An Interview with Soon-to-Be World Traveler and Southeast Asia Backpacker: Naomi Tate

A lot of people talk about wanting to travel. You’ve heard your friends or family members say, “I love to travel. I want to see the world.”

And then there’s people that actually travel. There are friends and family members that can actually tell you stories about their adventures.

The difference between travelers and want-to-be travelers is the willingness to take a leap. There are those that are willing to fling themselves off the ledge into the unknown to explore, seek, and try new things. And there are those that are too afraid to face what’s unfamiliar and unwilling to put in the work that makes it possible to venture to new places. It’s not so hard to turn oneself from a “I want to travel the world” kind of person to someone who actually travels the world.

You just have to take the leap.

Some people realize this much later in life, but some understand this pretty early on, like Naomi Tate. Naomi, currently twenty years old, is ready to leap. She graciously sat down with us to talk about the fear, the excitement, and the planning (or lack thereof) leading up to the biggest adventure of her life.

Lindsey: So tell us a little bit about yourself.

Naomi: I’m an interior design major. I… like to travel, but I’ve never really broadened my horizons traveling. I like to pick up and just go on roadtrips and seek new experiences. I… have a little brother and… I don’t, I don’t really know anything about myself!

You’re not alone girl, trust me.

Lindsey: So you said you like to travel. Where is your favorite place of the places you’ve been?

Naomi: Definitely San Francisco. I have a lot of family there and I’ve been going there every summer since I was two. My family has a vineyard that’s just an hour and a half from San Francisco and walking around the city I used to try to lead everyone, and my grandmother would tell me, “You’re such a city girl, you just look like you belong!” and then back at the vineyard she’d say, “You’re such a country girl, you just belong!” and I’d think, you’re not making sense. *Laughs* But really, it’s just the best of both worlds. I love California because, when you wake up it’s cold and you can drink coffee in your sweater on the porch and then it warms up and you can go kayaking on the river and then you come back and it’s cold again so you make a fire and have s’mores. It’s everything you need all in one day.

Alright so I’m going to go stay with Naomi’s grandparents.

Lindsey: So, speaking of travel, that’s what brought us to this interview.

We work with Naomi’s dad and learned about her plans to travel this summer through her frequent trips to Gearhead Outfitters as she puts together her packing list. While scoping out boots at the shop one day I asked this soon-to-be world adventurer if she’d sit down to talk about her plans with us.

“Okay!” she said. “But I really have no idea what I’m doing!”

Perfect, I thought.

Lindsey: Tell us about your trip, what you’re doing, and why you decided to do it.

Naomi: *Deep breath* Okay, I leave on May 12th and I will fly to Bangkok, Thailand. We’ll stay there for a few days…

By “we”, Naomi is referring to her boyfriend, Max, and his pal who have already started the first leg of their long backpacking trip through Asia that they’ve planned for years.

Naomi: Oh, sorry, back-track! The reason I’m doing this. I… I met my boyfriend, and we’ve been joined at the hip ever since. He’s backpacking Southeast Asia for about a year, and he invited me to come with him. He was like, “This is kind of your thing, your element. I want you to learn new cultures. I want you to experience all these new things…” and just wanted to show me his passion, and honestly it’s kind of my passion, too, so he was like, “Let’s do this.” So, of all the places I could choose from, I chose this particular leg of the journey. So, he will meet me in Bangkok. Then, we’re going down- and you know how I told you I have no clue what I’m doing? It’s because, we will start in Bangkok and end up in Malaysia. I fly out of Singapore and basically we can pick anywhere we want in between.

The best way to travel. Figure it out as you go.

Naomi: Halfway through we are going to a Full Moon Festival. There’s actually lots of them, but the one we are going to is on the island Ko Pha Ngan. It’s a three-day festival celebrating the full moon and the cycle of the moon and everyone being there together. There will be a lot of locals but there will also be a lot of tourists and a lot of backpackers so that will be really good for us to ask everyone, “When we leave this island, where should we go?” The world is ours. We can go anywhere we want. Well, as long as we end up at Singapore. So we will just be… Pretty much just hopping back and forth. That’s pretty much all I have planned… *Nervous laughter*

Lindsey: You laugh nervously, but you’re very excited…

Naomi: I am very excited, but I am also very much an agenda-oriented person. Everything I’m doing gets written down. So, I am very nervous, but I’m also excited because I’ve never been able to just go and think… I don’t know! I don’t know who I’m going to meet, don’t know the experiences… Maybe I won’t come back! Who knows? I don’t. That’s why I’m super glad to have Max with me because he’s much better at just going with the flow.

Lindsey: So what do you hope happens with your relationship through this experience?

