How Evita Robinson Of Nomadness Tribe Is Pioneering The Black Travel Movement
When Evita Robinson talks, I imagine it to be very similar to how she lives life—a little fast, but full of zest and excitement. No pauses in between, just ready for whatever is thrown at her next.
Right now she’s explaining to me why her upcoming vacation to Belize is oh-so necessary for her sanity. The previous weekend she joined about 500 of her fellow Nomadness Travel Tribe members for their first #NMDN conference—a day of panels, workshops, food, and more—as well as celebrating the anniversary of the beloved travel tribe that she started four years ago with no blueprint and barely even a plan.
“I didn’t know what it was, so I know they didn’t know what it was!” she says referring to the group of 40 individuals who, back in 2011, showed up at Horus Café in Manhattan’s Alphabet City for their first meet up. This was three weeks after the official launch of the tribe, mind you, and after weeks of engaging conversations with stand out personalities, Robinson was determined to meet these people who, like her, had a insatiable appetite for travel.
“When I saw how many people came out just at a call of action to meet one another and, how like a family, just meshed together naturally, I realized that we were on to something, and we were on to something big.”
That’s exactly the best way to describe the Nomadness Travel Tribe—a family. Except unlike those pesky cousins that come around looking for a handout, the tribe is all about extending hand ups. They plan vacations together, meet ups, offer places to sleep in their respective countries, and, in times of struggle, even a shoulder to lean on.
“One of my members is terminally ill and I haven’t seen her yet,” Robinson says. “She opened up to the tribe about it and I want to see her while she’s alive. She was given a very short time period, so I’m making it a priority to see her so on my way back I’m actually stopping by her house to spend some time with her before I head back to New York.”
Growing up in Poughkeepsie, New York, Robinson never imagined that she would one day build a family separate from her own, and certainly not one that was centered around travel. The extent of her jetsetting as a kid were 14-hour road trips during summer breaks from Long Island to Camden, South Carolina to visit her paternal grandparent, and Montego Bay to visit her stepfather’s family. While she may not have caught the travel bug from her relatives, her fascination with other cultures came from her mom’s side of the family, due, in part, to what she describes as her “culturally ambiguous” look.
While many African-Americans struggle to trace their family lineage, ironically Robinson can easily link her father’s family back to 1800s (they even have their own cemetery), but with her mom growing up in the foster care system and having limited contact with her own relatives, the topic of her ethnicity is one that she can’t avoid nor quite answer, all she knows is that her grandmother was of Western European descent—a blend of Irish, Dutch, German and Italian.
“To be honest with you, I think there is a part of me that, on that side of the family, I’m kind of searching for some insight on it, because I don’t know them. So I think that kind of goes into my whole quest for different cultures, too.”
If you thought she wouldn’t go all out to find her family, guess again.
“I would totally be the one to pop up at some random cousin’s house and be like ‘hi, you don’t know me but we’re family, so let’s figure this out!’”
One thing about Evita is that she’s fearless—it’s evident in her approach to business and to traveling. After graduating from Iona, College with a degree in television and video production, she signed up for a filmmaking workshop with the New York Film Academy and jetted off to Paris the summer after graduation, crashing in a small flat with her best friend who was also studying abroad in the City of Light. The experience sparked her interest in travel, and she was determined to bridge together her art and her inner nomad.
It wasn’t until three years later when she got laid off of her freelance television gig that she had the opportunity to revisit the thing she fell in love with in Paris years prior. Turning her crisis into a convenient excuse to get back into traveling, she applied for a teaching abroad position in Nagasa, Japan, and in 2009 packed her bags and hopped on a plane to Asia. Although it was an experience of a lifetime, Robinson doesn’t sugarcoat the struggles of living abroad in a foreign country where the only thing she had in common with the locals was their inability to communicate with one another.
“You have to think what it’s like to not have a fluid conversation with somebody over the course of a 24-hour period. It starts to play tricks on your mind,” she says. “I had a girl that was in my area, that became one of my best friends while I was out there, we would talk for like two or three hours every day. And I remember one day I was like, why do we do this, every day? And it hit both of us, it’s because we haven’t been able to just talk to anyone fluidly all damn day! And I swear if it wasn’t for her, we would’ve lost it. We would’ve lost our minds out there.”
