Throwback Thursday: A Love-Fueled Hitchhiking Trip From Beijing to Berlin
Throwback Thursday takes a look back into Beijing's past, using our nine-year-strong blog archives as the source for a glance at the weird and wonderful of yesteryear.
In the mayhem of smoking expats, gender issues, charity, and, as always, great food, we've unearthed this heartwarming love story from 2010. Eight years ago, the Beijinger met with traveler Kyle Johnson prior to setting off on a hitchhike of a lifetime, Johnson, along with his good friend Liu Chang, was heading all the way to Berlin so that he could reconnect with his girlfriend, giving the saying "I'll follow you to the end of the world" a whole new meaning.
A month before the interview, we also wrote a blog about Johnson and Liu's initial travel plans, which received its fair share of incredulity from readers, many questioning "how can Beijing to Berlin be 16,000 kilometers?" given that a straight shot from Beijing to Berlin was 7,500km. The travelers responded with a detailed route via Google maps outlining the back and forth trips they had to make in Turkey and a detour to Iraqi Kurdistan.
The Beijing-born but America-raised Kyle Johnson described how the main reason for the journey was to see his girlfriend but that he had always wanted to take a long overland journey, claiming that planes and buses did not offer the idiosyncratic experience and human interaction that he craved.
Once complete, the trip was in fact closer to 17,000km and took Johnson and Liu almost three months to complete. The hitchhikers documented the entire ride, going on to release a documentary that screened on the Chinese Travel Channel.
Funnily enough, Johnson said at the time that Beijing to Hebei was the most barren part of the ride and where they struggled to find a willing hitch for the longest amount of time. Frustrated, Johnson and Liu asked a road-side maintenance worker why it was proving so difficult. The worker reportedly thought for a minute and then observed: "Not many cars go to Berlin from here."
In the interest of finding out what his mega-trip led to, we decided to get in touch with Johnson to ask him about the highlights of his almost decade-old hitchhike as well as whether he and his girlfriend rekindled their love. It turns out that Johnson is currently traveling in Peru.
He's still making travel documentaries and his social media is stuffed with pictures from all over the globe. He briefed us on a few of his trips but said that there have been too many to remember overall. Asked to pick some highlights, the filmmaker listed his motorcycle trip through Siberia, a 51-day journey around China with no money, and a rickshaw adventure in India accompanied by a Beijing taxi driver.
And what of his Berlin-based girlfriend? Sadly, they broke up in 2016 after 10 years together but remain good friends. "I think my traveling lifestyle is not compatible with many people," admitted Johnson.
More by this author here.
Email: tautviledaugelaite@trureun.com
Images: courtesy of Kyle Johnson
