>> Everywhere you turn people try to tell you who to be and what to do.

But what about deciding for yourself?

Roadtrip Nation is a movement that empowers people to define their own roads in life.

This year we brought together three students from the state of Hawaii.

Together, they explore the Hawaiian islands, interviewing inspiring individuals from all walks of life.

They hit the road in search of wisdom and guidance to find out what it actually takes to create a life around doing what you love.

This is what they found.

Road Trip Nation presents Setting Course.

[MUSIC] [MUSIC] >> Guava bread from Punalu'u Bakery.

It's ready.

It is our halfway point.

It feels like it's gone by really fast.

I feel like just yesterday we were doing our first interview.

Half excited, half going to be dreading it because it's going to end so soon.

So I guess I just gotta enjoy it in the moment.

[MUSIC] >> You got it, you got it.

>> It's going by way too fast.

It means that we're having fun I guess.

The next half of the trip, it's gonna feel like even longer just because we're going from Maui to Oahu and we're gonna be doing so much more.

>> Just interviewing all these different people, I would never in my lifetime probably ever talk to somebody who has made the GMO papaya.

That has saved, basically the papaya industry in Hawaii and the entire planet.

Or go to like an environmental energy plant, like I would never do that.

I just had no idea of what was happening in that plant at all.

And now I get to tour the facility and I like thinking about more fields in that area.

Which is really weird cuz I never would have thought that I'd be like, yeah, maybe aqua culture would be kind of cool.

[MUSIC] >> In Hawaii I've noticed that people think they can't have careers in more technical pathways.

[MUSIC] This right here is my dad, my family.

We come from commercial fishermen.

They fish, I don't [LAUGH].

My family wasn't really into technology, but I'm hoping to go into computer science.

Now I go to Hawaii Community College.

There's so many different kinds of things that I have to take.

I have to be able to pass calculus one, calculus two, and a lot of people just wanna stop at pre-calc.

Whatever the minimum requirement because math is hard, first of all.

And then there's all these types of computer programs, coding, coding is crazy.

Taking these classes that I have been taking for the past semester has been hard.

I was kind of thinking about dropping one of my classes.

One of my biggest fears is that I will not be able to complete what I'm trying to start cuz things get in the way.

Things get too expensive.

You get a baby, something happens.

I want to meet people, who I can look up to as a role model.

How did they get where they are?

How did you manage to have a family life and get where you are?

I really want other people to kind of show me what their life is like and maybe I can get a feel what my life will be like, you know?

I just want to be able to love what I do, be happy to fit.

[MUSIC] So we got to drive up towards Makawao Town.

Got to meet a really cool lady, her name is Chriselle Galapon.

And she is an engineer for the solar telescope up at Haleakala.

>> I'm Chriselle Galapon, I was actually born in the Philippines.

Moved here when I was Five?

I went to community college, I was in the same boat as you.

I was always pushed towards go to medical school, I wanted to go the opposite way.

[LAUGH] So, I went more towards technology.

I chose mechanical because, honestly, I like to be hands-on.

>> You did say that you're from the Philipines?

>> Yes.

>> And we are kind of similar in body type.

I mean, my entire life I was a short little girl, short, little Filipino girl that's always chipper and happy, and stuff like that.

So a lot of people did not take me seriously.

A lot of people assumed that I would go more towards a caretaker.

Like motherly, I don't know, little position.

But I really wanna be more like a computer science, technology geek.

I mean, obviously you had a issue with your family where they wanted you to go into the medical field.

But you wanted to be this engineer.

How did you kind of like overcome not being taken seriously?

>> Right, people looked down.

They're like well you can't do this cuz you're a girl.

Or you can't do that you're short [LAUGH].

>> Yeah [LAUGH].

>> More or less motivated me more, to prove them wrong, that I can do it.

I knew I could do it, whether it required me taking a ladder.

[LAUGH] Or whether it meant studying more to prove them wrong, to say hey, I do know what I'm doing.

At the end of the day it's all you.

Who cares what other people think?

You have to do what makes you happy.

We're small like we're both minorities, Filipino.

I got to talk to her one on one about not being taken seriously because we're small, we're cute.

She said like Who cares like what else everybody thinks?

You're always gonna have people that are gonna tell you something that you don't want to hear.

And you can just take it with a grain of salt and move forward.

[MUSIC] >> After Maui we packed up and finally came to my island which is Oahu.

[MUSIC] Got there, drove out to find our new jeep.

>> Transferred the tire cover, with that all the knowledge of all the past interviews.

