Brittany Washington spent an unexpected year in Bali during the pandemic. She made the most of her time learning, adventuring and creating her own video series.
In 2019, Brittany Washington was burnt out. She was ready to pursue something a little more wild, and she was thirsty for knowledge. In January of 2020, Brittany left New York City for a trip around the world. She was in Bali, Indonesia in March of 2020, when the world stood still with the COVID-19 pandemic. She was stuck. During the year that Brittany spent in Bali, she continued to seek out adventure, and even made a video series titled Ms. Communication.
Connect with Brittany:
Shelby Stanger:
In January of 2020, Brittany Washington packed up her life, moved out of her New York City apartment and left on a trip around the world.
Brittany Washington:
My goal was to learn how to sail a boat, but not only just sail I wanted to learn how to sail by celestial navigation. And I found this tiny little sailing school in Osaka, Japan. And I was like well, if I'm going to go, there's a few places that I would stop along the way and so I was like, I'm going to go to Thailand for a month and go to a Thai fighting school. I wanted to hike a mountain so I ended up in Malaysia and hiked Mount Kinabalu. Let me go to Bali and go and get my open water scuba diving certification.
Shelby Stanger:
Each wild idea led to another and another and by the end Brittany was planning to travel to 10 countries over the course of six months. And each place she would study with a new teacher or guide absorbing all the information she could from her adventures. I'm Shelby Stanger and this is Wild Ideas Worth Living. Brittany Washington is an explorer and filmmaker with a background in journalism. Before her trip, she was a correspondent in New York City working at places like Open Society Foundations and HuffPost. She wrote articles and made videos about incarceration, homelessness, poverty, and the foster care system. But she hit a wall and in 2019, she was ready for a change. Brittany reached out to experts and teachers in 10 countries. She bought plane tickets and she took off. But two months in when the world turned on its head in March of 2020, Brittany had to embrace a change of plans. This grand adventure led her to create a web series called Ms. Communication.
Brittany Washington:
I'm Brittany, welcome to Ms. Communication. What is Ms. Communication? That's me.
Shelby Stanger:
Britney Washington, welcome to Wild Ideas Worth Living.
Brittany Washington:
Thanks for having me Shelby. I'm so excited to be here. This is my very first time being on this side of the microphone.
Shelby Stanger:
In 2020, you went on this trip. 6 months, 10 countries and you made a film series about it.
Brittany Washington:
Yeah. Well, my background is in video journalism but by the time I was ready to go on this trip, the video part was just something that I brought with me. It wasn't the goal to make a series. In fact, I needed other reasons to kind of re-fall in love with filmmaking and storytelling. At that point, I was like I want to do anything other than the thing I do for work but just in case, I'll bring a video camera with me. The goal was just to learn something new in every country. I started off in Egypt to spend time with Dr. Hawass which is Egypt's most famous archeologist.
Brittany Washington:
And then in Mumbai, which was the next destination, I went and did some volunteering. And then I went to Thailand and started learning Muay Thai and so it didn't really matter what I learned. I just wanted to learn something new to just kind of exercise different parts of my brain and my spirit. And as I was going along, I realized like oh, I kind of want to tell some of these stories of what I'm doing but for no other reason than just to do it because it's natural for me to want to pick up a camera. And yeah, it was really fun. It kind of invigorated the spirit of storytelling for me again.
Shelby Stanger:
Okay. Let's go back. You were a storyteller before. You studied journalism in college and started working?
Brittany Washington:
No.
Shelby Stanger:
Okay. Tell me how you got into storytelling.
Brittany Washington:
I went to UT Austin and I have a degree in filmmaking and directing and editing but it didn't really teach me about the business of storytelling or filmmaking. And I went to LA first. I quickly realized I didn't want to be in Hollywood and so I found a nonprofit production company to work at where I was doing storytelling on behalf of the criminal justice system. And so I worked there for a couple of years at this nonprofit production company and then ended up in New York working for a larger nonprofit that did very similar work but on a global scale.
Brittany Washington:
And then after that, I realized I wanted to try my hand at news. And so I ended up at Huffington Post for a year. And by the time I had done that, I had been just working forever. I was just burnt out. And I just was like my spirit is ready for a break by the end of 2019. And so I saved up some money and I decided to go on this trip and romanticize the shit out of my life. And it was one of the scariest moments in my life but it was time. I needed it.
