After Josh deLacy graduated from college a few years ago, he decided to hitchhike across the U.S. He didn’t have a job, didn’t have obligations, and didn’t have anything holding him back. Like Beitiks, he saw hitchhiking as an experiment. He wanted to know if there were good people in the world. He traveled with no money, and wasn’t going to ask for anything from anyone except for a ride.
He carried a hand-painted sign that read “Traveling on Trust” and made his way from his home in Washington state to Michigan to New Mexico and then back home. He got in the car with young pregnant mothers, a grandmother, a Vietnam veteran, a police officer, a pastor, a criminal, a bunch of teenagers and even a man who used to be a meth cook. He rode with 138 different drivers, and traveled 6,745 miles.
“What really impacted me was that I could trust more people than I thought I could,” he says. “It’s really forced me to evaluate what makes a good person.”
Josh: Yes. Especially being young and looking even younger.
]]>If you want a radical way of getting a practical education, Josh deLacy ’13 has a formula worth considering: It starts by strapping a 55-pound pack on your back, emptying your wallet and hitting the open road.
The course has no prerequisites. And costs only time. How much time? Depends on the student.
For deLacy, it was a 39-day class this summer, immediately following graduation. It covered a wide range of topics, had dozens of different teachers from a variety of backgrounds. Some classes were taught in transit and some over meals.
The course is called “Traveling on Trust: No Money. No Interstates. Hitchhiking through Small-Town America.”