, I want to have those conversations.
And then ultimately to uplift each other, to go somewhere else.
Hey, sis, it looks like you're having a hard time.
Like, take a trip.
You need a break.
You know, you deserve a break.
You deserve rest.
You know, it's not escape.
Sometimes people want to guilt you into feeling like you're running away from your problems.
I need a break.
I need a break.
No one's running away from anything.
(28:38):
You know, I need to go somewhere and just be present with something else instead of
whatever has been bogging me down for however long.
And I don't think there's anything wrong with that.
A lot of times that's exactly what you need to hit the reset button, come back and be
ten times as better than you were before.
What's next for a traveling black woman?
It's not just about the travel guides, the blogs, the socials, YouTube or a podcast,
(29:03):
which we absolutely love providing all of those things.
But it's about building a movement, you know, and with us launching the TVW Social Club,
it is about that connection and community.
You know, in our last bonus episode in season three, you had the opportunity to meet our
amazing community curator, Jabrila Carr, you know, and make sure you check out that episode
if you haven't already.
But inside our social club, you'll find that we have the curated travel opportunities that
(29:27):
you've been looking for, meetups, check-ins for solo travelers.
You know, it's really a safe space to dream, to plan and just to make those different trips
happen for yourself.
And then speaking of curated travel opportunities, our 2025 travel calendar is here.
Small group trips are now all open for booking starting in March, going all the way to December.
(29:48):
We have one trip per month.
And these trips are specifically curated for travelers who are all about cultural activities,
exploring historical sites and indulging in local food and drinks.
You know, they're for the women who want much more than just a simple vacation.
You know, they want the opportunity to expand.
They want the opportunity to be exposed to new things.
(30:08):
They want to shift their reality and connect with the world.
And they want to leave the trip feeling inspired, transformed, all the things.
Now you might be wondering why small groups?
Back in September, September 2024, we actually surveyed the community and the data for the
people that answered was very clear.
Most of you preferred smaller, more intimate group trips.
(30:31):
So we listened and our groups range from six to 10 travelers each, which is why we have
so many opportunities.
With these six to 10 travelers, we're creating this more personalized experience where you
truly have the opportunity to connect with your fellow travelers and immerse yourself
in the culture.
You know, think about it as like small groups also make it easier to just dive off the beaten
(30:52):
path and do different experiences real quick.
You know, you're able to kind of shift things on the itinerary as they happen.
There's space in every itinerary for the people on that trip to say, hey, can we do something
different today?
Or for the leaders of the trip to say, hey, I'm seeing the vibe of this group.
I want to show you all this.
And that is what I want.
(31:12):
You can't do that with 20, 30 people.
You can't do that with any more than 10 people, really.
So all of our groups are six to 10 people each.
All right.
I have been running my mouth.
This is this is different for me because, you know, usually I do these interviews and
I get to kind of ask questions and I'm a I'm a real listener.
Like I like to listen to people tell stories.
(31:34):
So a lot of times when I'm interviewing, you know, I just let people talk.
I let them share their experiences and I enjoy hearing, you know, what it is, even when I
kind of play it back to myself, I'm like, oh, man, that that was a really good conversation.
I'm really glad I learned X, Y, Z about this person.
So today it feels like, oh, my God, I've been talking for forever.
I've been rambling.
You know, here we are.
So before we wrap up, I just really want to invite you to join the movement.
(31:57):
You know, head on over to WWW traveling black women dot com and just learn more about the
TVW social club.
You know, like I said, we have an episode on it.
We have some videos on YouTube about it.
We have a couple of reels about it.
So, you know, or you can also just send us an email at info at traveling black women
dot com and say, hey, I want to know a little bit more about the traveling black women network,
(32:21):
the social club and all the things.
Right.
Also check out our upcoming trips.
So again, they're small groups.
So if there's something that you see on there as you want to book, go ahead and book ASAP
because I would hate for you to wait.
And then it's sold out like Peru.
Peru was right around my birthday.
I made one mention of it and in that instance, the max amount that I could bring on that
(32:44):
trip had already signed up plus one.
So I'm hoping I can get to 11 for that one, you know, but the reality of it is they're
small.
So make sure you sign up.
All that being said, you'll find everything you need on our website.
So I am not the expert.
I know a lot.
I've experienced a lot.
I've seen a lot and I can share a lot, but there's always going to be times where somebody
(33:07):
knows more than me.
So if you've traveled often, we still need you in this network, whether it's part of
the social club, the Facebook Facebook group, or just answering questions on one of our
social media platforms, please feel free to be present because another black woman somewhere
needs you in the same vein.
If you have not traveled and you've been thinking about it, especially with this year, this
(33:28):
kind of being the year of rest for the black women, you know, definitely tap in, ask questions.
There's no question that's too dumb.
So with that said, I'm going to wrap it up.
My mouth is getting dry.
I got, I need some water and I've really enjoyed this first episode.
Thank you all for listening and welcome to season four until next time.
(33:52):
Keep exploring, keep thriving and know that this is your space to transform your reality
through the power of exposure.
Again, make sure to subscribe, leave a comment, send the message about topics you want to
cover, whatever.
Just send me a message.
Let's make an unforgettable season.
This is, this is our time.
This is our year.
We're going to rest.
(34:12):
We're going to prioritize our leisure.
We're going to embrace travel as a lifestyle.
We're going to make some things happen.
All right.
Y'all take care.
Thank you so much for tuning into the traveling black women podcast.
You can find us online at www traveling black women.com and there you can find plenty more
(34:38):
travel resources to help you plan your very next trip.
We've got travel guides.
We've got a blog.
We got our blog and you just listened to our podcast.
I look forward to seeing you around.
Thanks for tuning in.
We'll see you next time.
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