Shelby Stanger:
Just knowing that you feel like you needed to make a change, how did you know? How did you know and then get the courage to go do that?
Brittany Washington:
Well, I think the psychology part of it. I really do think it's kind of a personality trait. It's the same reason why right after college I picked up and just left for LA or then I picked up and left for New York. I've always leaned into the devil I don't know than stick with the devil I do. I would rather roll the dice and move towards the unknown than to stick with what I know, especially if I know that I'm unhappy. I've always just kind of leapt without looking, which some would call it reckless or whatever.
Brittany Washington:
For me, it was like, I'm going to bet on myself every single time and that's required me to learn how to be adaptable, learn how to hustle. And that same part of me that got from one version of my life to the next version was the same thing that told me to pick up and leave. I was like okay, New York is not working out for me right now. I'm unhappy so I need to go figure that out. And I'm not going to be able to do that here in this environment. It's time for me to leave. And for me, what leaving looks like some people, it might be going back home or just moving to another state. I knew I wanted to go and just be a stranger in the world somewhere.
Shelby Stanger:
Once Brittany made the decision to leave New York, it was time to start preparing. For a year before she left, she cut way back on spending in order to save money for her travels. She also created a spreadsheet with various flight paths, weather patterns, and information about guides and teachers she'd researched. There are a lot of decisions and logistics involved in a trip like this but Brittany's go with the flow attitude and her fearlessness meant she wasn't afraid to pursue some pretty wild ideas. You literally picked these wild countries to go visit.
Brittany Washington:
Well, that was logistical.
Shelby Stanger:
Yeah, so tell me how did you... Did you just do that because it worked, it fit on a map, it was circular or how did you pick your itinerary?
Brittany Washington:
My goal was to learn how to sail a boat. The wild idea in 2019 was I want to go learn a specific new skill. I want to learn how to sail but not only just sail I want to learn how to sail by celestial navigation. I want to understand before GPS, how would you navigate the oceans? And I think there was a lot of reasons. One like the ocean is probably the scariest part of the planet. It's the largest part of the planet so for me, I'm like a challenge. But also I think even as a Black woman, I'm like okay, we got here in America by the seas or whatnot. Let me reclaim it for myself by learning how to navigate the ocean.
Brittany Washington:
And so I searched all around the globe and I looked up the American Sailing Association's different programs and I found this tiny little sailing school in Osaka, Japan. It's called Little Bill Sailing School and it's this 60-year-old man who lives there with his wife. And we started emailing back and forth and he was really funny. And so the plan was to go there and learn how to sail for two weeks. And I was like well, if I'm going to go, there's a few places that I would stop along the way and that's when I used Skyscanner.
Brittany Washington:
I was like okay, what's the cheapest flight from New York making my way there. And the cheapest flight was like 75 bucks from here to Egypt and I'm like well, that seems smart. I bought a ticket from New York to Egypt and then from Egypt, I was like let me find out what was the cheapest ticket from Egypt to anywhere else? And the next cheap ticket which was like 80 bucks was to Mumbai. And I did it like that. I'll just kind of continue making my way east. And I'm like my very first trip by myself was Thailand. And so Thailand will forever have a place in my heart. And one of the things that I saw while I was there was a live Muay Thai fight, an actual fight. And I was like I want to try that shit one day. And so I had a whole month in between these small trips between when I was going to get to Osaka, Japan.
Brittany Washington:
And so I was like I'm going to go to Thailand for a month and stay in Chiang Mai and go to a Thai fighting school. And it was like 400 bucks for the month. You get to live there and you train the Muay Thai with these folks who were training to be professionals. I did that and I wanted to hike a mountain so I ended up in Malaysia and hiked Mount Kinabalu. And the country number five on the list was Bali, Indonesia. And I was like well, I have a week in between when I actually leave Mount Kinabalu till I get to Japan. Let me go to Bali and go get my open water scuba diving certification. And I got to Bali in March, 2020 and the entire rest of the trip changed.
Shelby Stanger:
Okay. Before we get to when the rest of the trip changed, when you did what, like I've got goosebumps. This is a wild idea and one wild idea led to another wild idea which led to another wild idea. You're my dream guest, Brittany so thank you for coming on this show.
