Unpacking Solo Travel with Wanda Duncan
At Her Bags Were Packed, we focus on helping women heal emotional baggage and the many ways that solo travel can help us on that journey. Last spring I had Wanda Duncan, host of the weekly podcast Black Women Travel, join me for an Unpacking Solo Travel chat on Instagram Live. Today I am sharing a condensed version of that conversation.
For the last five years, Wanda has been a digital nomad, someone who works remotely while traveling the world. In addition to hosting her podcast, she is also the community manager for the Black Women Digital Entrepreneur Facebook group, and was a finalist for the Trailblazer Award from the Women in Travel Summit's 2021 Bessie Awards! At the time of our conversation, Wanda was in Penang, Malaysia.
Will you tell everyone a little bit about your travel background? What led you to travel and eventually to solo travel?
Growing up I hit the road with my family mostly for religious conventions -- maybe once or twice a year, an hour and a half away for two or three days. My first real road trip was from Illinois to Florida to visit my sister. That was actually the first time I went to the beach in my adult life, and it was the beginning of travel for me. I started traveling around the States a bit more, going to music events, and meeting other people who were interested in music and technology. And through that, I got to meet some Couchsurfing folks, both through being hosted and by going to meetups. It was really awesome to meet other people who were obsessed with travel, who would cook meals for me and give me the keys to their homes and take me out with their friends. It was wonderful to hang out with people like that.
Then in 2010 I “broke up” with America and took my first international trip to Jamaica with a friend, followed by a big solo trip to El Salvador where I spent six months. Then I went back to Jamaica by myself for three months. That was when I first tried the digital nomad thing.
I ended up back in Atlanta in the winter, sour and depressed to be back in the States.
I really like that idea of volunteering at these events. That’s such a great way to meet other people who are like-minded. It’s a good way to find your community, but also a wonderful way to ease into solo travel. Knowing that there will be that camaraderie can really help us not be as nervous as we tend to be.
I think another thing that helps is really having a conversation with yourself about where and how you can connect with others. Volunteering at events can be a cool way to be a part of it because you get a little bit of responsibility while meeting people with similar interests.
Then, of course, staying in more communal accommodations, like Couchsurfing, or a hostel helps, too. Even if you have your own private room, there are still common areas to meet other people.
So having that conversation with yourself about your expectations and figuring out what you really need. Walking into something with an expectation can lead to some low places, so it’s important to just remain open to the experiences you’ll have and open to who you’ll meet along the way.
I love that. That's a great way to go about it. Don’t think, “What if it goes wrong?” But rather, “What if it goes right?”
What would you say are some of the emotional hurdles you’ve had while traveling and what tools have you used to help you with those hurdles?
I guess I would say that when I came back from my nine months abroad, I was deflated. I didn’t know how to sustain that level of travel. I thought it wasn’t for me. There were a lot of things that I did that I wouldn't do again. For instance, I had a bunch of stuff in storage, and I had a condo that I hadn’t rented out, so that was really eating into my savings. And I carried too much stuff around with me.
But I think the main thing was trying to figure out how to make travel sustainable, how I could create an income for myself. How do I travel in a way that feels good to me, and allows me to have the experiences that I want? So after I gave up having a “normal” life I decided it was time to pull it together and figure it out.
And so that's when I started doing the research. And you know, when you give yourself permission in that way, that's when everything opens up for you. You have to be in that space mentally where you’re telling yourself that it is possible. You have to give yourself the opportunity to find out the ways that it is possible, and I think the crux of that is being able to allow those solutions to come through, to let your imagination take course, and to build off of some of the pieces and parts that other people have been able to put together before you.
I love that idea of finding how to make it possible.
All right, so back to what you call your “break up with America”. What’s the thinking behind that?
I have been more conscious about my phrasing around it. I did break up with America, but I was more excited about where I was going than what I was leaving. And there wasn’t a sourness about it; it was just a realization that, okay, I was born here, I tried it, it’s not working. Staying in the States is not for me, so let's go find out what is.
