Five years ago, Jeff Jenkins decided he wanted to become a professional traveler. His goal was to make a living traveling around the world and helping people. Today he's doing exactly that. After years of hard work building an online platform called Chubby Diaries, Jeff is now the host of National Geographic's TV show, Never Say Never.
Five years ago, Jeff Jenkins decided he wanted to become a professional traveler. His goal was to make a living traveling around the world and helping people. Today he's doing exactly that. After years of hard work building an online platform called Chubby Diaries, Jeff is now the host of National Geographic's TV show, Never Say Never.
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Shelby Stanger:
There's a quote from the poet Mary Oliver that says, "Tell me. What is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?" It's a good reminder that if we want to do something wild, there's no time like the present. Five years ago, professional traveler Jeff Jenkins asked himself this question. The answer changed his life. Jeff's goal was to make a living traveling around the world and today he's doing exactly that. After years of hard work building an online platform called Chubby Diaries, Jeff is now the host of National Geographic's TV show, Never Say Never.
Jeff Jenkin:
I'm supposed to climb this? Whoo. OMG. I know Mama you don't want me up here right now ,but we up here.
As a chubby Black guy, I don't see a lot of folks who look like me exploring the world.
Ooh, ooh. That was for you, Mom.
I got to show people that you can look like me and still live your best life.
Woo, this one got me. It's the power of just pushing past whatever that fear is right now.
Speaker 3:
That was amazing.
Jeff Jenkin:
Oh my God.
Speaker 3:
That was incredible.
Jeff Jenkin:
We did that.
Shelby Stanger:
I'm Shelby Stanger, and this is Wild Ideas Worth Living, an REI Co-op Studios Production brought to you by Capital One.
Jeff Jenkins, welcome to Wild Ideas Worth Living.
Jeff Jenkin:
Hi, Shelby. I'm so glad to be here right now.
Shelby Stanger:
You've had a lot of wild ideas. I am so excited to talk to you about them. I haven't talked to someone who is a professional traveler in a really long time. And, wow, I just watched your videos last night and I just got so inspired and so excited and you just seem so fun. You got so much energy. Where did your love of travel begin?
Jeff Jenkin:
Well, I mean, it starts off more of a sucky little situation, but my mom was in an abusive relationship and we were fleeing away from the man and we went from Orlando to Connecticut in a Greyhound bus. And I just fell in love with being on the open road, being able to see all the trees going state to state, and although it's a sucky situation, that's where my love for travel started.
Shelby Stanger:
Did you continue to travel after that?
Jeff Jenkin:
Yeah, so we would take family trips where there were always car trips, so I was desperately wanting to get into a airplane.
Shelby Stanger:
So when was the first time you went on a plane?
Jeff Jenkin:
I was 20 years old and I was in college at the time.
Shelby Stanger:
Where did you go?
Jeff Jenkin:
Japan. Yep, first time ever going on an airplane. And I remember being able to talk to the flight attendants at the time, and they all were like, "Wait, this is your first flight ever?" And I was like, "Yeah." And they was like, "Well, this is one heck of a flight." And I was like, "Yeah, it is." But that's just me stepping and doing something wild.
Shelby Stanger:
After his trip to Japan, Jeff became a high school teacher back in the US. A few years in, he started to reflect on the direction that his life was taking. He didn't want to spend any more time on a path that wasn't aligned with his dreams. While he liked teaching, Jeff aspired to build a career traveling and helping people.
Jeff Jenkin:
When I quit my job, I was a high school teacher for nine years, I got into entrepreneurship. While I was trying to figure out what I was going to do, I started a water well project where we built water wells out in Rwanda with my friends. And it was while we were there, the fact that none of us was engineers, I didn't even know how water came out of the ground, but the fact that we were able to build these water wells, I was like, "I can do anything." And so it was while I was on that trip that I asked myself the question, "I money wasn't an option, if whatever I wanted to do was actually to happen for me, what would you do?" And it took me three days to come to this conclusion of, "I want to travel the world, help people and get paid to do it." And that's what took me down this journey of content creation and journalism and blogging.
