I had the chance to talk to Benjamin Jenks, who did this video above. We talked about traveling, alligators and New Orleans. I did a record of our talk¹, so you can listen to Benjamin while he talks about his experiences.

Julian: Hi Benjamin

Benjamin: Hi, nice to meet you. I’m all excited to dive in. Feel free to ask me anything.

Julian: Thanks. Could you please introduce yourself.

Benjamin: Sure. My name is Benjamin Jenks. I would classify myself as a video artist, an explorer and a coach.
And I wanna help creative or introverted people to move along the process towards living the best life that they could for themselves.
As I go along, I am always thinking: how can I teach stuff behind me to people. I used to be the director of this school for troubled kids. What I learned at this school is experiential learning. I took those lessons from living in the woods for years and working with these kids and applied them to myself, which is partially why I got into traveling and hitchhiking especially. I felt like that would be a good learning experience.

Julian: What are you doing right now?

Benjamin: I freelance, write and I coach on my blog the adventuresauce. I write all kinds of articles. Mostly they are dating advice. Somehow I came into that line.
And then for my own, I help through my website. So I helped a guy, who was in a transition. He was moving and he was into traveling and tried to figure out how to set up the foundation of blogs, you could say. Or another one was just shy. He wanted to get better with women and in other parts of his life, too. Like school or things like that. That are a couple of examples.
Julian: I got the impression, that the experience, you have, came through traveling. So, I wanted to ask you: What was the first time you thought about traveling?
Benjamin: [laughs] When I read that question, I thought of this One moment, when I was a little boy. I was in New York at my grandmother’s and she had all these guide books and I was looking through it and I saw this topless girl. [laughs again] I think this was the first time, that I was inspired to travel.
But, when I was in middle school my nana actually took me to Portugal. Just her and I. And I was so young and with the camera, that I really think, that this set the tone for travel or planted the seed for travel, if that answers your question.
Julian: Yes, I think that’s a good answer. And when was the moment, you decided to actually do it? Because I think, that many people think „Yeah, I should travel“, but when did you decide to do it.

Benjamin: That hitchhiking adventure trip? I always wanted to travel around the world. And I don’t remember the exact moment, but I know, that it was a process from „I want to travel the world, but I’m walking in this school“. Ok, years go by and it kind of grows a little bit from „Ok, I want to travel the USA first and see a bunch of old friends“. And I always wanted to be like Jack Kerouac and be just free. So, that came into the picture. And then I was just thinking: „Oh, where am I going in my career?“ And the whole blogging thing was coming along and I was thinking: „Oh, that seems interesting. I could dive into that.“ So, that came in as well.
And then I decided to leave the school, that I worked at. This was really the moment, I guess, when I was sure, that this is really going to happen. It was like six year from college to this point of waiting. So, I was ready to go.
Julian: Did you just dive in or did you plan everything ahead?

Benjamin: Well, I had already saved the money, that I needed. I owned a house in this town. So, I had to deal with that. That took some time to rent it out. And it gave me a few months to get everything situated, you could say. Then I zoomed off.
I did some practice before, which might be helpful for you, if you wanted to hitchhike. Just doing some practice hitchhiking travels ahead of time to kind of test it out and see what kind of gear I would need when I was off.
Julian: What were some lessons you got from your first few trips?

Benjamin: I would say: Test it out. If someone is reading this and wanted to go hitchhiking, that’s, what you should do. I get a lot of people, who want to hitchhike around the USA, which sounds really cool. I would say: Hitchhike to the next town first. For one day and then come back. Test it out and see what it’s like.
I am the sort of guy, who likes to jump into something and then later realises something. Doing my preparations, which took a lot of willpower, I realised my shoes were horrible, my sleeping bag was bad and so I was able to get some of these things before. That would have been a hassle, if I had gotten them later on.
Julian: What was different, when you were hitchhiking, than you expected it to be?

Benjamin: I expected it to be a lot cooler, like always cool. Or like really more horrible stuff to happen.
It was more in the middle. Yes, there were some really great times and a lot of really cool stories. But there were also normal times.
My brain obviously could imagine some horrible scenarios and I was happy, that none of those things happened.
Julian: That’s good. I mean, everything could happen. If you meet someone and you want to tell him the best story about your trips. What would be the best story you got?

