For ever and for ever when I move

I met Hannah Sutton at a hostel on the Isle of Skye, Scotland, in early March. I was charmed by her sweet personality and her depth of traveling experiences, and managed to snag her for a quick interview the morning before she flew out of London. At twenty-one, this Australian chica has been on the road since October, 2011, starting in Indonesia, and has no prospects of stopping anytime soon: read on to hear her perspectives on hitchhiking, solo travel, and general travel anecdotes.

A: “Where have you been so far on your travels?”

H: “The rough path is this: Indonesia- India- Nepal- Thailand- Cambodia- Thailand- Myanmar- Malaysia- Japan- South Korea-Hong Kong- China- Mongolia- China- Krygyzstan- Kazakhstan- Russia- Georgia- Turkey- Bulgaria- Serbia- Hungary- Austria- Czech Republic-Germany- Netherlands- Germany- England- Wales- France- Switzerland- Italy- Austria- Czech Republic- Poland- Germany- Netherlands- England- Scotland- England- South Africa. After Hong Kong and before South Africa, everything was traveling overland.”

A: “That’s quite a list! Tell me a little about Myanmar/Burma.”

H: “It was my first taste in solo travel; I met so many people. It was a difficult country to travel at times, but really rewarding. The people are the best part. They’re so genuine and nice. I left my wallet on the table on day–the thing about Myanmar is that they don’t have any ATMS, so all the money you want you have to carry it all with you. The currency exchange rate is just insane and inflation is huge–so I had a huge stack of money in my wallet, probably enough to feed a family for a few good months. I left it on the table in the cafe and I walked out and the man ran after me and gave it back to me with all the money still in it. It was so gorgeous. The people there are so nice.

Another time I was just walking around a lake and this lady, she stopped me and was like, oh, I invite you to dinner at my place. And I was traveling with these three other travelers at the time and the next day we went over to her place and she cooked this huge feast for us and we sat down and started eating it, it was enough food to feed a family for a week.

So they’re very humble and very well educated as well. They have a very good understanding of English, as they used to be a colony, and they’re just really really wonderful people.

But, on my first day in Burma, I was riding the local train around Yangon, which is the main city, and the train suddenly stopped. I walked out to see what had happened, and a guy had jumped in front of the train and committed suicide. It was three days into me traveling solo and I was like WHAT. It was so scary. All the kids were going up and poking the body, and after awhile they just rolled the body off the tracks and kept the train going. It was really amazing to see how they see death all the time, and so it’s not a big thing for them, whereas we’re sort of sheltered from it. It’s a good way to see the difference between our cultures.”

A: “Definitely. In Korea, they have a lot of similarities in that way. The way they talk about death is… commonplace. A lot of my students would say, well, I chose not to commit suicide. There were two paths, one is to commit suicide and one is to not. Whereas in the states, you don’t say anything about it.”

H: “And even if someone has committed suicide, you don’t say that, as well. You try to cover it up as something else. It was the same in India as well, very out there, seeing dead bodies, like the burning ghats in Varanasi.”

A: “And it’s normal, a natural part of life. So, from Burma, where did you go?”

H: “Well, I was talking to my family more, and I hadn’t seen them in a few months time. My parents happened to be in Japan, and I had nothing to do and I had a lot of money saved up so they told me to come over and visit them. So I crashed their romantic get-away, and was third-wheeling and getting free accommodation and free food and stuff, which is really nice. So that was really cool to see them. After everything I’d done, going through India and Nepal and the breakup with my boyfriend, it was really nice to have family around.”

A: “So I’m interested in your hitching. Tell me a little about that.”

H: “Well, I haven’t hitched the whole way. In some countries it was very difficult, like Mongolia and the very west of China, where it’s such great distances that I just didn’t have time to hitch the whole way. And in the northern Caucuses of Russia, it’s too dangerous there. And one of my limitations is that I was traveling by myself, as a single female, and I wouldn’t recommend that to anyone.”

A: “Have you done most of the traveling completely by yourself, or do you pick up people that you travel with?”

H: “Yeah, I pick up people along the way. I think the longest time I’ve ever spent traveling with somebody is maybe two or three months.”

A: “And was that through…”

H: “Just meeting people along the way. He was going to Scotland to visit his girlfriend so he was also working his way west, overland, and I was going to visit my family in London. So we were going to same route. He changed his plans a little bit for me, and I changed mine a little bit for him, so we were able to travel together. That was really nice. Through Georgia, Turkey, Kyrgyzstan, and some of the eastern European countries. We mainly hitched through there.”

