In order to live the life advertised on most life-changing travel retreats and resorts, it often feels like one needs three things: a desire for adventure, a desire for fun, and being an upper-middle-class white woman. Meet those specifications? Then all the experiences those happy models and actors in ads have can be yours. But what if you’re a woman of color who wants to travel solo? These retreats may seem like a far-fetched dream. All my life, I have been terrified by the thought of going on a group travel retreat, fearful that I would be like a square peg trying to fit into a round hole, or that I would somehow be "seen by others" because I looked To other people taking these types of tours it doesn't look like me. Imagine trying to explain why you weren't going to swim in a waterfall because the struggle of straightening your hair afterwards would be too much?
My group travel experiences are filled with situations that confirmed my fears. While studying abroad in college, I traveled to Barcelona, Spain, with a group of girls who didn’t identify as women of color. We walked into the city center together to explore the nightlife - while we were all looking for a bar, a man came up to me and asked "How much?" I was taken aback and looked around in disbelief - he thought I was a prostitute because I was part of this group The only black woman among them. In that moment, I wished someone could understand that these types of situations happen to black women all the time, and that someone could do more than just awkwardly laugh it off and walk away without paying much attention. Some sense of support from the people who get it.
That’s not to say the market isn’t at all suitable for women of color who want to travel . According to the New York Times, research by Mandela Research Films shows that 17 percent of black Americans take at least one international trip per year, yet black travelers are still often excluded from travel events and advertising. For a single black woman interested in those life-changing travel experiences we all hear about, this can be downright frustrating.
I'm not the only one who feels this way: According to a study done by the Global Wellness Summit, wellness trends are starting to show that Black women are unwilling to be left out of the travel world — and so are many women of color. The challenge of underrepresentation in the travel industry is in your own hands. Women of color entrepreneurs such as Tameika Gentles, Jakiya Brown and Tillie Eze decided to create their own travel destinations targeting women of color and African-American travelers. Each retreat is, in its own way, designed to create an environment where women can create authentic, meaningful experiences for themselves while feeling part of a team and learning more about themselves in the process.
For Gentleman, the needs of women on tours of a specific color are highly individual: having been a traveler herself while living in Bali, she sees herself as part of the influx of tours and retreats in the area The only black woman. Gentles, known for documenting her fitness journey on Instagram, used her platform to create The Whole Experience Retreat: a travel retreat focused on supporting guests' balanced lifestyles and offering women of color exploration Comfortable space in the world.
"The retreat industry is very linear, and it's time for a change," Gentles tells Bustle. “While our retreat center is open to everyone, it is a place where women of color feel comfortable, which is a very special attribute for this industry […] In the political climate we are in It’s great for women of color to have a safe space filled with positive energy.”
Likewise, TravelingFro Teranga Retreat Dedicated to adding more diversity to the travel community, the company was founded as a direct result of Brown’s life-changing experience in West Africa. As Brown told Bustel, spending time only with people who look like her makes her feel empowered by her blackness and reminds her of her worth. She no longer felt like the “tokenly successful black girl”—she was a woman thriving in a sea of other successful black people in West Africa.
“There are a lot of resources for white women, and while that’s great, as black women we feel like we’re not represented and we don’t feel like we can relate,” Brown said. After experiencing West Africa, Brown decided it was something every woman of color should experience once in her life—so she embarked on a retreat focused on taking a closer look at Africa's cultural richness. “It’s always more rewarding to join something and be a part of the story because the leader looks like you, can relate to your journey, and has a shared understanding. Teranga Retreat is not only for women of color, but also Very focused because I’m one of them myself.” Rather than the typical tourist destinations in Africa that tourists expect (Egypt, Morocco and South Africa), Brown’s goal is for women of color to learn more about their roots and the continent. . “Retreats are vital to the community,” Brown said. “As women of color, communication is in our nature. It’s what we know, how our ancestors and their predecessors worked. When we go through retreats and connect with like-minded people, it only further inspires Our magic and energy.”
That's what Eze hopes to achieve with her new resort, Moon Me In Sitges, which is coming to Spain this November - but, she's doing it a little differently. Eads tells Busy the premise of her retreat is to seek the energy of the moon to guide female travelers, providing them with the best moments of renewal, meditation and oneness with themselves.
“Women of color deserve a space where they can walk in and breathe. Eads told Bustle she was relieved to know that other self-identified women in attendance already had a basic understanding of their struggles. “There’s nothing more exhausting than entering a place that’s meant to heal, where you have to break down the racial or cultural layer you were born into because no one else there has and will likely never experience it, or even care. Think about how black women are less likely to be taken seriously by doctors based on social stereotypes, leading to higher rates of complications including death. Honestly, you could substitute anything for "doctor" in that last sentence, and it sounds like that. It's still right."
But why the phases of the moon? According to Eads, “Healing and holistic practices were indigenous practices to people of color, but were considered barbaric or evil by colonizers. We are now in a time where our practices are not only adopted by white people, but also by those who stream and sell it back to us at a high price.” Through Moon Me In Sitges, Eze encourages women of color to take back and embrace their power and cultural roots.
These groups all foster a sense of community and support that prevents anyone from feeling alone like I once did. While each differs greatly in the nature, level of adventure, and experiences offered, the common thread is filling a real need for supportive environments specifically for women of color who, like me, may feel like they don’t belong a specific group. A group of travelers. Eze's may tap into the power of the moon to help her guests find happiness and liberation from the stresses of the modern world, while Brown's focuses on promoting the rich cultural offerings the continent has to offer, and Gentle hopes to help others become, more importantly, The bottom line is clear: None of these women felt like there was a space for themselves in the world of travel retreats, so they created a space for themselves.
