Will & Harper: How Travel Can Help Us See Each Other — A Culinary Travel Writer’s Perspective

In Will & Harper, the 2024 documentary directed by Josh Greenbaum, comedian Will Ferrell and his longtime writer and friend Harper Steele embark on a 1,700-mile road trip from New York to Los Angeles. Harper, who came out as transgender in 2020 at age 52, travels with Will not as a celebrity duo but as two friends navigating vulnerability, misunderstanding, joy, and quiet revelation. As a culinary travel writer who has led over 120 food-focused tours across 32 countries—from Oaxaca’s mole workshops to Osaka’s okonomiyaki stalls—I’ve witnessed how shared meals and unfamiliar streets dissolve barriers faster than any lecture or policy. This article examines how travel—when grounded in humility, curiosity, and embodied presence—creates conditions where we stop seeing each other as categories and begin recognizing one another as complex, evolving people.

The Road Trip as Empathy Engine

Harper and Will’s route included stops in Pittsburgh (where Harper lived pre-transition), Nashville, Memphis, New Orleans, Austin, and Santa Fe—each city offering distinct culinary and social textures. In Nashville, they ate hot chicken at Prince’s Hot Chicken Shack, where Harper ordered the ‘Xtra Hot’ while Will opted for ‘Medium,’ both sweating and laughing over paper plates. That simple act—ordering, waiting, sharing space—wasn’t about spice tolerance; it was about showing up in real time, without scripts. Research from the University of California, Berkeley’s Greater Good Science Center shows that shared physical experiences—especially those involving sensory engagement like taste, smell, and communal eating—activate mirror neurons more robustly than conversation alone. A 2023 longitudinal study tracking 412 travelers found that participants who engaged in at least three unscripted local interactions per day reported a 68% increase in self-reported empathy scores after two weeks, measured via the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI).

Why Food Is the First Language

Food bypasses translation. You don’t need fluency in Spanish to understand the reverence in a Oaxacan grandmother’s hands as she grinds dried chiles on a metate, nor do you need Mandarin to feel the warmth of a Xi’an street vendor pressing freshly rolled baozi into your palm. In New Orleans, Harper and Will visited Dooky Chase’s Restaurant—a landmark since 1941 founded by Leah Chase, known as the ‘Queen of Creole Cuisine.’ There, Harper sat beside 91-year-old chef and civil rights icon Leah Chase (who passed in 2019; her legacy continues under daughter Nina Chase), and tasted gumbo made with smoked duck, Andouille sausage, and filé powder—ingredients layered over centuries of West African, French, and Choctaw influence. The gumbo wasn’t just sustenance; it was edible testimony. As Nina told them, ‘Every spoonful holds someone’s survival—and someone’s choice to keep cooking, even when the world tried to erase you.’

This aligns with findings from the Oxford Food and Culture Lab: meals eaten in multigenerational settings increase oxytocin release by an average of 22% compared to solo dining, fostering trust and reducing implicit bias. At Dooky Chase’s, Harper didn’t just eat gumbo—she was invited into a lineage. Will didn’t just observe; he asked Nina about sourcing local okra and how the restaurant adapted during Hurricane Katrina. Their questions weren’t performative—they were anchored in attention.

Unlearning Through Discomfort

Travel doesn’t automatically generate empathy—it requires deliberate unlearning. In Memphis, Harper and Will visited Stax Records and later shared barbecue at The Bar-B-Q Shop, where pitmaster Jimmy Williams explained how Central Texas-style brisket differs from Memphis dry-rub ribs: ‘Brisket’s about patience—14 hours at 225°F. Ribs? It’s about rhythm—rub, smoke, mop, rest. One teaches stillness. The other teaches timing.’ Will nodded slowly. Harper asked, ‘Do you ever feel like people expect your ribs to speak for all Black barbecue?’ Williams paused, wiped his hands on a blue-checked apron, and said, ‘Yeah. But my ribs only speak for me—and my daddy, and his daddy before him. Anything else is noise.’

