To skip directly to the list, click here. Otherwise, read on about how this type of travel became my lifestyle over the last couple months.
There are infinite different ways to travel. When many people picture travel, they imagine all-inclusive vacations consisting of beaches, spas, fancy restaurants, and cocktails, with a budget of $100+ per day. This type of travel is common among those who have high-paying jobs with little vacation time and want to relax, take a break from the work world, and spend the money that they have earned in their short time off. Since these type of people are often idolized in American culture, this is the type of travel that springs to mind for most people. But it’s far from the only way to travel. There’s a huge community of nomads out there covering the world without high-paying jobs, with minimal to no money, but with the time and flexibility that a work contract would not allow, and with such strong wanderlust that they are willing to put up with less comfortable situations for the sake of adventure.
I’ve become a part of this nomadic community over the last year and a half and it has given me opportunities that I never would have imagined possible, connections with people who I never would have known existed otherwise, and a much deeper understanding of my privilege of being born a white male native English speaker in a wealthy country to a middle class family. This community has made my travel exponentially more meaningful while at the same time giving me the thrill of a crazy adventure much more than any all-inclusive resort or even a hostel ever could.
As my bank account dipped into the triple digits, I realized that the type of travel I had been doing wouldn’t be sustainable for so much longer ((I began my Europe trip with $4,000 saved–and I still needed to buy a flight home at some point). I wouldn’t be able to afford staying in hostels, taking buses/trains/cheap flights, eating in restaurants, or even eating kebabs for much longer. Through a combination of meeting the right people who had experience traveling without money and online resources such as hitchwiki.org, nomadwiki.org, trashwiki.org [side note: seriously check out these wikis if you’re interested in cheap/free travel, they have a ridiculous amount of free information that will tell you everything you need to know about the logistics], couchsurfing.com, and the numerous facebook groups for hitchhikers and nomads, I quickly learned that there is actually no need to pay for transportation or accommodation in a society that produces so much excess, as long as you have the resources of time and the ability to make someone’s day more interesting. I had a tent and sleeping bag in my backpack, which was all I needed in case I got stuck somewhere on the road, and I had a small pot to cook over a campfire when I didn’t find someone’s apartment to cook in.
Since July, I haven’t spent a cent on accommodation, and I hitchhiked 7,438 mi (11,970 km) from Germany to Estonia to Serbia to Scotland to France without spending a penny on transportation (and being 100% carbon neutral!). Hitchhiking is quite easy in most of Europe by either standing on the road with a sign or asking for rides at a gas/rest station, and www.hitchwiki.org has a huge database of the best hitchhiking spots in every city. It, of course, has inherent risks, especially when hitchhiking alone, but these risks are easy to minimize to a point where it is absolutely worth it for the sake of adventure. It also has the inherent inconvenience of being unpredictable, but that’s all part of the adventure if you don’t have anywhere you need to be at a certain time. Finding a hitchhiking partner is easier than ever thanks to the friendliness of most hitchhikers and the numerous Facebook groups dedicated exactly to this cause, so hitchhiking alone is rarely necessary.
My tent turned out to be less necessary than I had originally thought, because it became so easy to use the network of friends I had met traveling to find a place to stay or to find a host on Couchsurfing. Several of the drivers who picked me up on the road would also offer me a couch to sleep on for the night and would often say something like “hey, we have this food that only exists in this small region of the world, you gotta try it! Let me phone my mom and ask her to cook it tonight.” So home-cooked, authentic meals became commonplace. Without the costs of transportation or accommodation, the only thing I had to pay for was food (and maybe some beer).
Through a combination of dumpster diving (not as gross as you might think; basically everything is individually wrapped and sealed), asking for free bread/pastries that would otherwise be thrown away at bakeries just before they close, and kind people feeding me because they wanted a foreigner to experience their traditional food, I found that my food costs were almost negligible, especially in Eastern Europe where grocery stores are extremely cheap, relatively speaking. I was even able to use my native English speaking skills once to get a free restaurant meal in exchange for correcting the English grammar on the menu. While traveling with a girl who played guitar, she would play on the street to collect enough money for us to eat (and party), and I also did a little bit of freelance work editing scientific manuscripts and grant proposals from my computer to supplement my diminishing bank account when necessary.
