Hawaii-Two-Six

Michelle Park reflects on turning 26 outside.

By Peak Design

must love tapatío

For the most part, we're minimalists. Particularly when it comes to product design, company bureaucracy, and sleep. But there's one area where we have a serious collecting (if not hoarding) problem: friends. We freakin' love friends.

We met Michelle Park (@trainsandplanes) through the glorious Hipcamp Field Scouts program (if you like to camp and you've got some photography chops, definitely check it out). She was in San Francisco and looking for friends who liked photography, the outdoors, and Tapatío. You know how much we love friends (see above paragraph), photography, and the outdoors. And we can't even fathom what kind of self loathing sad-sap wouldn't like Tapatío. Naturally, we invited her to swing by the Peak Design HQ this past November. Within days she was helping us with our holiday lifestyle shoots. Soon thereafter she told us about an epic Hawaii trip on her radar, and viola: now she's got this gorgeous Field Note below. Enjoy, and be sure to follow Michelle's adventures.

A few months ago, a friend of mine sent me a short video called “The Thousand Year Journey: Oregon To Patagonia,” featuring Jedediah Jenkins, a man who rode his bike across the world. The video is only four minutes and fourteen seconds, but the narrator said something that I don’t think I’ll ever forget:

“The routine is the enemy of time. It makes it fly by. When you’re a kid, everything is astonishing, everything is new and so your brain is awake and turned on. As you get older, your brain has figured out the pattern of how the world works: this is how you make money, this is how you graduate school …once your brain establishes a routine, the alertness and the fascination with the way the world works go away. I think that’s what travel in general does, it wakes up your brain. I want to be aware of everyday that I’m alive…that’s the duty of being an adult; when you’re a kid, everything is new, so you don’t have to work for it… you’re just astonished by it. Once you’re an adult, that’s a choice. You choose adventure for your own life.”

Like most mid twenty-year olds living in a big city, I’ve been learning how to navigate a demanding world of big decision making through agendas, target goals, the internet, and lots of coffee. While these are necessary for responsible living, they are also consuming, grooming me to view life as a series of completed phases instead of blooming experiences. Year 26 was just around the corner and I had been feeling an underlying franticness to race faster against the clock and accomplish more. But as I watched this video, I felt deeply challenged to pause and make a shift. I was inspired to approach my new year as a simple opportunity to seek fresh amazement with the world, so a week before my birthday I packed up my Everyday backpack and a suitcase, and was Hawaii-bound.

sharks and switchbacks

During my first leg of the trip, I spent a few days on the island of Oahu and one of the first things I wanted to do was swim with sharks. I honestly don’t remember what prompted this decision (is it super lame to admit that it may have been a random pic on my Insta explore feed?). I met with a couple of shark guides and we drove out on a boat until we couldn’t see land anymore. I looked over the side of the boat, eyes wide, and there they were: a school of huge Galapagos sharks swarming around the boat. I quickly set up my water housing and climbed into the cage, my entire body tingling with excitement. The second I was submerged in the water, alertness surged through my body. Not from fear, but because for the first time in a while, I was doing something that made no sense whatsoever. I was swallowed up in the ocean feeling fully alive and fully awake.

Photo credit: Lucas Grimaud (@lukeygeeee)

I snorkeled in Shark’s Cove, Hamea Bay, and drove alongside the dreamy shores of Oahu, but I would also highly recommend hiking the Kuliouou Ridge Trail. If you’re okay with switchbacks and stairs (wee!) … you’ll have a grand time. This trail is a steady incline that takes you up until you’re face to face with lush, green mountains that look like the back of a Jurassic creature. As you go even higher you hit a flight of over 200 extremely steep stairs. Hashtag worth it I promise, because at the very top you get a panoramic view of all Hawaii Kai and the vast, gemstone-colored water that hugs the island.

extreme airmattressing

I island hopped to Kauai and after just a week of taking a break from my routines, I already felt like a hundred pounds were shaved off my shoulders.

Then came the day I turned 26. It was simple—but probably one of the most memorable birthdays I’ve ever had because I spent every waking moment I could outside. I surfed at Kalapaki Beach from morning to afternoon, rode around Kapaa on a bike rental, and then head to Polihale Beach with my friend Mallory. All I wanted was to camp under the Milky Way Galaxy and even in winter, Kauai’s climate is tropical enough where a tent isn’t necessary for beach camping. We packed up her Jeep with just an old air mattress, a couple of janky Walmart flightlights, sleeping bags, blankets, and all our camera gear, then drove into the cool darkness toward one of the most isolated beaches on the island. I was sunburnt, salt-slicked, and smiling from ear to ear. We drove for about an hour in the pitch black to our campsite and when I stepped out of the car, I looked up to find that every single inch of the vast night sky was exploding with stars. Running right through the middle of the sky, like a cosmic river, was the Milky Way Galaxy in all its glory. I spent the last hours of that day counting comets and falling asleep to the sound of the waves licking the shore.

As we get older, we often try to hide that we still haven’t figured everything out. But out there, it’s something you can embrace and be exhilarated by. When you make room for yourself to feel astonished with the world, your brain can take a break from striving and is just simply turned on—like full blown, house covered in a million fairy Christmas lights turned on. By spending my birthday outside, I could feel the pure, raw privilege of being alive because I was experiencing something that went beyond my comprehension.