Martinique Lewis on rewriting the narrative of Black travel

Publishing the ABC Travel Greenbook: Connecting the African Diaspora Globally in 2020 was a huge success! Tell us why the app is so important.

I published the book because I knew that if I didn’t know about these communities and Black-owned businesses, other Black travellers wanting to maximise their holidays wouldn’t either. As Black travellers we have the need to know where to find people who look like us so we can feel safe. 

If someone goes to Israel, they may want to know where to get their braids done in Tel Aviv. If someone is going to Japan, and they want soul food, they should know about Soul Food House. In Amsterdam, Reggae Rita’s is the place to visit for Jamaican food. In Costa Rica, travellers should know that it’s a national holiday for Afro-Costa Rican Day on 8 November. Travellers wouldn’t have known about any of this without the book. Prior to the Greenbook there was no collective resource to learn this information, and while there were Black travel movements online, they focussed primarily on America. Now there is a resource that allows you to do that. And Black people needed it so much, as our stories are the ones left out of the travel shows and publications.

Luckily for me, the book completely took off, selling over 10,000 copies. It has opened so many doors, but the main thing was that it kept money in these Black businesses because travellers were seeking out those people who look like us. My main goal was to make sure that these people who relied…