“I don’t live in the moment. The moment lives in me.” — G. Gross
Tiananmen Square, Beijing
Greg Gross is the publisher, senior editor and principal content producer for I’m Black and I Travel. A writer, photographer and life-long traveler who took up travel writing and blogging after 41 years in mainstream journalism, his blog — known affectionately to regular readers as IBIT, has been nationally recognized as the Best Travel Blog by the 2011 Black Weblog Awards.
He has visited 42 of the 50 United States and 20 countries on five continents…and counting. In his view, you can never be too rich, too thin or have too many visa stamps in your passport.
He’s in no danger of achieving the first two, but his sights are firmly fixed on those visa stamps.
“Whether as African-Americans or Americans in general, playing the hermit in the global village is not to our benefit. Today’s world is too inter-dependent and too globally competitive for that. We need to get in the game — and these days, the game is international.
“I am SO looking forward to the day when I can stop automatically counting — and rejoicing at the sight of — each black face I see outside the United States, because it has become commonplace for African-Americans to see, learn from and enjoy the world. That’s my goal. That’s why I created this blog.
“And that’s why I’m so glad to see YOU here. I hope you’ll come back often, not just as a reader but as a participant, with your own questions and comments — and even your blog posts from your own travel adventures!
“So let’s get Out There!”
Greg can be reached via e-mail at greg@imblacknitravel.com
HI, I AM CARLOS.
AND I LIVE IN TIJUANA, MEXICO, AND WOULD LIKE TO HAVE IN TOUCH WITH YOU…
BEST REGARDS
CARLOS REYES
Hi, Carlos–
My email address is greg.gross09@gmail.com. I look forward to hearing from you.
Best wishes,
.greg
like the blog title. I’m definitely an advocate of travelling, I guess the further black people travel, the less people are going to stare and point at us when we get there! lol!
First, welcome to the blog! And second, you’re exactly on point about us becoming less of a curiosity once the world gets used to seeing us around the globe. I’m looking forward to that day. I’m also looking forward to black folks feeling so comfortable and confident wherever they go in this world that they won;t casting about nervously, hoping to find another black face. They can simply enjoy it when they find one!
Where do you like to travel and what kind of traveling do you enjoy most?
.greg
where I like to travel is EVERYWHERE, next country on my list is Jordan. I’m into the arabic world at the moment, cos I speak a little arabic and used to live in Tunisia. I’m so used to NOT seeing black faces when I travel that I don’t do the whole desperately looking around thing, in fact I’m more surprised when I DO see black people then when I don’t. Dunno if you’ve been to Macau, but that’s the country I was referring to with the pointing/staring, it got quite exhausting after a while, I kinda felt like a circus attraction but it’s not their fault I guess.Anyways happy travels keep up the good work with the blog. Ciao
You are definitely my kind of traveler! Coincidentally, I’ve been thinking about Jordan of late. A have a good friend who’s been there often for work and just loves it.
As far as the pointing/staring thing goes, we got that in Japan. I know what you mean about it being a draining experience, but Fate intervened to give us a coping mechanism, as you’ll see when you read that link.
Anyway, thanks for the kind words. Stop by often, and bring friends!
This blog is seriously rad! I look forward to reading more of your awesome posts. Got any advice on hostels in the south of France?
Haven’t stayed in any hostels in southern France myself as yet, but the whole country is packed with them. If you know some of the specific locales in the south of France where you’d like to stay, here are a few sites with information on hostels. The last link is to a site for hostel jobs. Depending on how long you plan to be in one place, if you can land a hostel job in the place you want to stay, they might let you stay for free. If you plan to travel with friends, and it’s in reach of your budget, you also might want to look at gites. They cost a bit more than hostels but might provide you a nicer experience.
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Thanks!
Fantastic site! I agree with making blacks (especially African-Americans) become less of an exotic fruit while travelling abroad. I just read an interview from a young woman who spent a summer in India where most of the people she came across didn’t even know that black people existed in the US (they assumed she was African). Good luck with you endeavors and I plan to follow!
I am a Af-American In Keepr in Grecia Costa Rica. I am also interested in seeing more blacks travel outside of the US and any forums that I can contribute to. I also blog about being Af-American in Costa Rica.