It was part of the reason why Evita felt the need to share her experiences with others. She grabbed her camera and started shooting footage of herself traveling around Japan. Like the Nomadness Travel Tribe, she would launch her Nomadness web series with no real plan but to capture her journey as a 20-something Black girl living alone in Asia. Check the Nomadness website and you can still see early Evie documenting her life abroad. “It’s like a time capsule for me,” she says.
[Tweet "It’s very important to never really lose touch with where you come from."]
A couple of months after returning from Japan she was cast on a travel web series called Jet Set Zero—it was like the travel edition of the Real World, where she would live and work in Thailand and Cambodia for 90 days with three male roommates and a camera crew capturing her every move. A month before completing the filming, she was stung by a mosquito and caught dengue fever, spending two weeks in and out of the hospital before finally returning back home to the states.
But she didn’t return to the loving boyfriend who saw her off just months prior, instead she came back home broke, sick, and to a relationship that was in shambles.
“There was a lot of shit going on. And I was like, I need a community where I feel like I can talk to people about this. None of my immediate friends travel, none of my family members travel. I need people that understand that this isn’t just a thing that you do every once in a while, this has now become a part of my lifestyle. Travel is always going to be something that I do.”
Evita did what any entrepreneur would do and created a solution to her problem. She had already launched the “Nomadness” web series, but now it was time to take it to the next level and build a platform that was beyond just sharing her personal experiences.
In 2010 she launched her Facebook group, and soon after, the Nomadness Travel Tribe, which quickly amassed a large following, going from a humbling 100 members to close to 11,000 members to date. About a month after their first meet up, Nomadness launched their first Kickstarter campaign for their first travel series “Nomad-Ness Travel Series: Berlin or Bust,” raising over $6,000 to shoot the pilot for the 15-episode series. To put it in perspective, this was back when Kickstarter was used for more than just paying people’s dental bills or for get-out-of-jail-free cards. To successfully initiate a crowdfunding campaign five years ago when it was still relatively new was a testament to the amount of authentic support Nomadness has garnered, and to the power of grassroots marketing.
It also showed Robinson that Nomadness was more than just a fan club, but a legit business. She began monetizing the brand through merchandising, events, advertising and sponsorships for the various programs that they would do throughout the year. In 2013 she raised over $25,000 to image-wrap an RV and drive to seven HBCUs speaking on the importance of travel and diversity, stopping in major cities along the way to meet fellow tribe members.
Being at the forefront of Black travel put Robinson and her nomads on the map, capturing the attention of major publications such as Ebony, Essence, Marie Claire, and more recently, the New York Times. The notoriety has opened up doors for additional projects, including her partnership with Issa Rae for “The NOMADNESS Project” web series.
“Issa’s one of those people who’s doing amazing things, and she’s not so far into everything that’s coming her way that she’s forgotten what it’s like to be starting. She’s so supportive of creatives, and you see it across the board. You see it in the way that she deals with you and the people that she brings on, down to the contract—allowing you to keep 100% creative control over your content even with her co-executive producing. She really, really understands what it’s like for the artist, and we absolutely couldn’t have partnered with anybody better for online.”
With more eyeballs tuning into the urban travel movement, I ask Robinson if she thinks more travel shows dedicated to people of color will soon make its way to cable television. She believes that the change is coming soon and says production companies are definitely interested, but how soon will be determined by the networks ability (and desire) to capture Black people in the most positive light.
“We all know what the images of our people are right now in mainstream media. And my whole thing is, I’m not saying to completely shift to the other side of the paradigm, what I’m saying is, can we balance it out a little bit? Give us something that shows us in an educated manner. And that’s been my big hang up with this.”
Robinson has no plans to sell out just to sell her show. Though she’s been approached by production companies and networks, she’s firm on maintaining her integrity and upholding her brand of showcasing beautiful, intelligent, and well-traveled people. To be clear, Robinson is first and foremost an artist, and she’s sensitive about her shit—especially when it comes to the perception of her tribe.
“I have to be able to look in the mirror and know that my integrity is in tact in a way that when I look back at myself, I’m okay with that person,” she says. “My background is television production, so I know the game. I’m not new to this camera stuff. Nothing about this phases me. You’re not going to railroad me—not in your content nor in your contract, either.”
[Tweet ""I have to be able to look in the mirror and know that my integrity is in tact." - @evierobbie"]
Well there you have it. You won’t be pimpin’ this boss chick for the paper.
