Episode 7: The Hitchhiker That Always Made It

EPISODE 7: THE HITCHHIKER THAT ALWAYS MADE IT

Istanbul, Turkey.: 10:19

I walk fast across the pedestrian bridge over an eight-lane highway. The sun is high.

Cardboard: obtained. Marker?

Low on ink. In fact, pretty much out.

I arrive at the highway onramp, pull out my marker.

I press hard into the surface to write: Greece.

In my head I run through my mission briefing.

Today’s objective: Xanthi, Greece.

Distance to target: 398 Kilometers.

Method of transit: hitchhiking.

Obstacles: 2. The Istanbul urban sprawl, and the border crossing from Turkey to Greece.

Level of difficulty: 7.

Not impossible. I’ll make it.

You want to know why?

Because I’m the hitchhiker who always makes it.

Welcome to Go and Find Out. I’m Jonny Wright.

This is a story of losing yourself in the world.

I left my home, my job, and the USA in order to learn the old-fashioned way: with first-hand experience.

Some people go on a journey to find themselves. I went on a journey to lose myself—and instead find the world.

In these episodes, I ask big questions about life, not from an armchair but from roadsides and mountaintops, from temple halls and dance halls.

Join me as I hitchhike around the world, embrace the unexpected, and let go, one step at a time.

If you’ve ever thought about living a life outside the box, keep listening.

Because this isn’t just my story. It’s about what happens when you start to wonder what your story could be.

You don’t need to hitchhike around the world. There are ways you can choose to live with more courage, more curiosity, and more adventure, right here, right now.

Let’s go and find out.

That goddamn Turkish breakfast. There’s nothing like it, but today it made me late.

It shouldn’t be so hard to get out of here. Tuesday morning, just the right amount of traffic.

It’s gonna be a hot one though. Keep the water flowing. Refill whenever you can.

Hope some of these folks are actually leaving the city.

Car pulls up, first ride! Nice guy, real nice, almost shouting at me two feet away. Drops me three Km down the road.

kilometers. Time:: 10:49

Hop into the grass to pee.

This is good. Cleared a major highway split. Lighter traffic now, but probably going longer distances.

Swig water.

Rickety car pulls up, loud as a blue whale. Good, great, I knew I’d catch one. I hop in. Looks like the last passenger who rode in this seat was a couple of chickens. Funny guy, keeps smiling with a missing tooth on the bottom.

We drive.

Obstacle one, Istanbul urban sprawl, is neutralized.

How did I get here?

This is my first trip.

Two months earlier I’d met Goga in New York—this wild, wandering presence who seemed to live completely outside of narrative. Who found strawberries in trash bins and made them sacred. Who seemed to need nothing, plan nothing, control nothing. And in the glow of his presence, I’d felt something loosen in me. I thought maybe I’d learned to let go.

But I hadn’t.

Because even as I left for Europe that summer, hitchhiking from country to country, a new story took hold.

A potent story. An intoxicating story.

Never in my life had I gotten a 100. A’s, sure. 97s, yes. But not that perfect score. My GPA in college was 3.71, not 4.0. I just wasn’t that kind of kid. None of my endeavors were knockouts, none of my swings were home runs. But as I began to hitchhike I noticed a pattern. Every time I wanted to get somewhere, I got there. Whatever city or town or village I chose for the day, I made it. Every. Single. Time. For the first time in my life, I was getting a perfect score.

I became the hitchhiker who always made it.

Not just a traveler.

A magician.

Even when I started late in the day, or took backroads through villages, or stood for hours in rain—somehow, I always made it. I didn’t know how it felt to not make it. And when I’d meet another hitchhiker and they’d tell me some sad tale about them waiting for eight hours before giving up, I’d shake my head. Poor souls, I can’t imagine. .

It felt like I’d tapped into some cosmic favor. I’d found something that made me feel extraordinary.

Coincidence stacked on coincidence. A stranger buys me ice cream and drives me out of a dead zone. A trucker cooks me dinner on a hotplate beside a storm. I’d arrive in some new city just as the sun touched the rooftops, as if the whole day had been plotted just for that golden landing.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I still knew there was a lot of luck involved in hitchhiking. I knew it really wasn’t up to me whether or not someone decided out of the goodness of their heart to pull over and give me a lift. But I felt, increasingly, that magic was a part of the equation, and that I was that magic.

