Hitching for Life: What have I learned after 50 thousand kilometres of hitchhiking?
On 26 February 2023, I was travelling between Brussels and Paris with a very nice French couple. I knew that what I had been looking forward to for months would happen on that trip: I will reach the magical 50,000th kilometre. It's been an incredible journey: it all started more than 11 and a half years ago, on 28 August 2011, with many adventures, many encounters, and since then it has become one of the most exciting threads of my adult life, one of the most exciting ventures of my life.
Without being exhaustive I have travelled in the luggage compartment of a van in Albania, in a coffin van in the Hungarian Great Plain, been picked up by the campaign manager of a Bosnian left-wing party and a deputy state secretary of the Ministry of Human Affairs of Hungary, slept with the driver in the middle of nowhere in Russia, been picked up by a Romanian man in France who had swum the Danube to Serbia to escape Ceausescu’s mad regime. I travelled with an Irish guy who drove from Australia to Ireland and whom I met at the Iran-Armenia border. A guy from Normandy told me how they used the World War II trenches as bicycle jumps. I have already been invited to dinners and given name cards. A Hungarian man was driving his father-in-law's jeep to Poland, so that he could leave for Shanghai. I travelled by tractor in Turkey, with a 90-year-old lady by the Sea of Galilee. I travelled with liberal arts graduates who left the capital and bought goats in the countryside. I rode in a Porsche at 240 km/h. I was picked up by a cocaine-addicted Swiss lawyer, who I helped drink a bottle of Martini for my own good. I was picked up twice by Rudi, a Slovakian man, in two different locations of Hungary. One woman told me that she found out her husband was gay, and she was desperate. I met Lajos, a lorry driver, but mostly a wonderful man, and I've been in touch with him ever since. He kept talking for almost 500 kilometres, but I just couldn't get tired of his stories. He'd be happy to take me anytime I felt like going to Italy.
Self-portrait in Cappadocia, Turkey (2019). Travelling on such a platform has been on my bucket list for a long time.
In this article, I would like to share what this trip has brought me, how all these trips have come together into one big journey. Martin Heidegger speaks about the Holzwege, roads opened by foresters which lead to small clearings created by lumbering. These roads are not going from point A to point B but rather nowhere, they end in the clearing. In real sense these roads can go beyond a clear point B, by choosing such a road the traveller gave up a mundane destination, goal. Such a road can lead to a state where the Existence is given and where the reality of Being which is beyond us, can surprise us. My journey has been such a road for me, and I believe that the experience of hitchhiking can be inspiring regarding all other aspects of life.
I would like to start with the story of my first hitchhiking. I was at university and a friend of mine hitchhiked regularly between the university and his family. I always enjoyed hearing him tell me about it, but when my brother started hitchhiking in the summer of 2011, I decided to give it a try myself. For a poor university student, a free adventure sounded too tempting. I was visiting friends at the time, about 130 kilometres away. I was standing at a petrol station on the outskirts of Budapest, and as I arrived there, I had a strong feeling that no one would pick me up and that I simply wouldn't be able to meet my friends and that I am insane. Soon a rather battered car pulled up. The driver drove almost to my destination. I clearly remember the exact time, it was 13.40. He was in a hurry for Formula 1, which started at 2 o'clock. We arrived a little after two. I don't want to go into the details of how fast he needed to drive to get there so quickly.
The unexpected success, the adventure which seemed so accessible, amazed me. I felt I wanted to try this again. Slowly, hitchhiking became my main mode of transport. I went everywhere with it.
Wadi Rum, Jordan, 2019.
Soon I outgrew the country. In 2013 I had the opportunity to travel to Belgium for an important event. As a university student, I had little money at the time, so hitchhiking was the only option. Extreme anxiety gripped me as I stood there in the cold winter wind on a March morning with a nearly 20-kilogram backpack, a huge Europe atlas in my hand, at the same petrol station. Recently, I had been picked up by a fellow hitchhiker, this time with a car, who told me how to hitchhike up to 1000-1500 kilometres in a day. Even though it sounded almost unbelievable compared to my short distances at the time, I believed him and decided to give it a try: shortly after before 1 a.m. I was dropped off at Saarbrücken, on the German-French border, almost 1100 kilometres later.
This trip has infused me with an incredible experience of freedom. I knew that I could go anywhere I wanted, regardless of my financial means. I felt the endless possibilities. Needless to say, this was not my last international trip. This year, I hitchhiked almost 10,000 kilometres in many European countries.
