Episode 47: Has Social Media Ruined Travel? Part II: Featuring Jeff Jenkins

Angie Orth:

“Doing it for the ‘gram” is a phrase we hear tossed around a lot these days, whether you're posing with a hand tilted toward the leaning Tower of Pisa or teetering dangerously on the edge of a cliff in the Grand Canyon. Before social media came along, we probably didn't realize how unoriginal and how dangerous many of these hotspot photo ops might be. Today, we're continuing the conversation about the influence of social media on our travel experiences with one of my favorite industry pros.

Jeff Jenkins is the mastermind behind the travel website, Chubby Diaries, and the infectious personality behind the National Geographic show, Never Say Never With Jeff Jenkins. His global adventures inspire people of all shapes and sizes to seize the moment and get out now to explore the world. Since starting his blog in 2018, he's used social media as a tool to help build his business and create community. He joins me today to talk about the perks of social media and its downfalls.

Hi, Jeff!

Jeff Jenkins:

Hello hello, my friend. How are you?

Angie:

I'm so excited to talk to you today. I'm so proud of your show and I want you to tell all of our listeners about your show. How did you start?

Jeff:

I used to be a high school choir teacher. I did that for 9 years, and I decided that I didn't want to teach anymore, and I needed to figure out what I was going to do. I went on a mission trip into Rwanda to build gardens, and while me and my friends were there, we decided like, “Yo, this community needs water.” So, we came back and started a water well project. The fact that we were able to go to Rwanda and build these water wells—none of us was engineers; I didn't know how water came out of the ground—if we were able to take an idea, turn it into a concept, and do it in a whole other country, I was like, “What do I truly want to do?”

So, when I was on that trip building those wells, I asked myself if money wasn't an option, if whatever was to happen to you was to happen to you, whatever you were to dream up was to happen for you, what would you do? The big goal or dream I really want is to travel the world, help people, and get paid to do it.

That's what took me down this journey of entrepreneurship. Once I figured out my niche was to help chubby people travel the world and talk about plus size travel, I started Chubby Diaries in 2018. That's when I was like, “Yo, I'm in a good spot here.”

Angie:

It's such a great idea, and it's obviously been a successful one. What role has social media played in your success?

Jeff:

Social media is your own media company, and that's what I use it as. It's my calling card in a sense to build community. I feel like building a community is the thing that actually helps me get to the goals that I want. One of my friends said for publications to write about you or anything like that, you have to give them a story worth writing.

I think it was a point in time where nobody was talking about plus size travel in the way that I was, and I wanted to change that narrative. I wanted to redefine what travel looks like. I wanted to show people you can travel the world, don't matter your size. I'm not here to promote obesity. My whole main goal is to get people to travel the world, to live life now, to enjoy themselves right now, and not wait until they get to their ideal weight or whatever society says they have to be at.

It's just been fantastic, but social media has been that tool that gets you further because once I started doing social media, I could tell people to go to my blog. The blog turned into me becoming a journalist, writing for different publications. That was when I also started getting recognition from different publications, winning awards, and things like that. That all stemmed from social media.

Angie:

Now, on the flip side, people use it in our industry and it has negative effects. Are there places that you went to before and you've gone back now and you're like, “Wow, this has been a big change,” and maybe you can attribute it to social media?

Jeff:

I do think that there is more of a “Let's go to these hotspots” kind of thing. The places that normally might not even been as popular are now popular because of social media. I see a lot of that now in the landscape than I did before. And you're also seeing hole-in-the-walls, places that never was even meant to be popular are now popular.

Angie:

Is there a hotspot or 2 that come to mind on Instagram that may be overrun now due to social media?

Jeff:

Yeah, I would say the whole of Bali is oversaturated and the traffic in Bali is out of this world. There are so many Instagram-able places in Bali: the shrine where you think that there's water, but it's a mirror that's acting like water at the temple that you can take a picture in front of. Do you know which one I'm talking about? The columns?

Angie:

I do, it's your reflection and there's a guy there that helps you take the picture, so you get this gorgeous photo of you reflecting in a temple, but it's not even real. It's a setup.

Jeff:

Yeah, totally a setup, and so you even question some of that. It's interesting and I don't know, I wouldn't say social media is fake, but I can definitely say it's misleading.

