Celebrity Travel: Go away with Atsuko Okatsuka
Thanks to her thriving stand-up career, comedian Atsuko Okatsuka has traveled around the world, sometimes with her family … on her honeymoon. “Our honeymoon trip to Taiwan – I brought my mom, grandma, dad and my stepmom,” she said in an interview from her Los Angeles home. “[I brought my husband] Ryan to a small village where I had extended relatives I never met before. He was the first white person they'd ever seen, so the whole village lined up to meet him, touch him, talk to him, take pictures with him. These [memories] ended up in my special, ‘Atsuko Okatsuka: Father’ [on Hulu].”
For more information on Okatsuka’s tour, check out her website (https://atsukocomedy.com/) and social media (username: @atsukocomedy).
Q: What other real-life experiences made it into your comedy special?
A: Accidentally buying a bottle of champagne for $300 in Japan, after taking Duolingo lessons, thinking I was definitely ready to talk to the locals. Turns out Duolingo doesn't teach you how to read a room.
Q: As a visible minority, are there certain cities that have been more welcoming than others?
A: Yes for sure. Big cities are more welcoming. There's one city in particular where weird things happen all the time. I won't name it. I'd been ni hao’d on my way into the theater I was performing at. In the elevator at the hotel, a bunch of blonde girls asked on Halloween night what my costume was. I wasn't wearing [a costume] at all. Then they said, "Oh, so you just look like this on a Thursday?"
Q: What is your favorite vacation destination?
A: We haven't had a chance to vacation much lately. We usually are on tour. But I have been getting to know Tokyo more and more as we go back. We spent a month there to be closer to my dad during the Christmas holidays and I think back on it often. I got to live like a local with my husband for the first time as an adult. We stayed at an apartment in a very local area [Oyama]. We would go out to get groceries, cook salmon every morning, eat pickled vegetables, take a Japanese-style bath every morning overlooking the town, and head down to Shibuya as I wrote new jokes for my upcoming tour. It was truly magical. And getting to see my dad and meeting one of my brothers for the first time at a Ninja Samurai [Kingdom Ise] theme park. I'll never forget it.
Q: Where would you like to go that you have never been to before?
A: I'd love to go to Seoul.
Q: How have your travels impacted who you are today?
A: It's so important to see how other people live – to be reminded of how interconnected we all are. I love people and learning what drives them to do what they do, what keeps them going, what makes them love, to commune with each other. It all makes me a more grounded and empathetic person and hence a better artist.
Q: Following up on that, what’s the most important thing you’ve learned from your travels?
A: That we are all more similar than we might think.
Q: What are your five favorite cities?
A: L.A., New York, Tokyo, Tainan, Barcelona.
Q: What untapped destination should people know about?
A: I'm afraid to give it away because it might get more crowded, but Taiwan! It's paradise and the people are very loving and friendly.
Q: What was a trip you took as a child that stands out?
A: I guess my two-month vacation to Los Angeles which ended up being my permanent move there. I was 8 years old and never saw Japan again until I was 18!
Q: If you could only pick one place to eat, would you prefer a food truck or fine dining?
A: Depends on who I'm with or what the occasion is. Am I with my grandma? She needs a place to sit. [Laughs.] I would choose fine dining for that. Also, my husband has celiac, so our situation is that it always depends on who, what, when and where. If it were just me? I'm down with a food truck, of course.
Q: Where are your favorite weekend getaways?
A: Because I'm on tour so much, when I'm home in L.A., I love to be home or near my home. I also love visiting my mom and grandma as much as I can, so I'm usually in Arcadia or Little Tokyo where I'm eating great comfort food – Japanese, Chinese, Malaysian and Taiwanese.
Q: Do you have a knack for picking up new languages?
A: I speak Mandarin and Japanese conversationally. I do pick up languages pretty easily, and can tell most of the time where people are from based on [their] accents.
Q: When you go away, what are some of your must-have items?
A: Humidifier, sunblock, joke book and a rounded brush to keep my bowl-cut tight!
Q: What is your best or worst vacation memory?
A: Best and worst is my honeymoon trip to Taiwan where I brought my entire family to join me, even though nobody asked for it!
Q: What kind of research do you do before you go away on a trip?
A: I look up gluten-free restaurants a lot now because of the dietary restrictions in my family. I guess I'm a very live-to-eat practical kind of girl. I have gotten better at looking up fun things to do too. Me and my husband particularly love museums.
Q: What is your guilty pleasure when you’re on the road?
A: Doing touristy things. I'm a tourist! That's what I'm gonna do.
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(Jae-Ha Kim is a New York Times bestselling author and journalist. You can reach her at www.jaehakim.com, follow her on Instagram and X @goawaywithjae, or read more from her on Substack (jaehakim.substack.com).)
©2025 Jae-Ha Kim. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
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