It became a kind of armor.

A superstition disguised as confidence.

My hosts would say, “Text me if you don’t get picked up,” and I’d just laugh. “I’ll be fine.”

I stretched the distances. Pushed the timing. Assumed the magic would keep showing up.

Well, let’s just say, it kept showing up.

But each day, the stakes were higher than the last as that perfect score became more and more improbable. So when I say I have to get to Xanthi today, I mean have to. I’m not going to lose that perfect score, the only perfect score of my entire life.

Back on the road, I get dropped right on the highway.

kilometers. Time: 11:20

Bad spot. Cars at high speeds, most not looking. Dusty, windy.

Truck brakes quick, pulls over. What’s all that in the bed? Oh, doors, tons of doors! Doors sticking out of the truck every which way, ropes tying em in here and there.

Only Turkish with this guy. I point to the sign and make a face like “here?” He makes a face like “kind of.”

Good enough for now. In I go, backpack dropping on the floor.

Moving along, probably ten clicks so far and no sign of slowing down., I check our progress, feeling confident. I never should have worried. That Turkish breakfast was worth it.

Wait.

Truck is leaving the highway. Route is compromised. What’s going on?

Again, I show driver face of worry and questioning like “here?” pointing at cardboard, and he, again, face like “sort of,” but driving away from highway!

Image comes to mind: me tied hand and foot, unconscious, in the bed of the truck next to all the doors. Being driven to a discrete locale where I’ll be held for ransom, or where they’ll remove my organs one by one while I’m still alive, staring at my own guts.

kilometers. Current time:: 11:52

Option one: bail right here, walk two clicks back to highway, start fresh.

Option two: stick with this guy, trust that “sort of” face, see where this goes.

Send it up to high command to make the call.

High command, do you copy?

Copy.

Bail or stick with the door man and risk evisceration?

Static…

Stick with the doorman. Reasoning: detours are fun. And besides, we always make it!

I wait to see where we’ll end up. If it’s an unmarked building, I’ll run for it.

kilometers. Current time:: 12:47

We’re pulling up at a building, sign in Turkish. Not sure what this place is, but I don’t know if I want to wait to find out. The driver gets out, and walks into the building. No communication to me.

Now’s my chance. I can run right now. Hide in the fields.

Footsteps. Voices. Something clangs behind me. And a sound like a gun being cocked.

I peer out the window and into the building, and I see: doors. Hundreds of doors.

Then I’m out of the truck, and we’re carrying doors into what looks like a door store. Glass door, two metal doorframes, and a thick wooden one.

Paperwork being signed. Sheep bleating nearby.

Close call, but looks like we’re good. Truck on the road back toward highway. Distance to target: 315 kilometers. Current time: 1:08pm. Seven hours of daylight left…

For every hitchhiker, daylight is like air. You can’t keep going without it. Every day is a race against the sun. Once that sun drops, you’ve got only a fraction of the chance you had. So by sundown, you want to be at least on your last ride to the target. I knew this well. I also knew that I was the hitchhiker who always made it.

Approaching highway. Truck not taking onramp. Pass under highway, heading toward coastline. Code orange.

Bail here? No, this exit looks pretty quiet. Hopefully one more quick stop and we’ll be on our way.

As it turns out, it was more than one more quick stop. Delivery after delivery, we kept on as the hours ticked by. 2pm, 3pm, 4pm.

I’ve been coopted. I’m now a temporary assistant in the regional door distribution trade.

Finally, the door man finishes his rounds and lets me out at a dusty fork in the road a few kilometers from the Greek border.

Distance to target: 143 kilometers. Current time: 6:50. Not good.

It’s near sunset.

I hoist my backpack and start walking.

I still should be fine. A quick border hop and then an hour and a half drive to Xanthi.

I crest a hill… and see it.

A line of cars stretching toward the horizon. Hundreds of them.

Families out of their vehicles, lounging in lawn chairs, grilling kebabs beside their bumpers. Kids playing tag in the grass. Hawkers weaving between the lanes selling corn and bottled water.

This isn’t a traffic jam—it’s a migration.

