Our first adventure begins today: Trans-Canada by hitchhiking

We are in Newfoundland, the easternmost point of Canada and North America. This is where the Trans-Canada Highway begins, one of the longest highway systems in the world, only the Pan American Highway (cheats because Darién Gap), the Australian Highway 1 (cheats because it's a circle) and the Trans-Siberian Highway (well, the Russians won) are even longer. But what are we doing here at the start of a 7,500 kilometre road (I've looked at maps, 7,500 kilometres gets you from North Germany to Alaska, or to Beijing or just not to the coast of Brazil) and why is Leah cautiously raising her thumb in the air? We want to take on the ultimate challenge and cross Canada by hitchhiking. In doing so, we are following in the faded footsteps of my past, when I once hitchhiked across Canada after graduating from high school.

We have the ten provinces of Canada ahead of us, at least 90 hours by car and who knows how many hours of waiting at the side of the road. Leah has never hitchhiked before. I wonder why she agreed to it in the first place. Anyway, it's too late now to change her mind, there are no more rental cars available and public transport doesn't really exist in Newfoundland. Now we're standing here, the sun is already beating down and we're completely resigned to our fate.

„Celebrate the starting point of the greatest of all Canadian adventures, the Trans-Canada Highway. Safe Travels!“

Mile Zero information board in St. John's, NL

Why do we do this to ourselves and hitchhike? In the past, up until the 90s, not everyone had a car and hitchhiking was common and widespread. Many people, even in Germany, travelled short or long distances with their thumbs and only light luggage in cars that gave them a lift. What happened then that hitchhiking experienced such a decline and got a bad image? Has the world become more criminal since then? If you do a bit of research, you always come back to one point: rather than hitchhiking becoming more dangerous or unsafe, people have simply became more afraid to give lifts to strangers. There also seem to have been PR campaigns by the car industry that contributed to the fear. After all, hitchhiking is bad for the car business. In fact, government information campaigns have been launched in Canada in particular, advising against hitchhiking. From a business and road safety perspective, it makes sense to limit hitchhiking. On the other hand, it is obvious nowadays that the on or other regulation has not exactly led to society growing together, but have promoted a lifestyle that is no longer so much dependent on a functioning community. The consequences decades later are social anxiety, loneliness, a decline in trust and a refuge in extremism.

We are increasingly focussed on our own advantage, it's all about ourselves, maybe our family members and friends who we still help. Other people around you become just annoying objects that get in the way of your personal happiness. I find the term dehumanisation apt, as it illustrates my own thinking very well when I get upset about other people. For example, if someone cuts me off in the street or someone at work would ask too many questions, then I would see this person more as an object that stands in the way of my personal individual well-being. In doing so, I overlook the fact that people do have feelings and sensitivities that guide them. Am I probably just an object for others that needs to be cleared out of the way?

Back on the road: hopefully we won't literally be cleared out of the way, but can successfully start our mission, trying to counteract the dangerous image of hitchhiking and show that strangers are just friends you haven't met yet (okay, that's a greasy calendar quote)... show that behind every stranger, if you don't dehumanise them straight away, there is an interesting and complex life story from which you can learn for yourself. And at the same time you are also a valuable person to talk to for them.

Travelling really is a school for life, and hitchhiking even more so. Above all, it is learning to wait, to surrender completely to fate, to give up control and no longer be able to decide everything. We willingly go to a place where spontaneous happiness will come to us, it is almost inevitable. Even if you are standing on the road and one car after another drives past you, and you initially fear that you won't get a lift, that you will have to spend the night there or, in the worst case, that you will have to abandon your journey. All the greater then is the happiness of flashing brake lights, the first visual check in the car to see if everything looks "normal" (in Canada: Tim Horton's in the cup holder and a hockey stick on the back seat) and the gratitude for every single kilometre that we didn't have to walk.

At the same time, you learn how to talk to different people, how to adapt to different humours, how to try to clarify German stereotypes. It's interesting that a special bond develops when hitchhiking, as the hitchhiker and the driver don't actually know each other and will probably never meet again, but they spend a long time together and want to reveal something about themselves. In this respect, a hitchhiker is usually a better person to talk to than good friends, for example, as you can confide all sorts of things to someone - you never see each other again anyway. So you hear all kinds of life dramas, business ideas and whatever else is on your mind. Of course, you're not innocent either and add your share of rubbish to the conversation.

So we're on a mission to challenge and test the bad image of hitchhiking while travelling fast and budget-friendly across Canada. Our challenge is to get from the Atlantic to the Pacific without any money. We start in St John's, Newfoundland, and end somewhere on the Pacific Ocean. We have no budget available for transport and accommodation. Only local buses are allowed (as hitchhiking within towns is really annoying). However, if we get money as a gift, we can spend it on transport and accommodation in case we get stuck somewhere. We have six weeks, then Leah wants to head to South America. Can we make it?