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With the warm California sun dipping below the sprawling orange cliffs, Navy Lt. Teresa Meadows takes a moment to look out over the waves of the Pacific Ocean, seating herself on a rock to take a sip from her water bottle. While she says her evening hikes can be physically challenging, the workout is only a small part of why she makes the trek through the San Diego hills after her workday at the Naval Special Warfare Command.
“My number one reason why I like hiking and being outdoors in general is not necessarily the physical aspect of it,” Meadows explained. “It’s really the internal feelings that I’ve always gotten from it. It’s the peace of mind.”
With a long list of hikes under her belt, spanning more than 30 countries across multiple continents, Meadows would appear to many as a lifelong adventurer. However, she said it comes as a surprise to people when she explains she’s still relatively new to travel and hiking, having only discovered her love for adventure since joining the Navy.
Meadows grew up in rural Southern Mississippi, and never left the country during her childhood – rarely even leaving the state. Her father was a Navy Master Chief, and Meadows said she remembers him returning from his deployments overseas with souvenirs that sparked her imagination and began her fascination with the world outside of her hometown.
“I didn’t know what the world looked like out there, but it always fascinated me,” said Meadows. “I always wanted to scratch that itch, and I knew I’d get that in the Navy.”
Inspired by her father, Meadows began her own Navy journey at the Naval Academy in Annapolis, graduating as an Ensign and being assigned to a destroyer as a junior officer. During her time onboard, she embarked on a deployment which took her to four foreign countries.
“I owe most of my travel to the Navy,” Meadows explained.
Meadows went on to her next duty station, Hawaii, where she made friends with another junior officer who was an avid hiker and knew the island. Once she learned more about hiking and began to explore the island more, she said she fell in love with it and wanted to explore more.
“Hiking is it’s own whole hobby,” Meadows said. “There’s a lot to learn.”
Taking an unconventional career path, Meadows then took orders to Europe, where she was able to expand and take her adventures to a new level. In just two years in Europe, Meadows traveled to 27 countries on her own to hike and explore.
“Those two years in Europe were my leap pad into who I am now,” said Meadows. “I was always somewhere new. I look back on those years as some of the best times of my life.”
Following her time in Europe, Meadows decided to switch career paths and become a Public Affairs Officer, seeing the career field as relatable to her budding interest in photography and travel blogging. She is currently the Public Affairs Officer for Naval Special Warfare headquarters in San Diego, where she leads a small team of enlisted Sailors in documenting and promoting the special warfare community to the general public.
“I truly love what I do in the Navy, I truly love my job,” said Meadows. “Almost everything I do with my job is very similar to what I do outside of my job, so the two kind of coexist, and for me that’s really awesome.”
Meadows said her experience in the Navy taught her about herself and exposed her to a world she’d dreamed of seeing since she was a child, living up to its historical slogan of, “join the Navy, see the world.”
“My time in the Navy has definitely brought me some of the best experiences of my young adult life so far, and I will always be grateful for that,” she said.
When asked what advice she would give to others looking to expand their own horizons and seek adventure, Meadows said she would encourage them to consider the military as well.
“Any service - I’m partial to the Navy - is great at setting you up for what you might want to do next,” she explained. “You have to work hard, but there’s also an opportunity to give that time and those opportunities back to yourself.”
As the sun sets below the horizon and the skies darken over the cliffs of San Diego, Meadows picks up her backpack and prepares for the steep climb back up the rocky trail to her parked car. Although she said she plans to continue her Navy adventure, she said she often takes her daily hikes as a chance to reflect on how far she’s come since leaving home for the military.
“I’ll have these memories for the rest of my life, and I’ll be able to share these stories for the rest of my life, and I think that’s pretty awesome,” said Meadows.
| Date Taken: | 11.14.2023 |
| Date Posted: | 11.14.2023 14:41 |
| Story ID: | 457806 |
| Location: | US |
| Web Views: | 42 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, Step By Step: Traveling the World with Lt. Teresa Meadows, by Austin Rooney, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
