Hitchhiking to Israel

After spending 32 tedious hours on a coach last summer, I was considering giving up overlanding. But as I sat in front of the easyJet website this summer I couldn't quite bring myself to double the size of my carbon footprint for the year with just one click. Instead, I decided I'd rely on my thumb and the kindness of strangers and take a risk on that most controversial form of transport, particularly for women: the hitchhike.

A friend would accompany me as far as Zagreb, then I'd go on alone to Israel, through Turkey, Syria and Jordan. Three hours after posting a request on the website Gumtree (gumtree.com) we had a lift from Hounslow East in London to Mannheim in southern Germany. A week and three lifts later, we were couchsurfing (couchsurfing.org) in Berlin.

We became pros at working service stations, asking every car that pulled in whether they had space for two travellers: "You go?" … point at map, smile, get in. There were BMWs, a limousine and a Slovenian rocking out to Pink Floyd.

In some cars, especially after a night spent camping just off the hard-shoulder, my head would droop and 12 hours later I'd wake to realise I'd missed an entire country (sorry Slovakia, Bulgaria and northern Israel), but the further east I went, the more unfamiliar the scenery became and the more often my eyes would stay open.

Even the worst experience could turn into a high point. We were dropped just north of Munich in the rain as it was getting dark, and were stuck for two hours, soaking wet, our spirits low.

A couple in a people-wagon finally saved the day. They planned to drop us at a service station where we could hitch a lift into Austria. We talked and joked about small things – the scenery, the baptism that they'd been to. I told them about my year as a parish administrator and the reverence that the baptism register commanded. By the end of that conversation they had decided I was a girl with an unambiguous calling who had put faith on hold to struggle against climate change. It turned out the man was a Protestant priest, and rather than drop us at a service station to pitch our tent in the rain, they offered us a night in their spare flat in the Bavarian mountains – hot water, fresh towels, beds all to ourselves, and for free – bliss.

I spent over a month in the Middle East and saw sights that the guidebooks are yet to discover. Relying on the famed Syrian kindness, I was taken in, fed and cared for by a family for four days. They then drove me most of the three hours to Mar Musa monastery, enjoyed by few travellers.

In Israel I lost myself in the carefree parties of Tel Aviv, making friends with kids who'd just finished military service ("Who cares about peace? We just want peace of mind"). The next day I went to Jerusalem to yell in protest with the activists in the West Bank. I was given access to both worlds, the only condition that I would listen to the stories that they told about the other side.

And it was this necessity to listen that made my decision to hitchhike so much more than just a cheap way to travel. Each was an invitation to get close to someone.

Hitchhiking is the start of a story where anything might happen. You escape the check-in queue and have faith in the moment, in people and yourself. You begin a story with each person you meet. Living another person's life, if only for one journey, will teach you more about their culture than any guidebook.

From The Guardian
Tamsin Omond, 25, environmental campaigner, London.