Picking up a Hitchhiker Was a Highlight of My Cross-Country Road Trip

When you drive past a hitchhiker, you have a few brief moments to make a decision. The obvious choice is always not to stop. Picking them up means risking letting a crazy person in your car — maybe leading to awkward conversations, solicitations, or worse. Sadly, my generation grew up with stern warnings against hitching rides or picking up hitchers. So, it’s easy to assume the worst about anyone who’s still attempting this form of travel.

Nevertheless, Alex, a 25-year-old from France, caught me on the perfect day. I was on my first cross-country road trip and my heart was wide open. When I saw the big backpack he was wearing, I sensed a kindred spirit and felt an immediate urge to stop.

The day I met Alex, I was driving through spectacular southern Colorado in the summer of 2016. I had already been on the road for a few weeks, visiting old friends, couch-surfing with strangers, and pitching my tent as I meandered from my previous home in New Jersey to my new one in California.

The classic road trip vehicle may be an RV or a van, but I was thrilled to be in a Prius. It was small and nimble, smooth and quiet, and wonderfully fuel efficient.

That first road trip was the start of something beautiful. By the time the Prius and I parted ways a few years later, we had gone from the Atlantic Coast to the Pacific, south into Mexico, north to the Canadian border, and then back once again to the East Coast.

The US has a sub-par passenger rail network, but it’s an amazing country for road-tripping in a personal vehicle. As I took my first of three (so far) car treks across the country, I reveled in the vast open spaces and natural beauty — especially after entering Colorado.

If you’re traveling east to west on Interstate 70, Colorado is the entry to the beautiful, expansive West. After the congested East and the flat Kansas farmlands, the Rocky Mountains appear, signaling all the splendor to come.

I was smitten with Colorado, and ended up driving a big loop around the state. When I met Alex the hitchhiker, I was headed to the San Juan National Forest near the New Mexico border.

The decision to stop for Alex was instinctive. Over the previous few weeks, several strangers had opened their homes to me (via the couchsurfing.com platform) and perhaps I was eager to be on the other side of a good deed.

I suppose any hitchhiker has an interesting tale to tell, but Alex’s was particularly compelling. He was journeying from New York to California to Alaska. He had a total of 83 days to spend in the US between flights, and here’s the crazy part: he arrived in the US with just $83 in cash, and no other access to funds.

He budgeted exactly one dollar per day for a three-month excursion across the USA.

Alex was traveling exclusively by hitchhiking, spending every night in his tent, and depending on the kindness of strangers for food. His fascinating adventure made me eager to help out by driving him wherever he wanted to go and sharing whatever food I had with him. He must have had some hungry moments during his travels, but I could see from my own reaction that he was surely inspiring moments of generosity everywhere he went.

Chatting with Alex for a few hours was wonderful. He told me he was thinking a lot about the moment when he would eventually step off a plane, back in France — wondering if he would feel like a different person than the one who started the trip. I knew what he meant.

I invited Alex to join me for a night of camping, but he told me he always camped alone. I hope he found a site he appreciated as much as I did mine.

The spot where I slept that night is one of my all-time favorite campsites:

I was all alone out there, amazed at how much beauty I could have all to myself, simply by seeking it out.

Cars have their downsides, and I’m happy to not be a car owner at the moment. But, some of the best memories of my life are of traveling the endless highways of the American West, stumbling into fascinating encounters and seeking out places to sleep under the stars.

This story was originally published on Medium, here.