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S3, E46 Shannon: A Magnificent Millennial

Hailing from West Philadelphia, Shannon Griffin was exploring opportunities outside of her neighborhood from the time she was a teenager. On this episode, the 25-year-old traveler and thrill seeker talks about living in a predominantly Black neighborhood but going to school across town in an affluent, nonblack community. She explains how, in many ways, navigating these two worlds prepared her well for her college and post-college lives. After graduating from a university where she was one of few Black students, she moved to China. Shannon is honest about the hilarity and awkwardness that have been the themes of her experiences in the three years she’s called China home. She shares stories of curious questions about her hair as well as sincere attempts to connect with her and empathize with the oppressive treatment of Black Americans by their own country. Shannon is also honest about how cavalier she’s been in making lifestyle choices. While she’s grateful to exist in a time period where Black women can be flighty and just jump right into non-traditional lives without hesitation, she is cognizant that she’ll be thirty in only a few years. She is beginning to realize while the paths she’s taken so far have helped her grow and gifted her with many lessons, she has yet to take one that has purpose. She’s acutely aware that she needs to find her life’s mission. When asked if her life challenges what it means to be a good Black woman, Shannon thinks about the fact that she is an 18-hour flight away from all the people who share her last name in West Philadelphia. “I think I’m challenging this notion that you have to sacrifice everything for your family. I love them, but I don’t see it as necessary to return to Philadelphia or even America once I’m ready to leave China.”

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S2, E41: Tameshia Found More of Herself Living Abroad

Entrepreneur and traveler, Tameshia Ridge started her international life like many millennials: she did a study abroad program that placed her in East Africa. In this episode, she explains how her ambition to eventually become a diplomat shifted once she had spent some time interning with the Rwandan government. Having connected with No Thanks: Black, Female and Living in The Martyr-Free Zone, Tameshia shares that the questions which propelled Keturah to move abroad were the same questions that inspired her to leave Rwanda and relocate to the west side of Africa. Noting that much of the book resonated with her, Tameshia focuses on the theme that unlike what many assume, working in Africa wasn’t transformative, missionary work. She expresses how ridiculous such an assumption is, particularly, when you are an educated American expat. “You end up trading one system of oppression (racism) for another. In Africa, that’s classism.” Being honest about the western privilege many Black American expats won’t talk about, Tameshia explains that she’s been able to accomplish so much overseas because of her passport privilege. To further her mission to debunk myths about being Black and American in Africa, she is candid when girlfriends ask her about moving to the continent to find their African king and get citizenship. “I only have my story about dating and what I know is factual about Ghana’s right to abode laws.” Tameshia also probes Keturah about a sentence in No Thanks in which she refers to her time abroad better equipping her for “self-salvation.” This leads into an insightful discussion about how it becomes easier to own your truth when you are constantly confronted with a culture that challenges who you are at your very core. Tameshia thanks Keturah for writing No Thanks, stating, “If I had this book eight years ago when I first moved to Africa, it would have made my landing a bit easier. I would have had the language for what I was feeling and experiencing.”

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S2, E33: Cole Travels the World Alone and With Sisterfriends

Travel Enthusiast and Accidental Entrepreneur, Cole Banks started Sisters Traveling Solo as a Facebook group. It was her response to an internet debate that discouraged Black women, particularly, from traveling the world unaccompanied. In this episode, Cole talks about the overnight success of that Facebook group. She had to quit a good job (that she enjoyed) unexpectantly when she went from hosting five trips in one year to putting together a team that organized twenty before the year ended. Cole shares that Sisters Traveling Solo is now much more than a Facebook group and successful business. It is a platform for Black women to share their joy exploring the world on their own and to build community for when they want to be in Peru with twenty other Black women in addition to sightseeing in Spain alone. She says that the fear family and friends often project onto single women when they get wanderlust is not allowed in the Facebook group that now boasts 70,000 members. She and her team have worked hard to create a space where statements like, “I am afraid to go here” don’t pop up in threads. Instead, the group has an abundance of “I took my first solo trip and I loved it!” posts that garner hundreds of support responses and impromptu trips among the members. In addition to sharing how much joy she gets from watching total strangers become best friends over the course of a week-long trip, Cole is honest about the amount of time and work she has to do to make sure her customers never see or feel how much has gone into their seamless trips. She talks about the realities of having this new good job (that she enjoys) in which she is “on vacation” more times than she is at home. While she is filled with gratitude for how well her business is doing, she admits she’s trying to find balance between organizing others’ memorable vacations and having enough free time to go on her own, even if it’s just to relax without a phone or laptop for a few days. All in all, she is content with her choice to leave her cushy job. “I don’t ever forget I have the life many people dream of,” Cole states. “I set my own schedule and make my own rules. I am always having a new experience in a different part of the world. I know that is no small thing.” It is also no small thing that she has turned this dream job into a million-dollar company in only three years.

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S2, E32: Chineka Found Her Tribe in China

A native of Chicago, Chineka Nikko is at her happiest when she is inspiring others to be their best self and shining her positive light on the accomplishments of women who do the same. A poet, inspirational speaker and all around giving human being, she has seen her work and platform as an artist grow since moving to China. In this episode, she shares how her first experience living overseas was through military service and her current experience came after having no other choice but to leave Chicago. A sudden job loss along with an invitation from an old friend to move to Asia were the perfect combination for Chineka to start a new life. She has no regrets and feels it is the best decision she’s ever made. She has had no trouble finding work and has seen what was once a glorified hobby turn into a platform as a speaker and poet. She explains how quickly things happen in China and how many times what she thought of as a small, community event at which she had been asked to speak turned out to be a “big deal with news crews and cameras and more people asking me to write other stuff for them.” Chineka also addresses what is a recurring question by family and friends back home: “But, are there Black people in China, though?” She laughs as she cites all the Black people she has met from all across the diaspora since moving to China. She tries to be humble as she says she has about a hundred friends who, at any given moment, would offer her their bed, food, money and even a job if she needed it. She quickly confesses she low balled the number and has more like two hundred members of her tribe; the vast majority of them are Black. Though she had (and still has) a supportive network of people in Chicago, something about her network in China has resulted in Chineka being free to explore a much fuller version of herself. “It’s almost like I am living in a dream. It’s hard to explain, but I have accomplished and grown so much in my three years here. I have had to force myself to slow down.”

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S2, E24: Evita Builds Community Through International Travel

Eight years ago, Evita Robinson started the Nomadness Travel Tribe as an online community of about 100 black millennials who shared the common interest of travel. Today, Nomadness is 22,000 members strong and in addition to orchestrating epic tribe trips to all corners of the globe, Nomadness also has regular meet ups and partnerships with travel brands that are just now catching on to the black travel movement. It has also spearheaded its first conference dedicated to the needs, interests and passions of its largely black female members. In this episode, Evita shares how her popularity in high school combined with her natural affinity for planning large scale parties sparked her mission to bring communities of like-minded people together. With the help of her mother, she nurtured her talent for throwing fun, respectful and well-executed events that people looked forward to attending each year. She also talks about how what was once a burgeoning movement a decade ago is closer to becoming the norm for many Black Americans. Since the fresh-faced young professionals who joined the tribe at its infancy are now becoming parents themselves, this next generation of “junior nomads” will have grown up with travel as such an every-day part of their lives that it will be only their parents who can appreciate what a privilege this luxury of collecting passport stamps is. Evita also speaks about the importance of taking trips that go beyond just flossing for the ‘gram. “I think every two years you should take a trip that humbles you,” Evita says. The key to finding freedom in any trip outside of American borders is to make sure she comes back “not complaining about the same shit as I was when I left.”

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