Hitchhiking Tales from Valery Shanin

Valery Shanin

About Round-the-World Trips

On my first round-the-world trip I spent $280 and three years: I traveled from the end of 1999 to the end of 2002, left with $300, returned with $20. Everything was by a strict plan: I only moved by hitchhiking and on passing ships, saved on everything, slept for free all the time – either at people's homes, in nature, or in temples and monasteries. In some places I stayed to earn money, for example, half a year in Australia on a flower farm growing roses. I was housed in a luxurious old house with a full subscription to National Geographic magazine.

I went on the second round-the-world trip in 2007-2008, covering the world in 108 days. That time I traveled as a guide, at different stages fellow tourists joined me whom I drove, in 108 nights we only hitchhiked three times and slept under the open sky, the rest of the time everything was very civilized: we slept in hotels, moved by public transport.

The most vivid was the third round-the-world trip, which lasted nine months: from September 19, 2009 to June 1, 2010. It took place under the motto 'Around the World Without Visas!'. I decided to show that with a Russian international passport you can now freely travel the world. I planned to visit 48 countries, only managed 38, and never once entered any embassy or consulate and did not get a single visa. I traveled only through visa-free countries: Europe, Africa, the Middle East, Asia, Oceania, South and Central America. The route included 33 flights. I made a deal with one website, sent them materials, they paid me $25 per text. Accordingly, I started without money and finished without money.

Such a journey, probably, no one can repeat, it was so diverse. There we did not limit ourselves by any principles: we could start the morning in a hotel, after breakfast go out on the highway, hitchhike, sleep somewhere in nature, in the morning go catch crabs, boil them for breakfast in a pot, walk to a bus stop, buy a ticket for an intercity bus, and so on. In a day, my companions and I could switch two or three times from penniless mode to bourgeois mode and back.

About Transport

During my travels I move mainly by hitchhiking, on the highway in passing cars. Although sometimes, of course, I had to use exotic means of transport. At the end of the first round-the-world trip, I returned from Ecuador to St. Petersburg on a banana boat, ate only bananas for three weeks. I didn't eat them for twenty years after that. I flew on a UN plane from East Timor to Australia. On the last trip through Turkey, we traveled across the whole country, without splitting up, as a group of nine people, for that we only hitched tractors with trailers so that everyone could fit.

I sometimes take my daughters on trips. For my third round-the-world trip, one joined me in Croatia, the other in Argentina. They flew in by plane, traveled with me for a couple of weeks and flew back.

About Encounters

The most memorable encounter happened to me in America, in the state of Iowa: it was the only time in my life when I was entrusted with the controls and I flew a plane. It happened like this: I was hitchhiking across the USA and ended up in the rural backwoods of Iowa: all around were just farms. The sun was setting, I was on the highway, thinking, well, that's it, I won't hitchhike at night, I'll have to sleep in the cornfield. Then a beat-up car drives up, a workhorse jalopy. A guy sits inside: in overalls, all splattered with paint. I say to him: 'Can you give me a ride to the city? Get me out of this wilderness.' He says: 'Okay, let's go.'

We started talking, it turned out he was the owner of a house painting company, 15 people work for him. And he also works with them because he has a hobby – an airplane. And just owning a business and sitting at home on retirement he supposedly couldn't afford it. At least, that's how he explained the situation to me.

We met on Saturday evening and, as it turned out, extremely lucky. Because he works six days a week and only flies on Sundays. He invited me to his place, we spent the night there and in the morning went to the airfield. There he says:

'Which direction are you heading?'
'To Chicago.'
'Well, we don't have enough fuel for Chicago, but I'll drop you halfway there.'

We got into his small plane, took off, got on course, he hands me the controls and says: 'Go ahead, steer by compass.' I thought he had turned on the autopilot and was joking with me, so I took the controls and turned left. We nearly went into a dive! He helped level out, and I spent the whole flight at the controls...