Brittany Washington:
What? You've had people who've actually climbed Mount Everest. All right. I'm just a disillusioned New Yorker who decided to get the fuck out of here and I did. That's it. There's nothing special about that. There's plenty of people here.
Shelby Stanger:
It is special. There's plenty of people who don't leave New York and they're disillusioned and they want to get the fuck out and they don't. There's a big difference. Okay. What sticks out in those, before you get to Bali, all these experiences are so rich and so different from New York. What are you learning at this point? What do you know?
Brittany Washington:
Oh man. I mean, all of them, they were all so different that they all taught me different things. Being in Egypt and talking to this archeologist just taught me that you can learn from anyone. I think I learned in that situation because I really wanted to talk to him. Just asking, just saying hey, I'm a random ass traveler going to Egypt. I love what you do. I want to learn more about archeology, will you speak with me? And they're just saying, yes. People, everyone has information to share and sometimes just asking can give you a lot of opportunities.
Brittany Washington:
Thailand, specifically Thailand because I was there for so long. That was when I really started to transform my relationship to my body because the Muay Thai schedule was rigorous. I just had no idea how much my body could handle physically until I tried it. Not only that, there was some stuff I needed to process. You know what I mean? Learning how to have a healthy relationship with anger and physical force and learning how to emotionally regulate something that especially as women we're taught not to feel at all. Muay Thai taught me healthy relationship to anger and I still practice Muay Thai to this day because of that.
Shelby Stanger:
Okay. After Thailand you go to where?
Brittany Washington:
I go to Malaysia. Malaysia, I was determined to hike Mount Kinabalu in Borneo and it's about 14,000 feet. And before then I'd only hiked in the Catskills or Jersey with my friends who live upstate. It was a challenge but it was amazing. The simplicity of it, just one step at a time is absolutely beautiful. I remember when I first started hiking Mount Kinabalu there was a part of me that was so determined to do it well. I think it was the part of me that I was still shedding in New York like that perfectionism like I'm going to do this and I'm going to do it great. When I first started, I was out of breath in like 10 minutes. I was like dying and he's like, bitch we have two days. Get it together.
Brittany Washington:
And he told me, he's like, "Listen, when you're hiking this mountain, look for the smallest increment of a step next. Don't go for the big steps so that you can feel like you're moving faster." Actually you want to... It's like a stroll. And my guide was walking with his hands in his pocket. He was carrying his big ass pack and you would think he was just walking down Brooklyn Bridge because he was taking these smallest steps possible. And that controlled my breathing once I did it. And from there I could move but it was a good four hours before I realized that. And then once I realized that just these small steps, which I love a good metaphor or quote from the next person but I'm also a very literal person. And it was literally just take small steps up this mountain and it became this very literal process of shedding things.
Brittany Washington:
I started to think all you can do is think, right. And so for every step I was like, let go of this, let go of that. Let go of this, let go of that. That is okay. Time to let it go. And it became this just super cathartic process for me, which is to breathe, step, and let it go. Breathe, step, and let it go. All of the different places had a different lesson that I learned but hiking that mountain was the one where I had to sit with the fact that that was what I was there to do. Which is to let some shit go, that I left New York to do it and so it became this very literal this happened, let it go. That person hurt you, let it go. That job failed, let it go. Just yes, you had this upbringing, let it go. Yes, you've gotten to this point, let it go. And I will forever adore that experience because of it.
Shelby Stanger:
I think you did what I tell a lot of people to do but you do it to another level, Brittany. It's impressive. You figured out who can teach you rather than-
Brittany Washington:
I went and sought teachers. In every place, I went and sought teachers.
Shelby Stanger:
Okay. You're in Malaysia, you climbed this insane mountain, 1,400 feet. You learned this incredible lesson step, breathe, let it go.
Brittany Washington:
Yeah.
Shelby Stanger:
Beautiful. Where did you go next?
Brittany Washington:
After that was, I had a couple of days between Bali and Malaysia. Finishing hiking the mountain so I went to Singapore. And I literally went to Singapore for like 48 hours but I was like, I'm so close. And then after that I came back to Malaysia to get on the flight to go to Bali.