It was my cousin who was a PR rep, and she knew how to help with branding. She gave me this worksheet to fill out because everybody was like, "Oh, you need a niche. You need a niche." And I was like, "I don't know what my niche is going to be." And so I filled it out and I was like, "I have nothing." And then we went over it together and she was like, "Why don't you just talk about this? Being fat and Black?" And I was like, "You know what? I should just talk about that."
I realized then that I was like, "I don't know anyone talking about the plight of plus size travel." And a story that had just happened right before was me and my wife, who's not plus size, we went on a trip together and I started asking her questions. I said, "Hey, do you not think about weight limits?" She's like, "No, never." I was like, "You don't think about size restrictions?" She's like, "No." And I was like, "What world do you live in?" And it shows that there's two different worlds in a way for plus size people and people who aren't plus size. And so I wanted to talk about that. I wanted to change that narrative, like why is it that everything that we see in magazines and stuff is just always some thin fit person and never like anybody that's plus size?
Shelby Stanger:
Okay, I have so many questions. First of all, do you know how many people I talk to or how many people I know whose dream is, "I want to go make a living, traveling the world and getting paid to travel?" It's pretty much everybody. But then there's you and you're like, "I'm actually going to go do it." How did you go do it?
Jeff Jenkin:
I was very delusional, and I still am delusional to a point. But I read this book called The 10X Rule by Grant Cardone and he talks about dreaming big and he talks about how, "I want you to have these big audacious goals. Whatever that dream is. Now times it by 10." So then you're like, "Oh, oh, wait a minute. Oh, this is uncomfortable." It becomes scary in a way, but it's like those scary dreams, those scary goals, are the things that can wake you up in the morning to go after them. And I was like, "Well, if they can do it, I guess I can do it as well." And so that was the challenge. That was the thing that I've thought of, but it was a lot of work. We can dive into it.
Shelby Stanger:
Let's dive into it. I'm really curious because that's a wild idea that you've made a reality and it took some sacrifice and some work and probably some nos and some investment in yourself and other people, were some of the key things you did that you made happen.
Jeff Jenkin:
Well, one, I figured out my niche, like I was telling y'all before. I wanted to have a niche where the lane was wide open. Like I'm over here skipping down the road because there's nobody else doing it like I am and so that competition really isn't there. So it helps me out as a person because if it's too overly saturated or too competitive, I'll just move on to something else. But this is something that I truly am passionate about and I'm excited about, so being able to do that. I would also say, and some of this is like that woo woo stuff of just dreaming big personally. You have to make these goals. So not only did I have the dream of wanting to travel the world and get paid to do it, but it was like a why attached to it. So it's like I needed to know my why.
Shelby Stanger:
What was your why?
Jeff Jenkin:
Well, I have other goals. I want to be a billionaire one day. I want to own part of the Orlando Magic. I want to be able to take care of my community. I want to be able to take care of my family. I want to pay for my family's retirement. I still want to go to space. I wanted to get a travel show. All of these different things I wanted. And it was like, "These are the reasons why I'm doing it." I don't actually care to make this money, but I do know what I can do with this money. Now when I make this money, I'm able to give back to different organizations. So those are the things that keep me going.
The sacrifice was the time. Like I had to do a lot of this stuff pro bono. All the tagging, knowing that nobody's going to look at my content. When I started blogging, when I started posting on the internet, I would get one or two likes or one or two reads on my blogs. So it was like nobody. And it was like my mom and some other random people. Even my wife wasn't doing it at the time. So there was all of that happening. So it's like, "Man, you have to push past the imposter syndrome. You have to push past nobody looking at your stuff." It took almost a year before I got my first paid gig, and it was like 500 bucks. And when I tell you that 500 bucks felt like 10, $12,000, you couldn't tell me anything. I was so excited.
Shelby Stanger:
When Jeff got started there was no blueprint for building a career as a plus-size professional traveler, which was both a blessing and a curse. On one hand, his competition was limited. On the other hand, he had to figure out a lot of stuff on his own. He started by attending every conference he could, trying to learn the ins and outs of content creation and building a personal brand. In addition to gaining an online following, Jeff also had to get out the door and explore the world.
So what did that look like initially? You created travel content, which meant you just had to go travel.
