My favorite places to add and contribute to in Google Maps are those that help ethnic folks live and thrive in unfamiliar environments, including barbershops, hair/nail salons, ethnic food spots, and immigration services. These additions have helped me out a great deal as I’ve moved around the world as a digital nomad, and I’m simply glad to continue the trend and be a “good internet citizen” by helping people. Likewise, I like to add notes about where to avoid, or where I felt uncomfortable as a black, female traveler and business professional, to give others a heads up on what to expect and how to manage in sometimes-hostile environments.
This has always been an interest of mine, but it became a mission when I had an experience of someone helping me out in a major way while I was abroad. It was the summer of 2017, and I was working for a digital nomad startup that took remote working professionals to a new country each month. I was not only working for the company as a marketing and operations lead, but experiencing the month-to-month travel as well. Our team of 3 at the company worked remotely, too. It had been about 6 weeks since I’d left the US, I was in Valencia, Spain, and my hair was starting to look grisly. I’m a black woman with very dense, coily hair (type 4c to those familiar), that I wear natural in a fade (or “Caesar”) cut, so it’s super important that someone who knows what they’re doing cuts my hair. As I set out on this journey across the world from home, it had never even crossed my mind that I might find myself in countries or regions where black people, and therefore black barbers, are few and far between. I was incredibly lucky that one chance day at the Central Market in Valencia, I spotted a black, English-Speaking Spanish woman with a similar hair texture and cut to mine. I sprinted across the market to catch up with her and ask about her hair and she, a gracious soul, called her barber on the spot to book me an appointment that afternoon. The cut was great, and I was grateful. Since then, I’ve been hyper aware of marking the safe and convenient spots for other black men and women, as well as immigrants and other “outsiders” to eat, shop, and find services that suit them in Google Maps.