How I Travel: Natasha Rothwell Goes on Museum Tours Alone

Kaitlin Menza
·6 min read

In her new Hulu show How to Die Alone, Natasha Rothwell plays an adrift JFK airport employee. The character seems thousands of miles away from the admittedly Type-A, self-described nerd Rothwell is in real life. To start, she likes to arrive for flights very, very early. “I try to get there an hour and a half before I take off. And when I say get there, I mean I want to be through security with an hour and a half on the other side,” says the actress, who also wrote and produced the show. And how does she spend her in-flight time? “It’s usually a combination of work emails and the crossword.”

In addition to How to Die Alone, which is streaming now, Rothwell was recently in Thailand filming the latest season of The White Lotus. Ahead, she chats about hanging out with her fellow cast members on the latter show’s notoriously fabulous sets—yes, it’s as fun as it seems—eating room service in the bathtub, and hugging strangers in Europe.

On her coolest filming locations:

I mean, [The White Lotus] takes the cake. I just did five months in Thailand and we shot in so many amazing places. It is really beautiful. It was my first time there, so it was jaw-dropping. There's definitely downtime and we're hanging out as a cast. I do want to go back to Thailand, even though I was there for so long, because I don't like putting parameters on my exploration, like, “Oh, I have to be back by this time because I shoot tomorrow.” I like the freedom of being on my own time. I was able to do a little bit of exploring, but if I really want to immerse myself in an environment, I feel like I have to do it when I'm not scheduled to be there for work.

The airport behavior she loathes:
The barefoot wonders will always confound me. I don't get it. It's gnarly. I'm not a fan! In what world is that permissible?

Her unforgettable first experience in an airport lounge:

I was in first class for the first time when I was flown out to write for Insecure. I had never been in a business class or first before. I remember going into the first-class lounge and asking where to pay, and they said, “This is free.” What kind of magical Narnia is this?! I was like, Okay, I could get used to this.

Her priorities when planning a vacation:
I have two kinds of trips that I do, and one is relaxation. I struggle with relaxation, because I'm pretty tightly wound and I love to work. I try to create an environment where it's impossible not to relax. And then there's those trips that are edifying. I'm such a nerd, so it’s getting nerdy tours at a museum and going to old bookshops. I love all of those details. If you're going to a relaxing vacation with a bunch of your girlfriends, they don't want to go on a private tour of the Uffizi in Italy. I'm like, “Cool, I'll see you guys later.”

A beloved vacation memory:

The whole trip was wonderful, but I was in Santorini and did this day trip with some of my friends. I have a bit of a fear of deep water, but I jumped in and was just floating in the sea. It was a really magical moment where I was with people, but I felt by myself. It was pretty special.

On spotting friendly faces in unexpected places:
There are not a lot of Black folks in Ireland. I was at this castle in Cork, and I was standing on a hill. I see this Black family walking towards me, and I started walking towards them, and without talking, we hugged. Then I was like, “Do you speak English?” They said yes, and I'm like, “Oh my God, I'm so happy to see you!” They said, “We're happy to see you too!” We celebrated our Blackness and our travel bug on a hill in Cork, and then they went on their way and disappeared. They didn't know what I did. We didn't even talk about it! [One of them] said, “It's just so nice to see a friendly face.”

That actually happened in Thailand, too. We were shooting and there was a Black woman walking on the street with her husband. I was waving at them because I hadn't seen a Black resident. She was like, “Hey, do I know you?” I said, “No!” She's like, “Oh, okay… but I think I know you?!” I said I'm an actor, and then she recognized me: “This is crazy. I love The White Lotus!” It's always cool to see people of color traveling.

A place she could go to a million times and never tire of it:
Big Sur. It's just beautiful. It takes my breath away every time I go visit. I do nothing there; I think that's why I love it. I get a little place right by the water, and “by the water” is high up, because it's where the mountain meets the sea. It’s such an interesting intersection between the ocean and nature; you have giant eagles and hawks and deer, but then you also see whales. It’s a really cool place to be surrounded by natural beauty.

A city she feels is underrated:
If I say this, it'll get me canceled, but… Los Angeles. I hated on L.A. pretty actively the first two years I moved here. I had never been before the show, so Insecure was my introduction to the city. It wasn't like The Hills, you know what I mean? It was, Oh, this is Inglewood. This is a different side to the city that is cool and interesting. At the beginning, I struggled with the nature of L.A.: People live in their houses, and in New York, [your home] is a pit stop and your life is lived outside, so I had to adjust to that. But now I’m going into my eighth year, and I figured out its charm. I figured out how to do L.A.

The hotel amenities she cares a lot about:

Room service. I love the decadence of ordering whatever I want whenever I want. And I also do love a bathtub. I like a big obnoxious bathtub, because then you can eat the food in the bath! It all works together.

Where she’s hoping to go next:

I have never been to the continent. I haven't been to Africa. Specifically South Africa—I have a best friend that lives there, so I would love to go to Joburg. But anywhere on the continent, like Morocco or Egypt. Egypt would be so sick; the nerd in me would go on every tour possible and learn all of the things.

Originally Appeared on Condé Nast Traveler

The Latest Travel News and Advice

Latest Stories