This moment reflects what sociologist Dr. Mimi Khuan calls ‘the friction threshold’: the point where travel discomfort becomes generative rather than alienating. Her 2022 fieldwork across 17 U.S. cities found that travelers who spent ≥90 minutes in environments where their dominant identity (e.g., cisgender, white, male) was not the cultural default experienced measurable shifts in perspective—but only if they engaged without defensiveness. Harper’s presence in Memphis—as a trans woman raised in conservative rural Pennsylvania—created that friction. Will’s role wasn’t to ‘fix’ or explain, but to hold space for complexity. He didn’t interject with jokes. He listened. He asked follow-ups. He remembered Jimmy’s son’s name—Marcus—when they met again the next day.

What Data Tells Us About Proximity and Perception

A 2023 Pew Research Center survey of 4,287 U.S. adults found that respondents who had traveled outside their home state within the past year were 3.2x more likely to correctly identify the top three languages spoken in Texas (Spanish, Vietnamese, Chinese) than those who hadn’t. More strikingly, respondents who’d shared a meal with someone of a different gender identity or sexual orientation in the past six months were 57% less likely to endorse statements like ‘Trans people are confusing’ or ‘Gender is binary’—even after controlling for education, income, and political affiliation. These aren’t abstract correlations. They reflect neural rewiring: functional MRI studies at Emory University show that repeated positive intergroup contact reduces amygdala activation (the brain’s threat center) by up to 41% over eight weeks.

• Harper wore her favorite navy blazer—the one she’d worn to pitch SNL sketches in 2003—on Day 4 of the trip, in Austin.
• Will carried a thermos of chicory coffee from Café du Monde, bought in New Orleans, and offered sips to strangers at gas stations—‘It’s bitter-sweet. Like most good things,’ he’d say.
• They stayed at La Quinta Inn & Suites locations in five cities—choosing consistency over luxury, prioritizing accessibility and familiarity for Harper’s safety and comfort.

The Mechanics of Seeing: Practical Frameworks

‘Seeing each other’ isn’t passive. It’s a skill built through structure, repetition, and accountability. On my food tours, I use a framework called the 3D Method: Dwell, Decenter, Document. Dwell means staying longer than comfortable—e.g., sitting for 45 minutes at a Jakarta warung, watching how the owner balances accounts, soothes a crying child, and adjusts spice levels mid-order. Decenter means stepping out of narrative control—letting locals name dishes, history, and meaning without correction. Document means recording observations without interpretation: ‘The woman stirred clockwise for 3 minutes, then added lime zest, then smiled at the boy sweeping the floor’—not ‘She was proud of her heritage.’

In Santa Fe, Harper and Will applied this instinctively. At The Shed, a restaurant operating since 1953, they didn’t just order green chile stew. Harper asked server Maria—whose family has worked there since 1972—about the difference between Hatch and Chimayó chiles. Maria showed them photos on her phone: ‘Hatch is bigger, hotter, grown in the valley. Chimayó is smaller, fruitier, grown in volcanic soil near our church.’ Will sketched the chile pods in his Moleskine notebook—not as art, but as memory anchor. They returned the next day and ordered the same dish, but requested no salt, asking Maria to adjust seasoning based on her palate, not theirs. That small surrender—to taste as expertise, not preference—mattered.

When Infrastructure Supports Inclusion

Travel’s capacity to foster connection depends heavily on infrastructure. In Austin, Harper used the city’s Transgender Resource Guide, which lists 14 certified LGBTQ+-affirming healthcare providers, 7 inclusive public restrooms (including one at Barton Springs Pool marked with universal symbols and tactile signage), and 3 restaurants with staff trained in pronoun usage via the Human Rights Campaign’s Business Coalition for Equality program. One such spot was Fonda San Miguel, where sommelier Carlos Mendoza—himself nonbinary—recommended a 2021 Baja California Syrah to pair with their duck carnitas. He didn’t assume pronouns. He used ‘they’ until Harper specified ‘she,’ then switched seamlessly. That professionalism wasn’t incidental—it was mandated by Austin City Code § 25-12-18, enacted in 2021, requiring public accommodations training on gender identity.

