Of all the places for Zim Ugochukwu to be in the world, I surprisingly learn on our call that she's only an hour away from where I'm hiding out in North Carolina. “I just got my apartment in Durham two weeks ago," she says.
But why Durham?
“My boyfriend's here. And it's also where I grew up, so I'm giving myself a year here and then I'm going to move to another country."
Ahh. That makes sense.
It's the first time that the young entrepreneur and founder of Travel Noire—a digital platform that has become the ultimate guide for the unconventional Black traveler—has had a place to call home since she packed her bags back in January. Over the last six months it seems that she's been living the dream: dashing from country to country, as beautifully documented for her 17.4k followers on her personal Instagram page, while working on creating products for the recent launch of Travel Noire Experiences. Who wouldn't want to set up an impromptu workspace in a picturesque country where an ocean view is not an option, but a requirement?
However, Zim admits, as with anything in life, all that glitters ain't gold.
“Like I'm in bed right now. I woke up today and I was like I don't feel good, I've been here all day."
She hasn't quite recovered from the jetlag that flew back with her from a last-minute trip to Portugal. No, she didn't go there to stunt for the gram, but because she needed an escape from the solitude that leaves many entrepreneurs desperately clinging on to their sanity.
“There are periods of time where I won't even leave my house," she admits. “People see the Portugal part and they're like 'oh my god, you're traveling!' And it's fun; it's great, but the period before that locked up in your apartment staring at a screen for 15 hours, like that's not sexy at all."
She talks about the battle of an entrepreneur in one of her recent posts. How people don't understand the sacrifices that come with the title of being a B-O-S-S. Dealing with taxes, and the government, and other people's problems. How working 15-hour days have left many of her fellow entrepreneur friends fighting depression, no matter their level of success. It's a topic that's brushed over in the black business world, but that's claiming the lives of many who can't seem to find light in their endless world of darkness. It's not something that Zim wishes upon anybody.
“Whenever people say they want to be an entrepreneur I tell them that they don't. You don't want to be an entrepreneur. You like the idea of having something of your own, but in all reality it's the hardest thing you'll ever have to do."
Luckily for Zim, traveling is not just her business, but one of the ways she escapes the chaos that comes with her lifestyle. She also prays, nourishes her mind with inspirational books and quotes, and takes advantage of the listening ears of her friends and boyfriend when she needs words of encouragement.
She describes her significant other as the yin to her yang: a little bit more calm, cool, and collected. Amidst the frequent business trips, managing her team, and over a hundred other contributors, it seems as if he is the one constant in her life, quietly holding her down behind-the-scenes since they met back in college in Greensboro, North Carolina four years ago. The mystery man is a sacred piece of her life that she chooses to keep private. Just a couple of weeks ago they celebrated their anniversary, which she publicly acknowledged with a lower body shot of them lacing fingers. The caption simply read: it's so easy loving you.
I curiously asked her how she manages to run her business and have a love life—something that many women claim they have a hard time balancing. She accredits their constant communication (they speak frequently over the phone or via text when she's out of the country) and him also being a traveler as keys to their success.
Their relationship is, thankfully, much different than that of her parents.
Her mother arrived to Mankato, Minnesota arranged to marry her father, but soon after Zim was born packed up her children and caught a Greyhound bus to California, refusing to stay in an abusive relationship. Her father, who would return from a business trip only to find an empty house with no contact information left behind, moved back to Nigeria. He wouldn't see Zim and her brother until 15 years later when they would take their first international trip to Nigeria to visit the village where her mother grew up. For six weeks she enjoyed meeting distant cousins, family members, and exploring the foreign terrain. But meeting her father, well, that was a different experience. Her only connection to him was through the letters her mother kept hidden that she used to sneak and read. Although her mother never spoke ill of her father, meeting him in person allowed her to formulate her own opinion—the five kids, wife, and mother that lived in his tiny two-room home was enough to convince her, as if she didn't already know, that her mom was superwoman.
