Alice Chapman, Hitchhiking on film
Meet Alice and discover her love for hitchhiking.
Video by Phoebe Ward
Alice Chapman is a 23-year-old, that’s just finished her journalism degree at Goldsmiths. With a profound sense of adventure, she has hitchhiked five continents and documented her journeys along the way. She has recently submitted her short film “People are kind” to ILLUMINATE film festival, her film has received significant applause and has she has now reached the semifinals. Her films make you realise how much trust we can put into strangers, and the beauty of human nature.
PW: Okay so first of all, can you tell me a little bit about yourself?
AC: Erm, yeah, my name is Alice, I’m 23 about to be 24, I grew up in Somerset and i just finished a journalism degree at Goldsmiths in London and I love adventure travelling, hitchhiking erm yeah, doing like fun crazy things.
PW: So, when was the first time you went hitchhiking?
AC: My first ever hitchhiking trip was in Morocco, when I was 18, I was in a place called Paradise Valley and we were trying to find a way out and one of my friends who lived there, was like “oh let’s hitchhike” and I was like hitchhike? Like no, what the hell like everyone dies doing that and it was really terrifying. But he was like “no it’s fine just come with me and I’ll show you how to do it”. And then we did it, we got picked up by a massive lorry within like twenty seconds and then we were in like the back of this huge, I guess like empty tank, erm and like going down, winding down I think it’s the Atlas Mountains in Morocco. I was just looking out at the mountains in the back of this tank, and I was like okay yeah, hitchhiking is awesome. And then two days later I ended up hitchhiking the whole way down the Sahara Desert to Mauritania and hitchhiking on a cargo train across the Sahara Desert. So, it was kind of like zero to one hundred in the space of two days at age 18.
PW: That’s amazing, wow! Do you have any other stories of like hitchhiking, like through the years, anything that stands out to you, that’s been very memorable?
Alice: Yeah so I mean the people that I’ve been in their car with for like a really long time, I guess stand out to me, they like stick to me more cause’ you get to spend more time with them. So there was this guy called Veal, who I rode with for like three days in Romania and I was with two of my other friends as well and he took us to Dracula’s castle, in Transylvania and we went out to dinner and then we stayed in like different Airbnb’s together every night, erm and that was like really cool to just like join him for such a long amount of time. Felt like we were going on a road trip, and he just picked us up at a petrol station.
PW: So, what does hitchhiking mean to you? Is it like freedom? Is it having an adventure, meeting new people?
AC: I think, I initially started doing it because it was money saving, like it was free financially and then I started to realise the social benefits of doing it. I was travelling because I wanted to immerse myself into the culture of the place and I realise that by hitchhiking and spending time with the people that were actually from that place and talking to them very intimately in a car is like the best way to immerse yourself into a place, so I learnt a lot from that. Erm, so it’s free financially but it’s also it gives you a lot of mental freedom as well cause you’re not reliant on a bus service, you’re not reliant on the train station, that has to be in a certain place. You can hitchhike absolutely anywhere in the world, as long as there’s a car driving there, and in that way, I think it’s more efficient, than public transport in a way, because it’s completely unlimited.
Image courtesy of Alice Chapman
PW: Were there moments that completely changed how you saw the world or yourself?
AC: I don’t think one specific moment, changed how I saw the world, but I think having been doing it for years, and years and years and just experiencing such immense kindness from people has really, that has shaped my like entire world view, to be honest. I think, you there’s so much negativity around hitchhiking and around just like strangers and the focus is always on not trusting other people, as opposed to learning how to like trust your gut and follow your instincts and I think putting my life in the hands of strangers has like, ultimately shaped all, of who I am today.
PW: So, would you say that’s what inspired you to make your short film “People are kind”?
AC: Yeah, absolutely.
PW: Do you want to tell me a bit about your film?