Shelby Stanger:
When we come back, Brittany talks about how her whole trip changed when she got to Bali. Plus she tells us more about her web series, Ms. Communication and her recent collaboration with REI.
Shelby Stanger:
Brittany Washington's trip around the world started with a goal of getting to Osaka, Japan to study sailing. She wasn't in a rush to get there. Instead, she took the scenic route and she hopped around from North Africa to Southeast Asia on the cheapest plane tickets she could find. She was only supposed to be in Bali for six days before continuing on to Japan. Tell me about Bali.
Brittany Washington:
Well, I get there and I'm only supposed to be there for about six days but two days in, the shit hit the fan. I just literally woke up and they're like, all the borders are closing, everyone needs to leave. And you knew that things were happening around but you didn't realize everything was just going to kind of shut down overnight. I was like, well let me wait it out and see if I can finally get to Japan. I'm so close. It's literally the next country. And one week turned into three weeks, turned into three months and by six months in I'm just kind of waiting. I'm doing the same thing everybody else does. No one else is around. 85% of the tourists left so immediately I start finding teachers. I found a painting teacher. I found a Muay Thai teacher. Immediately once I realized I have no idea when I'm going to leave, built in structure so that I had some sort of semblance and normalcy.
Brittany Washington:
And one day I wake up and I'm like oh, shit I've built a whole life here. Not only that, it's a life that's very different than I'm used to and I think the average American is used to. Which is it's not overly stimulated. And so I got this incredible opportunity to figure out what does my own nervous system feels like at a state of rest? What do I feel like outside of external influences? I know that sounds like a very wild or kind of a woo idea but it's absolutely true. I think that's why people seek vacations. You know what I mean? But what ends up happening is you have such a short amount of time that you overstimulate by trying to do a lot as opposed to resting and then you come back more tired. Even though you it's exciting, you're not resting.
Brittany Washington:
And I had the opportunity to learn what rest feels like. Not just physical rest but mental rest and spiritual rest and nervous system rest. And then I realized after six months I'm like, wow. I woke up and realized I had all of this space and time. I had space in my brain to learn more things that are new and I had time to make choices that were best for me. And so I decided to document some of the things that I was learning there. I still have my gear that's been collecting dust in these villa's closet that I've been renting month to month. Let me go learn some more skills and so I did. I learned chi-gong and I tried archery and surfing and I really wanted to just show other people like listen, I know that for one, there's not a lot of people who look like me who are doing this kind of shit. You know what I mean?
Brittany Washington:
Two, there's an opportunity because there's such a diverse group of people who ended up being there. To learn chi-gong from a Black guy who's living in Bali for the last 15 years I'm like, that's really incredible. You know what I mean? To learn to surf by a Balinese kid who's been doing it and grew up on these waves. That's such a beautiful privilege. And I also did it for my community back home who I knew were going through a rough time. And I had so many people in my DMs on Instagram being like, please continue sharing what you're doing because it's nice to see somebody I love and I care about.
Brittany Washington:
And I think it was easy for me to say oh, I'm not going to share because I don't want to feel like I'm boasting but you forget how many people can feel inspired and encouraged by hearing your story. I love cities. I spent most of my life in cities surrounded by buses, buildings, and trains. And it was great but growing up, I just didn't have many opportunities to get close to nature. Nature was something I saw on television watching Discovery Channel or flipping through the pages of National Geographic. My time here in Bali has completely changed that for me. It's changed me. I've allowed myself to grow as an-
Shelby Stanger:
Tell me about this YouTube series you create while you're in Bali. You called it Ms. Communication. Why the name and what's it about?
Brittany Washington:
Well, one, I like the name because it's spelled Ms. Communication as if it's my name. And I think that that's kind of been the overarching identity that I've had up until that point, which is I love communication. I think about how we communicate with ourselves, each other. I was working on shedding a lot of things that I thought aided in me feeling the drive to communicate and also was the reason why I was miscommunicating. The pun is in there intentionally, right. The name was already a part of the things that I'd worked on before the series itself. But I just decided to use it because the videos that I put out, which are just these small adventures but at the same time, you could see that I'm trying to communicate something to you but you could also misunderstand what I'm trying to say. And so I thought Ms. Communication for the videos was good.
