Arto's Blog

The first weekend of May I traveled to Hämeenlinna and Riihimäki — both less than 100 km away from where I live. I met a Russian marionette artist, a Peruvian musician and a group of Finnish rock fans. They all picked me up from the roadside.

Still a few years ago it didn't cross my mind to hitchhike. My traveling style was fairly modest, but I always had enough money for the bus or train ticket. So I didn't have to waste time standing by the dusty roadside and rely on luck in getting to my destinations. I hitched a couple of short rides in places where there was no public transport, but that was it.

When I joined the hospitality exchange networks, one of the side effects was that I started meeting hitchhikers. I hosted a few and listened to others in story telling circles during meetings. It was clear that there was more to them in hitchhiking than saving money. It was a way to meet interesting people and to leave room for surprises to happen. I had already decided that I'd try some day, and then one of my guests, a Russian girl called Julia, invited me to hitchhike with her to Hämeenlinna.

I live only 1 km away from where the highway starts, so it was just a short walk to the best spot. In about two minutes an old van with Russian plates stopped and the driver waved us to hop in. His name was Vlad, a musician and marionette artist who had lived for the last 20 years wandering around Europe, performing on the streets and entertaining children in kindergartens. Vlad was just on his way to Hämeenlinna to play on the main square - what a happy coincidence!

So we got a ride to Hämeenlinna in good company, I spent a nice sunny afternoon walking around with Julia, and of course we saw Vlad's performance too. There weren't too many spectators as it was the official hangover day after Vappu (as Vlad put it), but at least he got two more by picking us up. Then we each went our own ways, me taking a bus back to Helsinki because I wanted to be here in time to welcome Tuula, a good friend of mine who was coming for a visit.

Tuula got an idea the next day that we should go and have barbeque and sauna with Jukka, a common friend of ours. Well, Jukka lives in Riihimäki about 70 km from Helsinki so we filled our backpacks with food and walked to the same spot at the beginning of the highway. Again in less than 10 minutes a van stopped. Our driver was a Peruvian musician from the Amerinca group which I had seen several times in Helsinki. I even bought their cd a few years ago. He lived just a few kilometers away from where I and Tuula were going so we got a ride almost to Jukka's doorstep, much closer than a train or bus would have taken us, and got a small insight into the life of a Peruvian-Finnish family on the way.

We spent a relaxed barbeque and sauna evening and slept at Jukka's place. It's funny how hospitality exchange changes habits: we laughed with Tuula on the way that when she called him she didn't even ask if we were welcome to stay overnight. Of course we were. :) In fact Jukka seemed to be more than happy to have us there to cook and chat with.

Next day Tuula hitched back north towards her home and I back to Helsinki. Standing by the highway is forbidden so we chose a spot near one of the exits. Fastest way to get a ride would probably have been to go to the nearby gas station and start asking who would be going to the directions we wanted. However, Tuula said she feels more comfortable not to ask but rather wait for drivers who stop and pick hitchhikers up from free will, and I fully agreed.

This time we had to wait for about half an hour, but then got rides right after each other. Tuula traveled with someone returning from an enduro race, and I got picked up by four Finnish rock fans who were cruising back from a party in Tampere previous night. They had black clothes, big tattoos, funky hairstyles and a 1960's black Chevrolet with a Kajaani Hot Rod Club sticker attached to the rear window. It was a loud ride, I can still remember the sound of the engine at 100 km/h, windows open. With my light blue jacket and hiking backpack I didn't exactly blend in the group — but hey, these people were cool with it.

I recently read an essay by Kevin Kelly titled The Universe Is Conspiring to Help Us, which I liked a lot. It's about the art of receiving, of which hitchhiking is one example. I suggest you to scroll down the page and read also the full version of the essay (direct link), which I find better than the abridged one.