“To see where we were living and what my mom was singlehandedly able to do in the U.S., and to see where he was living, it was crazy; it was mind blowing."
Growing up Zim learned at an early age that traveling would be her way of life. She moved from Minnesota to Los Angeles, and back to Minnesota before settling in Durham. Her strict upbringing and expectation of excellence would lead to her cloning genes at the age of 19, becoming the youngest precinct judge for North Carolina's Board of Elections, and being on the executive board of an anti-tobacco organization, amongst many other accolades. Her credentials earned her spot in the prestigious Henry Luce Scholars program, which sent her and at least 14 other post-college graduates to Asia in effort to bridge the cultural gap between them and the western world. Zim openly speaks about her time there as being the catalyst to her wanting to create something that would empower people like her, to share their love of travel and cultural emersion in effort to educate those who were skeptical about traveling abroad.
After returning to America with limited funds and no concrete career plans, she moved to southern California to live with her mother and stepdad. It only took six months before her mom started hitting her with daily suggestions of nursing or medical school, so she packed her bags and headed to San Francisco with $300 to live with her fairy godmother—a board member of an organization she was previously a part of, who kindly opened up her home free-of-charge. It was just the break that Zim needed to get her thoughts together, stack her cash, and start planning her next big venture—Travel Noire. After being fired from her full-time producer job, she took her $17,000 in savings and began to put her business blueprint into action.
It's been almost two years since Travel Noire burst onto the scene with enticing photos and creative offerings, and it shows no signs of slowing down. New positions are being advertised on her social media feeds, offering a benefits package that would make many reconsider their current situation: employees can kickback anywhere in the world with unlimited vacation days (she requires a minimum of 25 paid vacation days), paid cell phone plans, and memberships to Oyster and Fitbit to allow them to stimulate their minds and take care of their bodies while on the road. There's even an option to take unlimited classes through Skillshare to brush up on those photography and painting skills that you always dreamed of mastering.
“It's super important to me and the culture of the company to make sure that we are flexible and open, and that we make sure that our team is happy," she says.
To make sure they're happy, healthy, fulfilled and learning what they want to learn.
The team is constantly working on new products and creative ways to package them. Their direct feed from travel glitch sites, such as The Flight Deal and The Deal Alert, are included as a part of their Travel Noire District $60-per-year subscription-based service, which only opens up to the public every few months. And for those free-99 lovers, there's always the how-to videos on Travel Noire TV, pieces on travelnoire.com, and weekly emails from Zim herself. The Travel Noire hashtag, also has over 169,000 posts from fellow travelers sharing unique experiences from around the world.
Although running the Travel Noire machine may be daunting at times, there's no doubt that Zim cherishes the opportunity to be able to wake up in a different country on any given day and do what she loves, because there was a time when she worked a job that she had no passion for or desire to stay in.
To those in similar situations, she offers this advice:
“With no risk, there's no reward and you either get comfortable with uncertainty and not knowing where you're going to end up or you settle and you live this life that you don't want to live."
Well said, boss lady.
All images courtesy of Zim Ugochukwu
RELATED
So, we handpicked one hundred It Girls who embody that palpable It Factor moving through us as young Black women, the kind of motion lighting up the world both IRL and across the internet.
It Girl 100 became xoNecole’s most successful program, with the hashtag organically reaching more than forty million impressions on Instagram in just twenty-four hours. Yes, it caught on like wildfire because we celebrated some of the most brilliant and influential GenZennial women of color setting trends and shaping culture. But more than that, it resonated because the women we celebrated felt seen.
Many were already known in their industries for keeping this generation fly and lit, but rarely received recognition or flowers. It Girl 100 became a safe space to be uplifted, and for us as Black women to bask in what felt like an era of our brilliance, beauty, and boundless influence on full display.
And then, almost overnight, it was as if the rug was pulled from under us as Black women, as the It Girls of the world.