In the meantime, she plans to continue building and refining the Nomadness brand. The team is currently working on developing an app as well as a new site to mimic the community that has been built of Facebook.
Although it appears that she’s living the good life, jetsetting and living on her own terms, the 31-year-old also knows the importance of balance. Though she’s not currently tied-down, she definitely interested in dating, and believes she will find her future husband in one of her fellow tribe members, which would be most fitting given her active lifestyle. And by active I don’t mean hopping on every hot guy that she encounters across the globe.
“Being an entrepreneur is difficult. I think, for me, there’s this thought pattern with guys where they think they know what my life is like, but it isn’t like that. I don’t hook up randomly when I go abroad. And because I’m in a space where I’m really looking for a relationship; I want my husband. So I’m not doing anything casual, whether it’s abroad or in the states. I’m really looking for something special and something long term.”
And for the guys who write her off just because she’s her own boss and they assume she doesn’t have the time for something steady, she has this to say:
“Women are natural born multitaskers. If we want to, we will make time for the things that are special and important in our lives. Point, blank, period. So this premonition that someone doesn’t have time before giving them a chance I think hinders certain men from even saying anything, and I think that’s unfortunate. But then I also think it weeds a lot of the weak one’s out. Because if you can’t even approach me, then I just feel like you wouldn’t be able to handle me once you were in it.”
In other words—go hard, or go home.
For those who are ready, she enjoys spas, journaling, and the occasional trip or two for some really good food and good people, whether it’s Pata Pata in Johannesburg or Jamboree on a Friday night in Barcelona.
In fact, it’s the people that she’s met along her journey—outside of the tribe of course—that have greatly impacted her life. She remembers back to her last night in Paris when a director from the New York Film Academy program pulled her aside after a film screening.
“He was like listen, I don’t know what your whole life plan is; I know you’re young, but I just want to let you know that you have it. Whatever that “it” factor is that they talk about, that’s kind of not tangible and you don’t understand what it is you just know it when you see it, you have it. And don’t ever lose it.”
For a young girl from a small city in upstate New York who had only just begun to dream of travel, it was all that she needed to hear to follow her heart and be who she was destined to be—a fearless nomad who would become one of a few pioneers of the Black travel movement.
Kiah McBride writes technical content by day and uses storytelling to pen real and raw personal development pieces on her blog Write On Kiah. Follow her on Instagram and Twitter at @writeonkiah.
ItGirl 100 Honors Black Women Who Create Culture & Put On For Their Cities
As they say, create the change you want to see in this world, besties. That’s why xoNecole linked up with Hyundai for the inaugural ItGirl 100 List, a celebration of 100 Genzennial women who aren’t afraid to pull up their own seats to the table. Across regions and industries, these women embody the essence of discovering self-value through purpose, honey! They're fierce, they’re ultra-creative, and we know they make their cities proud.
VIEW THE FULL ITGIRL 100 LIST HERE.
Don’t forget to also check out the ItGirl Directory, featuring 50 Black-woman-owned marketing and branding agencies, photographers and videographers, publicists, and more.
THE ITGIRL MEMO
I. An ItGirl puts on for her city and masters her self-worth through purpose.
II. An ItGirl celebrates all the things that make her unique.
III. An ItGirl empowers others to become the best versions of themselves.
IV. An ItGirl leads by example, inspiring others through her actions and integrity.
V. An ItGirl paves the way for authenticity and diversity in all aspects of life.
VI. An ItGirl uses the power of her voice to advocate for positive change in the world.
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Less & Less Of Us Have Close Friends These Days. Why Is That?
German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche once said, “It is not a lack of love, but a lack of friendship that makes unhappy marriages.” At close to two decades of working with married couples, I agree with this man 1000 percent. It’s actually the main motivation for why I once penned, “Are You Sure You're Actually FRIENDS With Your Spouse?” because, the reality is, if you’re not friends with the person who you vowed to share every aspect of your life with, for the rest of your life, it’s going to be very difficult (if not damn near impossible) to honor that level of commitment. Without question, I will now and forever die on the hill that if you like your partner, you can make it through the not-so-in-love-right-now moments. Vice versa? Eh…not so much.
