Youre not limited to one path

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[Applause]

i always thought

backpacking was something only white

people did

growing up in bangkok which was arguably

one of the biggest backpacker hubs

i was accustomed to seeing an endless

stream of farongs

you know the thai term for white

foreigner as they arrived in the country

armed with their rucksacks guidebooks

and

the wide-eyed hope for adventure

meanwhile

like many other asian cultures my thai

upbringing emphasized

hard work studying and increasing one’s

level of comfort

the idea of purposefully throwing off

said comfort to live out of a backpack

was very very foreign in all capacities

south african comedian trevor noah once

joked something similar about camping

he said his ancestors didn’t work so

hard to get out of the bush just so he

could go back

into the bush backpacking to find

oneself

was not a rite of passage in the same

way

that it is in a lot of other western

cultures

and so though my single mother always

saw the value in travel

we were way more touristy than intrepid

travelers

we opted for organized excursions

cruises

and trips with friends and family the

idea of ever going off by myself

into the unknown was way too scary to

ever comprehend

i was working in an office job in los

angeles when a trip to south africa

changed everything

far from the urban sprawls of cape town

and johannesburg lies part of the

country

that few venture to it’s where you can

wake up to blazing sunrise over the

ocean

you can surf your soul away and you can

also swim

with the biggest underwater migration on

earth

this place is known as the wild coast

the sole purpose of my visit

to photograph what’s known as a sardine

run

despite its misnomer the sardine run has

nothing to do with running marathons

i am definitely not fit enough for that

nickname the blue serengeti the sardine

run is an event

larger number than the wildebeest

migration of eastern africa

millions of fish are moving up the coast

huddling into tight bait balls as a form

of protection

the shoals often stretching for

kilometers long

and with these fish come the predators

that hunt them

think swimming with sharks whales

dolphins even birds

as they’re chasing around these fish and

frenetic frenzied feeding

basically if anyone has seen the tv show

entourage i went from swimming with

sharks in

hollywood to swimming with actual sharks

i spent my days in the open ocean diving

into bottomless blues

and returning to the backpackers lodge

later in the evening to sit around a

campfire

with other backpackers as we jammed on

broken five-string guitars under the

stars

i didn’t really know it back then but

the experience would change my life

forever

upon returning to california i couldn’t

shake this feeling of annui

this restlessness that there must be

something more

at that point i was barely 24 and i was

working at a talent agency

representing book to film rights but i

often felt that i was spending so much

time helping other people tell their

stories

that i was forgetting to live my own to

be so close to the creative process

and also unable to do it myself was too

painful for me to bear

and so i did the very unasian thing

and i quit as someone who’s always been

a chronic over planner

the idea of the yawning gaping unknown

was absolutely terrifying

and also surprisingly exhilarating

you see life is hard for two reasons

because you’re leaving your comfort zone

or because you’re staying in it in scuba

diving

we have this act called the giant stride

it’s where you stand at the edge of the

boat

and you do a large step into the ocean

that was my goal

to embrace the giant stride into the

unknown

french poet francois roble once said i’d

go to seek a great perhaps

and so strapping on my backpack i left

the familiar to go and seek mine

after all we often regret the things we

didn’t do more than the things that we

did do

i saw the slogan once at a bungee

jumping spot in south africa

that said a fears temporary regret is

permanent

that really resonated with me and

despite having an immense fear of

heights

it was enough to encourage me to take

the 200 meter plunge

down to the abyss basically the most

expensive seven seconds of my life

very smart marketing the goal of my trip

wasn’t to go on a holiday

it was to be challenged embrace

discomfort and to grow

and to also challenge certain myths

regarding solo female travel you know

most people warned me you’re

gonna get kidnapped or ransomed or

murdered spoiler alert

i survived i wound up solo backpacking

across 20 countries and five continents

spending most of my time in southern

africa

on this journey i hitch a ride with a

stranger in a combi

swim with bioluminescent plankton in

colombia swim with

20 whales in a heat run as they’re

basically a mating ritual

in tonga saw the world’s largest bat

migration

in zambia trekked across landmine

infested territory

in bosnia learned how to surf in

mozambique

and of course i swung with sharks

it was female explorer fray stark who

perhaps said it best

to awaken quite alone in a strange town

is one of the most pleasant sensations

in the world

you’re surrounded by adventure standing

at the top of the second

highest waterfall in the world after

hiking through

sunshine rain and hail all the same day

i remember thinking i could be in the

office right now

but the life-changing experience weren’t

always so bucket list-y

you know sometimes they’re smaller

quieter moments of resonance

daily sunsets you know sitting in bumpy

bus rides

sharing a dorm room with backpackers

from all corners of the world

in the back of a pickup truck as local

kids chased after us yelling muzungu

muzungu which means white person

and then seeing them pause as their eyes

landed on you as a solo female traveler

an asian wasn’t a really common sight in

that part of the world

in regular life we’re so defined by what

we do for a living that sometimes we

forget to actually live

none of that matters on the road you

know the freedom to be whoever you want

