Travel English isn’t just about buying train tickets, checking into hotels, and asking for directions. Sometimes it’s about having no ticket, no hotel, and no idea where you’re going.

This is the story of a journey that started with a Led Zeppelin song, two one-way ferry tickets to France, and a bag of instant mashed potato.

It Started with a Song

At the time, I was living on a boat on the river in Oxford with a friend, Phil. One night in our local pub, Led Zeppelin’s Babe, I’m Gonna Leave You came on. We looked at each other and made a sudden decision right then and there: let's go travelling.

A week later, we were hitchhiking to the coast. Our entire kit consisted of a small green tent, two sleeping bags, a camping stove, and a bag filled with instant mashed potato and powdered soup. We spent the very last of our cash on two one-way ferry tickets to France, a shared beer, and a plate of chips.

When we stepped off the boat in the sleepy seaside town of Calais, we were completely penniless.

More Hiking Than Hitchhiking

Back then, hitchhiking was a normal way for young people to travel around Europe—a kind of rite of passage. Drivers were used to seeing backpacks on the side of the road, and getting a lift was usually easy.

For us, though, it didn't start that way. At first, we spent far more time walking than actually getting rides. Eventually, an elderly couple pulled over and picked us up. It turned out to be their wedding anniversary. The husband was a former sales rep for Stella Artois Beer, and his wife used to join him as he visited customers across southern Belgium. To celebrate their anniversary, they were revisiting their favourite Belgian bars.

Every time they stopped, the bar owners welcomed them—and poured us all free beer. Our introduction to Belgium was far more generous than anything we could have paid for.

From the Mediterranean to the Alps

We continued south, eventually reaching the Mediterranean coast to swim and sit on the beaches near Saint-Tropez.

While hitchhiking towards Italy, a young woman picked us up on her way to the Swiss Alps. She invited us along. She and her boyfriend were moving between apartments and offered us the key to their empty flat high up in the mountains for a week—completely free.

At the end of the week, they introduced us to a friend from Lausanne who was renovating his house and needed help. We took the job, which turned into off-and-on work over the next couple of years.

A Detour North

During that time, I met a German woman in a bar who was working at a hotel in northern Switzerland. I hitchhiked north to see her, fell in love, and ended up getting a job nearby on a local dairy farm.

It was an unexpected turn for a European adventure—though, strangely enough, not the last time I’d end up working on a dairy farm. Forty years later, I’d find myself doing the very same thing in Ehime, Japan. But that’s another story.

From Switzerland to Greece

As the weather turned colder, we decided to head south to escape the winter. We hitchhiked all the way down to Greece and ended up on the island of Crete. Joined by Phil and another friend from our old Oxford pub who had come out to meet us in Switzerland, the four of us spent a few months living in a cave on a beach. We had started our journey with a small green tent; now we had a cave. It wasn't five-star accommodation, but you couldn't beat the price.

As Christmas approached, we decided it was finally time to head back to England. We had left home with no money, no schedule, and no clear destination. In the end, we had crossed several countries, worked odd jobs, made lifelong friends, and learned a lesson from a saying we picked up along the way:

"Where you are is where you are at, and if things get any better, they can only get worse."

You never truly know where you're going until you arrive—and sometimes, that's the best part of the journey.

(There were plenty more hitchhiking adventures to come in later years—up through Scandinavia, across Canada, and all the way across the United States. But those are stories for another day.)"

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Learning Support

Vocabulary

• Penniless: Having no money at all; completely broke.

• Jukebox: A machine in a pub or bar that plays selected music when coins are inserted.

• Accommodation: A place to live, stay, or sleep (e.g., a hotel, flat, or tent).

Phrasal Verbs

• Pull over: (Of a vehicle or driver) to move to the side of the road and stop.

• Pick up: To collect someone in a vehicle and give them a ride.

• Turn out: To prove to be the case, or to happen in a specific way unexpectedly.

• Head south / Head back: To travel in a particular direction or return to a starting point.

• Turn into: To transform or develop into something else.

• End up: To eventually reach a particular state, location, or situation, often unexpectedly.

Collocations & Expressions

• Rite of passage: An important event or experience marking a significant stage in someone's life.

• Right then and there: Immediately; at that exact moment and place without hesitation.

• Sleepy seaside town: A quiet, peaceful coastal town with very little traffic or activity.

• Off-and-on work: Work that is intermittent or casual rather than continuous.

• Escape the cold: To travel to a warmer climate during autumn or winter.

• Set in: (Of weather or a condition) to arrive and establish itself for a period.

• You couldn't beat the price: A humorous way of saying something was free or extremely cheap.

• Odd jobs: Small, informal, or miscellaneous pieces of work.

Key Structural Patterns for Storytelling

• "It turned out to be..." — Used to introduce a surprising or unexpected fact in a narrative.

• "We ended up..." — Perfect for describing unplanned outcomes or sudden detours in travel stories.