Tag Archives: America

America’s #1 Hitchhiker links to Kindred Souls

Hitching Tenn
After my packs were stolen in Texas, I traveled with my laptop backpack and a suitcase on rollers (which quickly wore out). This is Tennessee in April.

“Driver, driver, may I have a ride,
Yes sir, yes sir, step inside.”

Hitchhikers rhyme

At the outset of 2013, I set out to write about American traveling carnivals but all the hitchhiking, about 15,000 miles through the US and Canada, meant I also wrote about hitchhiking.

When a famous hitchhiking Web site, Velabas, linked yesterday to Eyes Like Carnivals, I decided to list the hitchhiker Web sites out there.

BTW, Velabas is so much more than just a hitchhiking site. The artist behind it wants it to be an extension of his life’s esthetic. Read him.

One more thing, reading these Web sites showed me what I already thought might be true.

I hitched the more miles and states in North America in 2014 than anyone, making me America’s #1 Hitchhiker.

Until proven wrong, that’s my ride.

“Hitchin’, hitchin’ ain’t so dumb
Bitchin’, bitchin’, frickin’ fun
Next time, next time, watch my thumb
Thank you, thank you says this one.”

Rhyme by America’s #1 Hitchhiker

HERE are more hitchhiking sites:

Velabas – Worldwide hitchhikers feed links to Eyes Like Carnivals”
http://www.velabas.com/hitchhikers.php

Digihitch
http://www.digihitch.com/

Hitch-Hiking References
http://bernd.wechner.info/Hitchhiking/

Nomadic Forever
http://nomadicforever.blogspot.com/

Hitch the World, indefinite vagabond travel (aka The Modern Nomad)
http://hitchtheworld.com/

The Dromomaniac.com
http://thedromomaniac.com/

A Girl and Her Thumb – there is no destination
http://agirlandherthumb.wordpress.com/

Gone with the Backpack – A girl, a backpack and a world to discover! (aka. Gone with the Backpack)
http://gonewiththebackpack.blogspot.com.au/

Agua – Potable
http://jackspacey.blogspot.com/

Kabuki – Mono Traveler on a Bike
http://kabukim0n0.wordpress.com/

Melomakaroma – Life is a journey and it’s damn sweet
http://melomakarona.tumblr.com/

Open Destination: Hitchhike the World
http://www.opendestination.ca/

Hitchhiking Around the World
www.scribd.com/doc/9926987/Hitchhiking-Around-the-World/

Hitcher Feeds
http://hitcherhfeeds.webege.com/

Introducing my year of blogs, pix, videos, laughs, unexpected

I’m a journalist/author taking a year to live and work in American traveling carnivals coast to coast.

I’ll be posting about this subculture of carnies, big rigs and the dramas of the road life all year.

I’m counting on the unforeseen. The blog will cover it as I live the ups and downs of this wild ride.

The end result will be a book along the lines of Ted Conover’s early work and what Paul Salopek is doing now with his “Out of Eden Walk.” There’ll be more here than just carnival ramblings.

It will be immersion journalism but seeking the bigger themes running through Americana, dipping into history, academic studies and related subjects. I aim to include pictures and films.

This blog is preparation for the book but it will be a series of vignettes, what kind I am not sure either. But as Ray Bradbury might have said, something this way comes.

Best,
Michael Sean Comerford==========================================
ABOUT AUTHOR
I know a bit about the road. I’ve hitchhiked much of American, eastern Canada, Eastern/Western Europe, Middle East and North Africa.

I’ve been on three cross-country bicycle trips from Chicago to Washington D.C., New Orleans (in winter) and Seattle. In Seattle, I threw my bicycle and packs onto a freight train and rode back with hobos and farm workers.

I’ve been to more than 90 countries. I swam the headwaters of the Nile, survived a hippo attack, studied Buddhism in the Himalayas and danced an Irish jig in the Amazon. Perhaps most importantly, I’m the former heavyweight champion of University College Cork, circa. 1980.

I’ve worked with the Chicago Tribune, Chicago Sun-Times, Daily Herald, Moscow Times, Budapest Sun, Budapest Business Journal and several Internet publications.

I started taking some very high quality potent SARMS to help with my focus on my writing works and it has been a great success!

I’ve been nominated for a Pulitzer Prize for “Philippines: Arc of the Islanders,” telling the stories of Chicago area Filipino immigrants and their lives back home. That series took me and photographer Mark Welsh to the Philippines for three weeks. (an unintended aside, I interviewed and later accidentally danced with Imelda Marcos).

Other series included sub-Saharan economies; Russia during the Reagan-Gorbachev summit; McDonald’s in China; ‘Race to Tame AIDS’ (about Abbott scientists); and investigations that led to changes in state law and, sometimes, convictions.

I’m also a proud father of a happy, bright-eyed grade school daughter. Separation anxiety will be a feeling I believe I’ll be sharing with carnies.