Hitchhiking British Columbia: Video blogs and my opinion of hitchhiking

So, I kind of ran away. And by 'kind of' I mean, I totally did.

Without getting too into it - life got a little difficult for a while and I needed to escape for a bit.

I had heard/seen the wonders of Canada's west coast for so long, by so many close friends and knew I needed to go see it for myself. The whole trip came together extremely last minute and through some last minute coordinating with my long time friend, Jess, I found myself in Vancouver with no plans. It was the best.

The whole thing was pretty well documented through raw (aka shitty) video blogs and I couldn't be more happy about that. With my recent intrigue with video and the process of creating video blogs (see: Casey Neistat) I was excited use this trip as a way to test this style of work. I'll plug the videos throughout the following post.

Besides the video blogs this was also my first time hitchhiking and I've been anxious to talk about my experience trying it.

First off - I wasn't murdered, abused, scared, or creeped out at all. My longest wait time was 45 minutes and literally every person that picked me up was an intriguing, kind, and positive influence on my trip.

I feel hitchhiking has such a bad rep in todays society and I find that so disappointing. I grew up hearing stories of older generations hitchhiking adventures and for so long assumed that was a dream unreachable by todays standards. But, through experience, I've learned that this is so far from true. People are still more than willing to fill their empty seats with someone in need.

Peoples outlook on hitchhiking today is so closely connected with our depiction that the world is a scary place. Media has pumped us so full of fear that the thought of hitchhiking seems to be associated with a death wish. This isn't true - although, yes, there's a lot of horrible things going on, people are still human. There are still people that will go out of their way to help a stranger out, there's still people that don't need payment for good deeds, and, believe it or not, there's still people on the road that aren't murderers.

The most interesting thing I found out about the people that picked me up were the fact that they all knew someone personally who has hitchhiked. When I asked each driver why they picked me up they all responded with someone along the lines of 'well, my brother is like you' or 'my son got stranded and some kind people picked him up'. It seemed that each driver needed that story or reassurance that hitchhikers are not a threat and, even potentially like one of their loved ones.

So, here I am - you know someone that's hitchhiked just over a thousand kilometres. I made it, and it was an amazing experience. I wasn't murdered and I didn't even once consider harming anyone. 

(Disclaimer - be responsible. Use your instincts - if your soul is telling you not to hitchhike/pick up a driver, don't do it. Also, if you're going to hitchhike be clean and smile - that was apparently my trick)