Our much-needed, much-deserved season of ease and soft living quickly metamorphosed into a time of self-preservation and survival. Our motion and economic progression seemed strategically slowed, our light under siege.
The air feels heavier now. The headlines colder. Our Black girl magic is being picked apart and politicized for simply existing.
With that climate shift, as we prepare to launch our second annual It Girl 100 honoree list, our team has had to dig deep on the purpose and intention behind this year’s list. Knowing the spirit of It Girl 100 is about motion, sauce, strides, and progression, how do we celebrate amid uncertainty and collective grief when the juice feels like it is being squeezed out of us?
As we wrestled with that question, we were reminded that this tension isn’t new. Black women have always had to find joy in the midst of struggle, to create light even in the darkest corners. We have carried the weight of scrutiny for generations, expected to be strong, to serve, to smile through the sting. But this moment feels different. It feels deeply personal.
We are living at the intersection of liberation and backlash. We are learning to take off our capes, to say no when we are tired, to embrace softness without apology.
And somehow, the world has found new ways to punish us for it.
In lifestyle, women like Kayla Nicole and Ayesha Curry have been ridiculed for daring to choose themselves. Tracee Ellis Ross was labeled bitter for speaking her truth about love. Meghan Markle, still, cannot breathe without critique.
In politics, Kamala Harris, Letitia James, and Jasmine Crockett are dragged through the mud for standing tall in rooms not built for them.
In sports, Angel Reese, Coco Gauff, and Taylor Townsend have been reminded that even excellence will not shield you from racism or judgment.
In business, visionaries like Diarrha N’Diaye-Mbaye and Melissa Butler are fighting to keep their dreams alive in an economy that too often forgets us first.
Even our icons, Beyoncé, Serena, and SZA, have faced criticism simply for evolving beyond the boxes society tried to keep them in.
From everyday women to cultural phenoms, the pattern is the same. Our light is being tested.
And yet, somehow, through it all, we are still showing up as that girl, and that deserves to be celebrated.
Because while the world debates our worth, we keep raising our value. And that proof is all around us.
This year alone, Naomi Osaka returned from motherhood and mental health challenges to reach the semifinals of the US Open. A’ja Wilson claimed another MVP, reminding us that beauty and dominance can coexist. Brandy and Monica are snatching our edges on tour. Kahlana Barfield Brown sold out her new line in the face of a retailer that had been canceled. And Melissa Butler’s company, The Lip Bar, is projecting a forty percent surge in sales.
We are no longer defining strength by how much pain we can endure. We are defining it by the unbreakable light we continue to radiate.
We are the women walking our daily steps and also continuing to run solid businesses. We are growing in love, taking solo trips, laughing until it hurts, raising babies and ideas, drinking our green juice, and praying our peace back into existence.
We are rediscovering the joy of rest and realizing that softness is not weakness, it is strategy.
And through it all, we continue to lift one another. Emma Grede is creating seats at the table. Valeisha Butterfield has started a fund for jobless Black women. Arian Simone is leading in media with fearless conviction. We are pouring into each other in ways the world rarely sees but always feels.
So yes, we are in the midst of societal warfare. Yes, we are being tested. Yes, we are facing economic strain, political targeting, and public scrutiny. But even war cannot dim a light that is divinely ours.
And we are still shining.
And we are still softening.
And we are still creating.
And we are still It.
That is the quiet magic of Black womanhood, our ability to hold both truth and triumph in the same breath, to say yes, and to life’s contradictions.
It is no coincidence that this year, as SheaMoisture embraces the message “Yes, And,” they stand beside us as partners in celebrating this class of It Girls. Because that phrase, those two simple words, capture the very essence of this moment.
Yes, we are tired. And we are still rising.
Yes, we are questioned. And we are the answer.
Yes, we are bruised. And we are still beautiful.
This year’s It Girl 100 is more than a list. It is a love letter to every Black woman who dares to live out loud in a world that would rather she whisper. This year’s class is living proof of “Yes, And,” women who are finding ways to thrive and to heal, to build and to rest, to lead and to love, all at once.