It was pretty cool.

[MUSIC] >> Being on Oahu again is like nice to be closer to home.

[MUSIC] We loaded up and got ready to go to Mount Ka'ala.

And Mount Ka'ala is the highest peak on Oahu.

>> Did some off-roading which I was glad to do.

[MUSIC] Wow.

Look at that.

Look at that.

>> Whoa, whoa, whoa.

>> I see pretty much all the north shore all the way to Waimea.

[LAUGH] >> Sorry guys, but whoa.

Can you Snapchat that for me?

>> Yes.

You mean a picture or?

>> Like everything, picture, video.

>> Holy smokes.

That's totally Macaw.

That's totally the hotel right there.

>> It was so cool.

I could see all the houses coming back.

I could see into this valley.

I could see into this valley.

Then I can turn around and I can see the North Shore, and it was like, god, I'm seeing half the island right here.

We continued up and we got to the top, top part.

And we went through the bogs, went down this boardwalk.

Wow, that's so beautiful.

It's so tiny.

I love plants.

[MUSIC] Right.

>> But it was cool cuz like 90% of the stuff in there was native species.

They were saying and we ended up doing some invasive species removal work.

We gotta cut it at the base.

Apply a little tiny bit of herbicide right on the end right there, so this doesn't grow back and all the native plants can come back in and we don't have to worry about this stuff.

>> Going up there and being able to put a little pesticide on weeds and just doing that work made it feels so important to my community and so important to the environment in general.

[MUSIC] After our amazing excursion of Tuka Alla, we went on Wheeler base where they have their endangered plant nursery and we got to interview Kapua.

And I wish we got to interview her longer because she had so much to say and she's really cool.

>> So we're kind of in a magical greenhouse right here.

>> Okay cool.

>> Surrounded by all these threatened endangered species, what exactly are you doing with them?

I'm assuming repopulating them to the best of your ability?

>> Yeah, so there is sort of a lot of different paths that these plants are on to.

I guess like you guys.

They all have different situations in the wild, right, so some of them are extremely extremely endangered.

Do you guys wanna see the seed lab?

I don't know if that's- >> Yes.

>> Yeah, okay, cool.

>> That'd be awesome.

>> Being able to see some of those species that are on that verge of extinction is such an amazing opportunity just to be this close to it.

>> She showed us their seed bank, which was amazing.

It was so cool to see that they're preparing for these things.

She went like, refrigerator, refrigerator, showing us the stages that they go through and how they get into roots and then how they just grow into small plants and then how those plants are gonna go out into the greenhouse and be repopulated, and it was super cool.

I was wondering, cuz for a lot of local students, especially Native Hawaiian students, they like to connect their work to their culture and their identity as a Native Hawaiian.

So I was wondering how this program, or how you have done it in your work.

>> Just being able to go to all of the places that my ancestors went to and learn about the things that those places are familiar with.

The winds and the rains, and the Wahi Pana.

To be in touch with that and to reconnect to that, I think more and more people really need to make the effort, and build this into their life.

Build conservation into their lives.

I just think it's super rewarding.

And I think you get the passion and the dedication that you don't get in other jobs.

>> She is definitely rooted to who she is.

And as a native Hawaiian, as like a botanist, as a conservationist, it was awesome.

And I love talking to her and I want to talk to her more [LAUGH] This is amazing.

This is so cool.

I'm finally up here.

And it's just kinda crazy and I don't know how else to really put it [LAUGH].

I'm really stoked.

[MUSIC] I have always wanted to go to Ka'ala.

And I've always dreamed of it from being a little girl, and I wake up, I checked the surf, and I looked up at the mountains, and there's Ka'ala.

And it was one of my goals, on my bucket list, and I finally got to go.

It was great, and I feel like now, I can understand the true ahupua'a system.

Because that is, that's the top.

That's our watershed, that's where everything comes from.

And as a native Hawaiian, that's really powerful.

To know your whole range of life and where you come from.

But it's like something about standing in the mist and being surrounded by ohea and almost extinct species of moss, plants, animals.

Like it just hits you.

[MUSIC] Early the next morning we got up and we drove to my side of the island.

We are on our way to pretty much right in front of pipeline, and we're gonna go interview Kevin Wallis, who is the meteorologist for Surfline, particularly.

So he predicts the swells for around the world, which is pretty cool.

>> Bro, this is gonna be sweet.

>> This is gonna be gnarly.

>> So gnar.

So [LAUGH] Sonar.