AC: My film, so I’ve been running a YouTube channel for like the past couple of years, like making films about hitchhiking, kind of like spreading positive messaging about people all over the world, but I’ve never really like taken it that seriously. I’ve just done like one video every couple of months. And then I saw this advert on Instagram, saying that this film festival were looking for short films, that represent the oneness of humanity and like kindness of strangers, all over the world and that there was a very big cash prize for the winner. And I was like it’s ninety seconds, I can make that so quickly, and I feel like that kind of theme is all my work in a nutshell and so I put it together and submitted it, because I just thought the description that they were asking for was the epitome of all my work and now I’m a finalist!
PW: So, what would you say to people who think the world is too dangerous for women to travel alone?
AC: I would say it is fundamentally not true, obviously there are precautions that you have to take but I think travelling alone as a woman, you really… it’s like you get the best and worst of both sides. So obviously there’s a lot of precautions that I would take that a man would not have to take, and there’s also a lot of culture that I am excluded from, because I’m a woman. I cannot have the same interactions with some locals in certain places, simply because I’m a woman. But then at the same time, I also feel like, in a funny kind of way, I felt safer because I was a woman, because I found that people knew that I was vulnerable and people wanted to help me more, and it’s a kind of, it’s a really like weird dilemma to be in, cause I don’t want people to help me because they feel sorry for me, but at the same time, like there’s nothing that I can do about that, but I found that like, certainly hitchhiking if you’re a woman on your own, you’re going to get picked up, ten times faster than if you were a man on your own and yeah like people just like want to help. And I think in terms of like danger, I never want to say like the world’s completely risk free, like you never know what is going to happen but I think when you put yourself in these situations that could be potentially dangerous, you learn so much about yourself, you learn so much about how to read other people and you’re actually in a lot more control of situations than you’re probably led to believe. And I feel like I’ve really developed like an amazing sense of erm just being able to like follow my gut and like I guess like a sixth sense and being able to like read a situation and like guide a situation and erm yeah.
Image courtesy of Alice Chapman
PW: Probably a bit of a weird question but what do your parents make of your travels and stuff and the films you’ve made?
AC: That was like the most common question I would get asked, when I was hitchhiking a lot. I think when I first told them, especially when, when I was in Morocco and I was like I’m about to hitchhike across the Sahara Desert, with some guys I’ve just met, like a day ago. My mum was like “ Oh my God, what are you doing?” but she cycled the length of South America in the nineties, she’s also like cycled to Tibet. My dad’s hitchhiked all over the world, like I think, they would much rather that I was doing something like this than I was just living a kind of normal life, I think I’ve had an upbringing that has very much encouraged adventure been incredibly honest with my parents, I tell them absolutely everything, like I don’t think there’s a single thing that I’ve ever done, that I haven’t told my mum about.
PW: What about the homemade bungee jump? That’s insane!
AC: Yeah, they know about that, they encourage things like that because they’re super fun and yeah, I mean I’ve done stuff like that with my parents, I’ve hitchhiked with my dad before, erm yeah. So, I think it’s difficult for them knowing that I am just kind of out there doing these things and putting myself in danger, but they also know that I’m very much alive and living like a really really fun and worthwhile life, by taking these risks. I think they also know that I’m the kind of person that would all these things regardless of what they’ve said. And so, their kind of motto is “well I’d rather you do it and we know about it, and you’re able to tell us about it and be honest about it, than like you do but you don’t feel like you can tell us and then you have to hide things and if you get into trouble like you can’t call us.”
PW: So, my final question is, what’s next for you both creatively and as a traveler?
AC: So, I just finished university, so I’m in a bit of a strange like transition phase right now, creatively like I definitely want to go in like journalism, I want to go into like documentary making, but doing that’s quite difficult. I have some travel plans, I really want to hitchhike across the Atlantic, on a boat and I also want to learn Russian in central Asia somewhere, probably Kazakhstan, and I know that the hitchhiking there is really good, really easy. So, they’re my two kind of like next trips but I don’t exactly when I’m going to do it or anything else, but the world is my oyster so…
To see more adventures from Alice, visit her Youtube channel below.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJoGPhNYvD-TV90k1ssgf8w