It is proof that our joy is not naive, our success not accidental. It is the reminder that our light has never needed permission.
So without further ado, we celebrate the It Girl 100 Class of 2025–2026.
We celebrate the millions of us who keep doing it with grace, grit, and glory.
Because despite it all, we still shine.
Because we are still her.
Because we are still IT, girl.
Meet all 100 women shaping culture in the It Girl 100 Class of 2025. View the complete list of honorees here.
Featured image by xoStaff
It’s not like it has to be a bad thing. In fact, studies say that somewhere around 15 percent of engaged couples actually met through a friend. All I’m saying is, before you entertain someone’s “I’ve got someone I want you to meet” invitation, it would benefit you to interview them first — for the sake of all parties involved.
The questions that I recommend asking? The following six are what I think can get everyone on the same page, so that there is more pleasure than regret from the hook-up attempt.
1. Why Are They So Invested?
GiphyTwo things that I recently watched over again are the series Survivor’s Remorse (the writing is so damn good) and a movie called Trapped in Temptation (both are currently on Tubi). Something that both of them made me think about is the fact that motive reveals a lot when it comes to why people say and do the things that they do.
When it comes to the movie, specifically, without giving the film away — let me just say that, if you are in a relationship, be really careful about listening to individuals who try to talk you out of maintaining it. More times than not, the motive is shady as hell. And honestly, sometimes people who are close to obsessed with you being in one deserve a bit of side-eye too.
Now, if it’s someone who loves all things love, they are in love and they want you to experience something similar — that’s sweet. Just make sure that they are approaching the set up from a healthy space. What I mean by that is they don’t see singleness as some sort of relational handicap or they aren’t trying to override what you want for your life as if they somehow know better (there are so many ways to be a control freak, y’all).
Hmph. Now that I think about it — make sure that the set-up crew isn’t trying to use you to “save” some male friend or relative of theirs. I say that because I once knew a mother whose son had — count ‘em — 10 kids and she was FOREVER trying to get me to date him. Girl, that wasn’t for me. She was looking for a Holy Ghost Jr. for that child of hers. I’ll pass. HARD PASS.
Bottom line with this one — if someone wants to set you up with someone else, the first thing to ask is why? Make sure to really listen to what their answer is. Then pay attention to if your mind, body and spirit are at peace with their answer(s).
2. Do They Know What You Want?
GiphyI don’t know about y’all, but the people (and let’s be honest, by far, it’s usually women) who have tried to set me up with someone? They didn’t even know what my preferences or type was. Hell, they didn’t even know my thoughts or timeline as it relates to being in a serious relationship were either. And what that boils down to is they were trying to hook me up based on their agenda, not mine — and that usually meant that the guys who they came up with? Yeah…I was good on them. LOL.
Yeah, if someone wants to hook you up, you definitely should ask them if they know what you are looking for in a guy when it comes to his looks, personality, passions, spirituality, relational desires and goals, location, etc. Because, indeed, what is the point in going out with someone who is fine as hell and yet, you want kids and he doesn’t (or vice versa) or who has a great personality yet he isn’t even in the same ballpark of your spiritual beliefs?
If your friend really wants to help you out, valuing your time should come with that — and that means bringing someone into your life who complements your lifestyle. No wiggle room here.
3. Are They Aware of Your Deal-Breakers?
GiphyLast year, I wrote an article for the platform entitled, “Should Bad Sex Actually Be A Relationship Deal-Breaker?” The thing that I think needs to go on record about deal-breakers is they aren’t exactly standards that you have. No, a deal-breaker is something that can’t be worked out even after trying to negotiate or compromise. When it comes to relationships, a deal-breaker might be how long two people should date before becoming exclusive or getting engaged. Another deal-breaker might be if being religious is more important than being spiritual and how that manifests itself (church or no church, etc.). And yes, another deal-breaker may be what each other’s sexual needs and expectations are.
