♪ (female #1) the three of us, we're from australia embarking on a 5-week road trip, traveling to the united states. (female #2) we're talking to people that we admire, sharing their story about how they got to where they are now. (female #1) and we're all kind of in the same boat where we don't know what it is we want to do. (female #3) i feel like i've been in this comatose state, just going through the motions. (male #1) you've gotta get up every morning and love to do what you do. you gotta love it. finding that thing is really the key to happiness. (female announcer) state farm has made it possible for this documentary series to be shared on public television stations across the country. "roadtrip nation" would like to sincerely thank our friends at state farm for helping a nation of young people to find their road in life. like a good neighbor, state farm is there. "roadtrip nation" would also like to thank the collegeboard for supporting this series, inspiring minds,

and connecting students to college success. "roadtrip nation" would also like to thank tourism new zealand for bringing the road-trip experience to the other side of the road in new zealand. cheers to our kiwi mates! ♪ (female #4) people who just do day in-day out without questioning anything, where's the fun in that? you've got that get up every morning and love to do what you do. you gotta love it. (female #2) i think it's so amazing to meet someone who's completely original in thought. (female #3) i want to be consciously making decisions about my life. (female #1) i never sat down and thought what do i really want to do. (female #2) i need to discover myself. (male #2) it's not a horse race, this is a marathon. it's the journey that's really gonna count. embrace it.

(female #1) before our 7-day mark we broke down...already. why is it leaking everywhere? (female #3) we're just waiting for monaco to cool down. she got a little bit overheated. time out. time out, monaco. ♪ (su-yin) we arrived in l.a. a week ago. it's been a bit crazy learning how to drive, doing these interviews, but i don't know, still very a bit anxious about being on the road. (female #2) there's so many big things happened, and it's just like the first week. the interviews, meeting augie, and the whole switchfoot thing was pretty big as well for me. whoo! yeah! i don't know how much i'm meant to be putting in. (female #3) i'm constantly tense with excitement. i just want to make the most of everything. (su-yin) i think i might be too short to clean the windows.

(camilla) now i feel like things are starting to open up again, and i'm at the point again where i can start making conscious decisions and reaching completely outside the tunnel that i've been in. okay, now where i'm going, co-pilot? i don't know. (su-yin) oh, sorry. sorry. (mariana) today we're going to san francisco. i've never been to san francisco, so it's really exciting 'cause i've only seen the "full house" version of san francisco. (camilla) in san francisco i have professor tom nazario. he chose that really straight path that a lot of my friends are on. he's working in not for profit. his work with the u.n. was to document orphans in third-world countries. mariana, nice to meet you. hi tom. su-yin. hi. the three of us are here because we don't know what we want to do with our lives. did you go through this conflict when you were our age?

in some ways i was lucky. maybe i could start by saying when i was 4 years old, something hit me. ♪ i grew up in spanish harlem, which is kind of a ghetto in new york city. and on thanksgiving day, that's the only day my parents would take me out to dinner. there was this woman going through a garbage can with her little daughter about 3 or 4 years old picking out her thanksgiving dinner out of a garbage can. at that point in my life, i think i began to think about, you know, it's not as good-- on this planet-- as i think it might be. and so, you know, one of the things i wanted to do when i grew up was to try to make the world a better place, but i didn't have an awful lot of confidence about getting there because as a puerto-rican kid in new york, going to some terrible schools, nobody ever told me as a kid that i could really amount to much at all.

in fact, when i was in high school, i could still barely read 'cause i just spoke spanish at home. no one ever really taught me how to read. i was dyslexic. things weren't coming together, but finally i met someone who helped me and i was able to make the leap. do you feel that if you hadn't had that encouraging factor of all that person in your life, that you would amount to this position that you're in now? no. i think it was very, very important for me because society, you know, tells kids of color very different things. i wasn't born in privilege, so it was very important for me to hear that. and then when i got into college and met some professors that had some faith in me and encouraged me to go to graduate school and so on and so forth, i always pointed my life in that direction. ♪ (camilla) does it frustrate you when you talk to well, for me,

for example, i talk for myself where i've had a very easy life. everything's been good and great and i have nothing to complain about. does it frustrate you that we're just stagnated and can't make a decision when you can see there's so much work to be done out there? there's part of me that i have difficulty with that. i'm not angry at people for having it nice or being born into privilege. it's not your fault. but i do have problems with people who have the capacity to do so much good and do nothing. (camilla) there's a world of work to do that's really not been done, and isn't really considered by many people that i know-- as a job option. yeah, as their legitimate career path. i do feel strongly about wanting to do something that helps more than just myself. we need to do a honk.

