Today we’d like to introduce you to Aubrie Canfield.
Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
The two constants in my life have been traveling and filmmaking.
I was born and raised in Central Florida, but my extended family had lived all over the world. All the family stories retold and remembered at our gatherings took place in Singapore or Libya or Holland or South Africa or someplace equally far away. From a young age, I knew that traveling was both something adventurous and a natural part of my life
My Dad was a local cinematographer here. Throughout my teens, I was able to accompany him to film sets and “helped out” whatever department would be willing to put me to work as an unpaid, underage intern. I ended up going to film school during university because I loved to be a part of the process of visual storytelling.
After I finished film school. I was eager to become a grown-up so I moved to Los Angeles and dutifully began climbing the career ladder that led to producing Hollywood films.
That didn’t last long.
Unlike the close-knit local film crews that mentored me as a kid, the culture of Hollywood was profoundly negative. I realized that most of the people around me were unhappy most of the time. Even worse, I wasn’t able to travel. In the “industry,” if you wanted to “make it” then you didn’t take time off work.
I spiraled into a quarter-life crisis and left California, went to Bangkok, Thailand to teach English, traveled around Asia, and tried to figure out what to do with my life.
I came to the realization that I would never be happy working long-term for someone else. I knew that my time was my most valuable resource and I couldn’t bear letting someone else dictate how I spent the majority of my waking hours.
All I knew was that I loved to travel, I was quite good at producing media, and had fascinated with the idea of social entrepreneurship.
Social entrepreneurs are individuals or organizations who use the power of enterprise and innovation to actually solve chronic social or environmental problems. Through my travels I found out that all over the world there were changemakers – small, grassroots community-led initiatives – actually solving the huge problems that giant charities seem to continually throw money at.
So, I found my mission. I wanted more people to know about the changemakers. I wanted to help tell their stories.
Most grassroots changemakers could never afford the cost of a documentary film crew, but I could figure out a way to bring some kind of documentary crew to them.
In 2010, my husband and I launched Actuality Abroad, a travel social enterprise, which leads storytelling expeditions around the world. On each trip, we gather a group of traveling storytellers in a destination community, provide training in ethical, collaborative nonfiction storytelling and then work together to produce short documentaries about local changemakers. Over ten years we travelled to 20+ countries and produced over 100 short films.
My initial purpose was to tell stories about changemakers, but in time and with ample reflection, the true value of our service-learning experiences was revealed.
The documentary production process happens to be a truly immersive endeavor. The work requires deep listening and being present, understanding details and the big picture, noticing patterns, and creating connections. Going through this process alongside people who live differently was life-changing for the storytellers that traveled with us. Turns out, the documentary was just the exercise, the real learning came from participating in the process.
I believe that travel becomes transformative because your everyday distractions can fall away and you can be actually present. Only then can you connect, process, reflect, and evolve.
Although we got started working primarily with universities, our learning-led travel experiences are not just for students. We now travel with media-makers of all ages and experiences and show them how they can make an impact with their travels by becoming a citizen storyteller.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall, and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
As a travel organization, of course, the COVID pandemic was devastating to our work. We are a tiny organization and we were just starting to build some momentum and move into a place of financial stability and it all came crashing down two years ago. In some ways, it feels like we had to start over from scratch.
But it is also an opportunity. We had the time and the brain space to really think about how we wanted to show up in the world and what kind of impact we wanted to have in the travel sector. That was a journey in of itself. What do we REALLY want to do with our work?
It’s clear now. We want to change the culture of travel; from a focus on consumption to a seeking of connection. We wouldn’t have found that clarity without the great pause in travel.
As you know, we’re big fans of Actuality Abroad. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about the brand?
Actuality Abroad leads documentary expeditions where any traveler can become a citizen storyteller.
We believe that the purpose of travel is to learn. On every trip, we learn from local changemakers or culture keepers and help document their work and wisdom.
For us, meaningful travel isn’t just about a thoughtfully planned itinerary. We know the real learning comes from opened minds, shifts in perspective, grappling with inequity, and understanding our place in it. We enable travelers to gain understanding through experience. Those who travel with us seek both personal and professional growth and are willing to risk a little discomfort along the way.
Travel can be transformative but it takes more than showing up someplace new to become a global citizen. We want to change the culture of travel from a focus on consumption to a seeking of connection.
What was your favorite childhood memory?
When I was 15 years old, I got recruited to join the people-to-people ambassador program. My mom and I went to the info session and learned all about this 10-day trip to China that I was “invited” (in marketing speak) to join for just 4 or 5 thousand dollars. I wanted to go so much but it was so far outside our family’s finances at the time.
But instead of saying no and moving on, my mom had the idea that she could make an international trip happen for me at a much more affordable costs. So, she called up her cousins in the Netherlands to ask if they would host me for one month. There were 4 of them, and each cousin took me on for one week. I even had a couple second cousins around my age who spoke enough English that we could relate to one another. My mom found a plane ticket for a couple hundred dollars and with spending money my whole month-long trip didn’t even cost 1,000 USD.
So off I went at 15 years old for a summer in Holland…and I haven’t stopped traveling since.
Contact Info:
- Email: Aubrie@actualityabroad.org
- Website: Actualityabroad.org
- Instagram: @actualityabroad
- Facebook: http://facebook.com/actualityabroad
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/actualityabroad