Jeff Jenkin:
So, yeah, I took out a loan for $25,000. And it was supposed to go towards the business, which some of it did, but I was so scared at the time that I was like, "I still have bills." So I ended up using most of it for bills instead of for the business. But I had to figure out a way to travel as much as possible on a very low budget, almost zero budget. So I decided to go to countries like Thailand where it was very affordable. And it was sleeping in hostels. Well, Thailand, you can get a fantastic meal for a dollar, but going in Japan, getting food from just out of the 7-Elevens there. So it was like I always had to find ways and I kept trying to go to smaller, cheaper countries so that I didn't have to pay as much.
Shelby Stanger:
But your content instantly got an audience it sounds like. I mean, you were serving this niche that hadn't been served before. And I'm just curious, what was the reaction like from community?
Jeff Jenkin:
I was just as shocked as everybody that's joined the community, or even people that are in my close circle of, I was like, "Ooh, wow, this resonates with people." I didn't realize, because this is something I personally had to become more transparent and bold enough and courageous enough to talk about the challenges that I have as a plus size man traveling. And some of it's not pretty. Some of it's very uncomfortable to talk about. So the fact that I was doing that and finding that there was people that it resonated with and they were like, "Oh my God, I have this same thing," that just empowered me even more.
I had to step out of my comfort zone a lot in the beginning because I wouldn't even take a picture past my shoulder area. That was the extent of my pictures. And so now I was like, "Oh, I have to show my whole body. People are out going to catch me from other angles." And I was like, "I don't want to show off these other angles." And so it is in that I was like thank you to the community for their support because it emboldened me to do more. Them being able to see me? I became that representation. I became the person that was like, "You know what? I'll go do it. You don't have to be the one that has to go test it out first. I'll go test it out."
Shelby Stanger:
What year was it that you really started traveling in earnest and you decided like, "Hey, I'm going to be like the travel man."
Jeff Jenkin:
Yeah, travel content creator. I love it. 2018.
Shelby Stanger:
2018. Okay, amazing. So since then, what are some of the favorite places you've traveled?
Jeff Jenkin:
Oh, man. Well, Mexico has become one of the countries that have been pleasantly surprising. And I can keep going to Mexico all the time. There's so many places in Mexico that I haven't even explored yet. Mexico is a beautiful country and it's massive. And I remember somebody else saying that Mexico is their favorite country, and I was like, "Mexico?" And I was very biased at the time, ignorant of what was actually in Mexico. And then I started visiting and I was like, "Man, I have been around the world, and Mexico continues to come out on top." So Mexico, Belize, Italy, just beautiful places. South Africa. Oh, in love with South Africa.
Shelby Stanger:
How do you find the next place?
Jeff Jenkin:
I have bucket list places I want to visit, and a lot of times people have already been to those places, so it's just me checking off my bucket list. I try to do everything geographical. So if I'm in this state or if I'm in this country, like, "Hey, I have the opportunity of stopping by here while I'm here, so let's do that."
Shelby Stanger:
Over the last five years, Jeff has been to 46 countries and 48 states. He paddle boarded in Iceland, did capoeira in Brazil, wrestled in Japan, and rode hot air balloons in New Mexico. Trip by trip, Jeff is proving to the world that travel is for everyone. When we come back, Jeff talks about how his online platform Chubby Diaries came to be, he tells us how he became the host of Nat Geo's Never Say Never, and he shares some important insights on going after wild ideas.
Travel journalist Jeff Jenkins launched his platform Chubby Diaries in 2018. He started out with just an Instagram profile and a blog where he documented his adventures as a plus-size traveler. Soon he began partnering with brands and winning awards for his content.
Talk to me about Chubby Diaries. When did you start it?
Jeff Jenkin:
I started it in 2018. It took so long to actually start. It took me four or five months of just like, "I should start it. I should get it going." And I had a business coach at the time. I mean, I did not need a business coach, but the one thing he did help me out with, he was like, "I need you to launch ugly. I need you to launch your Chubby Diaries website, even if you ain't got much on there. Just put a landing page up, put something up." So that was 2018.
Shelby Stanger:
So okay, Chubby Diaries, and it's now probably huge. It seems like an amazing platform. What's been the reaction?