>> [LAUGH] Sonar.

Well we went through Haleiwa town and I was like okay, now we're on my turf.

I have been born and raised in Haleiwa on the north shore of Oahu.

We're in a very much a surfing town.

The way people think is that you're gonna become a professional surfer.

Or on the opposite side, you are going to go work construction.

Or work for Pearl Harbor.

Or work for the different bigger industries that we have here.

For awhile I thought I was gonna be a surfer.

I was doing contests, I was doing good, I was travelling.

And then I realized that I didn't enjoy competing and I realized that that's not really what I wanted to do.

[MUSIC] As you know this is us.

[MUSIC] Hey I'm [INAUDIBLE].

>> It just so happened the Pipe Masters was going on that same time.

>> We're getting so distracted.

We saw the van's production crew guy like pointing the camera.

We would watch what was going on and then turn to the TV and a couple seconds it happened.

I was like, hey, we're here.

This is happening right now.

>> Actually being there and feeling the energy of it was super cool.

And I was so stoked just to be there even though I've never actually watched a surf competition [MUSIC] I remember when I was 16 or 17, really starting to learn how to surf a little bit better.

And the waves weren't very big but they were really fun, clean and green.

And there's one that I have always had on my mind, it was like a left breaking wave, felt like it was the first good turn I ever did.

Came up and I did a turn and I was like so stoked, I can turn, I'm ripping, it was this little flick of a turn probably.

But that little session in particular really set me on the path that I'm on now.

It was so fun and having fun your whole life I think, is a pretty powerful motivator.

[MUSIC] Because I grew up on the north shore, I understand that a lot of kids growing up wanna be surfers because of what we're surrounded by.

But that doesn't normally happen just because of the way it all works.

And I've seen a lot of people take the surfer path and don't really have anything else.

You've got to combine your love for surfing and the ocean with your career, what do you think?

>> Statistically, for someone to become a professional surfer of the highest caliber, you have a really low chance of achieving that.

I personally would never wanna extinguish someone's dreams of doing that.

But at the same time, I'd wanna try and fan the flames of at least a plan b, if you really wanna work in the surf industry at some capacity.

There's avenues and there are opportunities that exist just beyond becoming a professional athlete which is just really hard to do.

>> I have a question about, how do you predict the waves?

>> There's a lot of different things that we look at when we're predicting waves, what we call surfology 101, how waves work, it's just wind blowing over the water.

We're looking for those storms that are gonna generate wind over the ocean, using satellite data we can measure the winds in the storm.

We can measure wave heights in the storm and when it's going to arrive, how long it might last.

>> Hey I'm Surfline forecaster Kevin Wallace, and welcome back to your weekly global swell outlook that's effective on Wednesday, October 5th.

Solid northwest swell from this storm will impact the Hawaiian islands over the weekend and will be the first significant northwest swell of the season there.

When I started at Surfline which was almost 17 years ago, it was something that I loved to do every day.

It was something where I got to live at the beach, but I didn't make any money at all at first.

I worked weird hours, getting up at 4:45 and I worked every weekend for five years, basically I worked holidays all the time.

I certainly made some sacrifices that I don't know if everybody would be willing to make.

I guess if you told someone, if you could have your dream job 15 years from now.

But you'd have to work every weekend, you'd have to work super early mornings, you'd have to do all these things.

I don't know, hopefully a lot of people would take that opportunity.

>> It seems like you are the embodiment of everything, work, play, life, bringing it all together, can you offer any sort of advice for that.

>> Wow, that's a great question, advice I would give to you would be, if you find something that you really love, be willing to do it for not much money to start.

Just persist and keep at it and work hard, for me, it's paid off so I'm a believer.

>> Surfing has evolved so much that its not just being laid back and cruising all the time.

If people realize that there's all these different organizations or all these different people that make the surfing industry work.

Then they'll want to be a part of the surfing industry more, not just a surfer.

And not just the next Kelly Slater or the next John John Florence, they wanna be the next Kevin Wallace.

>> I say, have fun.

>> Simple enough, we can do that [LAUGH].

[MUSIC] After Kevin, we went to interview Bonnie Kahapea, I met her through Halau Holomoana which was a program started by Kanehunamoku Voyaging Academy.

And it was basically introducing students to traditional Polynesian navigation, showing us how to use your observations and what you see around you to navigate.

The stars, use the sun, use the wind, use the birds, use life, everything in the water.

Everything that surrounds you because that's really all you have, what's out there with you on the ocean.