are we allowed to? (mariana) i think we should. do it. [horn honking] (camilla) we're here! (su-yin) we are at golden gate park in san francisco, and we are getting ready to meet david miles, the godfather of skating. ♪ ♪ ready? ♪ begin who does not know how to skate? great. i. i'm the best person you will ever have. (su-yin) where were you at when you were our age? and how did you feel? i just got out of the army. i didn't know what i wanted to do. i went to the army because i thought that i was gonna get this education and get in the union and work laying brick. and then one day i was working on a building where we were laying the blocks for one floor and then it was a really bad earthquake and the ground starting shaking. the crane broke, the floor

fell on top of my work, and i said i am out of here. i'm not doing this anymore. and i had discovered skating 'cause i would bring my skates to work. once i got into skating, i stayed and it just happened to keep going for 29, 30, 31 years and it grew into the skate patrol, which is training first aid and cpr when you help people who get hurt or lost. and then it turned into this activism of passing legislation to get more people to come out and skate. oh-ooh! whoa. oh! that's how you use the brakes. whoo! (david) get used to it. whoa. all right. that happens to everybody that skates, except for me. (mariana) it's just really--it's-- i don't know-- i can't get the comfort. no, you can do it, it's just that you don't trust it.

yeah. you put it out there, but you didn't put it out there with the confidence that it was gonna work. you put it out there with the reservation that i can just bail. you can't do that. you've gotta get up every morning and love to do what you do. you gotta love it. there are people that would be sittin' right across the street and look over here at us and go... but you can't dwell on them. when i come out here on sunday, i don't have to live up to nobody's expectations. this is where i express all those different feelings and all those different attitudes. i live it. this is my church. (camilla) he just kind of created his own job. that's something i'm learning. you can find a way to do things. keep rolling, d. miles jr., (camilla) thank you. all right you guys, that was great. hey, we hug here in san francisco. we hug. that's why i'm the godfather.

we're going to make the most of our time that we have now to make sure that monaco's okay, which means we are going to clear out monaco's system by dumping her. oh, this is gonna be stuff of nightmares. don't breathe in through your nose. okay, so i gotta let this out. eww...yuck! that is so good that you wore gloves, su. eww. [laughing] oh my! (mariana) it was like a snake vomiting. oh...oh... take a big whiff. i feel so dirty right now. (camilla) the temperature is 109.6 fahrenheit,

which means nothing to me, i guess. we work with celsius. (su-yin) okay, let's roll. (mariana) if we had like the driver and the nice air-con, it would totally change things, because we're constantly having to adapt and make choices so quickly. we suck at making choices. we'll sit there and think about them for ages, and in the r.v. you can't sit there and plan out if you should take a right now or take a left. you just gotta do one. (su-yin) umm...i'll take it. i'm getting ready for the beach. ♪ (mariana) sandy and eric jensen, they opened up their own theater. (female #5) eric, they're here. we've arrived. hi, i'm camilla, nice to meet you. hi eric, su-yin. ♪

(sandy) growing up i loved watching movies and pictured myself acting and doing things, but as a child i didn't get to laugh a lot growing up. i had a very strict, very strict upbringing where i was seen and not heard. even when i first met him, people thought i spoke too softly-- i can't hear her-- and i think with my husband, i could be who i really am. eric, an asian girl just came in. (eric) that's my wife and she's been drinking. (sandy) what he taught me is when i was silly and i broke that, i lost my fear because people laughed. i thought this is a good feeling. i don't have to be prim and proper and, you know, do everything that people think the perception of what i should be. it's: what do i want to be? and as i've been with him for the last 20 years, now i'm loud and obnoxious. people are like: you've been around eric too long.

and so i think that's where my passion comes from is that we bring laughter to people. (eric) there's something about live theater that just, you know you're not becoming a doctor where you're changing people's lives physically, but sometimes you make people's lives emotionally a little better. i am far from miserable! [laughing] (eric) when i was about 3 years old, i said, "mommy, what is it those guys that make people laugh, what do you call that?" she said, "a comic, a comedian." and i went that's what i want to be. i think a lot of people know what they want to do, but they don't have the courage to really follow it. (su-yin) you said that you had the passion from when you were 3. and i'm just curious about how smooth the-- your journey was. like, what were the roadblocks? i mean, you have maybe a perception that we have never a waning moment of thinking this isn't worth it. (su-yin) or doubt? or doubt.