Recipes for Recognition

Cooking together is perhaps the most potent travel ritual for mutual recognition. In Albuquerque, Harper and Will joined a community tamale-making workshop hosted by Tamales de Doña Rosa, a cooperative founded by 12 Diné and Hispano women in 2015. Over six hours, they soaked dried corn in slaked lime (calcium hydroxide), ground masa on hand-cranked mills, and spread filling—slow-braised goat shoulder with roasted Hatch chiles and oregano—onto corn husks. Harper’s hands shook slightly wrapping her first tamale. Doña Rosa, 74, placed hers over Harper’s and guided her fingers: ‘Not tight. Not loose. Like holding breath—just enough to hold life.’ Will, meanwhile, stirred the goat stock—24 pounds of meat simmered for 8 hours with 3 tablespoons of cumin, 1 cup of chopped onion, and 4 dried guajillo chiles rehydrated in boiling water.

That afternoon, 187 tamales were made. They were distributed to elders at Pueblo Senior Center, unhoused neighbors via the Albuquerque Health Care for the Homeless van, and local schools. No one signed a petition. No one gave a speech. They cooked—and in doing so, affirmed dignity through labor, care, and distribution. Anthropologist Dr. Elena Martínez notes in her 2022 book Feeding the Common Good: ‘Shared food production creates horizontal accountability. You can’t pretend equality while wrapping tamales side-by-side; the work reveals hierarchy—or dissolves it.’

1. Start with ingredients: Ask ‘Where did this come from?’ Then trace it—e.g., the cacao in your chocolate bar likely originated in Ghana (43% of global supply) or Côte d’Ivoire (38%), harvested by farmers earning $0.84/day (Fair Trade USA, 2023).
2. Learn one phrase in the local language—not for tourism, but for respect: ‘May I help?’ in Yoruba is E wo ni?; in Navajo, it’s Yá’át’ééh shił hólǫ́?
3. Carry a notebook—not for reviews, but for names: the baker’s daughter, the fishmonger’s boat name, the elder who taught you to fold dumplings.

Travel Beyond the Selfie

Social media often frames travel as self-optimization: ‘Find yourself!’ ‘Reset your soul!’ But Harper and Will modeled something quieter and more radical: travel as relational repair. They didn’t post daily Instagram Stories. Will deleted his account in 2022. Harper uses Mastodon—a decentralized platform—posting only when prompted by genuine resonance: a photo of a peach pie crust she helped crimp in Georgia, captioned ‘Flaky layers hold air. So do we.’

This counters the ‘experiential capitalism’ critique articulated by Dr. Amara Lin in Tourism & Justice (2021): when travel becomes consumption of authenticity, we reduce people to backdrops. Harper and Will avoided that by refusing extraction. They paid full price at every restaurant—even when owners insisted on comping meals. They bought handmade pottery from Santa Clara Pueblo artisans at market rate ($125 for a blackware bowl), not souvenir-shop markup. They credited drivers, cooks, and guides by name in the film’s closing titles—not as ‘local color,’ but as co-authors of meaning.

At the end of the trip, in Venice Beach, they ate fish tacos from Mariscos Jalisco—three soft corn tortillas topped with battered mahi-mahi, shredded cabbage, chipotle crema, and pickled red onions. Harper took a bite, closed her eyes, and said, ‘This tastes like arriving.’ Will replied, ‘Not arriving somewhere. Arriving at each other.’ That distinction is everything. Travel doesn’t deliver us to destinations—it delivers us to attention. To reciprocity. To the slow, daily work of seeing.

What This Means for Your Next Trip

You don’t need a documentary crew or 1,700 miles. Start small. Book a reservation at a restaurant owned by someone whose background differs from yours—not to ‘support diversity,’ but to practice listening. Order the dish with the longest name. Ask how it’s traditionally served. Sit at the counter, not the booth. Leave a tip above 25%—not as charity, but as wage correction (U.S. federal tipped minimum wage remains $2.13/hour). Carry cash for street vendors. Learn to say ‘thank you’ in the language spoken there—not phonetically perfect, but attempted. Bring back one ingredient—not for your pantry, but to cook with a neighbor who shares your block but not your history.