As well as being uplifting, hitchhiking can sometimes be very tough. But I've learned that when I feel completely helpless, it doesn't mean someone doesn't decide to stop. Once we were stuck for five hours on the outskirts of Sofia, Bulgaria and from there we only managed to get to the Serbian border, where after a short attempt the border guards turned us away. We had 3-4 euros left after a week's tour of Bulgaria, and I picked a bunch of flowers in agony and waited with my friend and a strong sense of resignation. It was well into the afternoon and Budapest was still 710 kilometres away. Since early morning, we had managed to cover 60 kilometres. It would have been faster by bicycle. But then suddenly someone stopped, he was going to Novi Sad, 430 kilometres away, so we were able to get past Belgrade and from there it was very easy. I was overwhelmed with an incredible feeling of relief and gratitude. It really is true that the more difficult a situation is, the more intense the joy of overcoming it. Only this turn is out of my hands. That is the great struggle, the beauty of hitchhiking. I can't give myself the turn. Similar situations have happened many times since then, where I occasionally slip in an extended waiting time of several hours, only to have everything speed up incredibly, and I am almost from one car to the next.
This journey made me understand what it means to be made for adventure, not for safety. In Belgium, I once had a driver think together with me when, after several hours of waiting, I was frustratedly pondering whether to try to get a train from Brussels to Bruges, where I was going, or if he should drop me off at an otherwise very inconvenient location. I didn't have a smartphone; I didn't know exactly where I was from my map. When I asked what he would do in my place, he said he would choose the adventure. I believed him and got out; I was so taken by what he said. Five minutes later, a guy of Hungarian origin picked me up and drove me through the most difficult part of the journey.
West Bank in 2019 (courtesy of Zita Merényi. She is on the pic).
It may seem from that hitchhiking is only for the brave, the daring, the "tough", but it's not. I've struggled with anxiety since I was a teenager, and hitchhiking, especially when I get stuck, can really get to me. Somewhere around 25,000 kilometres, this anxiety, which was very strong until then and which I often felt on every journey, started to slowly diminish. But every time I stopped or arrived or when someone picked me up, I experienced a very strong sense of joy and knew that the struggle was worth it. I gave up only once in 11 years, in Sweden, when the anxiety became stronger than the confidence. Finally, we got on a plane, because of my decision. But even after that failure I managed to start again. Hitchhiking has become my therapy. The anxiety after I endured, eventually disperses in relief. As Rumi said, "the cure for pain is in the pain". And I am not alone in this experience. I recently saw a video of an Indian girl hitchhiking alone in India. And a couple of days ago, at the end of a hitchhiking race, I started talking to a guy who tried to answer my question about where they stayed with his buddy. He couldn't pronounce the town he was sleeping in for the umpteenth time. He kept getting stuck on the same syllable. Finally, we gave him a new topic to relieve him. Soon his teammate appeared, wearing sunglasses despite the low light and, as we looked closer, carrying a white stick. As we were leaving, it occurred to us that there was a team name "Blind Leads the Blind". I could not find words I was so moved. Indeed, hitchhiking is for everyone. Adventure is for everyone.
The drivers who put their trust in me, in us, are also part of the story. Without them, we couldn't have done it. Not a single kilometre. So, I'm writing this as a tribute to them. Also, of course, now and then I get frustrated or hopeless, but then I try to remind myself that this is part of the story and that I can't expect anyone to pick me up. I can only trust. I can just stand on the side of the road, that's all the control I have, but that suffices.
After jumping into the void, I always found that I had a super trampoline underneath me. For me, hitchhiking has taught me how incredible it is to venture out of what I thought was safe and consciously make space for the unknown, which can't really be controlled. I kept meeting people I probably wouldn't have had the opportunity to meet otherwise. I try to apply what I have learned here to many areas of life, with varying degrees of success. I've come to understand that hitchhiking, and thus trust, adventure, letting go of planning, and facing fears, is not a reality that one should bury in oneself by the age of 30 years as it is something belonging only to the youth, but adventure gives life its flavour. I must get going, the cars will follow. And metaphorically as well, it's true. Who knows what would happen if we could live this radical trust every day, it's beyond imagination, where that trust could lead to.
So hitchhiking is not only a way of transport but much more an alternative way of life, a philosophy, a mindset that radically abandons security and control. It can be a possible means of experiencing the Adventure of Life. If you feel like it, give it a try. You may experience something you never expected. One thing you can do is give it a thumbs up and the rest will happen.
For more information on Tamás Farbaky´s work: https://www.facebook.com/thsupertramp
