Slawek Sznurczak - Adventure Travel

Kinga & Chopin are in my opinion the best example for young globetrotters. They are not afraid to hitch hike the whole world, without having lots of money, only with their power to travel farther...I get every couple of days their travel reports as a diary and it brings always the far worlds and their spirits to me ...

"We are a couple who decided to see the world. To see and experience the world by hitch-hiking. For us it's the most interesting way to get to know the people and countries on our way (not to mention that we can't really afford any other means of transportation, but we're glad we can't) In fact, before we met, we were planning to travel separetly, Kinga's plan was to join bicylce Peace Ride around the world. Chopin wanted to walk. After we met each other we had to find a middle way... We did not spend much time on preparation, we already had some savings (enough for the plane ticket), we did some decisions: direction...? - west, first continent...? - America, the approximate way: North America, South America, Australia, Asia, Africa and back to Europe. We received a blessing from Tenga Rinpoche - master of the Tibetan Buddism. Tarot cards said yes, we got a visa and a plain ticket to New York and off we went. During our visit at Kinga's family in Vancouver we decided to publish our story on the internet. Our website started with Kinga's traveller's diary (in Polish) and a few pictures. After a year of travelling we found Zing (or Zing found us) and now we can show you much more.
Our goal is to see the world but we do not have a specific plan. We just let things happen during the way and our travelling protective spirists look after us. We also believe you can make anything happen if you only want it strong enough. This way we hitched a ride with a small airplane in Alaska that took us over the glacier, and another time a ride with a boat from Chicago all the way to Florida. We're experiencing as much as we can. And trying different things, like a totaly raw, vegan diet for a few months or walking for three days in the wild jungle looking for Mayan ruins in the north of Guatemala. People say: "But Central America is so dangerous, and hitch hiking..." Well, you can get robbed and killed in your own apartment and kids get shot at school. We've hitch-hiked for over a year and a half now through some unbelievable places and meeting unforgettable people, and we're still alive and going on. It's worth it. And the most beautiful thing is not being in a rush, alowing the trip to take as much time as it takes, and enjoying the journey because there is no destination.

When we landed in New York on Oct. 7th 1998, we had no idea we would be sharing our story with so many people. With just our families and closest friends on our mailing list, our first e-mails were only in Polish. Then in Vancouver while staying with my family, Chopin created this (very simple at the beginning) website- www.geocities.com/kingachopin . Then we were meeting more and more people along our way who wanted to know where we are and how we´re doing, so the English mailing list started. Here we want to share the collection of our e-mails from the road. Unfortunately we don´t have them all from the beginning but we are lucky Winnie (with whom we stayed in Florida) never deleted them from her computer and so we managed to get them together and put them here for everyone to take part in this wonderful trip.

Just to let you know very briefly what happened before we found ourselves in Demopolis, Alabama on August 6th '99. With one way ticket, a few hundred dollars, lots of dreams and few plans we landed in New York on Oct. 7th 1998. We knew our Travelling Protective Spirit landed there with us when we met Ellen and Eddy who invited us to stay at their place on the first night in New Continent, so we didn't have to sleep in the Central Park. From then on everything went on smoothly. We crossed the border at Niagara Falls and then all Canada going west (one ride with Alison in her great old van from Ontario almost to Vancouver). Spent some nice time with my family in Vancouver and there woke up one morning with an idea of heading up north. Thinking - Yukon, we ended up in... Alaska. After waiting for a whole day and half a night by the side of an empty and covered with snow Alaskan highway in November, we got the right ride. Couldn't refuse it and two days later we found ourselves in Anchorage. There an ultimate hitch-hiking experience happened - we hitched a ride with an aeroplane. A small, private one. It took us over the snow covered mountains and landed close to an amazing glacier (check out the pictures!).

Then back to Vancouver and then back to the States, along the western coast - to California. There our good friend Jason took good care of us. We ended up getting an apartment in Mountain View together and working there for five months. Chopin with computers, me - in a little, charming coffee shop. Getting a break from travelling, having our own place for a while and saving up some money for the next part of the trip. When the right time came we went to the road again and for the next five months hitch-hiked all over the States: gambling and loosing $10 in Las Vegas, hiking down to the bottom of Grand Canyon, seeing all the amazing National Parks in Utah, hiking for a few days in the Smokey Mountains along the Appalachian Trail, visiting museums in Washington D.C., Amish farms and the Rainbow Gathering in Pensylvania, we finally hitched up to Chicago. By then we hitched enough on the roads and Chopin had this amazing idea of changing the way of trnsportation. Instead of to the road, we went to the side of the river, stuck our thumbs out and... three days later had one of our greatest rides ever - a ride on a boat (called Spirit!) all the way from Chicago to Florida.

E-mails from the road will tell you the rest of the story. To describe it all, we would have to write a thick book (maybe one day we will). Right now there are so many places and most of all people who we didn't even mention here. Wonderful people whose paths crossed with ours, people who gave us rides, people from Servas, strangers we met who invited us to their homes... It's the people we meet who make this trip not only possible but also so great."

For more information about the hitch-hike tour of Kinga&Chopin, please visit their official website ! www.geocities.com/kingachopin