About Creolio Spanish Travel

Creolio Spanish Travel is all about showing a different and deeper side of Mexico while teaching Spanish through Spanglish.

All too often, foreigners visit only the most touristic aspects of a country, and don’t get to know the people very well. Part of the reason for this is that we don’t take the time to learn the language enough to have those interactions or to move outside of the small pockets within those countries that have adopted English as a second language solely for the purpose of tourism.

If one really wants to experience a country, to get deep, to explore it, and to get to know the people, one has to learn to speak at least some of the language. The more you can speak, the deeper you can go, and the more rich the experience will be.

So Creolio Spanish Travel is about showing the real-life application of examples of how far learning Spanish can take you if you spend some time in a Spanish-speaking country.

On the other hand, if you already have taken an interest in learning Spanish, Creolio Spanish Travel provides real-world application for the language and reminds you why you’re learning it.

Each episode teaches at least some Spanish in a real-world context. Most episodes will focus on a single part of speech, vocabulary theme, or grammatical concept as a subtext for the episode. Spanish and English is used interchangeable in a strategic way so as to create a balance that doesn’t overwhelm the audience with too many foreign words at one time, but allows one to learn something while being entertained, educated in other ways, and–hopefully–inspired.

Travel Experiences So Far

The project up to this point has consisted of several odysseys:

1. A broad tour of Mexico over the course of 3 months during the summer of 2016 with my cousin Conner. We visited
   1. Monterrey
   2. Guadalajara
   3. Guanajuato
   4. Mexico City
   5. Veracruz
   6. Oaxaca (where I then ended up living for an additional 3 months)
   7. Chiapas
2. A solo bicycle trip from Houston to Mexico City in which another American named Ed (a conspiracy theorist and self-proclaimed redneck) joined me starting at the border (I ended up living in Mexico City for 5 months after that)
3. A journalistic bicycle trip along the Mexican-american border funded by the Weekly Standard of Washington DC from Tijuana to Ciudad Juarez. We were a diverse team of 4: Grant Wishard, a journalist; myself; Davi Bravo, the Mexican muralist friend I made in Queretaro on my previous bike trip through Mexico, who biked all the way to Costa Rica once, founder of the Bykings; and Pablo Mensegue, a chef and photographer from Argentina

After Grant broke his arm and bike when he took a spill down a hill in El Paso (the original plan was to bike all the way to the Gulf of Mexico), the trip had to be cut short. As a result, I ended up suddenly moving to Guadalajara (where I am now as I write this) to help a different friend start his new English school, “Brooklyn English”.

The second trip was very little documented, but the first and the third were heavily so. I have only been able to edit videos up to Guadalajara from the first trip so far, unfortunately. I plan to edit all of the rest and upload them over time.

Next Steps

The next phase will be to create videos focused more intentionally on the teaching of Spanish in the course of daily life within a single city (probably in Guadalajara). After this, it may be that I will engage with the road again and show more of Latin America in my videos beyond Mexico, starting with Guatemala. The Creolio books are my highest priority, and they have a tendency to keep me grounded in a single city for a longer duration of time, so time will tell what happens after Guadalajara.

Support

The best way that you can support this project is by purchasing “Learn Spanish through Spanglish (Illustrated): Stories de la Jungle” and giving it an honest review. This project is under-budget, which results in vastly slower production times. If you would like to see more content more quickly and while it’s still fresh, you can also support via Patreon for as low as $1/month. Each contributor helps in a big way, and you are appreciated. There are also rewards for doing so.

Become a Patron!