Tonya Fitzpatrick [00:04]
I’m Tonya Fitzpatrick.
Ian Fitzpatrick [00:07]
And I’m Ian Fitzpatrick and this is World Footprints.
Jeff Jenkins [00:12]
I really do think that there’s way more of an emphasis on me being black and American. Like a black American. I think that’s one thing that always sticks out but they’re also just my size, like my weight. It depends on how developed a country is. Where I feel like the less developed or underdeveloped a country is, the more the curiosity of my size comes into play where kids are like staring and they’re like, Hey, who is that guy? Like, I think I get more of that. Then there are times even being in Africa where you being a certain size looks like you are wealthy because they’re like, wow, you never get sick. Like you look this way because you can eat well, meaning that you have money for food. I mean, you don’t have to go to the doctors because, you know, you never get sick. So there are multiple layers to, it just depends on the country I’m in. But a lot of times it definitely comes back down to my ethnicity and my hair.
Ian [01:17]
That’s Jeff Jenkins of the award-winning travel blog, Chubby Diaries. Jeff’s experience as a traveler of size is inspiring a community overlooked in the travel space and educating a broader community of travelers and the industry to respect and accommodate travelers just like him.
Tonya [01:36]
Jeff, like so many of our guests, is an avid traveler who is creating an awareness in the travel community for plus-sized travelers. And as he likes to say, Chubby Diaries is authentically redefining what it looks like to travel. Recognized by Lonely Planet as a diversity award winner, Jeff, through Chubby Diaries has created an online community for plus-size travelers who are passionate about seeing the world, experiencing new foods, and learning clever hacks along the way.
Ian [02:09]
Here’s our conversation with Jeff Jenkins.
Tonya [02:14]
Jeff Jenkins, thank you so much for joining us on World Footprints today.
Jeff [02:18]
I’m so glad to be here.
Tonya [02:21]
Hey, so listen, you run a travel blog site called Chubby Diaries. Give us the backstory to Chubby Diaries.
Jeff [02:29]
Chubby Diaries was birthed out of me seeing a lack of representation for plus-size people. A lot of times when I get on Instagram or look at magazines, the main people that I would see are just like fit, skinnier people. And it was not until me and my wife went on a trip together and we got on the airplane. I don’t even remember what the conversation was about, like the middle seat or something like that. And I was like, “Hey, you don’t think about that?” And then she’s like, “No, I never think about that.” And it was more so about like there being like a size restriction. So then I started asking her questions like, “Do you think about weight? Like weight restrictions and anything like that?” She was like, “No, never.” And I said, “Oh my gosh. I don’t even think like, wow, I didn’t know that you thought you did not think of this stuff.” And so it got me to just asking a lot of questions and started asking other people who were plus size like, “Hey, are these things that you all think about?” And they were like, yes and so, that’s how Chubby Diaries is formed. I realized there was a need and so I wanted to meet that need.
Tonya [03:40]
How long have you been running the website?
Jeff [03:42]
Just a little over two years.
Tonya [03:45] Oh, wow!
Jeff [03:46]
Yeah. So I was a high school choir teacher for nine years before I quit thinking I was going to go do ministry work. But I ended up going on a mission trip and when I went to go build gardens in Kogelo, Rwanda, I came back with my friends that were on the trip too, and we were like, Hey, these people need water. And so not being engineers, not knowing how water came out of the ground, we figured out how to do it and we started a water well project. But while we were building those water wells in Rwanda and we went back, I just remember looking out and Rwanda is considered the land of 1000 hills, these beautiful large hills in Rwanda you could just see out. And I remember just saying to myself man and like, wow, I was like, I want to travel the world, help people, and get paid to do it and so that’s even how I even got the thought to go into travel blogging and travel writing.
Tonya [04:46]
Wow. So that’s the first time the travel bug really hit you. Was the mission trip to Rwanda?
Jeff [04:52]
No, no. The travel bug hit me. I was traveling. I was always the friend who traveled. So I started traveling maybe 16, 17 years ago internationally. But even as a kid, we used to do a lot of domestic trips but internationally, that’s when I went to Japan back in 05 and I caught the travel bug then.