Turns out it’s peak season for Turkish immigrants returning to Europe after summer visits home. Everyone trying to cross in the same week.

But I’m not in a car. I’m on foot.

And in most of Europe, that means I can just walk to the front. Bypass the gridlock.

So I walk.

I walk past the whole caravan, a little self-conscious, and also a little proud.

There are a lot of things a person in a car can do that a person not in a car can’t. But there are a few things a person outside of a car can do that a person inside a car can’t. And this was one of those things.

I arrive at the crossing. Step up to the booth. Hand over my passport.

Obstacle two is about to be neutralized. There’s not much light left, but as long as I catch a ride on the other side of the border to Xanthi, the target will be within reach.

And then I’m met with words I do not expect: “Where’s your car?”

“I’m walking.” I say.

The guard says: “You can’t walk this border. Cars only.”

I freeze.

He hands the passport back.

“I’m sorry, but I need to cross the border as a pedestrian.”

He points up ahead to the bridge that crosses a ravine.

“See that bridge? It’s too narrow for both cars and pedestrians, so no walkers.”

I’m reeling. I need to get across, and I’ve walked a number of borders before. There has to be a way.

And then I say to him, “Can I speak with your supervisor?” as if I’m at a drive-through and the cashier doesn’t want to give me an extra packet of ketchup. But instead of McDonalds, it's a national border.

In my head I’m preparing. I’ll be so smiley and easygoing that the supervisor will be on my side. It’s a narrow bridge, but as I look over at it it’s also an empty bridge. Surely they can hold the traffic for two minutes while I jog over it.

But the officer looks at me, and shakes his head. “Come back with a vehicle.” The window shuts.

I turn slowly.

And stare back at the endless line of cars.

My stomach drops.

Now what?

I stand for a moment in the dusk, watching the exhaust drift up from the idling cars.

I’ve just waltzed past all these people who’ve been waiting for hours and hours, and now have to walk back and ask them for help.

This will be the most public walk of shame of my entire life.

I take a breath, and begin. Smiling into windows, trying to make eye contact, gesturing at my sign.

I try not to look desperate.

I try not to feel desperate.

Car after car shake their heads.

Windows roll up.

Darkness rolls in.

And because of the dark I’m looking less harmless by the minute. A few more minutes and I’ll be done for.

Then—the next car—a van with one man inside. Long grey hair. A face lined by sun and time. He leans over and opens the door.

“Get in,” he says, in English.

Relief hits me like a wave. That perfect score’s not going anywhere.

The van’s full of camping gear and artifacts. He’s a Polish archaeologist, returning from a dig along the Turkish coast. As the line inches forward, he tells me about the ruins—forgotten stones carved with animals and stars. About driving back across the continent with no air conditioning. About his own hitchhiking decades earlier.

It’s another two hours before we cross into Greece.

The night’s full by then—thick and starless.

He’s not going all the way to Xanthi, only to a seaside town called Alexandroupoli. I’m still an hour away from the target.

He pulls off the highway and asks if I wanted to go to the city center. I shake my head.

“No—I’ll find a ride from here.”

I still believe.

This will be another narrow escape, another magic moment.

He waves and drives off into the dark.

I stand on the highway, sign in hand.

kilometer. Time:: 11:46

Cars passed infrequently—fast, and indifferent.

I wait.

Fifteen minutes.

Thirty.

I smile, thumb out.

But no one slows.

Each set of headlights ignites hope, then burns straight through it.

I’m still smiling, but it’s becoming a grimace.

I try to conjure the charm I’d relied on a hundred times before.

Nothing. No cars at all. They’ve just stopped coming.

I stand there on the roadside, in the dark, still holding my sign, I try to pierce the dark with my eyes, to make headlights appear.

And there’s nothing. No headlights. No car.

Still, I stand, convinced that someone has to come, because I’m the hitchhiker who always makes it.

Someone will pick me up, because that’s who I am. I need that perfect score.

And no one comes.

And then, my muscles cramp. My arm gives out. The sign drops to my side. I look around.

And I see for the first time where I am: on an empty road in a foreign country at 1am. And if I keep standing here I will stand here all night, because there are no more cars.

