Where I Stop Hitchhiking
I have taken rides from strangers on roads with no other option, and I have turned rides down for reasons I could not fully explain. This is where my line sits, how it moved, and the ride that moved it.
Priya Raghavan
Asking Without a Shared Language
A woman at a bus stop and I had about eleven words in common. We still sorted out my problem, but not in the way the phrasebook advice suggests, and the translation app made it worse before it made it better.
The Village That Was Not Worth The Drive
Two hours of gravel for eleven houses, a locked church, and a bus shelter with nothing pinned inside it. An honest account of a trip that produced nothing, and of the much better post I nearly wrote instead.
When the Fast Train Is the Right Answer
Two trains on the board, one over two hours and one most of the day. I took the long one for no reason except that I had decided I was a person who took the long one.
When There Is No Timetable
The bus shelter had a schedule taped inside it that had expired twice over. Here is how I actually find out when transport leaves in places where nothing is published, and what it costs me when I guess wrong.
How I Hear About Places Nobody Wrote Down
Most of the places in this section reach me as a half heard sentence with no spelling attached. Here is how I chase those fragments, why the success rate is bad, and what I do with a name once I finally have one.
Would Writing About It Ruin It
A draft about a set of river pools sat unpublished in my folder for four months while I worked out whether posting it would do damage. The honest answer involved looking at my own traffic numbers and finding them small.
What to Expect When Nowhere Is Listed Online
The booking sites showed nothing for the place I was going, and I decided that meant I would figure it out on arrival. Here is what actually happens when you get off the bus with no room and no plan.
The Man Who Said Yes to Everything
I asked three versions of the same question outside a hardware shop and got three yeses, then walked into thorn scrub. A working method for figuring out who actually knows the thing you are asking about.
What Changes When You Arrive on Foot
The bus passed me forty minutes before I reached the town. I arrived hungrier, slower and worse at talking to people, and I also knew things the passengers did not. Both are true.