Inside the Traveler's Mind: Ernest White II of Fly Brother

Have you ever you ever wondered what it would be like to live and work in South America? Ernest is currently teaching in Colombia, writing about his life and travels on his site, Fly Brother, and changing the misconceptions about African-American people and culture, one person at a time. We caught up with Ernest and got him to share his thoughts and photos of life on the road.

Name: Ernest White II
Hometown: Jacksonville, Florida USA
Current Location: Barranquilla, Colombia

Where have you been?
The Bahamas, Bolivia, Brazil, Cape Verde, Colombia, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Finland, France, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Panama, Spain, Sweden, the UK, and Venezuela…not nearly enough places.

What's your favorite travel memory?
New Years in Havana, 2004. I remember being with a group of friends in the gray concrete plaza of two dour Soviet-era residential high-rises. In the middle of this soul-crushing architecture, a hundred or so young people sang and danced to salsa, son, hip-hop, pop, rumba, merengue, reggae all night long. In a country under the thumb of repression and rationing, where every human need is met but none of a human’s desires, I felt the spirit of survival expressed through music and dance, and the contrast between the stark construction of the buildings and their animated inhabitants will always stay with me.

Do you have a favorite airport?
Since most of my travel has been within the Americas, I’ve only been exposed to functional and highly un-aesthetic airports. I like Miami’s slick and spacey new Concourse J, which is long overdue and is a welcome respite from the dingy, claustrophobia-inducing, K-Mart “ambiance” of the rest of the airport. Unfortunately, I’ve yet to experience any of Asia’s award-winning paeans to modern air travel. Heathrow sucks.

What's on your essential packing list? What have you learned to leave at home and what can't you live without?
The necessary items are music, camera, a week’s worth of socks and underwear maximum (if the trip lasts longer than a week), four or five t-shirts, two pair of jeans, a pair of khakis and (maybe) a collared shirt, gym shorts, sneakers, shaver, cologne (I like to smell good), and reading material (novels, non-fiction, or magazines…gotta have something). I can always pick up a cheap collared shirt to wear with the khakis and can either borrow or buy some cheap black lace-ups if I need to dress-up a bit. Most of my trips have been to places with warm or tropical climates. I hate checking bags, and sweaters and coats complicate things, but in packing as in life, you can’t always have your way. My last trip to New York was in March and my mom sent a coat, hat, gloves, and a scarf to rendezvous with me in Miami. Boy, did I regret not trusting Mama by leaving the scarf and gloves in Florida.

If you got stuck somewhere and were never able to leave, where would it be?
São Paulo. The city has every cultural amenity I could ever desire – museums, concerts, plays, parks, flea markets, basketball tournaments, samba school practices, Afro-Eurasian fusion food, hip-hop clubs, salsa spots, electro-lounges, helicopter taxicabs for chrissakes! It’s got funky neighborhoods, traffic jams, wild architecture, grit, all-you-can-eat Brazilian steakhouses, crime, easy smiles, inadequate public transport, lots of hotties, corruption, friendly people, and pollution. It’s a city on steroids, hyper-drive, and warp speed, and I love the whole crazy mess.

Who's your travel hero?
Tim Ferriss…the man is everywhere. Moreover, he’s my age. I wanna be him, but still be me at the same time. Is that possible?

What's the biggest travel myth that you can debunk?
That people in other countries hate Americans. Folks may hate our government (at least for the previous eight years, anyway), but any reasonable person can make a distinction between an individual and their government. I’ve never had any bad experiences traveling as an American in Cuba, Venezuela, or France, all places notorious for their perceived dislike of US travelers.

What mistake have you learned from that could help others to avoid the same mistake?
Always verify prices, especially cab fares before getting into the cab. That might be difficult if you don’t speak the language, but insist on a set fare that you’re comfortable with.

What's the first thing you do when you get off the plane or leave the airport?
If I know there’s no cheap public transport to where I’m staying, I ask several airport employees how much I should expect to pay for a taxi to my destination. That way, I know from the start whether or not the cabbie’s trying to get over on me.

