Small World, Big Love with Faith Adiele: Jeff Jenkins on gratitude and living outside your comfort zone
For my third look at travel innovators and entrepreneurs in the world of Black Travel (NB: see my September 19 profile of Ernest White II and September 26 profile of Lọlá Ákínmádé Åkerström), I spoke with Floridian-turned-Texan Jeff Jenkins. Jeff is the founder and force behind the runaway digital brand Chubby Diaries (@ChubbyDiaries Instagram, @ChubbyDiaries TikTok, ChubbyDiaries Facebook Community, blog/website ChubbyDiaries.com) and soon-to-be-host of his own travel show on Disney/NatGeo. Both endeavors leverage Jeff’s signature positivity to represent and advocate for plus-size and Black travelers.
I caught Jeff between location shoots and D23, the Disney Expo where the title of his much-anticipated show was announced. The first season of Never Say Never with Jeff Jenkins will show him in eight different destinations, like Brazil, Vietnam and New Mexico, doing as he puts it, “extreme things that I’ve never seen anybody Black or my size doing. It’s definitely gonna be inspiring.” The show’s tagline — “Life begins where your comfort zone ends” — is pure Jeff. “Like, just go for it,” he said with his trademark, infectious grin. “You gotta at least try it once.”
As a seasoned traveler, I know that attitude plays a huge role in the success (or failure) of my travels, and as an introvert, I’m in sheer awe of Jeff’s energy. He explains that, while enthusiasm is in his DNA — ”I come from a family where we are the life of the party,” — it’s also a business choice. “Positivity can get you further as an entrepreneur,” he said. “Motivation is like a shower; you need it every day. I do my affirmations every morning. My dreams are so big; it gets me excited and keeps that energy going. I’m making a choice to be joyful.” That joyful choice has resulted in his show testing through the roof, with an independent study reporting that over 90% of Black viewers said they would watch Jeff.
The show is one of multiple opportunities that resulted from learning to work differently during the pandemic. With international travel curtailed, Jeff applied to business accelerators and credits DivInc, which assists BIPOC and female tech entrepreneurs, with teaching him how “to run myself as a business rather than an influencer. Austin is a big tech city, so Chubby Diaries is now a tech company.” As a company, his income stream is diversified, consisting of “branded content at the top,” supplemented by accessibility business consulting, social media sponsorships, speaking engagements and paid press trips. He then reinvests those earnings in the company and in giving back.
In January, his team announced the Inaugural Chubby Diaries Travel Awards, the industry’s first and only travel awards recognizing both content creators and size-inclusivity in the apparel, airline and hotel industries. He is also offering to pay passport application or renewal fees for three followers as a social media promo. He explains that, “having a passport gives you a burst of confidence and energy to be like, ‘You know what? I got my passport now. I guess I can go somewhere real quick.’” His mother got her first passport at nearly fifty, and he recalled, laughing, “You couldn’t tell her nothin’ after that!”
As one of the co-founders of the Black Travel Alliance, he worked “to change the narrative and show that our Black dollars matter.” The next step is to study so-called Chubby Dollars. The travel providers with whom he works are customizing things for him, he said, and “all you had to do is go buy an extra clip or piece of rope, nothing that costs an astronomical amount. You just adding this one little thing now makes it more accessible for people to go white-water rafting. Just have two or three extended-size life vests and wetsuits, and now all these people are gonna come to your place. Chubby Dollars are an untapped market.”
Last year Jeff, who has been featured in Essence, Forbes, Lonely Planet, New York Times, Travel Noire, and Washington Post, was named one of Travel + Leisure’s 50 Notable People in Travel, alongside such contemporary and historical luminaries as Anthony Bourdain, Bessie Coleman, Kellee Edwards, Jessica Nabongo, Mario Rigby and Evita Robinson. “I feel like I am blessed in a lot of ways,” he says, “and I’m more grateful than anything. Gratitude — that’s the secret to success.”
Faith Adiele founded the nation’s first writing workshop for travelers of color through VONA. Her award-winning memoir MEETING FAITH routinely makes travel listicles, and her travel media credits include A WORLD OF CALM (HBO-Max), Sleep Stories (CALM app), and MY JOURNEY HOME (PBS). A member of the Black Travel Alliance, she publishes in HERE MAGAZINE, OFF ASSIGNMENT, BEST WOMEN’S TRAVEL WRITING, OPRAH MAGAZINE, ESSENCE, and others. Find her in Oakland, Finland, Nigeria or @meetingfaith.