Globetrotting As a Single Mom, Episode 21 of Travel + Leisure’s New Podcast

As we keep trucking through 2020, Travel + Leisure's first podcast, Let's Go Together, continues to introduce listeners to some of the most inspiring and spirited travelers in the world. So far this season we've met people working to preserve their native cultures in Alaska and Hawaii, an Olympic athlete traveling the world in her hijab, and plus-size travelers who explained what it's like traveling in a bigger body.

On this week’s episode, host Kellee Edwards is joined by Amoya Shante, founder of Single Moms Do Travel, and Libryia Jones, co-founder of Wandering Moms Community, what it’s like raising children as single moms while helping their kids expand their horizons by traveling the world.

Liberia Jones has been traveling with her daughter, who is now 17, since she was eight. Together they’ve traveled near and far, and even spent an entire year traveling together. Besides being a mother, Jones also leads a community of over 20,000 women as part of Wandering Moms. The company also organizes trips for women who want to travel.

“The community and website really are about educating, encouraging, and supporting moms who want to travel because… there’s these stereotypes about single moms and moms in general about what we can and cannot do. So our goal is really [to] shift that narrative for all moms,” Jones said.

For Amoya Shante, traveling was a way to regroup with her kids after leaving an abusive marriage. After traveling the world for over two years, Shante ended up in Merida, Mexico, where she now leads Single Moms Do Travel, an “amazing community of single moms who are traveling and living abroad and really changing the single mom narrative,” as she described it.

Over the course of the episode the trio talk about how they found their passion for travel, the art of raising children while exposing them to new cultures and ways of life, and the challenges that come along with that. They also chat about what their kids think about traveling and offer practical advice for parents looking to take their kids on amazing journeys, too.

But like every good podcast, you have to listen to it yourself to hear the rest on Let’s Go Together, available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Stitcher.

Tanner Saunders is the Associate Digital Editor of Travel + Leisure.