Jeff Jenkin:
I mean, it's been great. When we were in the heyday of blogging, like we were doing it. We were trying to find as many topics on whatever challenges that plus size people were having or just destinations that plus size people should be visiting. I realized that plus size people believe that they can't go travel and have a good time like people who aren't plus size. And so I try to show all the things that they can do. And typically people are actually smaller than me, so me being able to do it means that most of the other folks can do it as well.
So their reaction has just been fantastic. Hearing so many people being like, "Oh, this is something I didn't even know I needed, but I needed." Or to hear people who aren't plus size that follow the account, but they only follow it because they have a friend, a family member, a spouse, that is plus size and like, "Whoa, I did not know this is why my friend probably wasn't going on these trips with us."
Shelby Stanger:
So besides launching Chubby Diaries, you have the dream job. You host a travel show. You're the host of Never Say Never on National Geographic. How did you get this gig?
Jeff Jenkin:
Just grinding. I was doing a lot of work. It was me just doing my content, me being the journalist that I was, started winning awards for the things that I was doing. So I was making a name for myself in the travel space and in the outdoor space too. And yeah, it was just like three years in Nat Geo just emailed me one day and was like, "Hey, we want to make a show around you." And I was like, "What?" So I was super pumped up about it, and it took two years from the time they reached out to me to the time the show actually premiered. I
Shelby Stanger:
Filming Never Say Never was a huge project. Jeff spent eight months on the road in South America, Asia, Europe, and even here in the US. He rafted in New Zealand, swam with sharks in Mexico, and rock climbed in the Adirondack Mountains. Over and over again Jeff had to practice confronting his fear and going after his wild ideas. On one trip in particular, Jeff crossed a long suspension bridge that was thousands of feet in the air. It was one of the scariest situations of his life.
Jeff Jenkin:
It was in Sa Pa Vietnam and it was a suspension bridge that had these logs that you actually had to, it wasn't connected, they were gapped. So you had to go from each log. You had to step very widely just to get to the next side. And that was terrifying because that bridge also when you moved the bridge tilted down so it was always wobbly.
Shelby Stanger:
In addition to crossing suspension bridges and wrestling, Jeff has also had his fair share of wildlife encounters.
What was it like to wrangle a crocodile?
Jeff Jenkin:
Just as scary as I thought it would be. It was a little terrifying. One time we did a take and the tail got loose and all you heard was pow, against the ground, and it sounded like a gunshot. You felt the sound reverberate in your body and that put the fear of God in me. It really did.
Shelby Stanger:
I can only imagine what that's like. So on your show and in life and on your blog, you talk a lot about the importance of pushing yourself out of your comfort zone.
Jeff Jenkin:
Yeah. The theme of the show is life begins where your comfort zone ends. I heard that from my mentor who I met in Japan, my first day in Japan. And he said that the second day we were there. He actually made us go do a eight-hour scavenger hunt around Yokosuka, Japan. And I was like, "Wait, wait, what? You want us to do a scavenger hunt without you?" Like, "Whoa, no." But the fact that we were able to go do it, he taught us how to order food, how to call a taxi, how to do the train system, go to this landmark, go to this shrine, all these different cool things. The fact that I was able to do it and I didn't die, I was like, "Oh, you know what? I could step out of my comfort zone a little bit more." And so if it wasn't for him, I realized that I wasn't living life. I had a sheltered life for the most part. And so to be able to have a more fulfilling life, I needed to step out of my comfort zone as much as I could.
Shelby Stanger:
Have you ever struggled to push yourself?
Jeff Jenkin:
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, even recently, just doing the show and being gone for eight months of just shooting? Coming back, it was tough. It was really tough. I didn't know what was happening. I was exhausted. I felt like I haven't been around my family and friends for a while, so that was tough. And I just had to find that motivation to just keep going in that way. I would even say there's hikes or climbs or things that I do to where I'm just like, "I don't know." And I also do know my body. I mean, I'm not doing this for sport, so I don't have to kill myself to go prove something and I'm never here to prove something to somebody. But I do, I have my moments. There's climbs or there's hikes that I do, and I'm just like, "Man, I'm going to go at a snail's pace when I get there, I get there and I'm not going to worry about somebody else."