Naomi: I think, my answer to this question is also I don’t really know. I do know that we have a really strong bond. He’s my best friend. I also know that when I go to see him and when he comes home in a year we will both be different people. We will both have grown and learned new things about ourselves, about other people and about our lives. We’ll be completely different people, but I think it’ll be very positive for our relationship. Before he left we were spending almost every minute together trying to soak it up, and now we are of course going to spend a lot of time apart in the next year. I think this time apart will teach us independence and really, if we can make it through this long-distance for a year then we can make it through anything. So I guess I just hope we can teach each other some things and that we can grow together and separately.

Lindsey: Alright, so, and normally I explain this at the beginning. We went a little backwards tonight. But the whole idea for this blog is to encourage people to embrace what I call the “in-between.” I feel as if, while you’re growing up everyone asks, “What do you want to do with your life?” or “What do you want to be when you grow up?” and you’re really expected to know, or at least have an idea. I think, for awhile, that’s super comforting because you think Well I’ll be this, or I’ll do this. But then you grow up and start to panic to come up with an answer to those questions. Suddenly growing up isn’t as exciting as it once seemed to be because you don’t know what you want to do, or where you want to live, or how to really make yourself feel fulfilled. So I wanted to let people know that it’s okay to be confused, or to not really know what’s next and to be kind of stuck in this phase of life. We have found some comfort in dealing with that feeling though travel and adventure and we’ve found that other people struggling with those feelings tend to seek those things too… so I guess, as you prepare to take this big leap and travel the world in hopes of learning more about yourself and what you want, what would be your advice to others feeling trapped or lost?

Naomi: So… I was telling you guys earlier that I’m kind of new to this “adulting” life. I’m not super sure what I’m doing… Actually, I have no idea what I’m doing. I guess, just, take comfort in the fact that everyone feels that way… My parents always told me, “I don’t even know what I’m doing, Naomi, I’m just winging it!” We’re all winging it! I have no clue what I’m doing… but I do know that I have motivation and that I have a want and I have a curiosity. And I want to… cure all those things. So I’m taking my motivation and my curiosity and letting it lead the way instead of… doing the “Naomi thing” which would be stressing about how it’s all going to come together. I’d like to let this trip really teach me how to embrace not knowing what’s next… It’s okay to not know what I’m doing at seven o’clock and it’s okay to not know what I’ll be doing next year.

That was very well put because that’s really all we’re trying to do is bring to light that it’s okay to have all those thoughts and to not know. We don’t have a single answer about what anyone should be doing, it’s simply our hope to let people know they’re not alone in having these fears and struggling with these feelings. It seems that not many people are talking about these things. Instead we all pretend like our lives are put together and we’ve got it figured out when really we’re all just trying to make it look that way while we hide our worries, pain, and confusion.

Lindsey: So, one more question, since you are about to take a great big leap to travel and learn more about yourself through a unique experience, how do you encourage someone that wants to travel but has only ever said “one day”?

Naomi: My leap is… it’s kind of sappy, because I am in love with the person that I’m in love with. If it wasn’t for Max, and I hate to say this because I’d like to say that I would have leapt anyway, but if it wasn’t for him I don’t think I would have. If it wasn’t for him going and pushing me, and again I hate that I’m saying this because I hope that I would still have had the courage to leap one day, but if it wasn’t for him inviting me and encouraging me I don’t think I’d be about to go on a trip like this at twenty years old. I think it would have taken a while.

I could sense the… hesitance in admitting to us that it was her significant other that encouraged her to take the trip of a lifetime that she’d dreamed about. There was a caution in Naomi’s voice as she explained her relationship and that it took someone pulling her to the ledge in order to make the jump. I believe this stems from the way we look at independence and how we are encouraged to do things for ourselves when it comes to chasing our dreams. While I think there is certainly much to be gained from being your own cheerleader and fueling your own decision making, I also think we might put too much pressure on ourselves to do things on our own without the help and assistance of others.

Naomi felt the need to explain to us very carefully why Max’s push was good for her, but after the conversation had ended, I realized that a push might be exactly what we all need. Some are brave enough to take a leap like that on their own and seriously, more power to them. But some of us (probably a lot of us) need to be pushed and I honestly believe there is nothing to be ashamed of in that. In the end, we have to make the choice to take the final plunge on our own. But if you’re sitting there making furtive glances at your metaphorical cliff and only talking about how much you’d like to be free-falling through the air… find yourself someone who’s willing to walk you over to the ledge and jump with you. This may be your significant other, your best friend, your parents or a sibling.

Whoever it is, please don’t feel any shame in needing someone to push you. If it’s something you really want to do and you’re just not sure how; ask someone to push you! That’s as good as taking the leap; being brave enough to ask for, and then excepting, help.

Because while you’re free-falling into the adventure of a lifetime that you’ve dreamed of, there are still those only talking about theirs.