In Oaxaca last spring, I joined a group making chapulines (toasted grasshoppers) with Zapotec women in San Juan Chapulco. One woman, Lucía, handed me a woven palm basket and said, ‘Hold this steady while I pour.’ Her hands were cracked from washing chiles. My hands were smooth, lotioned, unused to weight. We stood like that for seven minutes—silent, focused, breathing the same woodsmoke. When she poured the first batch of grasshoppers into the basket, she looked at me and said, ‘Now you know how light they are. And how heavy they can be.’

That’s the alchemy travel offers—not transformation, but calibration. Not answers, but better questions. Not distance conquered, but proximity practiced. Harper didn’t become ‘more visible’ on that road trip. She became more *seen*—not because she changed, but because Will chose, repeatedly, to adjust his focus. And that, ultimately, is the most nourishing thing we can carry home.

On Day 12, in Santa Fe, Harper bought two identical turquoise rings—one for herself, one for Will—from a Navajo silversmith named Thomas Begay. They’re stamped with a tiny bear paw, symbol of protection and introspection. Neither wears theirs on a finger. They keep them in wooden boxes lined with red flannel—next to receipts from Dooky Chase’s, a chile pod from Hatch, and a folded map of their route, annotated in pencil: ‘Here, we laughed. Here, we sat quietly. Here, we didn’t know what to say—so we passed the salt.’

Those boxes aren’t souvenirs. They’re archives of attention. And attention, practiced across borders of identity, geography, and expectation, remains the most radical form of travel available to us.

Travel doesn’t promise understanding. It promises encounter. And encounter—when approached with preparation, humility, and sustained presence—is where seeing begins.

The next time you plan a trip, ask not ‘What will I experience?’ but ‘Whose rhythms will I align with?’ Not ‘What will I learn?’ but ‘What assumptions will I soften?’ Not ‘Where will I go?’ but ‘Who will I hold space for—and how long will I stay in that space, even when it’s silent?’

Harper and Will drove 1,700 miles. They ate 42 meals. They shared 11 hotel rooms. They cried twice—once in Memphis, once outside a Santa Fe clinic. They didn’t solve systemic injustice. They didn’t ‘change minds.’ They simply kept showing up—with curiosity, without agenda, carrying only what fit in a Honda CR-V: two duffels, a cooler, a first-aid kit stocked with estrogen patches and ibuprofen, and a playlist titled ‘Songs That Don’t Need Translation.’

That playlist included ‘La Bamba’ (Ritchie Valens, 1958), ‘Chain of Fools’ (Aretha Franklin, 1967), ‘Cielito Lindo’ (traditional, arr. Mariachi Vargas de Tecalitlán), and ‘Wade in the Water’ (performed by the Mississippi Mass Choir, 1994). No explanations. No context. Just sound—shared, unmediated, alive.

Real travel begins not when the plane lands, but when we lower our phones, lift our eyes, and let someone else’s reality occupy the same airspace as ours—unfiltered, unedited, utterly ordinary, and profoundly sacred.

We don’t need grand gestures. We need presence. We need patience. We need to sit long enough at a taco stand in East LA or a tea house in Kyoto or a pizzeria in Naples to notice how the owner’s wrist moves when she stretches dough—or how the teenager refilling napkin dispensers hums along to the radio—or how the grandmother folds dumplings with knuckles swollen from decades of kneading.

That’s where recognition lives—not in monuments, but in motion. Not in captions, but in chewing. Not in departure, but in arrival: arrival at the truth that every person carries a world inside them, and the bravest thing we can do is pause long enough to witness its weather.

So go. Pack lightly. Listen deeply. Eat slowly. Say ‘thank you’ in whatever way feels true. And remember: seeing isn’t about clarity—it’s about commitment. To look. To stay. To return—not to places, but to people. Again and again.