So it was more of that kind of adventure of finding places where I could feel myself. So I said, let’s do it, let’s put the pieces together. I saved a bunch of money and focused wholeheartedly on my plan. I went into work happy as hell because I was like, this is the money that I'm using to leave you. I don't have to be in here, playing your corporate games, trying to brown nose or get ahead. I knew that once I had saved enough, I was going to get out of that world forever.
And ever since then it’s just been amazing and wonderful and awesome. Even in the uncertainty of time, when things maybe aren’t going as well as I had hoped, or something doesn’t go as planned, it’s still incredible. It’s the life that I‘ve chosen. It’s been a process, and I had to decide to figure everything out piece by piece.
Now it’s been five years and I don’t see myself doing anything else. 2010 me is shaking in her boots, so proud of herself for actually doing it. The American narrative wasn’t my story. I wanted something different, and I got it.
I love that so much. Especially the idea that it’s not about what you’re leaving behind, but about what’s waiting to be discovered.
We have this tendency as travelers to really just paint this beautiful picture of our trips, especially of long-term travel, but the reality is that it’s not always perfect. It’s not always going to look like a postcard, and we aren’t always going to love it. There are ups and downs, and we don’t talk about that enough. But in the end, it’s worth it.
I will say regarding the emotions, that it is important to remember that travel is not struggle-free. It’s not always mai tais on a beach. There will be some of that, but there are other parts as well.
You’ll get lonely. You might have trouble making friends. All of the things that happen in normal life, like missing the bus or getting a flat tire, will happen while you’re traveling, too. So you can’t expect it to be perfect.
It’s about understanding yourself and having honest conversations with yourself. I talk a lot about wellness, what that looks like in action, and what we should be doing. Everybody’s self-care and self-love looks different, so we need to be aware of our needs.
Know your feelings, and understand why you have them. Understand the ways that you are trying to experience fulfillment from those feelings, and use those to grow as a person. It’s about, as you go through time, making adjustments and staying in tune with yourself, and changing up how you stay in tune with yourself. And if travel is a part of a healing process for you, let it be.
There's this weird misconception that if you travel, especially if you are solo traveling, you’re running away from something. But I don’t think we’re running away from the problems we have, I think we’re running away from the distractions and excess of our normal life so that we can deal with our problems with a clear head. Getting out of your regular routine and making space for processing feelings and emotions can help so much. And if you can fix your problems on a beach with a mai tai, do that!
Feelings and emotions have been demonized. The systems of oppression that we operate with under capitalism do not want us to have feelings. So it’s important to recognize the feedback that your body gives you and listen to that. If you need a break to clear your head, take a break.
Yes. You mentioned that you're really big on pushing for mental wellness and self-care. What are some things you found that are helpful for you?
Girl, I've tried it all. I’m currently more on the soul work path. Entrepreneurship, just like a romantic relationship, brings out the worst in you, so that’s something I’m trying to work through. A lot of self-care for me is just showing up, and following the thread to see where it takes me, to see how I can improve myself. I can get creatively congested, so if I’m not able to get to the work because I prioritized something else over the work, I feel terrible inside, because I have something that I want to share, but that takes clarity and prioritization.
In the past, though, I have tried everything: alternative healing, acupuncture, journaling. I've done something called scripting where you write out your future as though it is right now and heap loads and loads of gratitude on it. Meditation, all different kinds of meditation. Massage as self-care, because the body holds the things we’ve been through. I’ve done some metaphysical stuff, and Akashic records. I’ve literally been all over the map because if I do one thing for too long it eventually stops working for me, and I need something new to play with.
Well listen, I want to get into your projects, specifically the Black Women Travel podcast. Where did that idea come from?
Since I was so focused online in my experience of traveling, I was playing around with different ideas and experiments. I was building WordPress sites and graphic designing and learning to code, even making videos at one point. And by the time I got to Vietnam, I was really creating a community. So I decided to turn that into an online community since that’s where my life was focused.