A: “Because with two it’s better.”

H: “Yeah, exactly. It’s really easy to hitch if you’re a girl. The best combination is a guy and a girl. Two guys looks too intimidating, a guy and a girl looks okay, a single girl it’s too dangerous and a single guy looks a bit intimidating as well. So we had the best combination to hitchhike, and we were never waiting more than two hours.”

A: “Alright, next, homesickness. Everyone asks this, you know, but don’t you get lonely?”

H: “Of course, I guess, the main thing is that you come across a lot of travelers. And you feel very spoiled as well, because travelers are in a particular mindset, they’re on holiday, they’re always very happy and friendly. So you see a lot of friendly, happy people, but on a very shallow level. And what they tell you can be very superficial, and what they say, and what they choose to say, and they have very specific ideas of themselves that they want to portray, some of which is probably not real.

For example, if we only meet for two minutes, and what I say is what you judge me on.. what I say about myself, what I’ve done, everything like that. So you get these ideas of people before you get to know them.

On the other hand, when you travel together, like this guy that I traveled with for two to three months, I feel like his family. We know each other so well. Because you’re out of your comfort zone, you’re constantly being challenged every day and you’re both learning in your own way.. so your friendship is really important, and you’re together pretty much 24-7. So you create these really strong bonds with people.

So, you get both ways. It depends. Sometimes, I suppose, the idea of spontaneity and connection is very important. So if you meet someone that yeah, they’re not so cool, you don’t have to bother. Whereas if you meet someone you have a real connection with, you can really choose to spend time with them, because you both don’t often have anything on. It’s the urgency of the moment, the urgency of time, so you just share everything with that person. Even if you don’t know them, they don’t know you. It’s really nice. So many people have confided with me, things I’m sure they wouldn’t tell anybody else. They know I’m just a passer-by and they know the connection, so they feel they can share things with me. It’s kind of weird, I have all these secrets of people I will probably never see again.

You meet people at all different walks of life, different backgrounds, everything. So if you need advice on something, then they can give you really different points of view. But the other thing is, that I think I’m in a very sheltered world, because I really only meet other travelers. And I only spend time with travel-minded people.

For me, CouchSurfing is a really big thing. If I was always in hostels, I would have finished ages ago. I would have gotten sick of always sharing space, people hogging showers, things like that. Slow internet, loads of things. Or the simple questions of, where have you been, where are you from, what are you doing. I still do that now, but it’s just such a.. I don’t know. It’s small talk. It can get boring after awhile. But when you CouchSurf, you really meet people and they’re really interested in showing you the local places. I don’t really bother with touristy sites anymore, except ones I’m really interested in, because everywhere you go people tell you: but you HAVE to go here, you have to do that, you have to.. and I just think, well I don’t HAVE to do everything in every country. As long as I enjoy myself. That’s why I travel. And to learn as much as I can.

A: “Okay. How do you find your inspiration for where to go next?”

H: “Well, I always wanted to go to India. I went to Indonesia because at the start of my travels my family was having a family holiday with all my family, aunties and uncles and grandparents and stuff. So I started the holiday there, with my boyfriend at the time. It was a nice send-off. And then India, because it always interested me, and from India it’s natural to go to Nepal, because it’s close. and after then, Cambodia, I had friends there… Myanmar because, I had already done the SE Asia touristy stuff and I wanted to go somewhere completely different, where it wasn’t all party-based, drunk-based, alcohol- and sex-based. So I wanted to go somewhere with culture. Mostly because I knew that it would change, because of the bi-elections. I was actually there for the bi-elections, which was really interesting. but, yeah, I just felt it was important to go there now, rather than waiting.

And then Japan, because my parents were there, South Korea because it was a natural step off of Japan. South Korea was a tricky one, I stayed there for three months working at this hostel, helping out,  and I didn’t really know where to go next. I didn’t know whether to go home, I wasn’t ready to go home, but I didn’t know where to go. I had so many friends all around the world, and they were all saying, come visit me. I didn’t know where to go. So I thought, I wanted to go to Europe, because I had friends in Europe, and so… this is a terrible thing I do, I just look at a map and trace a line and go, yeah, I’ll just do that. It’s got me in trouble so many times, because you can’t just do that. There’s borders and restrictions and stuff like that. but in my mind, yeah, that’s what I’ll do. I’ll just cross overland. I wanted to catch a boat from S. Korea across to China, but S. Korea is very difficult, if you’re not a local, if you don’t have a registration card, so I couldn’t go to the embassy to get a visa… I was actually going to teach, but I didn’t have a degree, so I couldn’t do that. I was actually going to do it under the table, but I couldn’t get a foreign SIM card, so I thought.. this is too hard.

