Meet Thierry, Julia, Wilfrid and Simon. And Sylvain, Flavie, Caroline and Killian. Six are from France, the other two are from Quebec. Answering to an internet-based call sent out by Valence, France, native Thierry Montaner in 2007, the eight who ended up forming the team of Tout en Marchant left everything they had – selling their cars and apartments, quitting jobs and saying goodbye to family and friends – to set out on a three- to five-year adventure in which they would circumnavigate the globe on foot with a daily spending allowance of two euro a person.
They ask on their website if it is “still possible, today, to travel like did pilgrims of yore. Without relying on money to progress, counting only on our own capabilities or on the goodwill of people who will be met along the way?”
And it sounds nice and all, but why, exactly, such an undertaking? The Sofia Echo met with four of the walkers – Thierry, Julia Das (from Reims, France), Wilfrid Seeboldt (l’Hay les Roses, France) and Simon Bareil (Shawinigan, Quebec, Canada) – when they were in Bulgaria in August 2008, five months after their adventure began, to find out just that.
It is the middle of the hottest month of the year in Sofia, and they arrive for our meeting in front of the Palace of Justice in a run-engendered sweat. Someone with a flat around Russki Pametnik has allowed them to stay with him during the four’s 3.5 days in Sofia, and the distance was not as short as it looked on the map.
My first impression is of surprise – for walking X number of kilometres almost every day and having no assurance of the next meal since April, they appear in good condition. No one is skeletal, their clothes are clean and their hair is neat. We head to Sluntse Luna, a cosy vegetarian restaurant in the city centre, where we will be shaded from the sun and allowed to talk undisturbed.
It turns that the four of them are half of the group’s total: the eight members, all aged between 25 and 32, take two parallel routes, and meet up in larger cities, changing group members around to avoid endless contact with the exact same people, and to allow varying preferences for visiting various cities to be fulfilled. In addition, a group of four foreigners in a given country is less intimidating than eight, and it’s more likely to be offered lodging.
They all started out from Grenoble, France, through to Italy, and split paths when they reached South Eastern Europe: after Slovenia, Thierry, Julia, Wilfrid and Simon focused more on the northern part of Serbia and on Bosnia and Herzegovina, with a route that led through Belgrade and Sarajevo on their way to Sofia. Sylvain, Flavie, Caroline and Killian wanted to visit Montenegro, Kosovo and Macedonia. They’ll all meet up in Thessaloniki in September, and then head to Turkey.
“We avoid cities, except the capitals,” Wilfrid says. “There is a big difference between the people in the cities and the people in the countryside. Big cities resemble one another; it’s in the countryside that the true identity of a nation can be seen.”
Julia shares that from each country or region or city to the next, the locals – particularly in Serbia – warn them about the people they will encounter at their next stop. They’ll say that they are thieves, or that they’re narrow-minded, or that they had just better watch out or else... But, she and the others have come to find, these are simply prejudices, and have – at least until now – proved false.
Simon describes this as a result of politics in the world, where the projected worlds that people make for themselves do not match reality, this often due to political and social propaganda.
“It makes us want to encourage people to travel, to see what’s really out there,” he said.
They also had to overcome prejudices before even leaving home.
One of the hardest things about leaving was telling friends and family, Julia, who worked with an organisation that aided the elderly in rural areas of France, says. People close to her did not understand the point of leaving everything she had, packing up a single backpack and walking the world. She says that this in itself was difficult to overcome, but that it has been worth it.
“I’ve always wanted to travel, but not just with an air plane,” she says. “To see the people of the country, not a hotel. To see how they live. Croatia, Bosnia, Serbia, we’ve seen it on the television, but it’s nothing like being there. When one can talk with the people who lived the wars, with landmines... I could not take just lying on the couch in front of a TV. There comes a point when you just cannot take that any more.”
Simon wanted adventure, a stop with routine and an opportunity to see other countries. In Montreal, he ran an internet and TV installation company, where he managed three employees and worked 80 hours a week. “I didn’t have time to live,” he says.
He decided to join Tout en Marchant because he “wasn’t into travelling by air. Walking is the best way to meet other people.”
And while less certain now, he says that the current situation is a “lot less stressful”, though he admits that there was some concern at the outset – “I was worried about where we would sleep, what we were going to eat. That’s all dissipated.”
Julia seconds this: “We’re not worried about having enough food any more, but when we eat, we tend to eat a lot.”
Understandable, as a daily two euro does not go far to assure any sort of consistent nourishment, or place to sleep.
Instead, they’ve learnt to approach people for food and shelter, or to take advantage of the day-old bread and other baked goods that countries like France and Italy put in the rubbish bin (unfortunately, such is harder to find in SEE) or to live off the food of the land – in the countries of ex-Yugoslavia, they gorged on in-season tomatoes, cucumbers and melons; in Italy, it was the omnipresent pasta.
It has not all been so hunky-dory, though. Sometime after having crossed into Serbia, they had not eaten in 12 hours, and had been walking all day.