A basis for why I feel this way? Another quote immediately comes to mind. Famed author Jane Austen once wrote: “There is nothing I would not do for those who are really my friends. I have no notion of loving people by halves, it is not my nature.” You know, back when I also wrote “10 Things You Should Absolutely Expect From Your Friendships” for the platform, I shared that some of the traits of a friend — a real friend — include loyalty, honesty and compassion. And if you can’t say that your spouse is this way (as they say the same thing about you), chile…what is y’all doin’ over there?
So, why am I talking about marriage when this article is supposed to be about friendship? It’s because, something that life has taught me, kinda sorta the hard way, is we should vet potential friends — especially close friends — almost like we would a spouse.
And if you keep reading, I think you’ll get why I framed the intro in the way that I did.
Why Friendships Are Still Hella Essential
GiphyOkay, so before I get into why it seems that people have fewer friends than they ever had before, let me just say that, even as an ambivert who enjoys my own company and has absolutely no problem with being alone a good amount of the time, every personality type needs friends. That’s not just my opinion;science makes it a fact. Not only do studies support thathealthy friendships help us to feel more satisfied with our lives, but they can also reduce our chances of experiencing depression, stress, and anxiety and they increase longevity overall.
This is why — without going too deep because it’s kind of another topic for another time — it’s important to not allow past hurts and disappointments from former friends (or folks you thought were your friends) to cause you to build up walls as you declare that you don’t need anyone. When you do that, all you’re really doing is working against your own health and well-being. The saying that “no man (or woman) is an island”? It is absolutely true.
That said, even if it’s just a couple of people, make sure that you’ve got individuals in your life who you can call a friend and, in turn, they can say the very same thing about you, okay?
Are All of Those People Your Actual Friends? Or Do You Just Happen to Know a Lot of Folks?
GiphyAight but what if you happen to be someone who swings on the other side of few? Meaning, if someone were to ask you how many friends you had, you’d quickly declare that you’ve got too many to count. Listen, not to patronize or anything yet, but whenever I hear folks (especially if they are over 35) say something along those lines, it takes me back to high school — a time when so many of us thought that so long as we knew a ton of folks and/or we were popular, clearly, we had many friends.
Wisdom and pure ole’ dealing with humans on a consistent basis will teach you that an article that I wrote a few years back for the platform has a title that is spot-on: “According To Experts, We Only Have A Few Friends — Here's Why.” According to it, the average American (based on a survey that was conducted) has somewhere around 16 friends. Oh, but wait. Last fall, I wrote another article for the platform entitled, “What's The 'Five Friendship Theory' All About?” According to it, if you’re someone who takes the word “friend” and the responsibility that comes along with it very seriously and quite literally, as an adult, you can probably only maintain about five close friendships.
Why? Well, that brings in another article that I once wrote: “Life Taught Me That True Friendships Are 'Inconvenient.'” Chile, I don’t know about y’all but my friends know that if I call you that, you can call me in the middle of the night, and you can have money towards your rent (I’m not your mama but we all have hard times sometimes) and I’m gonna have your back in a way where you’ll wonder where you stop and I start — and no, I don’t have a lot of bandwidth for a ton of those people.
Okay, but what if you’re someone who is like, “I know that I have more than 16 and definitely more than five friends, no question”? The next thing that I would encourage you to explore is a theory by Aristotle (check out “According To Aristotle, We Need ‘Utility’, ‘Pleasure’ & ‘Good’ Friends”). Without even realizing it, many of us have people who we use the word “friend” for when…it’s kind of like how social media apps say “friend”: we’re familiar with one another and enjoy some of the same things, we might even have some of the same goals; at the same time, though, we’re not “all-encompassing friends.” We just get along really well at work (utility friends) or like to go to brunch at the same spots sometimes (pleasure friends).
Taking all of this into account, are you sure that you have a ton of actual friends? Or do you just happen to know a lot of people and you use that word for the lack of having another?
And that brings me to my next point.
There’s A LOT of Space Between “Friend” and “Enemy”
GiphyIf you read a lot of my friendship content, something that you will notice me saying quite a bit is that there is quite a bit of space between friend and enemy. It needs to be mentioned, as often as possible, because there are some people who get offended if you don’t consider them to be a friend — and that is unfortunate. I say that because the conclusion shouldn’t automatically be that they are your enemy just because “friend” isn’t what immediately comes to your mind.
