The longer version:
One might imagine quite a lot of reasons why a long hitchhiking journey with a tiny budget to a different continent through some completely unknown countries might not be a good idea, so I will try to explain why it might be, and to convince my dear readers I haven’t lost my mind. I will speak for myself because I find it unfair to speak also for Vojta, my hitchhiking partner. Plus, he hasn’t described me his own motivation in detail either.
People usually do things to achieve a goal. But, well, does everything need to have a further goal? There sometimes are things you don’t do to achieve a goal because they are a goal themselves. For me, such a journey used to be a goal like that. I started thinking about it a long time ago, when I was a kid. I was kind of punk, hated the society (especially the fact you need to wake up early to go to school) and wanted to become homeless or a shepherd when I would grow up (tick the most appropriate option). However, when I grew up I stopped hating the society I lived in (I now appreciate it quite a lot, actually), stopped getting up early and realized that I sucked horribly at shepherding (if you’re a city person, chances are you suck at that too). I started wondering if my idea of a hitchhiking journey was still a good one. I realized it was. This is why:
Why hitchhiking? Why aren’t we going by air, buses, trains, our own car, our own tractor – except the fact that it costs money?
First of all, I just enjoy more the journey than the destination. Flying is more like a teleport rather than traveling. I don’t like the moment I appear in a different part of the world out of nowhere in a couple of hours after the start. Also, I can’t help thinking it’s my money traveling instead of me. 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). One more reason why I don’t like flying is that it uses up way too much resources from the environment.
This still doesn’t explain why I don’t use a different means of overland transport, right? The thing is, when you hitchhike, you meet plenty of different people. I can imagine this might be a bad thing if you don’t like talking to people or if you don’t like people in general.
If you like people or do not necessarily hate them, though, you might appreciate they can tell you a lot of things. About their countries, their families, their ways of life, their communities, their philosophy, their dreams… As a hitchhiker, you aren’t on business terms with people. You aren’t their customer. They are not selling you anything. So your conversation might be much more genuine than if you are a tourist. (Money is cool but I don’t wish money to be the only means of my interaction with others).
You might encounter different ways of thinking and different values. You might find out your conversation partner has a very different view about something you have always found self-evident. You might have to figure out what your attitude towards something very basic actually is – and put it into words. You might find yourself explaining your very core values. And you might change your view about something you have never thought of questioning. You peep out of your usual social bubble and might find something interesting, strange or disturbing outside. It might make you think about the world in a different way than usual.
Also, good unexpected things can happen very easily. You are invited for a visit, people suggest you interesting places to see or you completely change your plans because somebody has offered you to stay at their place for a couple of days or goes hiking with you.
Why go from Europe to Mongolia through Central Asia? There is nothing!
The answer is – that’s exactly why. As to Mongolia, I know that there used to be some guys on horses who attacked other guys with 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, there must be at least something, right? People live there, and that’s good enough.
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 you in a language you understand very badly, or it may be downright upsetting). There just are things in the world that you can’t find on internet, and these are the things I’m interested in.
Also, if you start your journey from the Czech Republic - where I happen to come from – there is no ocean to cross between you and Mongolia. And that's quite important because hitchhiking boats might be hard. Convincing people to get you on their boat without money might be difficult, and I'm a bit too shy for that.
Why travel with little money?
When I was first thinking about this trip, it was simple – I just was quite broke as a high school student. Then I happened to work and earn some money, but I stuck to the original idea because I just found that more interesting.
It is 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.
Also, I would like to try living in a bit different way than I do in my usual life. 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 (For 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… It might include a fun exercise in foreign languages and pantomime).
Traveling without money may sometimes be way less convenient than traveling with money. You may end up camping in a city park or in a house ruin when it’s freezing outside, you may hitchhike in rain, you may have to take a “shower” with a bottle of cold water, you may travel 200 km in a completely packed tiny car with your backpack on your knees… But it might be worth it. You may end up thinking a bit outside the box and find out that some things you found impossible are actually very well possible. You might find out that you are able to endure quite a lot, and that doing things is kind of more intense like this than if you do them in the “ordinary” way. (Besides, you’re surely more prepared for a zombie apocalypse.)
Why travel 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.
I am 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 to 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 (for a European). 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. 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.
I want to roam around, I don’t wish to be pressed by time like in the “normal” life. On all of my previous trips, 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 so far, but my longest trip has been one month long.) And most importantly, 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.
Last but not least – 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 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. We are not going to war zones or unstable areas or to the middle of a desert with no water. We are not 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 succeed at that. I suppose the only objectively risky thing we are doing is using cars in countries where the traffic rules are equal to what is physically possible. (Driving our own car totally wouldn’t help since the locals know way better how to get around in that 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, so I erased it. Let’s just say that I want to travel around in a hobo way in order to learn stuff because I think learning stuff is cool.
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