What I Learned About Getting Lost From Anthony Bourdain
World-renowned chef and author Anthony Bourdain once wrote, “Travel isn't always pretty. It isn't always comfortable. Sometimes it hurts. It even breaks your heart. But that's okay because the journey changes you and it should change you."
Within his 2007 book, “No Reservations: Around the World on an Empty Stomach,” he went on to say that travel leaves marks on our consciousnesses. On our souls. And that, in the hopes of leaving something good behind, we offer up who we are in exchange for those experiences. We are to be open to experience, even if it ends up being something we see as “bad,” for those bad experiences still make up who we are today.
When reflecting on the subtle chaos of my past summer, I see my experiences in fragments. Walking barefoot on the cold rocks that lined a river’s edge. Feeling the summer air on my naked shoulders. Watching the sun dance on my friends’ cheeks as they laughed over something stupid. Dressing outlandish for a small, sheltered town. Chain-smoking outside bars that I forgot the name of after a night’s worth of drinking.
Image Courtesy of Autumn Johnstone
Was it a perfect summer? Not in the slightest. How I came to find myself in Bentonville, Arkansas, working for a controversial company was unclear to me. It seemed that my peers were in the same boat. We all agreed to work for this huge corporation for eight weeks, some of us having little to no knowledge about the founder and her ties to the second-largest company in the world. Safe to say, I didn’t need convincing when accepting my only internship offer of the summer. I wanted to go somewhere that wasn’t Gainesville. I needed a change of scenery. A change of pace.
Bourdain’s words from a YouTube video I came across rang in my brain once I made it to Arkansas: “Don't be afraid to eat a bad meal. You know, if you don't risk the bad meal, you'll never get the magical one.”
This, as it would turn out, would be the “bad meal” of all my internships. But not in the way I would expect. It was a jarring, disconcerting, yet unforgettable summer. I made friends; I made enemies. But I kept searching for more. More experiences. More connections. More conversations. I felt out of place and in my element at the same time. Talking to strangers became something easy. Presenting my work in front of hundreds of people? Not so much.
I missed my friends and family so much that it ached to think about them. It didn’t help that my communications work was unfulfilling as well. The days passed in ordinary fashion: make my morning matcha, arrive at work slightly past 9 a.m. (don’t fact-check me on that), perform meaningless work until 5, walk home, talk to roommates, and then pass the fuck out on the king-sized bed in my Airbnb.
On the weekends, I did not spend my time wisely. I sometimes went sightseeing, sometimes spent the whole weekend in bed. But then came a realization: I didn’t owe my productivity to anyone (on those two days at least). As Bourdain put it in “Kitchen Confidential,” "Your body is not a temple, it's an amusement park. Enjoy the ride.” And I sure as hell was enjoying the ride. Maybe even a bit too much.
But after spending some time in Bentonville, and not too soon after switching to Marlboro Reds, I saw how beautiful it was to live in a town where no one knew who you were. Much of Bourdain’s work was focused on being the stranger in an unfamiliar environment or even being “the stupidest person” in every room. Travel, to him, is an intimate experience because of the vulnerability and humility you feel when you lean on complete strangers. I was beginning to understand him more and more as my summer unfolded. And understanding his words of advice meant accepting that I am a multifaceted creature, capable of feeling emotions deeply, and most importantly, capable of leaning on others.
When I was lost in the Bentonville town center, backed under a store awning in a heavy downpour, I was embarrassed. When I cried after feeling the heavy workload fall on my shoulders 1000 miles from home, I felt my emotions in shame. But that isn’t to say I look back on those experiences negatively. I see them as part of the journey. As a part of growth.
Image Courtesy of Autumn Johnstone
For the majority of the summer, I was not happy with the work I had completed. Limited by the company’s publishing rules and stunted by senior editors, most of my articles and captions were barely mine by the time they were published. And I knew it. But I also knew that I didn’t have to stay. I didn’t have to do this work forever. I had my answer: I’m going to be a journalist who doesn’t take shit from anyone, and doesn’t allow a publication to narrow their voice. Change, however uncomfortable, is good.
Once I arrived back home in Gainesville in August, I watched the 2026 Anthony Bourdain biopic, “Tony” — a movie set in the 1970s during an early and transformative summer in Bourdain’s life. As I watched the film, I was reminded of my summer. Warm days spent lying in wait for an adventure that never came. The artificial smell of Walmart aisles and sweltering hot cement. A classic book that I couldn’t seem to finish, however hard I tried.
I compared my past summer to the summer depicted in “Tony,” and what I saw was two young people trying so hard to be liked by others that they tried changing their lives to fit in. I wanted to fit in with the other interns while Tony wanted to be liked by the girl of his dreams. But by the end of both of our summers, we found that we were inevitably changed by life itself. And there’s not really much you can do to prevent that.
So, was Tony a better person by the end of the movie? Not in the slightest. Was I a better person by the end of my summer? Debatable. But such is travel. And such is life.
Strike Out,
Writer: Autumn Johnstone
Editor: Ria Pai
Copy Editor: Annalise Bodine
Autumn Johnstone is a junior studying journalism and art and a writer for Strike Magazine. When they're not writing, you can find them enjoying a cup of coffee at a nearby café or thrifting for vinyl records. Their work has also been published in Rowdy Magazine, Her Campus UFL, The Independent Florida Alligator, and more.
