Happy belated Juneteenth everyone! Hope you all had a great weekend celebrating your Blackness, whether you shopped Black-owned, learned something new about our history in America, swag surfed with your family and friends at a cookout, or simply basked in your melanin from the comfort of your bed. It’s always a good day to be Black but on Juneteenth, it's time to be Blackity Black! LOL!
In honor of Juneteenth, I wanted to take some time to highlight some of my favorite Black travel influencers. Be sure to check out their work and like, follow, share, subscribe, allat!
@chidiashley
I’ve been following Chidi Ashley on Instagram for a little over two years now and she has been one of my favorites ever since. I was first introduced to her when I saw somebody join her first group trip to Bali, Indonesia for Spring Break in 2019 (that was also my first introduction to Bali which I’ve been obsessed with ever since LOL). From there, I’ve watched her grow her company @chidiashleytravels (group and individual travel planning) into a full-time career, grow her social media following to 50k+ followers, permanently relocate to Indonesia, buy acres of land all cash to build a beautiful villa in Bali, and travel to probably at least 15 countries since then. And knowing that she’s another Black woman around my age doing all this is amazing. Truly an inspiration for the life I want to live! Definitely go check her out on Instagram, YouTube, and Tiktok. And check out her company @chidiashleytravels, esp. if you are looking to travel abroad but have nobody to go with. I’ll be going on one of her group trips to Cartagena, Colombia in September and I can’t wait! I’ll let yall know how it goes in a blog post later this year.
@packslight
I believe I started following Gabby last year during the pandemic and her page is amazing! Her whole brand is centered around promoting what she calls PTOs (Paid Travel Opportunities). PTOs are fully funded scholarships, contests, sweepstakes, internships, etc. that will allow recipients to travel and experience the world for free. She finds opportunities for lots of different age groups, racial backgrounds, education levels, interests, etc. Some examples are the Airbnb Live Anywhere contest, fully funded scholarships for Master’s degrees abroad, cash sweepstakes for posting travel photos, student loan debt payoff opportunities, etc. She is also a full-time digital nomad and spent a lot of the last 6 months living in Dubai and Mexico City, providing information about those destinations. She also just got her blue checkmark on IG so congrats to her!
Shaneice Crystal/Being Neiicey (previously NaturalNeiicey)
I’m pretty sure I’ve been following Shaneice for a couple of years now. She regularly came across my YouTube recommended videos because she’s also a natural hair influencer but I honestly didn’t pay much attention to her because her curl pattern is way looser than mine. But I really like her travel vlogs on YouTube. Before the pandemic, she and her friends seemed to be on the move almost all of the time so I watched a lot of those videos. Her videos tend to give me ideas or inspiration for places to add to my bucket list and things to do while there. Honestly, watching travel vlogs is one of my favorite pastimes LOL.
@fly.nanced
I found Cinneah pretty recently but her page has already been really helpful not only for travel-related content but good financial content overall. She is currently on a journey to financial freedom and recently paid off $23k in debt over the last year. So if you are looking for motivation to help you become debt-free, she may be a good place to start. The Lord came through with my college scholarships so thankfully, I don’t have any major debt (plus I’ve always been good with credit cards). I use her page more for long-term investment advice because anybody who knows me knows that I don’t have it in me to work until 65. IDK how people do it! Along with the investment advice, she also promotes budget travel hacking so that we can be on the go without breaking the bank. She’s the reason I recently got the Chase Sapphire Card and now have $1000 worth of travel points to redeem! I’m looking forward to learning more from her about travel hacking because international flights can get expensive, esp. considering I’m always ready to take a trip.
Honorary Mentions: @nomadnesstribe and @theblacktravelclub
These accounts are not individual people, but rather accounts that highlight Black travelers from all over and post BIPOC travel content from a larger platform. There are many accounts like this, especially for Black travel, but these are two of my favorites.
TheBlackTravelClub is one of the larger black travel pages that promotes and features black travelers all over the world. I don’t remember the stat exactly, but I recall reading that like 70% of Black travelers think it’s important to see other Black people visit a destination or see Black people on travel marketing material before we visit. I don’t know about you all but that’s definitely the case for me! Most destinations on my bucket list were probably added after I saw another Black person visit. And I 100% notice when hotel websites don’t have a Black person pictured anywhere. So following this page has opened my eyes to many destinations, hotels, activities, etc. that I may not have come across otherwise. This page also hosts group trips and I would love to join one at some point.
NomadnessTribe is one of my favorites because along with reposting and promoting black travelers everywhere, it also does a really good job of representing BIPOC travelers, teaching and promoting an overall understanding of BIPOC cultures (such as explaining historical events, informing about and celebrating holidays such as Ramadan, breaking down cultural stereotypes and misconceptions, and amplifying BIPOC voices on important topics), and building an overall community through merch, group trips, and events like Audacity Fest.
Who are your favs? Comment below!
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