Hey Greg:
Wanted to say hi and also to say I found a great color shot of you and me near the fountain at the LA train station with our bikes. We are just about to begin one of those LA to San Diego bike trips, and we seem a good deal younger. I forget what year it was. I haven’t scanned the pic and I am looking for the neg or slide to do this, but I can send you a paper copy shortly if you can give me your mailing address. I came across your blog on the Reber journal. It looks good and I sure hope it is doing well for you. I have an appointment soon, but all the best and hope to hear from you soon — Steve
Hello. I’m trying to follow your blog on WordPress but can’t seem to find the link to do it. Thanks
hi, and thanks for your interest.
You won’t find IBIT listed on the WordPress.com site. IBIT used to be listed on WordPress.com, but WordPress does not allow you to put ads on your site, so I had to leave. The URL now is http://imblacknitravel.com. If you do a Google search for “I’m Black and I Travel,” the old dead URL always comes up first, but the other links beneath it will take you to the live version of IBIT. Just follow any working link to IBIT, then click on the title to go to the home page. If you’re not on a public computer, you can then bookmark the home page so you’ll always have it.
Hope that helps. Thanks again for your interest, and welcome to the IBIT family!
greg
LOVE, LOVE, LOVE the website. i am a “baby” in my travels – but i am hoping to make traveling a full time job once my youngest is out of the nest (i tease him and say i’m coming to his graduation with my bags packed). four more years!
keep encouraging people to get out and see the world…..and maybe i will catch you on my journey!
angela
Many thanks, Angela, and welcome to the IBIT family! I hope you’ll come here often, both as a reader and an active participant! Where do you have your sights on traveling once you’re ready to take flight?
Hello,
I just stumbled upon your blog and am excited to have found you. I’ve been to 35 of the 50 United States and counting. I’ll be expanding upon my International travel (Jamaica, Mexico and the British Virgin Islands so far) and am glad to know of another kindred spirit. Fair Winds!
Thank you, Tonya, and welcome to the IBIT Family! You’re exactly the kind of reader who inspired me to start this blog oin the first place. I hope you’ll come back often — not just to read, but participate with questions and comments…and maybe even some posts of your own from your future travels!
Yes! When I checked out the Black Blogging Awards yours came up for the popular vote. (And between you and I, who cares about anything else?) I usually don’t tell people this but I am a former flight attendant. I went everywhere. I fell in love with Italy. I can’t want to dig all through your posts, and hopefully you’ll do the same with my blog, go to http://www.helesetalks.wordpress.com and http://www.youtube.com/helesetalks for my little piece of the world that I’ve carved out. It’s waiting for you!
Hi Helese, and welcome to the IBIT Family! Thanks too for the links, which I’m looking forward to seeing. What was your favorite place in Italy, and what made you fall in love with the country? I think my fav is Venice, although in fairness, I’ve scarcely seen any of Rome and wouldn’t mind spending more time in Florence.
Again, thanks and welcome! Hope you’ll be an active participant as well as a reader!
Hi, Greg! I’m Black and I travel, too (:
Welcome to the IBIT Family, Risamay! I hope you’ll be a regular visitor — not just as a reader but as a participant, as well! Where have your travels taken you lately and what do you have on tap for 2012?
I have a Nigerian friend who recently had a horrible time getting a visa from the Nigerian Embassy in Washington DC. Is this typical behavior among most African (or other developing) nations? or is Nigeria on a level all its own? LOL. Just wondering if you knew. thanks!
Hello and thanks for posting this.
I’ve never dealt with the Nigerian Embassy, so I can’t speak to this directly, but I know in general that problems can sometimes arise when applying for visas. Exactly what kind of problems did your friend encounter?
Haha. Where do I begin? Embassy hours listed as M to F (9 to 5). Arriving on Fri to be told thru security intercom “we don’t work on Fridays”. Arriving for an embassy scheduled appointment on Monday only to be greeted by a sign informing visitors that the Nigerian govt declared the day a holiday so the embassy is closed. Being hung up on, scolded for pronouncing her own name wrong. My friend is Nigerian but is using her American passport to travel home. My husband (also Nigerian) told her she would have bypassed the runaround if she had just slipped the embassy official a $20 to speed things along (just like you would in Nigeria). I wonder if she’d get the same hassle if she tried to get a visa to go, say, to Senegal or the Philippines. It’s hilarious, frustrating & pathetic all at the same time.
Wow. That’s amazing, and not in a good way. The Nigerian Embassy has an online visa application on their Web site. do you know if your friend tried that before going in person? It shouldn’t make any difference, but in this case, it might be better.