Brittany Washington:
My time here in Bali has completely changed that for me. It's changed me. I've allowed myself to grow as an explorer and to claim that for myself. And our planet's oceans are definitely on my list of places to explore. I want to know more about our oceans and to discover for myself just a tiny part of that other 70% of this planet. And to do that, the first step is to become scuba certified. Let's go.
Shelby Stanger:
I think what's so cool is like I watched this video series and I was like this is really cool. This is a woman who just goes for it and tries all these new things. What was the response?
Brittany Washington:
Well, I just released it on my Instagram. I mean, I put it up on my little YouTube channel. I think the first couple of episodes I tried to do the Google Ads thing but I'm like I'm not spending money on this. I'm just not. And so I put it up on my YouTube. I had literally released it the day after I got back from Bali and so by the time I released it, I had already moved on to another part of my life. I wasn't really concerned with how well it did in terms of views. You know what I mean? I posted it up on my Instagram and I was really proud for folks to see it. And then when it was done, I was like, all right. At that point I had already applied to grad school so my brain was somewhere else. And so the reception itself, wasn't something that I was worried about because I didn't do it for them. I did it for me.
Shelby Stanger:
Can you just talk to me about your why and how it evolved?
Brittany Washington:
I want to continue to be a student and I think I just needed to reorient my life to being a student again. And I think that's the reason why I left.
Shelby Stanger:
You might hate me for saying this but you have a much cooler Eat, Pray, Love story out there inside your-
Brittany Washington:
It's so funny. I do not mind the comparison because I think that her journey was popular for a reason. And I shit you not, I did pray for it before I went. I was like I need a life changing experience and the universe provided and I feel like it is the equivalent of winning the lottery. I wouldn't trade it for anything.
Shelby Stanger:
You said the universe provided and the universe provided but Brittany, I just listened to you. You went out and you got it and you made stuff happen and I think that...
Brittany Washington:
Well, I asked. You have to ask. You have to make the-
Shelby Stanger:
You asked but you booked the ticket, you did the footwork. And I think that there's a lot of misunderstanding that you pray and you ask the universe to provide and it provides but it's like you pray and you...
Brittany Washington:
Well, the universe can't provide without action.
Shelby Stanger:
I think it's really cool what you did.
Brittany Washington:
Well, thank you.
Shelby Stanger:
Brittany ended up staying in Bali for over a year. She made seven episodes of Ms. Communication while she was there and you have to watch the series. It's incredible following Brittany as she learns new skills like scuba diving and archery. Then in April of 2021, Brittany decided to roll the dice again. It was time to pursue a new adventure back in New York. You come back to New York and you're now studying earth sciences, right?
Brittany Washington:
Yeah.
Shelby Stanger:
Before we get into that though, I know you're also connected with REI and did a little social media series with them so tell me about that.
Brittany Washington:
Yeah. I'm a runner, running content was something that they wanted to try and I told them, I was like, "Well, right now my goal is to try to run outside through the winter and I'm a Texan. I don't feel that great about the cold weather but I do have a goal to eventually get to Everest." I was like, "I need to start getting used to the cold weather." And I also understood that okay, as somebody who just got off the adventure of a lifetime, now I'm in grad school in the middle of COVID where I'm watching everything through Zoom. That's a hard contrast from being super mobile to a pretty sedentary life. And so I had to like built in adventure into my life here. And so knowing that I wanted to run and now I have a cold climate I'm like well, that sounds like a hell of an adventure to me and it's right outside.
Brittany Washington:
We just decided to build a little social campaign of me telling one minute stories about my experience learning to run in the winter for the first time. The reason why it's hard for people to stay consistent is once they identify with it, then it's a goal that they have to keep up with. And if they stop, it immediately makes them feel like a failure. I don't identify as a runner. I run sometimes. That's enough for me. That removes the pressure and so I think that's the overall story of the videos. Which is that when I first started running, even before I left for Bali, it was always tied to a goal.
Brittany Washington:
And once I removed that and associated it with other things like oh, I'm not a runner. I'm somebody who's running to go hang out in my community because I've been sitting in front of a computer all day. Or I'm somebody who's running because now I'm studying infrastructure and I want to peruse while running what the infrastructure looks like in my community. Let me go look around and running is a great way to get there. It's free, I'm not dealing with Ubers, I don't have to get on the train. We're still in a COVID situation. This is a way that I can move through my life as my life is right now.
