I initially started hitchhiking due to the fact I was pretty much stranded in Toronto at Christmas with dwindling funds. I needed to get to my buddy's (Canadian for friend) in Calgary where a couch was waiting. One minor problem was that the fares for flights at that time of year where sky high, thinking the Greyhound bus would be more economical I checked their website. Again was shocked to see the price of fares at $300+ for a one way ticket, there was only one option left to me.

I did a little Google research on hitchhiking and found that Canada had a pretty good reputation, due to the small populous and large expanse of the country. My buddy told me I was mad as it was 2500km and the middle of winter but I really had no option, I had to do it. 4 days later and a collection of crazy incidents, from a 50km ride with a cop to wolf tracks in the snow and a night outdoors in a -25c survivor man style I arrived in Calgary.

Apart from the money I saved from the bus ticket I felt I had made a real accomplishment with my life. Hitchhiking turned out to be a pretty cool experience whilst meeting some interesting people along the way. People just paying back some Karma, a voice to listen to too stay awake or maybe out of pity, I don't know why any of them gave me A ride, but was damn grateful they did.

I'm leaving England again in a few days to check out the Kibbutz thing in Israel so I can learn about community farming practices. I was thinking of jumping on the plane but I read a post off Twitter saying ''taking a international flight can produce as much CO2 as a family home.''
I really don't want that on my conscience if there are other alternatives, so it's back to the road with the thumb. Thankfully I was able to dig out my camping gear out of storage, so this time I'll have some where to sleep better than the ditch by the road.

I checked out the amount of CO2 produced for the flight at
Terrapass
865 lbs of CO2 a flight from London to Tel Aviv will produce.
A guesstimate of the CO2 produced from hitching 200lbs of me and my backpack 4000km would be 200lbs or less, if anyone has a better idea I would love to know.

Off to pack some more stuff.





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