oh my gosh, all the time, all the time, especially as an actor. in improv, you'll see a guy step out on stage, and he literally will not know what he's going to say. you guys know the song, do run run run, the do run run. we'll start with this person's name right there. what's your name? mariana. mariana. ♪ met her on a monday and her name is mare ♪ ♪ do-run-run-run the do-run-run ♪ ♪ we made out in her timeshare ♪ ♪ the do-run-run-run the do-run-run ♪ ♪ do-do-do-do-yeah ♪ i shave my legs with nair ♪ do-do-do-do-yeah (mariana) with the whole improv, i thought it was a really good metaphor for our life right now. we don't have a script. i don't have a script, and that's probably what i'm struggling the most with is i really want a script. i want something that's gonna be like if you do this and this, you know you're gonna know what the next line is. and i'm paralyzed by the fear of not knowing what that next line is. and so how do you get out there not knowing what people

are gonna say to you? how they're gonna react and not let the fear make you just stand on the side and let someone else? (eric) i mean, you have to have a little bit of fear in life 'cause it kind of pushes you away from the edge that is danger. but there's so many things that we perceive as dangerous, and they're really not that dangerous. they're fine. they're just a little uncomfortable, perhaps. standing in front of an audience and not getting laughs is not gonna make you die. it's just gonna be a little humiliating and you walk away going, "oh my gosh." okay, so the fact that you're just stepping on stage is the first step. showing up is the first step you know, in anything, showing up. the next thing when you start going into it, you're gonna be a little bit afraid, whatever it is. the fear of failure is what gets you all the time. when you're actually going through the failure, you're like, "how am i gonna get out of this? this is bad but how am i gonna get out of it?" but the fear of failure is what keeps people from trying anyway. i've failed a million times on the stage. you say your joke and then somebody in the audience says--

this is good, it cracks me up-- they'll say, "you suck." there's one guy on stage with a spotlight, taking a chance, becoming as vulnerable as he possibly can, taking a chance trying to make you laugh. here i go, there it is. what do you think? now from a darkened audience, a completely safe place, somebody comes up with, seriously, the most ingenuous ad lib i have ever heard. they're saying, "you suck." that's it. that's all they got. i'm better than that. (sandy) even though when people doubt you and they tell you to stop, we're continuing. you know, my mom, my dad: "if you're not making a lot of money then you should stop." well, i've been doing it for 14 years. that's gotta say something. if you're happy to wake up in the morning and go do your job, whatever it is, it doesn't become a job, it becomes your life. and this is our life. [shouting]

♪ (camilla) we are 2 weeks into the trip. the days just melt into each other 'cause so much happens each day. (mariana) today we started off in colorado, and by the end of the day we'll be in new mexico. (camilla) when i look back on the last 2 years, i feel like i've kind of been in this semi-comatose state, just going through the motions of going to work every day and that routine. because i was swallowing it, i was just worried that one day i would swallow it so much and just lose it completely and i'd be this cardboard cut-out of myself. you know, that's the thing i don't know what i want to do. we're going to interview christina heyniger, who started xola consulting, which is a consulting business

for adventure tourism operators. she has to travel the world with that job, and i know she had a tough time deciding what she was gonna do. nice to meet you. (christina) i'm starting now in this position from this point in my life to be able to see things, important significant moments that i didn't recognize as important at the time. so growing up in alaska was really significant for me, but at that point in my life i just wanted to leave alaska and do something with my life. ♪ and so i went to cornell, i went as far away from alaska as i could. i went to new york, and then after cornell i had like a complete sort of fall-apart where i didn't know what to do and all of my friends were doing important things like going straight to law school or medical school. i'm here in the city with no money and everybody thinks i should have something going on

'cause i have a good education. i started working on the weekends at a cheese stand. i sold cheese in a like farmer's market for 2 years. and i can remember i would bump into people from cornell and they'd be like, "what are you doing there?" and i was just like, "i don't know "what i'm doing here. i'm selling cheese. would you like some?" i mean, that sort of process went on and eventually i went back to graduate school. i got a masters in a program called communication culture and technology. i then got a job with a consulting firm. and how long were you there for? (christina) eight years and then the biggest problem was not knowing what inspired me, you know, 'cause i knew i was kind of flat-lining at my job, but what i realize now is i had not created space from my routine and my structure to think more broadly. and when i thought about different jobs i wanted, i was only thinking in terms of the amount of money i was making at that point. it took me a long time to start questioning the whole foundation of that which was maybe i don't need to make

this much money. and maybe these responsibilities that i have, this house and these bills, maybe i don't have to have them. suddenly there's like, oh, crazy options. and the real turning point for me was this trip in the grand canyon because i was completely disconnected from everything, friends, family. and so my first impulse out of that was, okay, a: i found my joy, so we can't let joy go. and b: what made me joyful. so i started pulling apart all the things. i'm like, okay, what made me joyful was the river. what made me joyful was the grand canyon. and so from that trip, i took a leave from my job. i sent resumes around to river companies and said, "can i come learn how to be a river guide?" and so there was one company that took me up on that. they said, "well, we can teach you to row "if that's what you want and maybe you'll be a guide, "and maybe in exchange you can come-- "since you're a business consultant, "we're a small business--