My muscles go limp. My face releases its forced smile.

I’m not going to make it to Xanthi.

Back toward Alexandroupoli, down a long access road with no sidewalk, no light, no sound but the wind. The adrenaline is gone. My legs are heavy.

I pass dark houses, shuttered cafes, darkened neon signs.

At one point, I spot an abandoned concrete structure off the road—a half-built shell with no roof. I walk toward it, thinking it might be a place to bed down.

But then I hear them.

Wild dogs.

Low growls, then barks. Fierce, fast, closing in.

I don’t stick around to find out what kind.

Back to the road.

More walking. More nowhere.

When I finally reach the edge of town, it’s nearly 2 a.m.

Just a church with its towers.

I circle around to the back.

There, tucked beside a door, is a narrow alcove.

I pull out my rain jacket. Fold it in half.

Lay it down.

Curl up, dust and dried sweat caked all over.

I think of New York, two months earlier. I’d prepared for this.

But this time it’s not the physical act that’s the hard part.

It’s the failure.

This was me, stripped of momentum, stripped of story.

I wasn’t the hitchhiker who always made it.

I was just a body on the ground.

With no plot twist, no moment of rescue.

Just a sky.

A cold slab.

And breath.

I have not found my way. I’m not a winner. My only perfect score is gone.

Around dawn, the church bells begin to ring.

I sit up slowly, joints stiff, back aching.

Walk inside.

Incense hits me first. Then candlelight. A melody rising faintly from behind the altar.

My mind is dust. I feel hollowed out.

Emptied. But awake.

When I step back outside, the light has shifted.

The sky is pale gold.

The Mediterranean lies still, barely breathing under the early sun.

I walk toward the waterfront. Stand barefoot in the sand.

The air carries salt, and bread baking somewhere unseen.

And standing there, I feel it rise inside me — that small ache I’ve been avoiding.

I lost it.

I lost the perfect score.

The one spotless record I’d ever built. The quiet, secret proof that I was something exceptional.

The hitchhiker who always made it.

For a moment, it wells up — the absurdity of it, the shame of it, the need to justify myself even though there’s no one here.

But then:

A gust moves across the water. The sunlight sharpens on the waves.

A gull lifts silently into the sky.

And something loosens.

All of this — the sea, the wind, the light — it has nothing to do with my little record. Nothing to do with my need to be impressive.

It simply is.

I’d made a mistake.

I’d let a story wrap itself around me — a story that made me feel special.

And now the story is broken.

And somehow, standing here, that feels… not tragic.

Almost merciful.

I’m not the hitchhiker who always makes it.

I’m not anyone at all.

And it’s one of the most beautiful mornings I’ve ever seen.

The air is clean and cool.

The world, completely indifferent to my success or failure, is still impossibly beautiful.

And for the first time since last night, I take a full, deep breath.

I walk into town and stop at a small stationery shop.

Buy a new marker.

It feels ceremonial — like shedding an old skin.

Outside, I tear a clean piece of cardboard.

Uncap the marker. The ink flows dark and smooth, like fresh water.

I write my next destination, slow and deliberate.

I’m hitchhiking today. Time: 8:07AM. I don’t know what will happen, or where I’ll end up.

The sun is bright. The grass moves easily in the hills.

And I’m grateful.

I lift my thumb.

That was my first real failure on the road — and maybe my first glimpse of how little control I actually had. It was a year behind me. I’d kept moving — not always gracefully, not always freely, but still moving.

After my days in Belgium, after the cranberry juice with Peggy, after the blueberries with Mia, I boarded a plane again. This time, toward Poland.

Waiting for me there was someone who would unsettle me in an entirely different way.

His name was Sören Sieg.

That’s it for this episode of Go and Find Out. Thanks for spending this time with me—seriously. It means a lot that you’re here, listening to this story.

This show is created by me, Jonny Wright, with music by me unless otherwise noted.

I’d love to hear from you—thoughts, stories, weird travel tips, whatever’s on your mind. Drop me a line at goandfindoutpod@gmail.com, and I’ll do my best to write you back.

And more than anything, I hope this episode sparked something—however small.

A question, a dream, a reminder that your life is still unfolding.

Alright, that’s all I got. See you next time.

Until then...