What do you plan before you leave home and what do you leave to chance?
I typically plan visits to must-see tourist sites, museums, festivals, and concerts that might interest me in advance. For dining and nightlife, I almost always consult with someone from the area – hotel employees, cab drivers, or even random people on the street. They usually recommend enjoyable experiences and often offer to take me themselves. That way, I’ve discovered a new place and made a new friend.

You find yourself in an unfamiliar situation while on the road. What do you do? How do you approach a problem? What advice would you give to a timid traveler?
As much as I’d like to think of myself as cool as a cucumber, I can get peevish when things don’t run smoothly, as often happens while traveling. Still, I think years of living in Latin America have increased my patience exponentially. It’s also taught me the power of flirting – never underestimate a well-timed smile and wink, book-ended by the appropriate pleases and thank-yous. Most important, all travelers have to be flexible. Sometimes you just can’t get through that road block, which means another night in that stinky hell-hole of a town. But hey, traveling is adventure and it’s not always easy or even fun. It’s experience, and you have to accept it as just that – experience.

Your most memorable meal....
Eating sushi, drinking guaraná-flavored soda, with Sade cooing huskily in the background at a Japanese restaurant in São Paulo. That’s globalization!

If you could only give one piece of travel advice, what would it be?
I’d offer that old Nike adage, “Just Do It.” Go. Buy the tickets. Run with the bulls. Parasail over Rio. Try the escargot. No what-ifs. No regrets.

What's your take on souvenirs? What do you bring home with you?
As a budget-conscious traveler, I’m not in the habit of buying souvenirs for people who haven’t given me cash in advance for such purchases. Still, when generosity moves me, I find postcards and bottles of local alcohol to fit within budget and/or space considerations. A five-Euro bottle of wine from Nicolas in Paris turns imported and chic once brought States-side.

Do you have a travel experience that's changed how you look at the world or changed your life?
In the summer of 2001, I was studying abroad in the Dominican Republic. Three of us from the university were working at a youth summer camp. As we were walking through the crowd of kids, I thought I heard “Hey, niggers!” But I chalked it up as just the consequence of my then-crappy Spanish – a group of sounds that my mind melded into something that wasn’t, like when you think you hear your name being called. But I heard it a second time and turned around to my classmate…”Did you hear that?” His brow furrowed. “Yeah, I heard it.” We were met by a lanky, brown-skinned, teenaged camp counselor who was a die-hard rap fan and who recognized us as black Americans, wanted to greet us in his piece-meal English, and thought, based on his personal exposure to English and black Americans, that this was the appropriate way. That was when I started to realize the power of American culture, especially music, and its impact on people in other parts of the world. I also began to realize the amazing breadth of ignorance regarding black Americans and how we live, behave, dress, and speak; of who and what and why we are what we are. That experience, and a multitude of others, made me determined to change the way black Americans are seen abroad. My blog is part of that determination and part of my desire to encourage more people of color, black Americans especially, to travel internationally and to positively impact the world through personal interaction, conversation, and education. We all ain’t like Flava Flav, folks. He is a hot ghetto mess, and that’s the image of black Americans that many people abroad have internalized because that’s what they see on television (and E! keeps repeating the show, at least in Colombia). President Obama and I have our work cut out for us.

What's your next trip?
I usually have my trips planned months in advance, but this year, I’m playing things by ear. I might pop over to Venezuela for Holy Week in March, but this summer, I’m thinking something big: either a traipse around the world or a move to another country. Whatever I decide, I’ll discuss on the blog.

Anything else you want to share?
I just want people to get out of their houses, get out of their cars, get out of their neighborhoods, their towns, their regions, their boxes. Explore, interact, absorb, see, taste, touch, feel, hear…listen, experience, understand.

Thanks for sharing your travel philosophy with us, Ernest! Be sure to check out his site Fly Brother.