maybe you have some ideas for us." that was the start of figuring out what i wanted to be. (su-yin) you mentioned you believe that everyone has a special purpose in life. so do you think now you've found it? or do you think it's one of those-- it's like a moving target? it's definitely a moving target. like when i'm 99 or whatever and i'm thinking about: what does it all add up to? it's only like then i'll be able to see, like, the totality of what it was. the thing that everybody has to give is their joy. it's when you are your most happy, that's your gift. (mariana) this is monaco. she's been on a few trips. we're like the fifth generation. (christina) don't be afraid to cast aside the weight of facts. (mariana) that's cool. i like it. (camilla) it's just good to have examples of people that took this unconventional route that i can just always access in my head when i'm going down this path.

i didn't have that at home. (tom) these kinds of things are not easy. it's much easier for us to take that corporate job and get a paycheck and then try to live your life after 5 o'clock. i think that's probably a mistake. i think you only have one life. don't give it away. (david) most people are taught that, you know, gotta make money. gotta do this, follow this mold and fit into here. but the reality is there is no mold. every person is different. (sandy) i don't have to be prim and proper and do everything that people think i should be. it's what do i want to be? (christina) so the trick, if someone had told me something powerful when i was 22 would have been: whatever thing makes you happy, you have to go like chasing it. nothing stops you from that thing. and if you don't know what that thing is, then you need to create space in order to find it. ♪

(male announcer) "roadtrip nation" extends beyond the program you just watched. it's a movement that empowers others to create their own road-trip experiences. here's a quick snapshot into that movement. all right, i'm brent bachman. i'm the middle son of the brothers, three. my other two brothers call me the established one because i'm a high school teacher, so that's one of the reasons i really need this trip so that when i come back, i can share it 'cause i have so many kids that really think life is really just kind of what you can see from your back door. the adventure begins. we're now in lower hutt, wellington, and we're about to go meet up with colin salisbury. (colin) at 18 i had the opportunity to go to papua, new guinea. one of the things that i saw for the first time was what i call sort of real poverty.

and there'd been, essentially, a famine that had gone on in the area. and i remember going down to the lake and just, like, picking up a stone and throwing it into the water and just thinking about what i'd seen and seeing these kind of ripples on the water. and i kind of thought, "well, if we started a number of ripples, then they can have impacts." (brent) 'cause everybody always says, "ah, i'm just one person. "what can i really do? i'm one guy." i think just like 6 years ago this one guy who started this in his bedroom and these little ripples touched people and they made their own ripples until eventually it's a lot of waves now and it's got a whole ocean of things going on. (su-yin) the three of us, we're from australia embarking on a 5-week road trip traveling to the united states. (camilla) talking to people that we admire or who inspire us, sharing their story about how they got to where they are now. (su-yin) a big part of what holds me back is fear. everywhere you turn, there's something

that's completely different. (male #3) if your brain and your heart are telling you to do something different, that's the advice you should follow, the advice that comes from within. (female announcer) check out more adventures and interviews from the road, visit roadtripnation.com. online you can apply to take a road trip of your own, or bring "roadtrip nation" into your classroom. the "roadtrip nation" series is available on dvd www.abercap.com ♪ we watched it all in disbelief ♪ ♪ at the train station on christmas eve ♪ ♪ a tragic tale, a gruesome scene ♪ ♪ a bitter end for the chief of police ♪ ♪ it was a blessing and a curse ♪

(announcer) state farm has made it possible for this documentary series to be shared on public television stations across the country. "roadtrip nation" would like to sincerely thank our friends at state farm for helping a nation of young people to find their roads in life. like a good neighbor, state farm is there. "roadtrip nation" would also like to thank the collegeboard for supporting this series, inspiring minds, and connecting students to college success. "roadtrip nation" would also like to thank tourism new zealand for bringing the road-trip experience to the other side of the road in new zealand. cheers to our kiwi mates!

venice seems to be everyith more italy connoisseur's...of europe. prague has always been beautiful... germany... the irish civilization... the eiffel tower was built... hope you've enjoyed the magic of...

stable only from a distance, but england is dotted with less famous but more accessible stone circles. my favorite... avebury. the avebury stone circle, just 40 miles away, is as old as stonehenge and 16 times as big. and best of all, this megalithic playground welcomes kids, sheep, and anyone interested in a more hands-on experience.