Pauline is 29 and has traveled and lived abroad extensively.

Ole is also 29. This was his first long journey.

Our families live in a small town in northern Germany. My sister and her boyfriend brought us to a popular crossroad two kilometers from our house. We were so nervous because we’d set ourselves this big goal. We wanted to hitchhike to Vietnam. A man stopped and asked if we wanted to go somewhere before we even put our thumbs out, so that was a great start. Unfortunately, he was going in the wrong direction. A little later, a guy from a neighboring town picked us up. He’d traveled the world for several years as a Marine officer.

Sometimes, we’ll pass the place where we started our journey, just a casual crossroad. I like the idea that this road leads to wherever.

The first day, we went with a Ukrainian truck driver who gave us lots of sweets and chips and juices while saying goodbye. We rode in a Porsche with a guy who was tattooed all over and boxed for a hobby.

He looked a little dangerous at first sight but was the nicest man ever.

We’re still texting sometimes. We went through the Czech Republic and from there to Slovakia. In Hungary, we were stuck for four to five hours every time, but we went through Europe pretty quickly. We wanted to get as far from Germany as quickly as possible because we know that when we have a two-week holiday later on, we can easily go to all those places in Europe.

Robert, a nice ride, was waiting at the border in Serbia until six because then there are different custom laws working. He told us, “If you wait for ten minutes, I can take you.” We had very nice talks and he gave us the key to his holiday house, not far from his own house. It was super messy inside, and there was a big Coca-Cola bottle with homemade alcohol. But we had a bed, and it was way more comfortable than spending the night outside. In the morning, he, with his wife, brought us some authentic breakfast. We shared the food outside, before they took us to a very nice place for hitchhiking.

It was our third day of hitchhiking, and people had already invited us into their home. We didn’t expect that to happen that quickly. My favorite ride before Turkey was with a Turkish trucker. He didn't speak any English or German, but still, we were going with him for six hours and we talked the whole time. And when we were not talking, we were singing or dancing. After six hours of driving, we went for lunch together in Bulgaria, next to the highway. He found another Turkish trucker who I don’t think really wanted to take us, but he had to because a Turkish trucker asked him, so there was a social obligation. He took us all the way to Turkey, where we hitchhiked for another three days.

In Georgia, hitchhiking is pretty common, so we barely waited more than 15 minutes. There was one man in a Lada Niva, an old Russian car. He took us into the mountains in the evening. He was having a beer while driving. It was a light beer and it was just one, so, we were cautious, but it was okay. And then he had another beer. He offered it to us, and we said, “No, thank you.” So he opened that one and drank it himself. Lesson learned: If a ride offers you alcohol, take it because they might drink it themselves. He said he's scared of driving in the dark, so he drinks to calm himself. Then his car broke down. We were somewhere in the mountains, it was completely dark.

He just pulled this carpet out of his car, put it on the ground, lay down, and did some repairing. It was really casual. It seemed to be like, “Yeah, it happens every day. This is how I do it.”

We got a transit visa for Russia, so we had three days to cross Russia from Georgia to Kazakhstan. We booked a bus, but our bus just didn’t arrive, so we had to hitchhike about 600 kilometers within 24 hours to get the train that would take us out of Russia. We barely slept that night. We had to pitch our tents somewhere in the desert. There was a big thunderstorm, and there was no point around us higher than us, so it was not much fun. The next morning, we got up very early and found a ride nearly immediately to our destination. We arrived at the train station three hours before our train. The guy who brought us to the station, drove 100 kilometers extra for us, which is maybe nothing compared to his total route, because he was going for like two or 3000 kilometers, but was still a huge detour. He was really nice. 

Kazakhstan is super huge. You have a lot of desert and you go really big distances. 

We went from Kazakhstan to Uzbekistan within four days — four days of hitchhiking and only seeing desert. In Uzbekistan, the first 200 kilometers is a really old and broken road. We went in a truck, only going nine kilometers per hour. Nukus was the first proper town. But it was July, and it was about 45 degrees nearly every day, so we took a little hitchhiking break in Uzbekistan.

They have very nice trains in Uzbekistan.

We started hitchhiking again at the border of Kyrgyzstan. It was such a good feeling to be on the road again, to better connect to people. When you’re traveling by train, you can easily meet a lot of people, of course, but when you’re hitchhiking, you’re sitting next to one person. You have to do something to make the time pass. We had met an Italian girl in Uzbekistan, she wanted to try hitchhiking. So we were three people in this little truck. Ole sat in the front, and Magdalena and I sat in back. The sun was shining, there was a little wind, and it felt so free.

They asked us, “Where are you from?” We said Germany. And they were like, “Cool, cars.” Magdalena said Italy and —

People started crying with joy, “Italia!”

They even had an offline playlist of Italian songs they played very loud. Until now, we felt quite happy about being from Germany. And okay, we don’t like cars that much, we’re more cycling people, but then it was like, okay, Italy, we understand. You win.

There were barely any women driving in Central Asia. We experienced a lot of uncomfortable situations where people asked me if I’d stay in Kyrgyzstan if I fell in love with a Kyrgyz man and said that Kyrgyz-German children would be so smart. Really weird comments. And lots of little touching that was inappropriate. So I was really happy when a woman took us. She was a doctor and her daughter was studying in Greece. She spoke very little English, but she tried hard. When you see men all the time, and you speak to men all the time, and then there’s a woman again, it’s so special. She was a very open lady, and she was laughing all the time.

In between green mountains, we saw horses running free. 

We went up north to Kazakhstan, where we spent a week around Almaty. Then we went into China in the north, in Xinjiang, and on to Mongolia. In Mongolia, people were singing a lot in their cars. They had really good voices, every single one of them.

Sometimes, we were asked to play some of our favorite songs. We learned that Eminem is famous with truck drivers. So wherever you go, if you play some Eminem, sooner or later you will dance with people.

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