While the gatekeepers of established travel writing may miss a lot of good stuff, social media remains a powerful tool for under-represented voices. A search for travel blogs by people of color may have yielded meager results just a few years ago, but we’re making up for that now, with more folks joining all the time. Here are a few of our favorites.
1. Fly Brother
A self-proclaimed aviation geek who seems to find himself in a different corner of the globe each week, Ernest White II (a.k.a. Fly Brother) never ceases to be entertaining in his delivery of updates from the road. His tone is unapologetic and his smile, killer.
2. Moving Black
In her straight-up schoolings on the crossroads of identity, belonging and backpacking, Pan-Africanist educator Abena Clarke doesn’t ever hold back. Whether she’s reporting from Martinique, Accra or her hometown of South London, you can trust that her insights are always just a tad smarter.
3. Wanjeri
Wanjeri Gakuru is a gifted talent with two fingers firmly pressed on the pulse of place. Her blog is full of accounts of her road trips across Africa. In the lyrical post, Suya, she writes from Lagos, “In a few weeks, strings of twinkling lights will be draped across the lawns. An assortment of rosy-cheeked, pot-bellied Caucasian figures will merrily stand among wooden reindeer and plastic wreathes. The Lagoon will turn into one big Coca-Cola Christmas ad.”
4. Ishq In A Backpack
This well-traveled family of four can be witty as hell when relating their adventures via posts like “Hygiene Be Damned: Everyone Should Eat Street Food,” but it’s the hilarious and spot-on The White Travel Blogger Darlings and the Organizers Who Love Them that really got us thinking and laughing out loud at the same time.
5. Outdoor Afro
A social community “where black people and nature meet,” Outdoor Afro has established itself as a steadfast leader in the movement to desegregate the wild. They organize local groups of African-American adventurers on hikes, bike rides and every kind of outdoor recreational activity available across the United States.
6. Brian Kamanzi
Cape Town-based Brian Kamanzi’s blog posts are refreshingly verbose, poetic ruminations on place, migrations and commonality across cultures. Here, you will find narrative-driven writings that approach their subjects with gorgeous depth.
7. The Joy Trip Project
The Joy Trip Project is a multimedia storytelling platform that explores all facets of the active lifestyle. Founder James E. Mills shines a light on underreported stories in the outdoor industry. His recently published book, The Adventure Gap recounts an expedition of all-black climbers who attempted the summit of Mt. Denali in Alaska in 2013.
8. Latino Outdoors
This organization posts travelogues from the field, interviews with “eco-mestizos” and reflections on urban conservationism on their blog. They exist to “connect cultura with the outdoors” and do so with characteristic pride.
9. Afropean
Johny Pitts and team bring us along on their “adventures in Afro Europe.” This sleek and colorful blog hosts a stable of writers who navigate overlapping identities. Whether through top-rate travel writing, photo essays or cultural critique, they tend to deliver content that can be easily devoured in hours of non-stop scrolling.
10. Everywhere All The Time
This mouthy kid from Brooklyn by way of Ecuador—who also happens to be the author of this article—lives on the front lines of the decolonization of travel media, churning out an interview series with travel writers of color called #Dispatches.
A queer mestiza travel writer from Brooklyn by way of Ecuador, Bani Amor’s mission is to decolonize travel media.