Why are we doing this?

Why the hell not!

Well, one might imagine quite a lot of reasons why not, so I will try to explain here why yes and to convince my dear readers I haven’t lost my mind. I will speak for myself because Vojta, my hitchhiking partner, also knows how to write. Plus, he hasn’t explained it to me either.

When people do things, they usually do them to achieve an aim. But, well, does everything need to have an aim? Are there things you don’t do for some aim because they are the aim themselves? For me, such a journey used to be an aim like that. It was mostly because I started thinking about it a long time ago, when I was a kid, a kind of punk, hated my society (especially the fact that you need to wake up early to go to school) and wanted to become a homeless or a shepherd when I would grow up (circle the most appropriate option). However, when I grew old I stopped hating my society (I now appreciate it quite a lot, actually), stopped getting up early and realized that I sucked horribly as a shepherd (if you’re a city person, try to make a herd of sheep enter a truck – you may realize that too). And I started thinking about reasons why hitchhiking with a tiny budget to a different continent through some completely unknown countries might (or might not) be a good idea. (Eventually I foud out it still was a good one.)

To start, why hitchhiking? Why not going by air, buses, trains, my own car, my own tractor – except the fact that it costs money?

First of all, flying is cheating! It’s like a teleport, it’s not traveling. It’s your money traveling, not you.

Nope, in fact, I just enjoy more the journey than the destination. I don’t like the moment when you appear in a different part of the world in a couple of hours out of nowhere – I enjoy much more the slow progress you make when you hitchhike, cycle or walk. I like unexpected things and I let them happen. (When an unexpected thing happens in the air, chances are high it’s a bad one, though). And I don’t like flying because it uses up way too much resources from the environment.

Moreover, when you hitchhike, you meet all sorts of people. I can imagine it might be a negative thing if you don’t like people – but if you like them or do not necessarily hate them, they can tell you a lot of things. About their countries, their families, their ways of life, their communities… You can experience different ways of thinking. As a hitchhiker, you aren’t on business terms with people – you aren’t their customer – they are not selling you anything – and your conversation might be much more genuine than if you are a tourist. (Money is cool but I don’t wish it to be the only means of my interaction with others). Also, unexpected things can happen very easily – and they are often positive. You are invited for a visit, people suggest you interesting places to see or you completely change your plans because somebody offers you to stay at their place for a couple of days or goes hiking with you. Besides that, you peep out of your usual social bubble and might find something interesting, strange or disturbing outside – and it makes you think about the world in a different way than usual.

Second, why from Europe to Mongolia through Central Asia? There is nothing!

The answer is – that’s exactly why. As for Mongolia, I know that there used to be some guys on horses who attacked other guys with fewer horses and that people live in yurts in there. That’s pretty much it. As for the Central Asian countries, I can (almost) find them on the map, I know the names of their capitals and I’ve been told at school that some of them had oil. There are in fact very little things I know about them as an ordinary European. However, people also live in there, don’t they?  So there must be at least something, right?

I don’t need to see the most important monuments in the world and the whole UNESCO heritage list (Vojta says there indeed are some UNESCO sites in Central Asia, but I don't really care). I’m more interested in how people live at different places and what they think (even though it might be difficult to understand if they tell it to you in a language you know four words of, or it may be downright upsetting). There just are things in the world that you can’t google. 

Also, a very simple reason is that if you start your journey from the Czech Republic - where I happen to come from - there is no huge ocean between you and Mongolia. And that's quite important because hitchhiking boats might be a pain in the neck. It requires a lot of effort to persuade people, and I'm a bit too shy for that.

Third, why with little money?

When I was first thinking about this trip, it was simple – I just had no money. Then I happened to work and earn some, but I sticked to the original idea because I just found it more interesting. It is in part connected to what I said before about hitchhiking. On this journey, I don’t want to do business with people. Also, I find it safer – I prefer not to become a walking wallet that anyone might want to scam or to steal from. Sure, it can still very well happen but if you use as little paid services as possible and start many of your interactions by “sorry, I travel without money”, you can discourage some scammers from dealing with you straight away. 