When someone is setting you up, it is imperative that they know about your standards. For instance, for me, I am not interested in dating a divorced person, pretty much ever (I Corinthians 7:10-11). I’ve had friends who have tried to hook me up with that demographic before and it has always been a moot effort. The fact that some of them have gotten frustrated with my convictions has absolutely nothing to do with me. Some have tried to get me to compromise my deal-breakers too — like a long-distance relationship. Is it a firm “naw”? No. However, it’s not really something that I am interested in, so why not just…recommend someone local?
Yeah, if someone thinks that they know you well enough to hook you up, they absolutely should be well-versed in what your deal-breakers are before they do. And if they’ve never asked, all they are doing is assuming — and we know what that typically means. LOL.
4. What Is Their Track Record?
GiphyIt’s kind of wild that we now live in a time when more couples meet online than they do through “old-fashioned ways” like via their friends (although some reports say that Gen Z is getting back to that) — and yet, here we are. Still, if you are willing to let someone play pseudo matchmaker in your life, you are well within your rights to inquire about their track record in that department. Have they hooked others up, successfully, before? Has any of their “Cupid work” caused both people to get exactly what they wanted out of the situation? If/when things went awry, why was that?
I know someone who is constantly trying to hook people up. Thing is, maybe 10-15 percent (no joke) of their efforts have proven to be positive and fruitful — and we’re talking about close to close to two decades of them doing it. Listen, time is too precious to be out here doing stuff ONLY to please other people. That said, if someone wants you to devote some time to one of their grand ideas, you are well within your rights to ask about their past and current success score when it comes to it.
5. Can They Keep Their Own Feelings Out of It?
GiphyWanna know if someone who is offering to do something for you is actually doing it more for themselves? If they try to make it be about them when things don’t go the way they would like, that is a dead ringer. An example? They post a message about you on social media and then question you about why you didn’t do the same thing in return. Another example? They do something for you and then throw it in your face during an argument. Still another example? They set you up with someone, it doesn’t work out, and suddenly you’ve put them in a weird spot. No dear — you put your own self in that position by trying to hook two people up in the first place.
I promise you, it will spare everyone unnecessary energy spent (or even drama experienced) if, before you agree to be hooked up, you get the matchmaker on record stating that they will keep their emotions out of it as much as possible. MEANING — they will do the introductions and then let the chips fall where they may. If they can’t do this, my two cents (save it or spend it) would be to decline the offer. Because all you need is someone texting you about why you haven’t called their cousin back or having an attitude with you when you break up with some guy at their church who they thought was the perfect catch (P.S. These aren’t hypothetical examples — LOL).
6. Will They Respect Your Boundaries? Start to Finish?
GiphyYeah, this final one is a biggie. Just because someone sets you up with another person, that doesn’t automatically or necessarily mean that they should have the right to the details of the dynamic. I don’t care if it’s the first date or the 10th date. I don’t care if you decide to just be sex buddies or to have a full-blown relationship. I don’t care if you stay together or break-up — it’s your relationship which makes it your business. Whatever you share is privileged data.
Yeah, I would say that probably the most challenging thing about being hooked up by someone you know is they have a tendency to think that they are a part of the relationship too — and that is a lie. If things go well beyond a couple of dates, you and the guy should discuss what you will both share with the person who introduced you and then agree to stick to that boundary, no matter what. It’s a great way to protect the dynamic, to keep “outside voices” from influencing the growth and to navigate how you want to move, moving forward.
Someone who hooked you up for the right reasons and knows how to honor limits? They will understand. Will they ask questions? Absolutely. Will they pry? Nah.
___
Should you sit and let someone hook you up? I mean, you never know how your blessing will come. Just make sure that they are prepared for you to do some digging into their mindset before they start sweetly meddling into your love life.
It’s only fair. Hell, and right. LOL.
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Featured image by PeopleImages/Shutterstock