So I went to Hong Kong, solely to sort out visas. I never actually wanted to go to China, I wanted to skip China, didn’t want to put any money towards the Chinese government at all, but then I had to. I was stuck in Hong Kong for a week to get my Chinese visa, and then three weeks to get my Russia visa, it was insane. And Hong Kong is not cheap! but I was CouchSurfing, which was great. And my Russian visa, I didn’t have the right documents, so I forged them and handed them in… and the consulate must have figured it out, because they changed my dates. So I thought, well, I guess it serves me right for forging documents. It all worked out in the end, but I only had one week in Russia, and I went into the northern Caucuses. When I crossed into Georgia, there were tanks at the border. There’s a lot of foreign kidnappings in that area, which I found out when I was there.”

A: “Were you afraid at that time?”

H: “Well, it’s interesting in that area. The countries don’t have good relationships with each other. So, when I was in Kazakhstan, and I was going to Russia, and people were saying, ‘Oh, watch out there. People in that area are really terrible. I’ll pay for your flight Hannah, just don’t go there. I’ll do anything to make sure you don’t go there…’ and I was like, ‘Oh, no, I’m going, I’ve drawn a line on a map, that’s where I’m going.’ But they were really helpful, and organized everything for me, trains and all. In a way I wanted to think, ‘Oh, these Kazak people don’t know what they’re talking about,’ but on the other hand, I was like, ‘Oh shit, I’ve read articles about people going completely missing, getting kidnapped, I’ve read books about the situation there… especially in the northern Caucuses area; this is probably really stupid of me.’

When I arrived in Russia, in a place called Astrakhan, I had a CouchSurfing girl organized. but when I texted her, she responded that she was really sick and really sorry, but she couldn’t look after me anymore. So I was like shit: I’ve arrived in this city, I don’t know any hostels, don’t even know if there are any hostels here, I don’t know anybody, don’t know what to do, like.. my CS host bailed, what do I do? So I got off the train and just sat down, thinking, oh, this is terrible.

And then this girl came up to me, and asked, ‘Are you Hannah?’ and I said yeah, and she said, “Hello, I’m Lilia’. I had been messaging her on CS-ing, but hadn’t organized a stay with her. I told her I’d arrive on this day, and she had looked up the timetables for the train and she had arrived at the train station to pick me up! She was so gorgeous. She’s this exotic dancer, she dances at weddings, bachelor parties, hen’s nights, all this sort of stuff, everything. So I just went with her for a whole week, to all the weddings, snuck into University with her.. all these different things. She treated me as a really good friend, showing me around, what local Russia was like. She introduced me to her family, I was sharing her bed, her family still messages me every week in really broken English, just how are you, we miss you, we want you to come back, you were part of the family… they’re so sweet.

At the station, her boyfriend picked me up in this clown costume. It was so strange. I didn’t expect to see her, and then I get picked up by this clown.. and I’m going, what the f– is happening.  Really funny.  I wish I had more time, but I had only a week in Russia before I had to leave. It’s so military there, you have to register yourself when you get there, they watch your every move. I was meant to register myself, who I am, where I’m staying, and I just didn’t bother with that. If I was staying any longer, I would have had to go up to Moscow to register. They try to discourage anyone from traveling in the northern Caucuses area especially.

So when I was in Russia, I was telling people, oh, I’m going to Georgia. and everyone was like, don’t go there, you’re definitely going to get mugged and kidnapped and raped and all that… So I always had this bad preconception of every country before going there. Everybody just says shit about their neighbors, but really they don’t know.”

A: “What’s one of your favorite moments of traveling?”

