Hello Discoverlisters, and welcome back! Hispanic Heritage Month is coming to a close,
and we really wanted to do something special to celebrate it. Considering that Discoverlist is a
Latina-owned small business, we decided to interview a few Latinx travel influencers and ask
them about their travel journeys and how their Latin heritage has impacted their travel
experience.
The second Latinx traveler we interviewed was Carla, also known as
@whereonplanetearth on Instagram. Carla is a traveler of Venezuelan descent who lives with
her loving husband. The two are nomads who travel between Tulum, Mexico and Park City,
Utah, with the couple spending the majority of the year traveling and working in Airbnbs. Carla
was inspired to start her traveling journey and post her experiences on Instagram by her own
parents, who have always been adventurous people. As a young girl, Carla and her family
would travel throughout their home country of Venezuela and spend weeks at the jungles and
beaches. These family trips made Carla develop her passion for travel and nature. Carla also
wanted to encourage and inspire other people to travel, which led to her sharing her travel
adventures on Instagram, particularly the things she was seeing and learning about.
Over the course of her travel journey, Carla has been to 80 countries, with her favorites
being Brazil, Greece, Vietnam, Bosnia & Herzegovina, and Japan. While these places are all
over the world, that doesn’t mean that they’re too different. According to Carla, what draws her
to those places are the people and the culture that makes her feel at home. Carla is also
interested in learning about these places that she didn’t know much about before, especially
considering that these places like Bosnia have a long and complicated history. The beautiful
nature that surrounds places like Brazil is something that has piqued Carla’s interest as well.
However, the destination that holds a special place in Carla’s heart has been Tulum, Mexico, as
she and her husband have lived there for many years. While Tulum may be a hotspot for
travelers nowadays, Carla knows that the city has some beautiful hidden gems to offer like Sian
Ka’an, a natural reserve with lagoons that people can float in.
Carla’s Venezuelan heritage and culture have had a great impact on her travel journey,
as the openness and warmth of Carla’s Latinx culture has inspired her to be more open toward
experiences, challenges, opportunities, and learning. It has also encouraged Carla to connect
with people in authentic ways. According to Carla, a lot of this has to do with who they are as
Latinos and how they were raised growing up.
From Carla’s perspective, one of the greatest advantages of traveling around the world
is that it makes a person stronger, empathetic, understanding, and educated. For Carla,
traveling makes the traveler into a better human being, but only if they let it. One such example
was when she and her husband spent a 3 ½ month road trip to the Balkans, where they learned
about the region’s complex history, which includes these countries being part of Yugoslavia and
various wars that took place in the 90’s. Carla viewed her trip as an eye-opening experience as
it made her realize how much history and recent events influences how people view history
today. It also made her see how each country, no matter how geographically close or similar
they are, has their own history based on how they tell it. Even speaking to the locals about
experiencing these historical events has made her view things from a different perspective as
she was able to put herself in their shoes.
While she doesn’t see any disadvantages to traveling, Carla wants her fellow travelers
to realize that traveling can be challenging as she doesn’t want to depict it as being “rosy” all the
time. Carla also acknowledges that not everyone will have the privilege to travel due to time or
budget constraints, even if they want to. She recommends that people can read about other
destinations or on social media platforms like YouTube or Instagram to learn about destinations
and what they have to offer from another perspective.
If there was anything she could do to make the world a better place, Carla believes it is
by being humble when traveling. According to Carla, it’s very important to be open to learning
and understanding that there are many ways to see life and to live life. It’s also crucial for
travelers to make an effort to connect with the locals as well as be authentic, curious and open,
even if that means being open about yourself and your own biases. By doing that, you will open
minds by showing yourself and others that people are more similar than different no matter
where they’re from. At the end of the day, Carla states that while we may think and feel
differently or have different ways of seeing life, in the end, we all want to be happy, fulfilled, and
have health.