Benjamin: I don’t know, if it’s the best story. But the one, I am thinking about is the following: After the first year, I went back to Michigan. Spent a year and a half figuring some things out, went on another trip and then hitchhiked the USA again with my girlfriend that time.
This story starts in New Orleans. It starts like any good story, when we were down. New Orleans is the type of city, that just has a lot of bad areas. There is a lake all around it, there are two bridges and it is just hard to get in and out of this city. So we are inside of it and we are trying to hitchhike out of it and it’s taking all day. We are in the worst neighbourhood of a town, that has lots of bad neighbourhoods. It’s pretty dangerous and we are feeling really bad. It’s near the end and there is a big bridge, we need to get across, as the sun goes down. So, that’s the setting.
Me and my girlfriend, we were saying: „Gosh, what are we gonna do?“ There is a crappy hotel, where the guy, who dropped us of said, that there are drug runners and prostitutes and all sort of crazy stuff. We wanted to get out of there.
And fortunately, this this little Toyota truck just pulls over and the guy puts our stuff in the back and we hop in.
That is one of the amazing times: You go from down to up, which happens in hitchhiking. It’s crazy, how that happens. I think, it partially has to do with your emotions. Because you are so down and then everything is just great.
Anyway, we are zooming across the bridge with this guy and he talks with us. He is one of these Southern-French-New-Orleans-people. He does not live in New Orleans. He lives out on the bayou on this ‚camp‘, as he calls it, that he has built himself.
So, we zoom there and we are checking out the spot. It is wierdly decorated: There is a sword and an axe on the wall. There is a big American Flag. It’s your classic small-town American Guy.
The guy is so much fun to hang out with. So we are having fun with him, drinking beer and partying a little bit with him and celebrating. Maybe it is the end of his workday and he is showing us around and is loving the audience. I have my camera on him and I am asking him all these stories, so he can spill out all his tales. And he has some good ones: He swims with alligators every night for fun. He just swims and he feeds them and it is just a part of his life. And he has a boat. He tried to get us on it and go crabbing, but his boat is broken that night. We are shooting guns into the bayou. That’s the kind of scene.
And we slept in his bed, too. He had a one room place. I like these kind of things, so I asked him: „What if we just sleep on this side and you sleep on the other side?“ And he says: „Sure, that’s cool.“ So, that was fun. {pauses} He kept to his side. {laughs}
These kind of experiences are preety tough to find, if you are not hitchhiking. So that is one thing, I like about hitchhiking. That you can get into these people’s worlds and have these experiences.
Julian: Do you like traveling with other people more? Or are you the guy, who wants to be on his own?

Benjamin: I like them both equally, I would say. But I am definitely more the alone guy unless I have a great partner. Then, I like that, too. It’s great to share and to laugh about these memories with people. That’s such a pleasure.
Julian: Ok. What was the biggest problem: going to the bathroom, money or eating? Or is there any other big problem?

Benjamin: Money would probably be the biggest problem, I would say. Going to the bathroom, that was pretty simple. Eating: You think, that maybe you are going to be stuck or lost somewhere without anything. But I never had that happen. Maybe once or twice, I was scared, that that might happen.
But money: I never thought much about money. I feel like, that that’s not my best skill. That was probably the biggest problem.
Julian: How was coming back?

Benjamin: It was tough coming back. I did not realise it at the time and it took maybe a year afterwards, that one of the deep reasons I was going was, that I hoped, that something would grab me. Like my dreamjob or something would fall into my lap. And when I finished, I was kind of broke, living with my aunt. I was a year out of my relationships and moved to a new place. And after a year of freedom I was running out of money.
And I secretly hoped, that I would now have this great job and a mission to begin with. And now I just had to figure it out again.
But, it get’s better and you learn from that low. I don’t think, that you can get away from that, but I think, that you can learn from the process.
Julian: What’s your favorite place on earth?