I'll let everybody know. I'll be over communicative about like, "Hey, I'm going to take my time. I might be out of breath a couple of these times but y'all go ahead without me. I will be okay." Usually somebody wants to stay back with me anyway and be like, "You know what, Jeff, I'm glad you said it, because I wanted to stay back too. I didn't want to go that fast." So there's a lot of moments, but once again, it's other people that motivate me, me not doing it? It's that have you ever heard that thing, "If not you, then who?" I feel like I'm the who. So I have to go for it. I have to be that person that goes out and do it.
Shelby Stanger:
You must have so many stories of people who've been inspired and influenced by your content.
Jeff Jenkin:
Yeah. When I did the show, each episode there's a challenge, and the challenge I was supposed to do in Japan was to go wrestling. For the most part you know that most wrestlers, they're no shirt and have on somewhat adult diapers. It's [foreign language 00:21:53]. But I was like, "Well, I'm not taking off my shorts, but I will take off my shirt." And that was a challenge of its own because rarely in public have you ever seen me with my shirt off. And that's the same exact thing for a lot of plus size people. They don't want to take off their shirts in public, especially when they're at the beach or something like that or at a swimming pool.
So me doing that, my friend's coworker, he said, "It's been over 15 years since I've taken off my shirt." And he was like, "I didn't want to do it because I felt like I was going to be judged." He was like, "I even thought I was going to be judged by my 13-year-old." But he said, "I took off my shirt and was just strutting my thing." And he was like nobody even was paying him attention, nor was his son paying him attention. So that was such a beautiful thing to be able to help liberate people from just the different obstacles that they might feel is something they can't do.
Shelby Stanger:
On your travels, you've talked a lot about how you've had to deal with doubters, with people that aren't always on board, on the same page as you. And I'm sure there's been a little bit of self-doubt that you've had to overcome. I'm just curious how you deal with the doubters and the naysayers.
Jeff Jenkin:
Well, yeah. I mean, there's a couple of things. So one thing I didn't mention earlier when I was talking about me getting started was I figured out how to brand myself. I figured out what the doubters and the naysayers have to say. I remember one of my family members asked me the question right when I got started. He was like, "Why don't you just teach people how to lose weight and you don't have to have this platform?" And I was like, "Well, there's so many other platforms out there." And I was like, "There is no platform talking to a person where they're at right now." And so I wanted to humanize people. And I would say that I'm not here to promote obesity. What I am here to do is promote living life now. And I want people to live life no matter their size. I want them to be able to travel no matter their size.
And I love what one of my friends said, he's a travel writer, journalist, author, and we were at a journalist like happy hour in New York. We do it every year in January. And the first day I met him, within 10 minutes of me talking to him, he was like, "You know why we're all successful in this room?" And he was like, "You want to know the secret?" And I was like, "Yeah, teach me the secret." He was like, "We're just the ones that didn't give up." And I was like, "Oh, that's it?" And he was like, "Yeah, we're just the ones that didn't give up." And for me, I have to continue to tell myself, "Don't give up. You have to just keep going. It doesn't look like it's going to work out. It doesn't seem like something's happening." But something is happening. And so I measure myself off of my progress. Am I making progress in whatever it is that I'm trying to do? And the answer typically is yes. So that's how I'm able to evaluate myself.
Shelby Stanger:
Talking to Jeff really lit me up. His energy is absolutely contagious. He pushes himself hard to reach his goals. And he's such a leader. I love his message, live your life now. If you want to learn more about Jeff, check him out on Instagram at Chubby Diaries. You can also watch Never Say Never on Hulu, Disney+, Apple TV, and more.
Wild Ideas Worth Living is part of the REI Podcast Network. It's hosted by me, Shelby Stanger, produced by Annie Fassler, Sylvia Thomas, and Sam Pierce Nitzberg of Puddle Creative. Our senior producers are Jenny Barber and Hannah Boyd. Our executive producers are Paolo Mottola and Joe Crosby. As always, we love it when you follow the show, take time to rate it, and write a review wherever you listen. And remember, some of the best adventures happen when you follow your wildest ideas.