Hi Greg, I am glad that I found your blog. Great work you are doing in spotlighting the pleasure of travel fo people of color. I am the owner and tour host for Caribbean Culinary Tours and Vacations. We specialize in Cooking vacations and group tours and retreats to the Caribbean. Kindly check or website at http://www.caribbeanculinarytours.com. I will be checking out your posts. I wish you continued success.
Olá Greg, thanks for the shout out in your writeup about our exhibit at the (2012) Los Angeles Times Travel Show. Yes, as you briefly mentioned, our innovative tour service specializes in African Diaspora Heritage Tours to Salvador Bahia Brazil. Rich in culture and character, today’s Salvador Bahia, the capital of Bahia state, offers much in tropical beauty and African history and is an absolute “must-visit” travel destination for any person of African descent, or those who wish to explore African Diaspora in Brazil. Our annual Bahia Discovery Tour, featuring Festa da Boa Morte (Afro-Brazilian Religious Festival) is the perfect trip for African American travelers. More info – http://www.afrobraziltours.com – Herschel Perkins Jr.
Dear Gregg, I am a South African student in Australia. I happened to read an article that you wrote in this website that made me stop and think, for a moment. It was an article about being a foreigner. In the article you quoted a placard which read “everyone is a foreigner somewhere”. Being a South African citizen, I know that placard very well and it is a famous placard in South Africa. Two things made it famous, one is that the protester was protesting against the xenophobic attacks which took place in South Africa in 2007 which resulted to the death of many African people, mostly Zimbabweans, because they were “foreigners”. The other reason that made the placard famous is the depth of the meaning embedding in so few a words. Indeed “everyone is a foreigner somewhere”. I have lived in three countries so far, South Africa, Sweden and Australia. I will try my best to get more opportunities to travel. However, in my few travels I could not help but notice that many Africans are not confident enough in foreign countries, some of them try too hard not to be associated with their native countries by adapting their accents and changing their personalities to align themselves with what is “normal” in that country, it is a sad sight to see. I think as Africans we need to be confidnet and comfortable in who we are and how we do things. I am a confident, comfortable and proud South African “foreigner somewhere”.
Mzoli–
Thank you very much for lending some important insight to this blog post. No one reading your comment could ever again labor under the delusion that Africa is a single country.
What are you studying in Australia? Is there a large African student population there? I’d love to hear more about your experiences there, as well as Sweden.
Your comments about Africans who go to extremes to assimilate into foreign cultures reminded me of the Cherokee, a tribe of Native Americans here in the southeastern United States. They changed their dress, the way they built and organized their communities, all to mimic European norms. They became farmers. They adopted European names. They wrote their own constitution, adopted Christianity. They seemed to think that if they assimilated enough, the whites would respect them and not take their lands.
It didn’t work.
At some point, we all must adapt to the new realities we encounter in life. The challenge is to do that and still be true to our roots, true to our heritage, true to ourselves.
Again, Mzoli, thank you again for your comment, and welcome to the IBIT family.
–greg
Hi Greg,
Glad to learn from this site that Americans are now exploring outside their zones. As a highly visible african and a citizen of one of the most populous countries in Africa (if not the world) and who by the nature of my work (software engineering) have travelled across several continents and lived in different countries in Africa, Europe, and regular visitors to America/Canada; I totally agree with the quote “everyone is a foreigner somewhere” especially when meeting with other professionals from Europe/America/Africa/Asia in a non-english speaking countries and all subjected to same language barriers irrespective of the colour.
Your point “…to be true to our roots…” is very striking and deeper in meaning. Staying true includes basic areas of hair, skin, etc and not of religious inclination. The culture where you see almost every 8 out of 10 black americans/canadians ladies/girls wearing wigs and hair attachment doesn’t depict their origin!!! Someone might claim it is for “ease of maintenance” but it seems to be more than this i think. The Cherokees would have retain their identities irrespective of adopting the dresses (I dont think the Chorekee traditional regalia, ghanaian traditional dress, Masai’s dress or Nigerian agbada dress can withstand the bitter colds of winters in America, Canada, Poland, or other Eastern Europe!!!) if they;ve at least retain one of their identities. A typical identity of African-American or African anywhere, especially our ladies, is the hair. Haven’t you seen, in Europe, how gorgeous young and old ladies look beautiful with moderately braided hairs, and the using the hair extention creatively remain true to their roots? I am using ladies because it is almost impossible for men to hide their roots no matter their accents and besides it is out of fashion seeing a black man with curly hairs!!
