Hitchhiking in the truest sense means travelling free by asking for lifts from people going in the same direction. From the perspective of someone looking into this situation from outside. He/ She will feel that the benefits are only monetary, and people who don’t have enough money, do this.
But, that’s not the case nowadays, hitchhiking has taken the place of sports. It is an adventure activity that people do for the sake of the excitement they get. In fact, there are a lot of hitching competitions that happen around the world. It is fun, it is simple and it is extremely cost efficient.
I wonder if there is anything more perfect than hitchhiking.
I Aakash Ranison have been associated with hitchhiking for a very simple cause, travelling cheap. Nevertheless, the first time I tried it, I realised there was more to it than just free travel. People judged me on a lot of things in a few seconds and then stopped by to help me. They opened up their hearts to me, and through the course of the journey, I often heard beautiful stories about life and its dynamic experiences. In return, I shared with them instances from my life. Basically, I was able to experience the life through their eyes.
This was an amazing feeling for me, I was drawn to it. Isn’t that what people yearn for; warmth, care? Hitchhiking gave me all that. Until date, I have already hitchhiked 48,000+ KMs and have travelled through the backseat of a lot of amazing people. Some of these instances were good, some bad. But, one thing was for sure, all of these were worth experiencing.
For example, there was this person who gave me a lift and since the day was about to end he offered me shelter as well. There was this another incident where a person dropped me to my destination and then waited over there for me to finish my work and then dropped me back to where I wanted to go. He suggested ‘you may not find any vehicle here, go do your work fast. I’ll be waiting here’. This act of a complete stranger is an example of how beautiful life can be, and how useful hitchhiking is.
I urge you people to go out of your homes, hitchhike to somewhere nearby to begin with and experience the beauty of hitchhiking.
I thus realised the importance of sharing these experiences and hence I’ve decided to write about them here. This blog will feature content for all those people who are new to hitchhiking.