Angie:

How do you avoid the trap of doing what everybody else is doing when that's kind of what Instagram rewards?

Jeff:

One thing that I've learned is that a lot of people aren't following everybody. So, people might follow me, but they're not following you. So, me doing it is still a novelty to the audience that I'm with. I just went rock climbing; people go rock climbing every day, but me doing it is totally different.

I think in life and if we're on somebody else's dime, if we're on somebody else's platform, i.e. all of social media is not ours, you got to play the game. As much as you want to do your own stuff—which you can—but the things that get rewarded is the game that they have you playing. That's their rules, that's their guidelines. So, I don't come in trying to change social media in that kind of way.

It’s really fun being able to talk to so many actors and TV hosts of other shows and hear what they say. The successful ones are the ones that are playing the game. It's still a game and if you play it well, you get rewarded well, but that does not take away from what you're putting out or the authenticity of the work that you're putting out.

I want to inspire people when they come to my social media or even watch my TV show. I want to educate them when they come to my social media and TV show. It's still educational, entertaining, or inspirational, so it is doing it, but it's just doing it for my audience.

Angie:

I think the best creators know how to toe that line of being their authentic selves, but also playing the game of Instagram and TikTok, and knowing how to end up in somebody's algorithm. Not because you want their eyeballs for selfish reasons, but because you have your purpose, you want to educate, you want to inspire.

You can take that picture at Horseshoe Bend or in front of the Eiffel Tower and then it's the caption or your voiceover that's giving information that can only come from you. Your specific experience, here are some tips on Horseshoe Bend, what time you should go, what time you absolutely shouldn't go, what kind of footwear do you need? Is it hot? Should you bring water? Those kind of things are the measure of a good creator. Finding one with the ability to be authentic, give you context, and also make sure that you actually see their content. There's a balance and I know I struggle with that as a creator. I don't want to pull people away from their families and have them scrolling for 10 hours a day, but I do want to provide something useful.

Jeff:

I think as much as social media is cool, I've even seen Gen Z now where they have smartphones, but they want to go back to not smartphones. People are wanting to get away from technology, but I still think that will be a thing because of human nature. Human connection is what people yearn for, more than just being in front of the TV.

But kids are knowing those studies, they're knowing those statistics about being on your phone and what it does to you mentally, emotionally. I'm not that scared about the future. I think the scariest part is right now; us just allowing us to consume so much. It's like us eating ice cream, everybody's just been eating the ice cream, not knowing that it is going to give you diabetes by the end of it.

Angie:

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Angie:

What I'm hearing is that it's up to us to make those decisions. What is responsible to share? Is it responsible for me to go to this destination? How can I use social media? What is its best use? As creators, we have to think about that every trip. Really, with everything we post, we want to consider, “Is this helping somebody?”

Jeff:

If you're just putting it out just to put it out, I feel like it is so vain. I know people with literally a million followers, and I make more money than they do. And that was before the TV show, but it was because I was bringing value to my audience, value-based content. And so, even if you're looking at doing this as a job, you have to bring value to your audience, and you want your audience to be engaged and will follow you anywhere kind of thing.

Angie:

It's more challenging than ever because there are so many people in this space.

Jeff:

Instagram is making everybody into influencers right now.

Angie:

If everyone is an influencer, then nobody's an influencer. The bottom line is you just have to do you.

Jeff:

Yeah, I appreciate you on that one. That is very true. It's an interesting time right now.

Angie:

To the people who say social media has ruined travel and ruined specific destinations. Do you have a counterargument to that?

Jeff:

I feel like they're gatekeepers; they're just holding onto it. I do understand it in some ways, but not realizing that there are so many economies that depend on tourism, and that's what they deemed as their way of making money. They was like, “Hey, we have something here, let's use it to our advantage” kind of thing. I don't think that social media is truly ruining travel.

Angie:

No. In fact, it's probably …

Jeff:

Helping it in some ways.

Angie:

Helping so many people to stay in business and to make a living. You think about the destinations that are mostly travel-focused. So, like Hawai‘i, so much of Hawai‘i is geared toward visitors, so when something terrible happens like a fire, that's rough for people.