Another reason is that I would like to try living in a bit different way than I do at home. We are so much used to buying everything for money that we can’t even imagine trying to do stuff without it. And people tend so much to think that it is impossible to travel if you are not rich that I would like to show the contrary. 

If you don’t pay for things, you must be more inventive to get them in a different way (a simple example: you need water. You either can buy it, or you might try asking locals whether there is a source nearby, whether the tap water is suitable for drinking and whether they can give you some… Foreign languages and pantomime exercise included.). 

It also may be much less comfortable. You may end up camping in a city park or in a house ruin when it’s freezing outside, you are hitchhiking in rain, you try to take a “shower” with a bottle of cold water, you travel 200 km in a completely packed tiny car with your backpack on your knees… But it might be worth it. You end up thinking a bit outside the box, you find out that some things you found impossible are actually very well possible, that you are able to endure quite a lot and you may find that doing things is kind of more intense like this than if you do them in the “ordinary” way. (Besides, you’re more prepared for a zombie apocalypse. No doubt.)  

 Fourth, why for several months?

Is a 2 weeks’ holiday not enough? Do I not have a career to build, taxes to pay, mortgage to repay, kids to make and family to sustain?

Mongolia is far away from Czechia. That’s why.
And I’m lucky enough my family can sustain itself at the moment (and my boyfriend is a really tolerant person). I’m also lucky enough to live in a rich (some Western-Europeans and my fellow countrymen might be surprised I’m saying this) Eastern-European country where an average income allows you to live comfortably if you only sustain yourself, and to put some money aside if you’re a bit modest and don’t drink much beer. As for taxes and all the other stuff you must pay in exchange for living in civilization, in my country there are ways how to legally suspend all of them if you don’t work and are abroad. 

The rest is a question of preference in our part of the world. I can imagine my career may suffer but it’s still worth for me. I'm not working on finding a cure for cancer, nor am I a firefighter, so I doubt the world will suffer from my absence in the economy system. I even think I will be more useful to humanity by reducing my carbon footprint, by finding out what is the life in other countries like and by sharing my experience with those who would be interested.

To achieve this, I want to roam around, I don’t wish to be pressed by time like in the “normal” life. On every trip, there were moments when I thought it would be great to go to some more places, a bit further – but I needed to go back to school or work. I wish to have enough time to be led by chance and to experience what it is like to be on the road. If I want to try living in a different way than I’m used to, it requires a bit more time than an average holiday. I’d like to find out how long I need to travel in a hobo way before I realize that I want to go home and to live in a civilized way again. (This has never happened to me yet, but my longest trip has been one month long.) And most important, there are many countries I don’t know and many things I want to learn. A couple of months is not enough either, but it’s better than 2 weeks.

Finally – am I not afraid? Is it not horribly dangerous?

I indeed am afraid. But not as much that it could stop me. I am lucky enough I haven’t been traumatized by anything real so far, so I’m mostly afraid of the unknown. (I suppose that’s what most people are afraid of, though.) Sure, there are bad things that can happen, such as car crashes, accidents, running into assholes... But these things can happen when I stay at home, too. We try to be reasonable and don’t do things that really might be risky – such as going to war zones or unstable areas, going to the middle of a desert with no water, telling cops they are morons and telling customs officers their country’s leaders are damn dictators. We wish to get home safe and are doing the best to make it. I suppose that the only objectively risky thing we are doing is using cars in countries where the traffic rules are equal to what is physically possible, where seat belts are used as a fashion accessory you usually fasten on the back of your seat so that it looks more cool and where the turn signal is a swearword. (Driving our own car totally wouldn’t help since the locals know way better how to get around in this mess.) At the same time, the fact that we are hitchhiking helps us because people can sometimes warn us against a danger or tell us what to be aware of.

I wanted to add some wise summary here, but it all sounded terribly general and shallow, and I erased it. So, let’s just say here that I want to roam around in a hobo way in order to learn stuff because I think learning stuff is cool.