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Random Roads - Hitchhiking zine
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Not knowing what would happen next

Shaun "Master of Air Guitar" is from Canada, Vancouver and has been traveling through Europe for 1,5 year now on a low/no-budget. How does he make it happen?

"The adventure of it all, not knowing what would happen next, all the different places, and friends you haven't met yet, places you haven't seen yet, all that pulled me into traveling."

I met Shaun in Paris, during the 888 event. He was smiling and holding a broad sign saying "Paris s.v.p". He then came to Amsterdam where I hosted him a small week. We had a great time and while talking we decided to write down his story, to help inspiring other travelers, that you do not have to fear to travel with little resources or a ticket back home Robino 16:47, 30 August 2008 (CEST)

The first time traveling, I had no money. I had a backpack and a ticket to Costa Rica. I thought I would just go there, get a bus to the beach and put up my tent to sleep there. I met many people, who were just sleeping on the beach, for free, and like that I met many people who had done that for years.

I was living of coconuts and bananas, I didn't even need money. People I met who did have money were surprised, that I traveled like this, they said I was naive. But it helps being naive, because it makes you realise that it is very possible. I later hitchhiked back from Costa Rica to Canada.

These type of experiences inspire you with all kinds of further travel-ideas. On the way, you also learn better how to travel as such. For example, my backpack is now way lighter. At first it was 90 liters, now just 30 liters.

Now I am traveling without a plan to go home, I have no exit-plan, just a one way ticket. I have my guitar and I can also make jewelery for money, and I can always do that if it is needed, if I run out of money for example.

Lifestyle

Shaun being photographed in Paris at the 888-event

I left Canada with 4000 euro's, which is quite a bit actually. I had been working for 8 months back home, had cheap rent and worked in a restaurant where they gave me free food. My lifestyle was based on saving this money, to not spend it, I wouldn't buy useless stuff, there is nothing you can learn from buying things.

Since I arrived in Europe, I just kept on traveling until my money was finished and I really didn't think of my money until I run out of it. Though that didn't worry me at all. Once you are traveling and you stay in a city for a bit longer, you meet people from all over the place who you then meet up in the city where they live. As you keep on expanding your network you also get more opportunities on the way.

So when I ran out of money, I randomly went to Dublin. I did some couchsurfing and so I stayed at a few different places there when I started writing people just asking for any tips on how to find a job, if they know anyone for a room to rent, and letting them know I am very low on money so they know I cannot pay rent straight away. I got word back from different people with websites for jobs and through a friend of one girl I actually got a room and some work.

Skills and Resources

But the essential thing is that you actually don't even need that money when you travel. You come to this point when you realise the different things you can do to get by. What I do when I have no money, is going to the bakery at closure time and ask them if they have any food they are going to throw away, and you can do the same thing at markets, and so on. Grocery's stores throw away their old food too, but sometimes it is still really good, and you just have to cut off the bad pieces.

If you have a low budget and you want to travel for years and years, you should be able to have some skills to be able to get by with. If you can make something, if you can make art for example, or offer poetry even and ask people if you can share a poem with them. I actually met someone who printed poems and shared them with people and made his money through that.

You can also do farming, for which you don't always need special skills. Farmers pay you cash, you can pick grapes, strawberries. Take for example WWOOFing (World-Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms), you don't make money, but you have a free place to stay and free food. I did a lot of that. Even when you don't know how to farm, you can still do simple work like digging a hole.

But even painting - I was once working for a guy painting his house in exchange for a free place: I painted for two days painting and stayed for a week.

And sometimes things just occur to you. I was just sitting in Brussels and making some bracelets as some girls came up to me and asked me if they could buy them of me. "How much you want for it?", they asked. "A euro?", I replied, and they said, "no way, is that all?" and so I raised the price a bit.

That is how I came up with the idea of going around and sell the bracelets that I make. My plan now is to hitch to the Baltic countries, to make bracelets and to sell those in the Greek islands. Someone told me it was easy to sell them there, and that I could make 8 euros on average an hour.

Hitchhiking

Shaun sleeping early morning in Paris at the 888-event

How does hitchhiking fit in all that?

It is the lowest budget way of traveling. If you go short distances, you can ride bikes as you can go anywhere with that, but for larger distances, hitching is a really great way of traveling. It is not completely risk-free obviously, but you have a choice of who you want to get in the car with and if you can 'read' people you can be a good hitchhiker.

How does one become a good hitchhiker? To start with, it is all in your attitude, if you're sitting on a back bag on the side of the road, not looking to anyone, you will never get that ride. But if you are standing up, big smile, and your thumb is out there with enthusiasm, you look the drivers in the eye, yeah, then it works pretty good. Equally important, when you're not getting your rides, don't feel bad about it, your right ride will come along, just wait and stay positive.

Did you have fears or doubts before traveling? Well, there is the fear of never leaving the same place, the same old town. And doing something other than what you are told to do when you are born, school, job, marriage, house, kids. That fear pushed me into traveling. The adventure of it all, not knowing what would happen next, all the different places, and friends you haven't met yet. Places you hadn't seen yet, that pulled me into travelling.

I didn't have many doubts either. I thought it was actually going to be pretty easy, without any big problems. Being robbed was the only problem I could think of. Accidents, injuries, getting sick, or hit by a bus, that could happen at home also, so why should I not travel!?

Hitchhiking Image in Canada

In Canada I got rides from quite some people saying they have a certain image about hitchhikers, that hitchhikers are generally dangerous. So they say, they normally don't stop for hitchhikers but since I am a girl, and since it is rainy, or since it is bloody cold, sometimes women do stop for me.

This is beneficial for me, but is also pretty sexist. I think they should be just as compassionate to a male as they are to me. Or, why don't they think I have the same potential as a man? That I can be as dangerous as a guy because also I could have a gun or knife and be as 'powerful'?

They don't see us hitchhikers as just ordinary people who have office jobs for example, or whatever, and who just have go from place A top B like they have to themselves.

I am not so pessimistic about hitchhiking in Canada though, because I do get a lot of good lifts, and other people tell me that they like picking up hitchhikers, that for example they themselves used to also hitchhike.

In the 50s and 60s it was much more common to hitchhike. But these days, in different ways, people are taught to be afraid. The media image and the government give us hitchhikers and the concept of sharing a bad image. Also in general terms, people are taught to be afraid of others. That's a big shame.

---Sarah Jane from Canada

Hitchhikers Control Card

The Hitchhikers Control Card was a small booklet for each city with places where to stand, with the telephone numbers of police and the date issued. It would be valid for a year. The other side of this card had space for drivers to put their personal stamps that were provided by the government.

Even on television there were advertisements for people to hitchhike, also saying it would be perfectly safe for children to hitchhike without their parents.

But many hitchhikers also had fears of why the government was controlling even hitchhiking. Using the card was risky because the government could use the data you provided, whether you were communist or not. It was also just another way to control society, with the police abusing hitchhiking to have deeper surveillance.

The hitchhikers' card died somewhere in the 70s. Someone actually got killed and people stopped using these cards. Generally Polish people don't like control over themselves by the authorities, so hitchhiking was something you would do without letting the police know about it. People just wouldn't give out their names anymore merely because they wanted to travel safer.

It actually worked in a way, my uncle experienced. It can become handy, but the people that stopped for him would have stopped anyway. He felt safer though because once when he got robbed, the thief was stupid enough to give a stamp when my uncle entered the car, and so the police could track him quickly.

--- by Noemi.