Shelby Stanger:
For me running is mental health. I just feel good when I run. It feels good. It's a one way to move my body. Does it do anything like that for you?
Brittany Washington:
Yeah. I mean, I think it kind of ties all the lessons that I've learned. I've had experiences learning how to breathe. I've had experiences learning how to meditate. Now I try to incorporate all of them. For me, running is connecting my brain to my body, to my breath. A solid rhythm, a solid pace. It's just kind of connecting my whole sack of atoms together and getting it working together.
Shelby Stanger:
Yeah. I love that you just were moving your sack of atoms forward. I think that was spoken like a true scientist.
Brittany Washington:
Just moving my sack of atoms forward. One step at a time.
Shelby Stanger:
Okay. Let's talk about grad school. You came back to the US to New York and then you decided to go back to school.
Brittany Washington:
Yeah. I didn't know what to do next but then when I thought back of all the times where I was doing these experiences and filming them, the bigger the story was. My relationship to nature had changed. That reboot wasn't just because I was on an island. It was because I was steeped in nature, because I had a closer relationship with plants and animals and the rhythm of the seasons there. That's the real story. And everyone when I got back they're like, are you going to do a Ms. Communication season two? And I said to myself, if I was ever going to do it, it wouldn't be about me learning a skill. It would be about learning about the planet. And if I were to do that for me, when I looked in my head and I thought about it, all the times when I had empty space to think or to imagine in Bali it was well, why do leaves turn green? And what is their relationship to water?
Brittany Washington:
And you know what I mean? What is going on with this ecosystem? And I don't even have the language to formulate the questions that I'm trying to ask about this environment that I'm in. And if I were to do this series, it wouldn't have been enough to just interview a scientist. Because I realized I didn't even have enough language to understand a lot of the answer and then I was like, I got to go learn it. I got to go learn this shit myself. I got to go to school. But not only that, I think that with everything that's changing in the world people are starting to really find the causes that they believe in and integrating them into their life. And for me, the one that as a journalist, as a human, as a woman who's in their mid 30s who understands certain things about my life one, I don't want children, right.
Brittany Washington:
I know this about myself and because I know this about myself, I have a ton of time moving forward. How do I want to live my life? What do I want to do with it? And so there's a certain level of activism for me to decide to go back to school and decide to become a scientist. Decide to take the time the next three years or five years to become the scientist and not just talk about it and advocate for it but become the scientist and contribute to helping find the problems around climate change around what's going on with our planet, around our relationship to water.
Brittany Washington:
I mean, so for me there was a level of, I wouldn't say sacrifice but a contribution to my life. Which is I had a beautiful experience that transformed my relationship and the way I see the world and the way I see the planet. I want to spend this next, not just chapter but this next book of my life studying the planet and to contribute in the way I can. Because knowing that I have the drive to do it, I couldn't see any reason why I wouldn't try.
Shelby Stanger:
There's so much we can learn about the planet in ourselves if we're willing to take a leap of faith every now and then. Brittany shows us that sometimes the devil you don't know is hopping on a plane to a far off destination and sometimes it's making commitment to go back to school, to self-improvement, and to making the world a better place. Brittany Washington, thank you so much for coming on the show. Your fearlessness and your constant hunger for knowledge is so inspiring. I can't wait to hear about what adventures you're up to next and I wish you all the best in your studies. You can watch Ms. Communication and check out Brittany's other work on her website brittany-washington.com. That's Brittany spelled B-R-I-T-T-A-N-Y. You can also follow her on Instagram at Brittany__Washington or on TikTok at Ms. Communication that's M-S. Communication.
Shelby Stanger:
Wild Ideas Worth Living is part of the REI Podcast network. It's hosted by me, Shelby Sanger written and edited by Anny Fassler and Sylvia Thomas of Puddle Creative and our senior producer is Chelsea Davis. Our executive producers are Paolo Mottola and Joe Crosby. As always, we love it when you follow this show, rate it and review it wherever you're listening and remember some of the best adventures happen when you follow your wildest ideas.