Ian [05:14]
Now you’ve mentioned some of your international travels and this travel bug catching you early through those experiences abroad. Do you think as you reflect upon it, that people have been more interested in you because of your size, your hair, your race? What have you taken away from those experiences in terms of people’s curiosity?
Jeff [05:41]
That’s interesting because I’ve asked myself this question a lot. I just got here so it wasn’t until recently that I just grew my hair out over the past couple of years, few years now. I really do think that there’s way more of an emphasis on me being black and American like a black American. I think that’s one thing that always sticks out, but then also just my size, like my weight. It depends on how developed a country is. Where I feel like the less developed or underdeveloped the country is, the more the curiosity of my size comes into play where kids are like staring and they’re like, hey, who is that guy? Like, I think I get more of that. Then there are times even being in Africa where you being a certain size like looks like you are wealthy because they’re like, wow, you never get sick. Like you look this way because you can eat well, meaning that you have money for food and then you don’t have to go to the doctors because you never get sick. So there’s multiple layers to,it just depends on the country I’m in. But a lot of times it definitely comes back down to my ethnicity and my hair.
Ian [6:58]
Now, I know you’ve traveled to Japan and there you’ve been held in slightly different esteem, I’m sure.
Jeff [07:04]
Yes, yes, and I remember talking about this in an article I did for I don’t know who I wrote for. I wrote it for somebody and I remember right at the beginning, the first thing I mentioned was I was compared to a sumo wrestler. One of the first times I got to Japan and I was at first taken back by it. And I realized that like sumo wrestlers are athletes in Japan and they get treated with the utmost respect. They have this reverence for sumo wrestlers in Japan. So I was like, hey, I felt honored at that time. Once I learned more about the culture of sumo wrestlers.
Tonya [07:51]
So, Jim, I want to ask you about a language. Certainly, there’s been a lot of sensitivity about how we talk to other people, how we address other people, or describe other people. When you know, when we introduced you, we said you’re a plus-size traveler. And I don’t use any F words, as you know, or a little conversation. I’m against F words. But what is the most appropriate way to describe people of a larger stature?
Jeff [08:23]
You were so close to what I’ve been hearing lately, and that’s been people of size. I’ve been hearing that one a lot now. There is a fat liberation movement going now where people are like, yeah, I’m fat, let’s just call it what it is. And we’re okay with that to where we’re like destigmatizing the word or disarming the word by just using the word fat. I can tell you when I go to other countries, that’s all they know. They don’t know how to say plus size and they go straight to the fat. I just got an award for Travels Best for Lonely Planet, a couple of weeks ago.
Tonya [09:01]
Congratulations!
Jeff [09:03]
Thank you. It was one of the first in that category. But since they’re not traveling as much and doing a lot of destinations, they decided to do people. And I won their diversity or the Diverse Storyteller Award. The crazy thing is that the Chinese, they have it in so many different translations, and like their different areas, their regions feature the same stories. And so I saw the Chinese version of it, of the story, and they just wrote that like there is no other thing there to tell. I thought it was funny. I did. I thought it was amusing.
Tonya [09:40]
You know, when I was in China and as you said that, I saw the symbols that they wrote with because I lived in China for a little bit. When I first moved there, you know, I’m not a size two, not a large person either, but larger than the average Chinese person. I remember being followed around in department stores trying to try on outfits, and they would stand outside of my dressing room and wait for me to come out. And I knew that they followed me either to see if I could fit in the clothing or maybe just out of sheer curiosity. Asian countries are very interesting that way.
Jeff [10:21]
Yeah, they definitely are. And I tell people, even in my community, just don’t even expect to travel or shop when you go to these Asian countries, it’s like that for even people who aren’t plus size going to some Asian countries because a medium is an extra-large or the 2X when somebody is in Asian countries. So the sizes are different.
Tonya [10:46]
For sure!
Ian [10:49]
Now, one of the things about your blog is that you’ve had a chance to touch on issues, almost advocacy issues that speak to things that have to change in the travel industry. We’ve heard the stories about airline policies and, you know, things like that. What have been some of the issues and some of the challenges that you’ve dealt with that you feel have to be brought forth in order to help improve everyone’s consciousness about this, whether it’s from travel suppl
