Lifestyle

Chasing Rainbows in Mexico

Texas native Blake Wilkinson chronicles life south of the border.

Colibri Travel founder Blake Wilkinson (screengrab via Youtube)

The idea of “a little bird that goes from place to place” inspired video creator and world traveler Blake Wilkinson of Dallas to name his Mexican YouTube channel “Colibri Travel,” after the Spanish term for hummingbird.

“It’s a bird that is only found in the Americas, and given that I’ve traveled so much of North, Central, and South America, I thought it was appropriate,” Wilkinson said during phone and text interviews from Merida, where he is staying with his dog, Binks, in an Airbnb until he moves on to another shooting location. 

Wilkinson, a Texas native and temporary Mexican resident, arrived in Guadalajara two years ago from Portland, Oregon, joining other Portland residents who maintain winter homes in Mexico to escape the cold weather. “I had heard about Guadalajara, and I wanted to see it,” Wilkinson explained. “I thought it would be a cool place.”

Although he initially thought he would spend winters in Mexico and summers in the Pacific Northwest, he eventually realized that full-time life south of the border would suit him even better.

After a year in Mexico, he started making YouTube videos with his GoPro sport camera in January 2020 while venturing out in Guadalajara and nearby towns. He focused on everyday life seen in the street markets and celebrations. By the end of the year, he had produced 75 videos about Mexico and its culture and grown his YouTube subscriber list to more than 3,000. 

“I thought I had something to contribute with travel vlogs and travel in general, especially for Mexico,” Wilkinson said. “I know how to travel, and I travel well.”

Wilkinson supports himself with online work in the stock market when he is not producing videos or playing the piano to relax. Even though he earns very little from his YouTube channel, he continues to produce videos with no expectation of fame and fortune. (He does ask viewers who enjoy his work to contribute through Patreon, a fundraising platform for artists and other creators.)

In one of the videos, he interviews his immigration lawyer who explains how U.S. residents can obtain temporary and permanent resident status in Mexico. In another, he gives a tour of his apartment and a glimpse of the neighborhood. Still another outlines reasons why foreigners should move to Mexico.

Other videos (whose titles are in parentheses) feature his guided tours of Guachimontones (The Sleepiest Town in Mexico), Tapalpa (The Only Gringo in Town), Cascado el Salto del Nogal (Lost in the Mexican Wilderness), Puerto Vallarta (Exploring the Real Puerto Vallarta), Zapotlanejo (Mexican Mystery Town: Where Am I?), and many other destinations. He has also made several videos discussing the COVID-19 situation in Mexico.

Wilkinson noted that his favorite spots to make videos are usually off the beaten path. A favorite theme is his search for the best tamales in a city. In the adult playground of Puerto Vallarta, he bypasses the tourist traps and takes viewers on a hike through the jungle above the beach and in the town’s remote neighborhoods.

During the first year of his YouTube channel, Wilkinson tended to reveal few details about himself, but now he is opening up more in the videos. “I can be myself in the world, wherever I may be,” Wilkinson said. “I’m not ashamed of having a foreign accent when I speak Spanish.”

At 39, the videographer has visited 39 countries and lived in three of them. His love of travel began at age 13 when he went to England on a school trip. Soon after that, an aunt who travels frequently started taking him along on her vacations.

“It’s that ‘somewhere over the rainbow’ thing,” he said. “It’s always looking for that magical place over the horizon.”

Mexico was a predictable choice for his relocation because he learned Spanish while living in Spain for more than two years after he graduated from DePaul University in Chicago with a degree in anthropology.

Wilkinson returned to Dallas after leaving Spain, and he got involved in LGBTQ political activism for a time in 2009. The experience turned out to be overly taxing, so he moved to Santiago, Chile, for more than a year to work as a tour guide. 

He then spent a couple of years in San Francisco before buying a jeep and a teardrop travel trailer so he could tour the western United States for a year, an experience he called “awesome and amazing.” After spending time camping out in several national parks (one of our most unique features not seen in Mexico or anywhere else) he eventually ended up in Portland.

For his next big adventure, he is considering Nicaragua or Honduras, the only two countries he has not seen in Central America.

Wilkinson’s family has some concern about his wandering around Mexico alone because of the reports of violence in the country, but they are supportive of his project. He is careful during his travels and avoids washing his jeep so it doesn’t attract the attention of thieves.

“The journey continues,” Wilkinson said. “That’s how I like to have it. I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

Learn more about Wilkinson and his Colibri Travel channel on YouTube and Facebook.

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David Webb

David Webb is a veteran Texas journalist with four decades of experience in the mainstream and alternative media.
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