An interview with Chloe Loeffelholz, Development Manager
Tate (she/her) is a freelance photojournalist and travel, hiking, and cycling guide. Tate’s homebase is Mozambique and she attributes her love for the region to her first TTS semester in the fall of 2011. If you’ve enjoyed The Traveling School’s social media recently, you have Tate’s creativity and vision to thank as our social media curator. Read on to learn for Tate’s time with The Traveling School empowered her and influenced her path.
How did your Traveling School semesters impact you?
On TTS18 I completely fell in love with Southern Africa – so much so that I went on to intern in South Africa when I was in college, began guiding trips in the region during summer breaks, and then moved to southern Africa after I graduated (nearly six years ago now).
During my semester in South America in 2012 with TTS19, I discovered an incredible love for the mountains and hiking. Ironically, before that semester, I was really hesitant to hike and truly doubted my physical capabilities, so much so that I nearly didn’t want to go on the semester. But thanks to that semester, my life was truly changed. I now love hiking, trekking, climbing so much that I’ve gone on to become a hiking guide, long distance backpacker, and I regularly make yearly trips to the mountains to hike and camp. I 100% attribute my confidence in myself and my physical abilities to that semester.
In what contexts does The Traveling School come up in your life now?
I think about my Southern Africa semester often, as I’m often traveling to and working in the very places we visited (sometimes the very campsites as well). It’s interesting to go back and revisit areas that I haven’t seen since I was a junior in high school. I get to compare my perspectives back then to my perspectives now as I live in the area, work throughout the region, and am married into a South African family. My semester laid the groundwork for me to try to understand this complicated region with an open heart and wide perspective.
Did The Traveling School equip you to become a strong leader?
I often try to embody the qualities of my teachers when I’m guiding one of my trips. Specifically on my South America semester, the way they would encourage me up a difficult hike or over a mountain pass was inspiring, encouraging, but never pushy – and I think that’s what really made me realize that I can do hard things. So now, when I’m working on one of my hiking tours and have a guest that’s having a difficult time, I can truly empathize, and try and utilize the same positive energy that my TTS teachers had.
Interested in exploring more alumni stories? Check out The Traveling School’s 2023 Impact Report.