Award-winning travel and food blogger from Hey! Dip Your Toes In Eulanda Shead Osagiede grew up in Colorado, balancing beautiful forests and mountains with growing gang violence and police oppression, studied dance in New York City then moved to the UK. We talk the Colonial history of travel writing, #BlackLivesMatter, the challenges of being a minority in a very white industry, Japan’s beautiful Kimonos, luxurious Moroccan hammans, the Caribbean and the Tanzanian seaweed collector who changed her perception.

On this episode we cover:

It being an ‘interesting’ time for travel

An American locked down in Beckenham SE London

Being ‘sick’ of walks in beautiful areas

Being born on an air force base in Illinois

Spending her formative years in Colorado

Moving to New York to study dance

A study abroad opportunity igniting her passion for travel

Doing a Masters in Choreography and Dance Technology

How the Hey Dip Your Toes In blog snowballed

Navigating her way through Colorado forest at night

Growing up with gang violence 90s Colorado

Communities being marginalised

Black Lives Matter and the current movement

Shootings at cultural festivals and events

Having to hide in the basement as bullets fired through the window

Having the back window of her car shot out

Developing a fear of authority and police

Loving how Black Lives Matter is being supported

Celebrating the amplification of black voices

Attending the London protest or ‘peace walk’

How even talking about blackness when she was growing up was taboo

Travel journalism having a Colonia-esque history – white men writing books

How being black has had to inform her travel writing work

Travel writing needing to be de-colonised

The San Diego man who was surprised she was ‘so eloquent’

Feeling like a curiosity in other places

How white fellow journalists can question their experiences

Being regularly detained by customs

Lisa arguing with ‘all lives matter’ posters on social media

Japan being very welcoming and wonderful

Wearing a beautiful Kimono

Feeling at home in the Caribbean

‘Skin folk are kin folk’ not always being true

The luxurious Banyan Tree in Northern Morocco

How Moroccans really know how to give a good bath

The ethics and integrity of travel writing

The place in Madeira she couldn’t bring herself to write about

The panel host who introduced her by saying something about her hair

Influencers, v bloggers, v journalists

How people don’t have to have a set title things days

Lockdown affecting her emotional wellbeing

Losing a lot of work ultimately meaning expansion

The seaweed collector in Tanzania who changed her perception

How important it is to have everyone’s voice on the table in travel writing