Hitchhiking from Michigan to Florida

Here's an amazing heartbreaking story from another hitchhiker

There is  a point in time when you could (successfully) just walk out on life. I was one of those people for a period of time. I think of it as the point when I finally took control of my life. My mom was an alkie and involved in other dangerous drugs and dad was too far away to do anything about it. My younger sister was taken by my foster grandparents when she was 10 after my mom hit her with her car (going 10mph) and my older sister ran away long before that so it was just she and I. I'll skip the prologue but suffice to say when I left I had a few scars from put-out cigarettes under my upper arm (easily concealed) as my only memory I couldn't forget and that the bullshit from everything suffocated me.

I took a duffel bag with 2 weeks worth of clothing, an ounce of grass, 400 USD and some things I was looking to pawn. This was a time when 400 bucks was a considerable amount of money and pawn shops weren't trying to scam you. They took pity on me and cut me a few deals, seeing the situation. While at the shop I bought an aftermarket Makarov, 2 boxes of ammunition and an under-the-shirt holster. After hitching to Flint, Michigan from Rockford, Illinois, I found myself in a position that almost scared me. I was finally completely independent. I was also completely independent in what is now the highest murder/rape rated city in the East coast, last time I checked. I was in a small diner when a sketchy guy asked if I needed any rock. Obviously he meant crack. I told him I'm not into that stuff, and he kept pushing, saying if I didn't take it I could make some real money selling it for him. I was done eating so I headed for the door. He got up and followed me outside. I didn't know where I was walking to, just away from him. He called my name about 5 feet behind me, and I kind of flipped. I was scared he might try to mug me or something, so I pulled the gun on him. It was easily concealable so he was pretty surprised when he saw it, but had a look like it wasn't the first time he was face-first to a barrel. I told him to fuck off and he tried telling me this shpiel about how he can tell when someone doesn't mean it when they point a gun. He said something like "It's not the finger that decides the trigger, it's the eyes. Your eyes... they're soft." and walked towards me. I of course did NOT want to shoot him, so I did the next best thing.

Hitchhiking though England

Here's a story written for me by a fellow traveler who goes by the name Copernicious. 

I had the interesting challenge over the summer of having to alter my comfortable routine of living in the wilderness to suit the environment of southern England, which is bustling and very densely-populated. If you've been through the seventh grade, you've probably read Gary Paulsen's book Hatchet -- it felt kind of the reverse of that. After finishing my first year at university in Scotland (I was brought up by hippies in rural Maine), the only thing for me to do was to explore the fabled Highlands. This I did for four glorious weeks, living deliberately and all that. I had promised, however, to be at a wedding which took place in Oxford in mid July. My desire not to spend any money was out of habit more than necessity, but I formed the plan of hitchhiking all the way, tenting it where I could, and hoping my outdoor skills would still be of use in the modernized towns and farmland.

First, a bit about the basic mechanics of hitching in the UK. I found that the further south I got, the longer I'd have to wait. Also with towns closer together the rides are usually shorter. Anyone who says the Greater London Area doesn't spider out right into the Midlands is lying. What I resorted to was the ol' whiteboard routine (except I used newspaper and a ball-point pen -- making signs took ages), standing outside rest stops along A-roads (the equivalent of Interstates). The problem with this method is that it'll likel get you right into the middle of the big cities. I narrowly avoided getting plunked off in the middle of Glasgow, but I hit Birmingham dead-on, and it's not the kind of place you'd want to leave your thumb exposed. I won't put a blanket label of unpleasantness on all English cities, but I'd suggest having a compelling reason to travel to one, and and bus fare when you can't stand the heat and holy rollers any more.

I'd gotten a bit spoiled in Scotland, which has passed revolutionary laws regarding camping. You can pitch a tent almost anywhere as long as it's not blatantly in someone's back yard, and you don't frighten livestock. I was shouted at once by some early-morning golfers whose putting green I had infested, but if that's the only thing that annoys a Scot, well God bless them. In England, however, this is not the case. "In England we're too lazy to come up the hill and tell you to feck off" I was told by one aged man, and of course you're not going to get fined or arested if you kip in a cornfield. The only thing is, it's hard to be subtle when unused land simply doesn't exist. Coming from America it's hard to imagine, but finding enough trees to conceal your tent can be the work of an afternoon. I pitched up on traffic islands and behind grocery stores, and during a rainstorm broke into a construction site caravan. Ultimately my advice regarding this: don't be as paranoid as I was; get comfortable and leave if somebody asks you. Happily, there are very few midges down south. I cannot exaggerate enough how bad it can get in Scotland. If you're moving or there's a decent breeze, you're fine. Sit down near a stream or some long grass, and you may imagine the sensation of your face being enveloped in a woolen blanket. I welcomed the possibility of sleeping out under the stars.

I won't say much about finding places to sleep in towns, because I don't think I did a very good job of it. If there wasn't a 24 hour bus station, I'd head for a well-lit bench with lots of CCTV coverage. While I was never bothered, that's not a system could have sustained. Many 'persons of distributed living' began to approach me in the towns, which at first I didn't understand, not having realized how scruffy I'd got. After being asked for the first time, "are you on the streets?" I replied, after some thought, that to be alone and penniless in the mountains is to be an adventurer; but in suburbia it meant I was a bum. I had some wonderful conversations with people who were obviously quite comfortable being homeless. I declined two invitations to free meals at city churches, and visited a community that lived in wicker huts by the river outside of Stratford-upon-Avon. It was constantly being on the road, it seemed, that made me so uncomfortable during this time, while stagnation would have been torture up in Scotland.

You can eat well anywhere in the UK for very cheap, due to rather extreme competition between generic brand foods. 14 pence will get you a can of awful spaghetti; 38p, a can of meatballs; 50p, a loaf of bread. I am very serious about proper nutrition while travelling, but even so I found I was living comfortably on £2 a day. I'd splurge at a restaurant every week or two, just to keep the tanks full. If you're not awfully strapped for cash, you will eat well. Another thing I suddenly had to deal with in England was not being able to drink out of streams. I wouldn't do this so much in the States, but if there's a small stream with no sheep fields above it I am happy to stick my face in and suck, maybe filter through a bandanna to get the spiders out. Hose pipes are scarce, and I ended up just buying water, which again is cheap.

Hygene is obviously extremely important when hitchhiking. If there's a small, flowing stream, I'm happy to bathe in it or do laundry; the colder it is, the more of a mountain man one feels. I use Dr Bronner's castille soap, which is biodegradable and is perfect for camping -- being highly concentrated you don't have to carry much. Half a teaspoon was enough to wash my mop of hair. When it came to the city I figured that I wouldn't care if I walked into a public bathroom to find some guy washing his hair, so nobody else would either.