Originally published on metropolis.co.jp on August 2014
How would you like to make travel your life’s work? Not as a Condé Nast writer or Anthony Bourdain-styled TV host, but just traveling. Everywhere. Argentine wanderers Juan Caldaroni and Daniela Elias have been doing just that for the past five years and eight months—with no plans to stop soon. They arrived in Tokyo this month as part of their Without Borders project, a journey started in January 2013 that has seen them hitchhiking across Asia, from the Philippines to Turkey, in an effort to shed light on how people live in different parts of the world and end prejudices about many of the places they’ll visit—including Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq and other central Asian countries. “We want to show that hospitality exists in every country of the world, and that people from these countries suffer because of the negative image painted of them by [a] sensationalist media,” they say.
So far, the couple has hitchhiked 26,624km in 544 different vehicles (including one boat) as part of the Without Borders project. In Japan, their trip started in Osaka, after which they ventured through Nara, Kyoto, Matsumoto and Nikko before ending up in Tokyo. From here, they’ll head to Fukuoka via Hakone, Nagoya, Kobe and Hiroshima before boarding a ferry to Busan, South Korea. They estimate the total distance covered in Japan by vehicle to be about 2,600km.
Caldaroni and Elias chose to hitchhike for this project because, for them, “human attractions are way more important than tourist attractions.” They prefer hanging out with locals rather than taking public transportation, since “people who stop to give us rides are always willing to socialize.” They listen to their hosts, share stories with total strangers and find it an exciting and enlightening experience on its own. “It sounds cliché, but when you do it this way, you realize that it’s more about the journey than the destination.” When asked about the potential dangers, they say they’ve never had a bad experience traveling this way, which is something they can’t say about using public transport in many countries.
Is hitchhiking in Japan easy? “We wouldn’t say hitchhiking in Japan is difficult, but it’s not as easy as in other countries, either. The main thing is to leave the huge cities and get onto the highway. Then rides come much quicker as we go from one service area to another without crossing any cities.”
Readers can follow the pair on their website or Facebook page, and keep up-to-date on where they’re sticking out their thumbs via Twitter (@marcandoelpolo). So feel free to head out on the road and offer them a lift.
