hitchhiking | Creative Choice

Non-destructive Travel

There has been a lot of fuzz about our "carbon footprint" and most articles on non-destructive traveling start and end with quoting our unsustainably high carbon dioxide emissions on international flights. The obvious result of these well-intended pieces is that readers can't hear it any longer and lose interest in non-destructive travel altogether.

The ...

24 September, 2011

Kamiel Choi

budget, budget travel, couchsurfing, ebook, essay, footprint, hitchhiking, non-destructive, organic farms, sustainability, Travel

February 23. Guesthouse Goedehoop.

We leave Gaborone today, after a lazy morning and a warm goodbye to Sheldon and Gudrun. Up on the main road with thumbs in the air and some smiling policemen take care of us. Our remaining Pulas bring us neatly to the border. Stamping and re-entering the RSA is a whistle of a cent, but ...

8 April, 2010

Kamiel Choi

hitchhiking, RSA

February 18. Hitching it off.

Charles is driving a big truck all the way down to Gaborone. The Chinese-built road cuts sharply through the endless arid plains of Botswana. He spots some elephants trotting along the road with an intense crimson sunset in the background. He arrives in Gaborone ahead of schedule, as early as 3:50 in the morning. He ...

8 April, 2010

Kamiel Choi

Botwana, hitchhiking

February 10. Zimbabwe.

We enter Zimbabwe safe and simply by hitchhiking. A couple takes us all the way for a minor gas contribution. We end up in a typical Zimbabwean household, the head of it introduces himself as an entrepreneur waiting to make his next move as he struggles with the symptoms of the dictatorial regime. He calls ...

8 April, 2010

Kamiel Choi

hitchhiking, Volens, Zimbabwe

January 13-15. To the village.

An Irish priest is not necessarily a Samaritan.
We wake up in Talek and get a ride to Narok. But it is too late to hitch further to Kisumu and we are stuck for the night. A friendly guy, county clerk by profession, brings us to the house of an Irish priest. He is not ...

31 January, 2010

Kamiel Choi

hitchhiking, Irish priest, Kenya, Kisumu, village

Travel

November 19. Petra.

Waking up not too early since this is supposed to be a vacation day. We walk to the entrance of the archelogical marvel that is called Petra, and I buy a one-day pass (one day: 21 JD, two days: 26 JD as of november 2009. Be smart and buy a two-day-pass if you really ...

24 November, 2009

Kamiel Choi

Ad-Deir, Beduins, Egypt, ferry, hitchhiking, Petra

November 2. Move it! On to Syria.

I can't make it back to Adana in time, so I won't visit an ACEV meeting myself. I kindly ask them for some photographs to publish on my website, along with their contact information because there might be visitors - occasional internet surfers - who would want to make a donation. They will provide me ...

13 November, 2009

Kamiel Choi

Aleppo, Antakya, Clint Eastwood, hitchhiking

September 5. Faster than your shadow.

The world is big
Friends, tell me her story to-night
May be she is listening
Sing not about how small you are
Sing not about how frail you are
Friends, tell me her story to-night

This saturday I say goodbye to my Greek friend who takes me to what turns out to be the ...

11 September, 2009

Kamiel Choi

hitchhiking, Mercedes, Thessaloniki

July 28. Hitchhiking #3.

Back in Europe. We try to catch a ride to Samara, Kazan, or all the way to Moscow. It has been enough for me. The 23-year old I am hitching with naturally takes the lead and decides what we do without asking me. I like him, but there is something missing. Why do I care? ...

24 August, 2009

Kamiel Choi

donkey, hitchhiking, Ufa

July 27. Hitchhiking #2.

Victor has been robbed. They took 2000 dollar from him, he tells us. Now he is on his way to Novosibirsk and beyond to see his family. He travels with an electric guitar and "on the road" is a nice book if you travel by thumb and I pay for his coffee that is cheap ...

24 August, 2009

Kamiel Choi

hitchhiking, Novosibirsk, Ufa

July 26. Hitchhiking #1.

Morning. I try to make coffee but forget the water. Sorry. Then we say goodbye to Vera, who has been a formidable host. Then we go hitchhiking. Getting out of Novosibirsk takes a while, we take a wrong train, wait for a minibus that takes us to the highway direction Omsk. Some hours we stand ...

24 August, 2009

Kamiel Choi

hitchhiking, Omsk

July 25. Stalked!

A day in Novosibirsk. We hang out in the park, take photographs of this far-out metropole, and I retreat in the travelers café again to write I don't remember what. As long as what you do is spirited, there are some gods that want you to do it, they say. They? No, alright, I say ...

24 August, 2009

Kamiel Choi

hitchhiking, Novosibirsk, stalked

June 7. Mexico!

I get up at 5am again, this time to be picked up by a shuttle bus to Palenque, Mexico. It is an eight-hour busride including a long section on a bumpy dirtroad. But the scenery is simply beautiful. Busrides can be a real attraction. This one includes another exciting complication: the border to Mexico. We ...

10 June, 2009

Kamiel Choi

busride, David Bowie, hitchhiking, impuesto, Maya, Mexico, national park, Palenque, sex

writing

March 19.

Daniel works at the Argentinian Correos. He is a very friendly and goodlooking guy. He travels daily between Cordoba and Buenos Aires for three months now. Before, he went to all parts of Argentina - he knows every Correos headquarter in the country. His camionette is accompagnied by a custodia-car to protect him from robbers ...

Kamiel Choi

Correas, hitchhiking, narrative

March 9. Hitchhiking to Chile.

A day of full-blown hitchhiking excitement. We started off in San Martin, took a local bus to some place in the direction of Junin that threw us out in some barrio with dusty dirt roads and a beautiful scenery. We walked back to the paved road and stuck out our thumbs the way Chris McCandles ...

Kamiel Choi

Chile, clinic, cross, hitchhiking, Lanin, volcano

March 8.

Making the concepts of death and peace converge, how's that for universal religion?

In the Mapuche village near San Martin de los Andes a child held the barrier for the tourists. We walked around; the people had conserved some aspects of their traditional lifestyle. A girl herded some sheep. I photographed some goats. Their ...

Kamiel Choi

Andes, art, hitchhiking, Junin, San Martin

A hitchhiker’s guide to Paris

On december 29th, I decided to hitchhike to Paris together with my brother. Just so, without any real reason (perhaps a visit to the museum Orsay, I thought). It turned out to be pretty easy: we caught our rides quick enough to arrive in the City of Love at night. Taken into account the fact ...

31 December, 2008

Kamiel Choi

brother, hitchhiking, Paris

Heading North…

The next day I felt my time had come to finally go to Lapland. So I said goodbye to Anna-Sofia and went to the train station. The personnel told me student rebate was not available for foreign students, which was a good excuse for me to go hitchhiking. It was raining outside and I should ...

31 October, 2008

Kamiel Choi

Eskola, hitchhiking, luck, Oulu, road, Tampere, Vaasa

How to get to Tallinn

Now I knew the drill: bus - hostel - bus - hostel - bus - and it already had gotten a little bit boring.
So I decided to travel a bit differently from now on. From Riga I took a very slow train to Sigulda where a nice castle should be located. I didn't see ...

16 October, 2008

Kamiel Choi

hitchhiking, party, Tallinn, truck