In my college years I had the opportunity to study in Italy. The semester afforded me the summer to travel afterwards, with roughly a $5/day budget and no one I knew with the same inclination.

I put myself on the side of the road with a daypack on my back and a sleeping bag in my left hand. My right hand, with thumb out, was used to convey the somewhat universal conveyance of hitching or “auto-stop” as it was known there. The rides did not always come as easily as one might imagine for a young woman alone, but they did come and I made my way up to Scotland via, Luxembourg, France, Belgium and England.

The kindness and hospitality of the people I met along the way often provided me with good conversation, hot meals, a shower and a place to sleep.  I also spent nights in hostels, fields, parks, and beaches, and found my meals more often than not in the bread, cheese and fruit sections of groceries. It was certainly not without its discomforts and risks, but the experience inspired a lifelong pursuit of travel that continues to this day.

My means and modes of transportation have varied over the years but hostels and even hitchhiking have not left my repertoire completely.

What has not changed is my passion for the extraordinary opportunity to meet people throughout this world and by traveling to be, in the words of Martha Gellhorn, “under a different sky.”