Well, i hope to start coming across more “foreigners” from America staying true to their roots especially in the most visible areas of Central and Eastern Europe – not when visiting Africa countries. Then we will begin to see how our heritages are well respected in that part of the world for a well groomed black men and women.
many thanks.
Hi rb–
First, thank you for leaving such a thoughtful, and thought-provoking, comment.
Hair is a long- and hotly-debated topic among our peoples. I know what you mean about all the wigs and so on. So long as women choose their hairstyle according to personal preference and not some attempt at assimilation, that’s fine with me. Curly hair for black men pretty much went out with the jheri curl…and I hope it never returns! Actually, all that troubles me less than the use of skin-lightening creams and other substances among our peoples. I’ve read about the use of these products on both sides of the Atlantic and it’s very disappointing. We are all God’s creation; we should be able to accept ourselves the way He chose to make us.
Thanks again for your comment, rb. I hope you’ll come back often!
Hi Gregg, I thought was going to write sooner but a lot has been happenening in my time in Australia. South African universities have partnerships with other universities around the world, as you would have expected. So the first time I went out of South Africa was through a student exchange program in 2009 when I studied in a univeristy in Sweden for 6 months. I was completing my final year of a teaching degree, since you asked about this. In my time there I learnt that there are very few African/black students in Scandinavian universities. In fact I managed to speak to only three black students in that university in a period of 6 months, and two of those students were also from South Africa, one was from Uganda. Other black people in the society were mainly refugees from war-torn countries like Somalia and Sudan. Many Swedes assumed that we spoke the same language since we all came from Africa- remember that many Europeans are not quite educated, they think Africa is one big country with one language but with different warring tribes.
But the swedish society is very welcoming and tolerant of cultural-diversity since the 1970′s. And Sweden supported black people in South Africa during the Apartheid era of racial segregation and oppression of blacks by whites. I really enjoyed the hospitality of the Swedes in 2009 and I could go back anytime I get the opportunity. I tried my best to make a point of teaching them the other side of Africa that is not usually shown on TV. I showed them beautiful children from South Africa, Namibia, Botswana, Zambia, Swaziland, and Kenya laghing and playing, not digging thrash. And these children are the majority in the mentioned countries. I believe that the negative light in which Africans are portrayed in the media has a psychological effect on how Africans view themselves. So if we project a positive image of ourselves in the world we will easily acquire
confidence, skills and success and other nations will respect us. Africans in Sweden and other European countries have a great potential and opportunity to achieve this objective.
I am writing from Australia, I will tell you about the Australian experience after you respond to this post. sometimes my comments might be out of context, in that case dont hesitate to point that out to me. Thank you Gregg for this blog, it is very eye-openning.
We agree with this publisher’s ideal. This globe belongs to us too, so see it, make a point to see every chance you get. Sure we can visit our hometown, see relatives, go to Vegas and the Grand Canyon, but there is a bigger world out there waiting for us to visit. See ya!
WOW…stumbled across your site Greg and found it to be travel information respite. Thank you for that!!! I’m a recently retired Federal law enforcement executive who was fortunate to travel extensively on Uncle Sam’s dime throughout the lower 48, to Puerto Rico and the USVI. I’ve also traveled to Central and South America, throughout the Caribbean, to Canada and to Ghana, West Africa (on my dime though). Many of my international trips were with a travel companion, but some were alone. The biggest obstacle I faced in doing international traveling prior to retirement was finding at least one travel companion and then I sometimes had to subsidize their expenses—not a good thing. When I traveled solo, I didn’t totally enjoy my trip because I didn’t have anyone to share my experiences, especially in Rio, Salvador, San Jose and the DR. I’m an adventurer and believe in getting out and about amongst the people, but my LE senses kept me from being too adventurous and trusting of locals, especially at night. And, the costs to travel solo internationally has become very cost prohibitive. I’m used to traveling solo domestically because I had to do it so much throughout my LE career, but internationally…I don’t know!!!
Thanks and welcome to IBIT! I sure hope Uncle Sam let you keep some of those frequent-flier miles you racked up in the name of protecting the US public! You’ve been to three places that are high on my list: Salvador, Central America and Ghana. Especially Ghana. Would love to know your impressions of the country.