The one other main issue to address is loneliness. Many people are nervous about solo travel or hitchhiking because they don’t want to be alone. I’m one of those people–I like to surround myself with friends all the time and really don’t like to have time to myself much at all. I go a bit crazy and get stressed when I’m alone for too long. I went out on this journey without anybody that I knew previously, but thanks to my extrovertedness and desire to never be alone, I never was. I met people to travel with through events like the Rainbow Gathering, Facebook groups, posting my travel ideas on couchsurfing and asking if anyone wants to join, and talking to the other hitchhikers I encountered at gas stations. In the end maybe only 20% of time was I hitchhiking alone (though there was the driver to talk to, so I wasn’t actually alone), and only twice did I sleep in my tent alone. I learned that my worry about loneliness was totally unfounded, because this type of travel makes it easier to build connections with people more than anything else I’ve ever done.
The List
While reflecting on my year-long trip around Europe, I wrote a list of reasons to travel alone with minimal money or plans in my journal. I’ve expanded on it a little bit for the world to see. Note that I’m basing this 100% on my personal experience, so I didn’t generalize it to “this is why you should travel alone without money or plans”, because this type of travel is definitely not for everybody. But for those who seek adventure, don’t mind some discomfort, and have an itching curiosity to discover the world, these reasons will surely apply to you too:
I connect with people on a deeper level
When you let others help you, you’ll build relationships that you would never build otherwise. Standing on the road holding out my thumb for a ride, asking around a rainy village if there are any farmers who would be willing to give a roof to sleep under in exchange for work, or explaining my trip in very basic German to a Bosnian grandmother who just cooked me a delicious traditional meal, has enabled me to connect with amazing people who I wouldn’t have met any other way. Traveling in countries where much of the population doesn’t speak English has made it so much easier to understand body language, pick out the words that have a vague similarity to English, and understand what people mean even when they can’t articulate it. And this type of travel has made it so incredibly easy to become instant friends with the other travelers I meet, because we’re on the exact same wavelength and can understand each other’s experiences and lifestyle perfectly.
I see the places I visit from a different perspective than a tourist
When I travel without much money, I’m more likely to be living like a local. In many of the countries I visited, the wages are extremely low and an average person doesn’t have money to buy the things that many tourists do. For example, in Serbia, a common wage is $1-2 an hour. Living on less than $10 a day enables me to experience life the way that many people live in that country. Driving, eating, hanging out, and staying with local people provides a much deeper understanding of a culture than any tour could ever offer.
It restores my faith in humanity
I never realized how incredibly kind and helpful the majority of people in the world are until I opened myself to their help. From the drivers who picked me up hitchhiking to the couchsurfers and other random people who gave me a roof to sleep under to the grandmothers who don’t speak a word of my language but still cooked me the most incredible meals I could ever imagine, it’s amazing to see how people get such a sense of accomplishment and fulfillment from helping a traveler. Separating myself from the media and all of it’s negativity and going to see places for myself has shown me the positive side of the world. Hitchhiking is possibly the greatest way to meet the best people, because only those who really want to help a stranger will stop for you.
I feel a sense of complete freedom
It took a little time to get used to at first, but once I gained more experience in cheap/free traveling, I began to feel a sense of complete freedom knowing that I can go anywhere without worrying about money. Money is the source of so much stress for so many people, and learning to survive and enjoy life without much of it may be the single most important thing I have learned in the past few months. Sure I may be curled up in a damp tent sleeping on the rocky ground just off the highway and spooning pickled cabbage into my mouth from a jar from time to time, but the freedom of not paying rent and not having a job to get back to enables adventures that make it more than worth it. Having no future plans gives you a complete freedom to go anywhere, do anything, never feel rushed, and have the ability to say “yes” to any opportunity that arises.
