Daniel Bourke rents a 455 hp Camaro SS and drives it along California's Big Sur coast. He reflects on how the daily experience matters more than the destination, whether you're bodybuilding, learning machine learning, or just driving a fast car.
Chapters
You know what this is? We just rented a car. Let's go check it out. We're gonna do a big drive along the coastline. Okay, we need— what is it? All right, we're looking for P— it's not focusing— P22ED. All right, let's find P22.
Thank you.
I hope it looks like that. P6, P7, shouldn't be too far away. P19, P20. Oh yes, this is us!
Look at it!
P22.
We got Bumblebee!
Hey Bumblebee! What? Oh, I've gone to the wrong side. The driver's side's on the other side. This is America. Keys are in it apparently. Let's go for a ride. There's no key on this thing. Hold on.
Ooh, baby!
Had to make a pit stop. It's actually not too bad of a bad view.
Woo! Look at that!
It's no Grand Ocean Road, but it's close.
Whoa!
Oh yeah, so I realized that most of the clips I took at the start of this video, the microphone wasn't on. I think it should be now. Look where we are. See that bridge right down in there? I'm pretty sure that's the bridge that gets used in a lot of different car commercials. Oh, and the Pacific Ocean is looking beautiful, as this beast is.
Look at that.
It's been so much fun. I actually had to wind the— put the top on because it was getting a little cold, but now the sun is out and I am excited. We're gonna go, probably go out that bridge. And in the meantime, I'll put some B-roll over it until we get there, which, which just means a few clips of scenery, and then we'll do some more adventuring. It's been a fun time exploring in this thing. I'm not, I'm not the biggest fan of driving, but I can, I can make do with this. Some type of a rock.
Look, there's a marking around it.
What a cool little place. Probably get lonely sometimes, but it is what it is. All right, we're about 13 minutes away from Big Sur. I'm not even sure what Big Sur is, but we got wide open road ahead. Let's do it. Pit stop. All right, I think, I think we've made it, or we've even passed it. I'm gonna keep going for a little bit and then see if it's an actual destination. It might just be a national park. But we'll figure it out. Alright, I think I've gone way past it. Maybe not way past it, but a little bit past it. I think it was just a national park, but the view is good enough for me. Look at this. That's what it's about. That's all I need. I don't need some big icon or destination place to go to. This is the destination for me. That sunset's gonna be epic! I'll probably turn around soon because I want to I want to drive home. Well, I don't really have a home tonight. I haven't booked anywhere to stay tonight. I've got to take the car back to San Francisco. But I think today's trip or where— what we've done today is kind of like a metaphor. And I'm about to go real deep here. I've been thinking because the open road is such a great place to think deeply. Bear with me. But I think today has been a great metaphor. For something that I've only just come to the realization the last couple of years. It's life is not about the destination. So today I was looking for this really cool, like, I thought it was a mountain of some sort, Big Sur. I'm probably going to look it up when I get home. You're all going to look it up online and be like, Daniel, you idiot. Might be a national park or something like that. But that's how I plan things. I sort of just go and see how it turns out. But I think I realized a couple of years ago, or maybe 18 months, I don't know, recently, fairly recently in the recent life, that the goal, the destination is not the goal, the journey is the goal. So the whole trip that I've done, the winding roads, the driving through forests, the singing out loud to the music in the car, that's what it's about. Not just arriving at a point. And that's what I've found the most fun out of, is the journey. So when I competed in bodybuilding, My friend, the funnest part was not getting on stage, it was working out every single day with my best mate and challenging ourselves. And getting a role as a machine learning engineer, the fun part wasn't necessarily signing the contract to get the role, the fun part was studying and challenging myself every day. And that's— once, I think once you realise that, that's when you're in— you get in a good place. When you realize that the journey is the goal, right? Because then you're driven day by day, not just by an endpoint. And that's how I've been trying to live life lately, is day by day. Because you have one perfect day, eventually that turns into a perfect week, and then you have a few perfect weeks and it becomes a perfect month. A few perfect months, 12 perfect months becomes a perfect year. Well, not perfect, it won't be perfect, but you get the point. It will become a good year. And then enough good years, you end up with a good life. But I think it's— I'm gonna go find another place. We'll watch the sunset. We'll get a— maybe get a time-lapse of that if the camera battery survives, and then start heading back to San Francisco before it gets too dark.
All right, cool story.
So I checked out of this hostel this morning, drove 500 miles down the coastline of America, specifically this bed as well. And I come back, I get to the bath— I left my toothbrush here. I had no idea where I was going to stay tonight, and I come back, check my bag, this bad boy's not here, but it's still in the bathroom. It was meant to be. How dedicated are you to your toothbrush?