Benjamin: The city, that I like the most, would be New Orleans, but it is weird, Because I do not feel like I have a home. I feel like I could be anywhere. New Orleans is a place, that I did connect with right away. I think, there is something about the attitude there, the colors, the kind of grinch to it and the multi-culturality of it. It is a port city, and is mostly more European than most of the American cities. There is something about it, that I think is really cool. I like that place.
Julian: Is there any place in the world, that you really want to visit? If you had all the money in the world, what is the one trip, you want to do?

Benjamin: I still am going to travel the world, so I want to come and check Berlin.
My dream is not one place. I would like to travel around the world and have three to six months to visit all the places, I want to. And have time to come back and spent the summer times with my family. That is how I like do it.
Cities, that stick out are Berlin, Antarctica, just because it is down there and noone really goes there. I am sure there are other places, too.
Julian: Are you more a city guy or do you like more the countryside, when you are traveling?

Benjamin: I want them both. I want to go into the cities on weekends. Or actually midweek to go out, when it is dead. But then I want the country and the nature for the rest of the week to be peaceful and quiet. I like something about both of those. It’s then maybe the suburbs, that I stick to.
Julian: You have this website, the adventuresauce. And there are people trying to connect and you are giving them answers and lesson. Are there any great connections and experiences you got through the web?

Benjamin: Yes, definitly. It helped me in a lot of ways. Meeting people in person is always the best. My blog is still not really large. There are around 1500 people on the email list. But one person recognised me in a Starbucks, when I was hitchhiking. Out of the billion people in the world, I am in this little town out in the Redwoods, sitting in the Starbucks and working on something and she comes to me and asked: „Benjamin?“ I do not feel like a famous person at all. So, I was not sure, what was going on. But she took me and my friend, who was this Islandic guy, that I just met, in for the night and showed us around. That experience was: „Having a blog is awesome.“ And it was just cool to make this friend with this other really awesome person, who was so gracious to reach out to us.
So, I think having a blog is really worth it. That’s just the high end. But there are other people with blogs, who you can talk to. And to do that with a lot of people around the world is kind of an educational experience not to be missed for me.
Julian: Do you get the feeling,while traveling, that people like to help each other? Is it often so, that you meet people, who offer you help or a bed to sleep?

Benjamin: Not everyone is open to it. But there is this significant minority of people, who are. And I am happy that it is still out there. I feel like there is still a good percentage of people in the USA who help you out.
Julian: Is it hard to hitchhike or is it easy?

Benjamin: I wouldn’t say, that it is easy. If I got a ride within an hour, I was like: „That was fast.“ If would ride within three hours, I was like: „That was good.“ And if I got a ride that day, I was like; „Hey, cool.“
One of the biggest challenges in the USA is, that there are not a lot of people walking around and there are not a lot of facilities to do so. Danger was less, that some guy would go crazy on me and more, that I would get wacked by one of those millions of cars, that were so close to me.
Julian: And you were just walking on the street or did you go to some big places?

Bejamin: You mean, how I did get rides? I have <a great video on my site with a bunch of points. Typically, what I would do, is to get myself out of town to the onramp, that I think would be good and then I would stand there until I got a ride. And if the onramp was not good, then I would find a new one.
Julian: Is there any question, you always wanted to ask yourself?

Benjamin: [laughs] I probably have to think of something later. „Why hasn’t anyone asked me this?“ and then I could type it to you.
Julian: Is there a website, an aritst or music, that everybody should knwo about?

Benjamin: I think, one of the things, I got out of travel, was the sense, that there is something larger than myself. So, I am getting into all these spiritual books and I am realising, how much of a passion, that was for me underneath. I never wanted to admit it, but I was very fascniated and started to think about bigger stuff. „The power of now“ is a book, that I like to read in the morning and in the nighttime as a way to center myself. I just love, what I am gatherin from that book, so I would like to recommend it to other people.
Julian: What is your message to the world?

Benjamin: I want to help people to be more alive on a daily basis. To be more into their lifes, to look around and to be with the people they are with. Doing the things they like to do and not being lost or sad about something else.
Julian: Thank you.