They can be an acquaintance. They can be “cool people.” There is someone in my life who, while we’re not friends in the traditional sense, we are each other’s confidant; years ago, we agreed that we would be the place to tell each other whatever and it would stay between us — that is the main purpose that we serve in each other’s lives. Some people, you may consider to be spiritual family in the sense that you care for them and have some deeply profound things in common and still, they are not exactly a friend (I mean, a lot of blood relatives aren’t “friends” with each other).
All I’m trying to say here is we’re all too old now to only put folks in two boxes when it comes to this particular relational dynamic: friend or enemy. So, take some time out to seriously reflect on what you consider the various people in your life to be. I can promise you from personal experience that the sooner you know and the clearer you are, the easier it will be on everybody — because needs and expectations will be clear to you (and them once you articulate them) too.
What Got Folks to Having Less Friends? The Pandemic Plays a Significant Part.
GiphySo finally on to what inspired this piece to begin with. A part of it was an article that was published last year by Big Think entitled, “Americans more than ever have no friends. Here are 5 steps to make more friends.” Another was something that The New Yorker published back in 2021; it’s entitled “What COVID did to friendship.” Y’all don’t have enough time and I don’t have enough space to get into the fact that, just because the media may be talking about it less, that doesn’t mean that we’re not still in a pandemic.
In fact,one article stated my thoughts on it quite well when it said, “The real question, then, is not whether COVID is still a pandemic, but how much COVID illness and death are we willing to accept?” SMDH. And one of the things that has come with experiencing COVID is an interesting type of PTSD: detachment. There are plenty of articles out here to support the fact that my saying that is not merely my opinion.
Even according to the American Psychological Association, loneliness damn near skyrocketed, especially during lockdown and, unfortunately, a lot of people have not recovered from it. That’s why it did not surprise me at all when I read that more than ever, many people do not consider anyone to be a best friend; fewer people are relying on friends for any type of real support, and there is a semi-steady decline in people having friends, especially quality friendships, overall.
In fact, as far as close friends go, currently, close to 50 percent of Americans say that they only have three or fewer, and a relevant contributor to that was what the pandemic revealed as far as people’s proactive participation in other individuals’ lives (I actually read that young women were the ones who lost touch with friends during the peak of the pandemic the most). I also thought it was interesting that some studies cite that 12 percent of Americans say that they don’t have any friends at all.
Is the pandemic the only cause? No. So are things like people working more hours and spending more time online than they probably should (which also increased due to the pandemic, though). To that, Teen Vogue once published, “Social Media Is Impacting IRL Friendships” and Healthline once published, “Social Media Is Killing Your Friendships.” Then we also have to factor in having families of our own which can also take up a lot of time, and that sometimes can cause us to forget to nurture our friendships; so, before you know it, they fade to black. Not due to a fallout or anything, just…life.
And all of this? Some people are saying that it has led to what is known as a “friendship recession.” A huge flag about that is there are reports that a drop in close friends can cultivate a type of loneliness that is just as health hazardous as smoking a whopping 15 cigarettes a day. Not good, y’all. Not. Good.
Quality over Quantity Is Key. Just Make Sure That You Have a Friend or Two.
GiphyOkay, so what is my overall point? That’s a fair question. Just like sometimes “life life-ing” can make us forget to tend to our friendships, if you don’t stumble across content like this, you might not even realize that you’re feeling mentally stressed, emotionally strained, or super isolated and it’s all because you need to prioritize your friendships — because your mind, body, and spirit need them. Again, science has proved it.
At the same time, if, like a client of mine, you find yourself getting a little bit paranoid because you have noticed that over the past several years, your close friend count has been far less than what it used to be, this article proves that you are absolutely not (pardon the pun) alone. Honestly, there’s nothing wrong with having a very small circle of friends because quality is gonna beat out quantity every time; you just need to assess when it happened and why so that you can be sure that you are choosing it to play out that way and it’s not due to some underlying cause that you hadn’t taken into consideration — until now.
An Italian priest by the name of Thomas Aquinas once said, “The happy man in this life needs friends.” Even if it’s just one or two people, please make sure that you have folks who aren’t just your friend but your very close friend. You need them. They need you.
Everyone else, figure out where they fall and nurture accordingly. Life is a lot. We all get by with the help of our friends. Real talk, y’all. Thank goodness for them.
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