H: “Oh, I don’t know. It’s difficult, isn’t it? I suppose I really loved Myanmar. and Japan. Both for the people. The people were so generous and giving and helpful, and they would go entirely out of their way for me. Like, these Japanese guys, I asked them to help me buy my ticket. So they BOUGHT my ticket, escorted me on these trains all the way from Tokyo to Osaka, which is an hour away on different trains. They were carrying my backpack, bought me food, delivered me to my friend’s house, let me use their phone.. and when they delivered me, they said there you go! and then, bye! and just walked off. People just don’t do that at home! Like my experiences in Myanmar, just really, really nice people.”

A: “Okay. Tell me what’s up next.”

H: “It’s kind of random, it was never planned, obviously. Nothing of mine ever is. So when I was traveling through Kyrgyzstan, I met these amazing people who were cycling across the world, loads of stuff, and they put these really cool ideas in your head. and I think, I’m really just traveling from one side of the continent to another, that’s nothing! I should really do something more extreme, you know? And you can, you can push your boundaries. It really pushes up the notch of traveling: you talk, you discuss, you realize what you really can do out there. So I got this idea to travel down Africa and from South Africa go across to South America. It was just an idea. but I just traveled overland for a year and a half, so I thought, maybe I actually want to stop and stay somewhere, have my own wardrobe again, put my photos up on the wall or something.

So before these thoughts, I contacted this guy, Kirk, Captain Kirk. In my mind I thought, I’ll probably never do this. I’ll never do this. But I still kept it up, just in case. So maybe a month, a month and a half ago, he contacted me and gave me the details and told me I was definitely selected as one of the crew.

At this point I contacted him and said, I’m sorry, I don’t think I can do it. My shoes are literally worn out. I literally have a hole this big in the sole of my shoe. My shoes are worn out, I’m really tired, I just want to rest and study and make some money. But he was convincing, for my benefit, and told me there’s another girl on the ship that she has the same problem; but she realized that on the ship, she’s in the same place the whole time. You’ve got your same bed, but your bed’s moving.

And I thought, that’s the best thing for me. The idea of staying in one place, for me, is really nice, but I’m sure I’ll get itchy feet. Whereas, with this, I’m staying in one place, but that place is floating somewhere new. I can explore things without having to pick up my backpack and change location all the time, you know, hop on the subway, hop on the bus, peak hour traffic.. oh, I hate that. especially in London. It’s terrible.

And, who just is able to book a flight to South Africa and sail over to South America? I think I’m really lucky, and it’s one of those opportunities I won’t be able to get again.”

A: “No kidding. I think it’s fantastic! Okay, so, final question: What is the biggest thing you’ve learned from traveling, and how have you changed since you started?”

H: “Confidence. Traveling by yourself as a girl through certain countries, you have to grow up a lot. You have to be quite mature. I guess, among other things, you clear your head of materialistic thoughts, judgmental thoughts, of gossip. Not that I was ever very gossipy, but where I’m from can be quite cliquey. You learn to shove out any of that bull— that was in your head that you don’t need. You learn to just like a person for who they are and not judge them. You learn to organize yourself, even though I’m still not very organized. You have to do grown-up things, like go get visas, forge documents… things like that.

I think the best thing I learned was humility. You have to put yourself out there and you have to make fun of yourself all the time. If you don’t know the language, you have to look like a monkey, using your hands to show, I want a call, or I want a bed, and you look like a right lunatic. You have to learn humility. You have to put yourself out there and embarrass yourself to get what you need, and also to get connections with people as well.

One of the greatest days I had traveling was when I was in Rome. I had just left my family in the airport, and it was a little bit weird, I don’t know when I’ll see them again. I wasn’t sure if I should have gone home with them. So I was feeling a little bit weird, and I was supposed to go this hostel, and I got quite lost: uphill, downhill, asking everybody directions, and it started pouring, and I was absolutely drenched, head to toe, and everybody was looking at me, like, ew, what’s she doing, she looks terrible. And then, I kind of smiled, like, wow, this is fantastic, this is humility. I can do this. I’m not really ashamed. I can go up to people that clearly don’t want to talk to me and I can ask them for directions. If I smile at them, they’ll smile back.

I think the closest way between two languages is a smile. That’s probably the best thing I’ve learned, as well. Everybody is human, we just have different cultures and languages and experiences, but everybody needs the same things. If you smile, people don’t see you as intimidating or threatening in any way.”

Hannah has joined a ship as part of the crew and is currently sailing from Cape Town, South Africa, across the Atlantic Ocean to Brazil. Best of luck, Hannah! Thanks for your thoughts!