I created the Black Women Digital Nomad Entrepreneurs group on Facebook almost four years ago now. I was meeting other black women travelers, and the group started to build. In 2019, I decided that I wanted the group to go deeper, so I began to encourage everybody to introduce themselves, and people really engaged in different ways. But Facebook is busy, and I think people can forget about groups that they’re in unless they’re reminded about them.
I became really connected with these women, and so I decided to have a conference to get together in real life and learn from each other. We were going to go to Rwanda, and it was going to be amazing…. And then COVID hit. We had to move the conference to be a virtual event, and it wasn’t as fulfilling for me as I think the in-person event would have been.
But just in the planning process, I had learned that I was really happy to come up with content for this specific pocket of people. So that’s really how the podcast came about, and now I have 90 episodes!
It’s not your regular travel show -- it’s intimate and personal. We talk about how to care for ourselves, we learn ways to motivate ourselves, and how to grow. It’s been really amazing and wonderful to be in constant contact with so many different life-long travelers. And every one of the guests is different: disabled, able-bodied, trans, cis-experience, different body types, different hair textures, different feminine expression, different religions, different countries of origin. Representation has been really, really important to me, to have a lot of different kinds of black women on the show.
I have really enjoyed what I've listened to. It’s an incredible place to hear stories from a different perspective than our own, and a great place to just listen. I think that the more you travel, the more your eyes are open to the world, and the more certain barriers that we have can be broken down because we’re learning from people who are different than us. And I think this podcast is another great place to have that experience.
I will say, though, that not everyone learns those things from travel. Some people travel without learning anything. They don’t understand their privilege; they don’t understand the dynamics in place; they don’t understand why their travel experience was so great. I carry American privilege with me, and I try to be super aware of that wherever I go. Just because I'm not oppressed, my people aren't oppressed in the country where I'm visiting, that doesn't mean that the country doesn't have oppressed people. You have to choose to learn.
The podcast is not your “anti-racism” training; it’s not a seminar. These are stories of humans that just happen to be black, feminine-identified people. But in terms of who listens to the podcast, it’s not just black women listening. I’ve had men reach out to me. I’ve had people support me on Patreon who are not black and who are not women, which has been amazing.
Absolutely! I love listening to people's stories so I'm all for it. I think it's wonderful.
Do you have future plans for the show or for the Facebook group?
Something I've been working on is the Black Women Travel Awards. I want to launch it this year to give much due recognition to girls who have beat the algorithm and continue to put their content out there as they present themselves to the world. It’s really to recognize and acknowledge the inner work that they do to make the outer work that they produce, and to give them those accolades that they deserve.
Keep me updated on that! I’m all for celebrating accomplishments.
The world could use a lot more celebration.
My final question, were there any people that you wanted to give a shoutout to?
Absolutely. Davida of Wonders of Wanders. She has a golden voice. She’s a gorgeous writer. She is a beautiful person, inside and out. I met her through the podcast and I love her to pieces.
Shar Wynters is doing fantastic work. She created Xpat. Inc., an app for Black expats all over the world to be able to connect. It’s a whole app just for us: we don’t have to go through Facebook or Twitter or Instagram to try to find people where we’re traveling to. We can just use the app. She’s doing some other amazing stuff, too. She has weekly Xpat Chats, and those are really cool conversations. She’s just a lovely, lovely person.
And lastly, Heather Greenwood Davis. She is a prolific writer. She’s so rich and frothy; she just has all the good stuff. Go read her work and have a ball, because she has everything. She’s just a lively human being as well.
Thank you so much, Wanda. This was so great talking to you.
I hope you’ve enjoyed this conversation. You can catch new episodes of Wanda’s podcast, Black Women Travel, weekly. If you are interested in joining her Facebook group, you can request membership at Black Women Digital Nomad Entrepreneurs.
Did you enjoy Wanda’s solo travel story?
Let us know in the comments below!