Jeff:

Being a responsible traveler, that's my go-to shtick that I've stuck to and I learned it from being in Hawai‘i. What does responsible tourism look like? How do we be responsible? How do we leave a place better? Not us coming over to be the savior, but coming alongside people to help in a way, too. Not just taking, but also giving.

Angie:

Yes, that's poignant because that's what it should be about. Hopefully, people are using their social media to convey that. It's not just what gorgeous picture can I take of myself in this beautiful rice patty with a swing? What does that tell us about the destination? And the people and who they are and their culture?

Jeff:

Yeah. You want to know something, though? They asked people if they could not take a picture of the destination you were in, would you go? It was some crazy, astronomical statistic like 70-80% of people was like, “No, I wouldn't go.” And I was like, “Dang, that's crazy.”

Angie:

Wow, that is pretty shocking. It really points to the reason for travel not being about the experience. Are you going for yourself or the likes?

Jeff:

That's how our mindset works these days. Back in the day, as a younger traveler, I was like, “How does somebody want to just stay in an all-inclusive resort in another country?” And I like staying in an all-inclusive resort here in America. Sure, I'm fine with that, but in another country? No, I want to go explore that country. Now, I'm over here like, “You know what? That don't sound that bad right now.”

Angie:

I'm the same way. I used to be the go, go, go. You got to do everything while you're there. You can sleep when you're dead. You fit as much as you can into that itinerary. And now I'm like, “Listen, what if we just stay at the hotel and read books for 4 days?”

Jeff:

That would be amazing! What?! I want to do that right now.

It's the yin and yang to it all. I'm hoping that people find a way to do a little bit more of that too because that's what moms and pops were doing back in the day. They weren't actually venturing past the resort gates. We've been the ones really championing, “Let's go past that. Let's go do more.”

Angie:

Experiential millennials, that's what our whole thing has been. And yeah, there's something to be said for balance and rest. That's not always something that our age group has valued, and now that we're geriatric millennials as they call us, we're realizing the value of rest and just turning your brain off. Not every trip has to be the ultimate learning experience, you know? Because that's not exactly restful. You have to balance your trips out in a way that honors you, your body, your mind, and just everything.

Jeff:

That's all I'm on right now. I'm literally practicing the art of bored-ness. When I was doing the TV show, it was experience after experience. It's a lot. I just remember being like, “Yo, you have no time to process.” It was like, “Hey, are you ready to go do this?” I was like, “No, you had me hanging off a cliff just earlier today. I'm not even thinking about the other stuff.”

Angie:

You’re like, “I need 7 days off, man.”

Jeff:

Yes! I asked the director of photography—one of the head camera women who was actually on the show—she did The Amazing Race and Naked and Afraid, all these different, real great travel shows. And I was like, “How do you deal or process the experiences?” She was like, “I go stare at a tree.” And I said, “Huh?”

Angie:

That's amazing advice!

Jeff:

I was like, “You know what? I should try that.” It made sense and it worked. Come to find out, I was just always on the go. And so, I just needed to be home. The more I've been home, the more I've been able to scale my business, think about trips that I want to take, and think about ideas and how to make it cooler when I go and do it.

Angie:

I learned that, too. I was doing trip, trip, trip, trip, trip, trip for years, then at one point, I was like, “I don't even want to go anywhere.” That was a hard thing for me to grapple with. I'm like, “I'm a travel blogger, I have to go somewhere. That is my job.” But I was like, “You know, I don't have that same passion that I used to.” A lot of that just boiled down to not processing in between and not resting. And we see on social media, it looks like everyone is everywhere all the time because that's what we share. We don't share, “I'm at the grocery store.”

Jeff:

This social media stuff is a lot of fun, but it also comes with a lot of headache and it feels like a rollercoaster ride all the time.

Angie:

You don't realize how much you need the rest and the downtime. Your brain needs it, your body needs it. It's something that we have to keep an eye on as creators, as regular people, as people traveling. You got to keep it in check.

Jeff:

Got to check it.

Angie:

Jeff Jenkins, thank you for joining us, and thank you to our listeners for being with us.

If you're planning a trip, be sure to connect with AAA Travel Advisor, check out AAA.com/travel, or visit your local branch.

This podcast is a production of Auto Club Enterprises. If you enjoyed it, please subscribe and leave us a review. I'm Angie Orth, thank you for traveling with AAA.