About
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Ernest White II
Ernest White II is a storyteller, explorer, executive producer and host of television travel docu-series FLY BROTHER with Ernest White II, currently airing in the United States on Public Television Stations and Create TV nationwide. He is also founder and CEO of Presidio Pictures, a new film, television, and digital media studio centering BIPOC, LGBTQ+, and senior/elder narratives.
Ernest’s writing includes fiction, literary essay, and travel narrative, having been featured in Afar, Time Out London, USA Today, Getaway, Skylife, Ebony, The Manifest-Station, Sinking City, Lakeview Journal, Matador Network, National Geographic Traveler’s Brazil and Bradt’s Tajikistan guidebooks, and at TravelChannel.com. He is also senior editor at Panorama: The Journal of Intelligent Travel, former assistant editor at Time Out São Paulo, and founding editor of digital men’s magazine Abernathy.
Appearing on the Travel Channel television series Destination Showdown and Jamaica: Bared, as well as in the 2013 documentary film about the dangers of mass tourism, Gringo Trails, Ernest also works as an actor and voice over artist for radio, film and television, audiobooks, and educational materials, and speaks to youth and adult audiences about the incomparable magic of travel.
He holds an undergraduate degree in political science from Florida A&M University, an MFA in creative writing from the American University in Washington, and is currently earning his Certificate in the Business and Management of Entertainment from the University of California, Los Angeles.
A Florida native, Ernest’s favorite places include South Africa, São Paulo, and San Francisco.
The Genesis of FLY BROTHER with Ernest White II
Ernest was only 10 years old when the preacher’s wife at his Baptist church in Jacksonville, Fla., gave him a dangerous little book for Christmas titled Free Stuff for Kids. Drawn to the section that had the addresses of the travel bureaus of all 50 states, a bunch of cities, and a whole slew of countries, Ernest sent off 19-cent postcards to nearly all of them. In return, he received bushels of pamphlets, brochures, and travel posters from around the world, lighting the first sparks of his wanderlust.
One Saturday at the mall, Ernest came across a table touting high-school foreign exchange programs through a nonprofit organization called Youth For Understanding. With money from his part-time call-center job and support from his parents—both high-school teachers at the time—Ernest raised the $2,000 program fee for a foreign exchange summer in fabulous Sweden. (It was the cheapest country option that didn’t require prior knowledge of a foreign language.) Ernest spent the summer of 1994 swatting at Nordic mosquitoes, eating reindeer, and watching the sun dip under the horizon for only an hour in the far, far north of Sweden. And he hasn’t stopped traveling since.
The modern iteration of FLY BROTHER with Ernest White II began as a blog in 2008 while Ernest was living as an expat in Colombia. His FLY BROTHER blog kept friends, family, and fans back home abreast of his life in Latin America, while also encouraging readers to get outside their comfort zones and travel more. Over time, the blog shifted from personal anecdotes and experiences to useful information, travel tips, and cultural insights.
As he continued to travel the world and connect with more people and places, Ernest felt the call to help others experience the power of travel as transformation, as affirmation, as inspiration, and as love. He has lived a life of adventure, romance, and intrigue (with plenty of pleasure and pain along the way), but he believes it is our connections—the friendships, the relationships, the interactions, the misunderstandings, and the understandings—that make travel so transformative, life-affirming, and life-forming. Through FLY BROTHER with Ernest White II, he hopes to share that power of connection with viewers everywhere, demonstrating that the whole world is our tribe.