to be is immensely liberating

you don’t have to carry any of that

baggage that you did from your previous

life

save for the actual bags on your back

and the transience creates this sort of

freedom of expression of openness

perhaps that’s why they call it the open

road

this was the magic of backpacking

disappearing off the map reinventing

yourself

making new friends but amidst the beauty

there’s also various forms of privilege

that exists on the road

gender economic color religion

passport sure i was roughing it by

staying in eight person dorm rooms

but i was lucky enough to not live

paycheck to paycheck and to be able to

afford time off work to travel at all

and there’s this term romantic

primitivism

which talks about the idea that noble

savages elsewhere always have it better

and trust afarians on the road will

often tout the

perfection of foreign places you know

frequently ones in less developed

countries

thailand bali you name it

but this is merely a symptom of

romanticizing and idealizing these

cultures

without really understanding them as a

whole

i remember sitting in a 4x4 winding up

the sunny pass

this infamously treacherous route that

splits south africa with the mountain

kingdom of lesotho

when we saw a man carrying firewood on

his back

for me it was a moment of stark

realization that while some of us

strapped on a backpack to go in

into the wild and eat pray love living

out these carouck fantasies

others carry things in their back out of

necessity

we often forget that travel is a

privilege and not a right

and in no place does this become more

apparent than in africa

my point isn’t to disregard the fun

aspects of backpacking

but just like embracing depth and scuba

diving it’s to encourage you to travel a

little deeper

the places we go shouldn’t serve it’s

just pretty instagram backdrops

relegated as you know backgrounds for

our journeys of self-discovery and

self-actualization

we are real places inhabited by real

people

take the time to genuinely find out what

that means

in my case it meant learning about

neocolonialism

the and the pitfalls of foreign aid

and debt trap diplomacy now your

vocabulary and vernacular may grow

exponentially as a result

some say that in the age of trip advisor

and lonely planet

true exploration is dead i would like to

challenge that

i think that if you travel deeper you’ll

find out that so much of the world has

yet to be discovered

after all i don’t think google maps can

go underwater yet

africa challenged so many preconceived

notions i had of both myself and the

continent

and showed me that no matter where we’re

from we really are more alike than we’re

different

especially since it seems that every

single backpacker knows the lyrics to

wonder wall

the thing is travel can feel a lot like

falling in love

both have the exhilarating rush of

discovery and that feeling of wonder

that’s why road romances are so potent

they exist in this completely separate

separate travel bubble and it’s really

easy to conflate hostels with home

you know people want excitement but

safety

stimulation and stability and it’s

almost near impossible to achieve

both let alone permanently

it struck me that this dichotomy is

perhaps best

represented by a volkswagen combi this

common symbol you see on instagram for

the vagabonding van life

it’s what humans crave most both in life

and in people

the adventure of the road and the

comfort of home

and that’s why like a lost love it takes

time to get over travel

it’s only after processing the reverse

culture shock

that its true value blooms in hindsight

your heart almost feels like it’s

bursting from the richness of the places

the faces and the people you’ve come to

know

you know the world feels so much larger

yet also so much smaller and connected

at the same time there’s really no way

to sum up

everything into a palatable lesson a

single one except that the experience is

larger than some of its parts

the true measure of how far you’ve gone

shouldn’t be by mileage flights or

hitchhike

rides but it’s really the distance

you’ve journeyed within

the travel writer ralph potts once said

exploration is not so much a covering of

surface distance

as it is a study in depth

i spent a year trying to recapture the

serendipity of the sardine run

what i discovered was that you can never

replicate that first time

but you can find so much more if you

travel with your heart your mind and

your eyes wide open after all

isn’t the transients what makes it

beautiful

swimming with sharks taught me to face

my fears and find comfort and

uncertainty

and to recognize that if you have the

privilege to ever backpack

is this wholeheartedly an opportunity

you should take

there’s a common misconception that

travel has no link to the real world

but by breaking out the traditional path

my time abroad led to working as a film

producer

for international stories launching

hollywood’s first scuba diving club

and was the inspiration behind my new

novel a book about questioning the

comfort of ordinary life

and going out there to seek that great

perhaps

while in the drakensberg mountains in

south africa i found myself in a film

set

after meeting two crew members at the

local hostel nearby

flash forward one year later and i was

working as a film executive at sony

pictures

and i was meeting with a south african

filmmaker

upon telling him about the story he

paused and he asked

what was the name of that film turns out

he had written it the best analogy i can

think of while backpacking is that

sometimes you’ll run into the same

people on the road

and similarly if you follow your

passions you’ll be surprised at where

those roads intersect

i came back from africa almost three

years ago but the memories constantly

linger in the back of my mind

see we age not by years but by stories

and i’ve spent a lifetime chasing

stories to tell when i’m old

in turn i’d love to encourage you to

live your own story

and to embrace that giant stride into

the unknown

thank you

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[Applause]

[Music]