[MUSIC] >> We had an interview in a tree, a tree house, not just a tree but a tree house.

>> We went from chaotic in a fun way at the Pipe Masters to super calm and tranquil dead silence in the afternoon.

>> I grew up loving the water, I think in high school started paddling and kayaking, and really started to wanna be in the ocean a lot.

And I went to college, I went to U.H.

Hilo and loved it, and got really into Hawaiian culture and learning about who I am, where I come from.

>> And through that process then I got introduced to the voyaging canoes.

Pretty much ever since that first time I got on the canoe, I've been totally hooked and it's like I've never really the left the canoe.

[MUSIC] Then in 1999, we did a voyage, we sailed from Hawaii to Micronesia, and we took with us Papa Mau Piailug, our master navigator, you guys heard of him?

>> I know him.

>> He was called a living ancestor at the time, so it was like we were sailing with our ancestor, and so the experience was totally profound.

Three months later, when the voyage cam to an end, we asked him, well what do we do now?

And his response was, you have to share what you have learned, Kanehunamoku Voyaging Academy is really an outcome of that experience.

>> Being on the ocean as much as you have, what do you think are some of the top things that you have learned?

>> One of the biggest things that I've learned is the balance, there's a balance out there and life becomes a lot simpler.

Humans seek that stuff out because we find the better part of ourselves is there.

[MUSIC] >> What advice would you give to those that are struggling with self-identity, cultural-identity.

Because self identity, specifically here in Hawaii, cultural-identity is one of the top issues university students face.

So what advice would you have for kids that are going through those times and trying to find themselves?

>> I'd tell them all to go on a voyage.

>> [LAUGH] >> [MUSIC] What our Hawaiian kupuna said is, ‘A ‘ohe pau ka ‘ike i ka halau ho ‘okahi.

You don't just learn everything at one school.

Be very open minded, really just learn as much as you can and then internalize that and formulate who you're gonna be.

[MUSIC] >> If you guys wanna get out and walk around, it's beautiful.

[MUSIC] >> Sailing is not just about the crazy moments, sailing is about those relaxing and calm and beautiful whoa moments.

[MUSIC] >> If you look at navigation and the system of navigation that Mau has used and that his ancestors used for thousands of years.

That type of technology is This is mind blowing and when you're out there for 20 days at sea, and you see nothing.

And then, they're like you're gonna see the island today and then there it is.

It's like how did they just do that?

It's hard enough just to use Google Maps to get to some place right?

>> [LAUGH] >> Your ancestors could navigate for thousands and thousands of miles.

And to me, they're the most brilliant people that ever walked the planet.

I think for us is we need to retrain ourselves to gain that type of mind.

To put down the cell phones and to get away from those things ao that really the real technology of the environment can come in.

[MUSIC] >> Say that like if I were to drop like you and a crew off in the middle of the ocean, like right now just with a boat.

Do you think that you would be able to find your way back?

>> Only if we knew where we came from.

So you can't just drop us, right, that doesn't work.

>> [LAUGH] >> That doesn't work.

You actually have to know where you came from.

>> So it's just finding your way back.

>> It's just finding, you're always finding your way back.

>> No matter where you go, you're always going home.

>> Like that is so relevant.

>> Right?

No matter where you go, you're always going home.

>> The main thing is that, you have to know where home is in order to know, not only where you're going, but how to get back.

>> So what if you do lose your way?

There's still something in you that will always remind you?

>> For me, personally, yeah, I think so.

>> That's a really nice and powerful thing.

[LAUGH] [MUSIC] >> When I was younger I've always wanted to go away, because I"m stuck on this rock.

But in the end, this is where I've grown up and this is my home.

Being able to steer the canoe made feel like a had a little bit of confidence and power because I was steering us home.

Gave me a bit of confidence that I can find my way back no matter what.

[MUSIC] The first lesson in navigation when you're looking at the star compass is that you're the center.

So no matter where you go, you're always the center, no matter where.

[MUSIC] >> This road trip has already opened my eyes in like a completely different way.

>> Being able to do what I love and also benefit my community and my people is everything, I can't imagine wanting anything more.

>> I'm really excited for the rest of the interviews.

I want to hear more people's stories.

>> I never really started out planning to run for office.

It was an opportunity that came to me.

>> If I wanna make a difference, maybe I have a different path.

I'm going to keep these people with me for the rest of my life, right?

They're gonna be my very good friends for years to come.

>> To learn more about how to get involved or to watch interviews from the road, visit roadtripnation.com.

[MUSIC]