TRAVEL AND TRANSPORT
There are plenty of ways to get where you need to go. If you have a car, there’s probably no need to explain how to drive somewhere. The important thing is that you need to get somewhere. What are your options?
Hitchhiking is risky. You should know that before you even consider it. Personally, I think it is a lot less risky than most people think, but there are plenty of horror stories about what happens to hitchhikers, particularly women by themselves. I don’t recommend hitchhiking to anyone, but I’ve had some great experiences thumbing it in twenty states and a dozen or more countries. There are a few things that can minimize your risk if you choose to stick out your thumb.
Trust your instincts… ask where someone is going when they stop, before you get in their car. If anything (like crushed beer cans on the floor, a smell, the way they talk, or just a feeling) makes you nervous about the person then come up with a reason to tell them why you don’t want the ride. Don’t get in the car if anything tells you not to. Run away screaming down the road if you have to.
If at all possible keep your bag where you are riding until you trust the person.
Tell the person that you are expected someplace up the road and that you have recently talked to someone from where they picked you up (even if you haven’t.)
If during the course of the ride you begin to feel nervous, ask to be let off. Insist on being let off.
(I rarely accept invitations to stay at someone’s house, shower, or have a meal unless I feel positive that the person has no ulterior motive. Why put yourself in a wolf’s den unnecessarily? All I want is a ride.
I don’t know how much good it would do in any circumstance, as I’ve never had to use it, but I like to have my knife accessible and close by.
Get to know the person, ask questions, and talk to them about them rather than about you. Even psychos feel more kindly about someone who takes an interest in them and doesn’t tell them that they are wrong. A ride is not the time to get on your soapbox, so even if you disagree with a person, don’t tell them they are wrong about anything. If you disagree so much about something that you can’t contain yourself, ask them to pull over and get out of the car.
I like hitchhiking, but it’s not for everyone. There are a few things that can increase your chances of getting a ride.
1) Dress nice and look clean. Nobody wants to pick up someone who smells bad or looks like they don’t take care of themselves.
2) Pick the spot you hitch from with care. Make sure there is an area that drivers can pull safely off the road past you.
3) If you have a choice, hitch where there are more poor people on the road. People from all walks of life have picked me up, but by and large poor people understand what it means to need a ride better than the rich do. Poor people are also much less suspicious that you are going to try to rob them or take their car. After all, who would want to steal a 1977 Pinto?
4) Flying a piece of cardboard with a well known destination shows motorists that you are a legitimate traveler trying to get to a legitimate destination, even if you are not.
Swimming. I’m not a good enough swimmer to get anywhere but from the beach to about 100 yards out and back. I hear that some people can swim miles though. It’s not very practical unless you want to swim across the Rio Grande.
Biking. My good friend George Hush rode his bike from Los Angeles to Seattle. I have other friends that have rode to Alaska. If you want to bike long distance be sure you have a decent bike, that you know how to fix it, and that you can carry the gear you will need.
Walking and Running. Run Forest Run! Francis Tapon walked across America twice. Forest Gump ran for what seemed like years. This is a good way to get from one place to another. I try to walk at least a couple miles a day. It’s good for downtown, it’s good for the beach, and it’s good if you have a problem you need to think about and the time to think about it.
Bus. Traveling by bus is relatively cheap. The drawbacks are that you never know who you are going to be on the bus with, who’s going to sit next to you, it takes forever, and the ride is generally uncomfortable. Sometimes you get lucky, sometimes you don’t. Greyhound stations are always in the seedy part of town.
Trains. Traveling by train, on the other hand, is romantic. Someday I’d like to hop a freight train but I haven’t yet. For now, I’ll talk strictly about passenger trains. I’ve ridden trains on four continents. Trains are by far my favorite way to travel. You can move around. They are comfortable. You can consume alcohol. Trains can cost nearly as much as flying and take far longer, but the trip is always worth it.
Planes. I’d have loved to live in the days when people dressed up to fly. Unfortunately, flying is not too much different from riding on a Greyhound in the sky. The exception to that is when you fly on the airlines of second or third world countries, there is still a feeling of luxury and excitement as when the passengers applaud the flight attendants in Taipei or when you are served a truly gourmet meal aboard a flight in Laos. Flying takes you from one place to another quickly and sometimes that results in culture shock.
Boats. Traveling on the water is always fun. The worst time I’ve ever had on a boat was when my brother and I took a cruise from Fort Lauderdale to Grand Bahama on a cheap cruise ship. The ship was nice; it was the passengers that sucked. Fat, old, white tourists who were too cheap to pay for a decent cruise — just like us. Other than that I love to travel on boats. Sunset cruises in Hawaii, riding the ferry between Malaysia and Sumatra, riding the ferry to the San Juan Islands, catching a lift on a fishing boat in Juneau, Alaska. Boats are cool. The only problem with boats is the people you sometimes end up trapped with.
By Hook or By Crook. The bottom line to all of this is that there are ways to get and do what you want even if you are a person of limited means. Sure, you might have to bend the rules a little to make a situation more favorable. You might even do something illegal once in a while. But, by and large, I’ve found that if you don’t hurt anyone your life is generally better for it.
A Note on Cops. The police can’t stop someone from committing a crime against you. They can’t stop the mugger, rapist, murderer, robber, or vandal. Sometimes they can catch them after the fact. Sometimes they can punish them. The police have never kept me from getting beat up, robbed, or shot at.
In fact, all law enforcement has ever done for me is to make me paranoid and written me tickets. They’ve given local and state governments the ability to charge me large sums of money creating a class system based on the ability to pay for your crime. They’ve taken money I might have done something good with and put it toward more of the government I don’t want in the first place. I hate that.
People are usually able to commit the crime first. Graffiti in public places with spray paint is a perfect example of that. The police are useless to stop people from committing crimes. Sure, they might catch me, but the deed would be done. The police exist to intimidate us into behaving and to catch criminals after the fact. That is their main function as far as I can tell. Personally, I think they should all be given brooms and made to actually go out and clean the communities they are responsible for.
The police are constantly trying to catch you in the act of committing a crime. They are constantly trying to pin a crime on someone who may or may not have committed the crime. The police are an intimidation force. They exist to scare us into subservience. To scare us into following the rules. The truth is we are all criminals. We all break the law every day. I don’t know anyone who doesn’t speed, jaywalk, or commit some infraction of the law on a daily basis. Even Presidents like Lincoln (Honest Abe) lied under oath. Politicians commit crimes while they are in office. So does every prison warden, cop, politician, and businessperson. We are all criminals waiting to be caught. Some of us are just a little more realistic (and honest) about it than others.