“We were in the woods, following a river,” Julia says. They were so hungry, that “the boys caught crickets, and we grilled them with wild garlic and salt. The legs got stuck in your teeth”. They also boiled some plant that they knew was safe, thanks to the plant identification book that Thierry brought with him. “We had to boil it twice. It tasted horrible, but it wasn’t poisonous. At the time, it was such a bad situation, because we were so tired. But the next day, it became funny.”
In other places, they have not encountered people who have given them a place to sleep, and have simply spent nights sleeping in the open, in grassy fields, for example.
But usually, at least till now, there has been someone willing to take them in, be it a person they meet on the streets in a given town or village, or something pre-arranged, for example, through the internet-based hospitality exchange networks Hospitality Club or CouchSurfing.
In Sarajevo and in Belgrade, they met people who simply left them the keys to their flat, or who called up a friend to do the same.
They’ve also learnt things like – while people are kind and offer homemade tipple, it’s not a good idea to be too enthusiastic with the rakiya/rakija, as it makes walking the next day a nightmare.
Personal motivations
People tend to ask “why we’re doing this – they think that we’re crazy”, Julia said.
Perhaps crazy, or perhaps just thinking ahead to the future.
“I didn’t want to go into a career saying that I could have done something,” Wilfrid says. In France, he was a deputy director of a children’s day camp. “I wanted to fulfil my dream, to meet lots of people around the world. We only live once, and the world is too big for just one life.”
Neither did Thierry want to get into a routine. A theatre sound and light technician who studied industrial design, he never found work that held his interest for a very long period of time. “I would always want to change,” he says. “Travelling opens a lot of things up.”
And though the trip around the world will be, in some respect, the same thing for three to five years, “there is a lot of unforeseen, which is good, because there is no routine”, he says.
This is not the first time that Thierry has set off on such an expedition. In 2004, he decided to traverse Europe on a budget of one euro a day. And succeeded. Returning six months and 3000km later, he knew that the “spirit of contemplation” and opportunity to see the real lives of others was something too valuable to experience only once.
Thus, he sent out a call for others to join him.
Because it is impossible to know group dynamics and how individuals will react in certain situations, he thought it best to have a test run before the group set out on a three-year voyage. It was such that in December 2007, they took a 15-day trek with heavy packs, basic hygienic conditions and limited comfort. The eight that flourished are the eight that are currently heading to Thessaloniki.
And while they enjoy each other’s company – being with them, they seemed like family, or old, comfortable friends – they say that it is important to have time alone. Most have taken an mp3 player along, and most have included in their packs something literary: Julia chose a crime novel, Wilfrid has a journal in which he records experiences and feelings, and Thierry has his plant identification guide.
The two euro a day per person is part of the total budget of 5000 euro, of which 2000 went to materials. (It’s very possible, Thierry says.) Donations of cash or goods are happily accepted – there’s no pride here. The backpacks themselves weigh between 15 and 25kg each, and they’re leaving things along the way. It’s summer now, so bags are lighter. Come winter – their parents are sending cold-weather supplies to Ankara – the going will get more challenging.
But they’re not alone in this undertaking. Friends and family have and are visiting throughout the journey. While they were in Sofia, Thierry’s parents joined the group. Julia’s will meet them in Greece. Wilfrid’s sister will come to walk with them in Greece, and his parents will meet the group in Turkey.
Once out of Europe, things will become a bit different. The girls realise that they will be in different territory, and will adapt to the situation, Julia said.
When it comes time to cross the oceans – for example, to Australia and to South America – they will work their way across on ships, or will work beforehand and save up money.
And what about the future, what does that hold? At this point, it’s too early to say, Wilfrid says. It’s just the beginning. After all, if they do not know what will happen tomorrow, how can they say what will happen five years from now?
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Tout en Marchant: Goals
- To walk the globe and discover the world without relying on commercial methods. The teams are obliged to rely on people’s help in their daily undertakings, for meals, lodging and transport. This coincides with the goal of interacting with the local population, taking in their way of life and proving prejudices about other nations unfounded. It also includes living in harmony with the natural environment and supporting local commerce and trade.
- To enrich the dedicated website toutenmarchant.free.fr with audiovisual materials collected during the voyage, to create a sort of log and personal diary of the journey.
- To film the trek so as to eventually create a documentary film and/or reportages on how people live around the world.
- To report as accurately as possible information collected regarding the cultures, cultural heritage, geography and history of the countries visited.
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Budget for each team of four, for a period of three years:
- Life on the road (food, lodging, unforeseen): 22 680 euro
- Equipment (backpack, shoes, tents, clothing, organic soap and toothpaste, etc): 20 320 euro
- Technical equipment (digital camera, dictaphone, envelopes, postage, solar panel, batteries, etc): 16 028 euro
- Sanitary and hygienic materials (first-aid supplies, medicines, sunblock, latex gloves, vaccinations): 15 951 euro
- Visas: 3390 euro
- Logistics (sending of items to and from France and Quebec, website hosting, domain name): 5146 euro
Total: 80 974 euro
