Milan, Serbia

Milan was our first visitor and he's an invisible editor of The Travel Club who's been working for years on our website maintenace and other small and big tasks for the Travel Club. He came to visit us in Latvia to say hello, and then he continues his voyage to China through Russia!

Egita, Latvia/England

"If you're travelling with a larger group of people, you can rent villas and houses for quite cheap price, usually in Spain and similar countries. My rock climbing group and I went out there and for each of us it was around 50€ per person for an entire week! The most expensive thing was the flight. And we had a nice house! We had a pool, a huge kitchen, everybody had an actual bed! It was great!"

Tate, Australia

"The difference between a cemetery and a graveyard is that the cemetery is attached to a church while the graveyard is a standalone. And the difference between fish and fishes is: If they are plural of the same species they are labeled as fish. If there are different species involved they're called fishes."

Joanna, Germany/Greece/Australia

"I'm an awkward traveller and a terrible planner. I love being on the road and will often take the longest route possible to arrive to my destination, but once I'm there I have no idea what to do." She is also a die-hard fan of gaffer (duct) tape: "It holds the universe together!"

Ally, Canada

Ally cycles everywhere. She cycled around Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and now she cycles through the Baltic countries, making her way to Poland and maybe Ukraine. Or maybe somewhere completely different.

"This was BOTH my first CouchSurfing experience and The Travel School, and it was a wonderful one. I think the Creative Cartography workshop was a hit -- my favourite thing is to share travel stories and dreams."

We miss Ally and her smile!

Nuri & Gosia, Tunisia/Poland

"We were about to sleep on the streets of Liepaja, but then we heard about The Travel School. We were supposed to stay for only one night, but we liked it too much and we decided stay for one more night... or more."

Nikola, Bosnia and Herzegovina

Nikola hitchhiked 1700 km just to spend three days with us, and then another 1700 km to go back:

"I adore the Travel School/House because it gathers people with the same passion, passion for travelling and discovering new places. All places are different, just like the Radi Vidi Pats bicycles, some of them are colourful, some of them are without brakes, some of them are tandem, for those who travel together. I am glad to be a part of this crazy, colourful project. It was worth all of the 1760 hitchhiked kilometers."

Jun, South Korea

"This gave me so much joy, more than I could expect. I met many wonderful people. Sharing experiences has enlightened each one of ous and has helped us change the way we think. I appreciate all the experiences I had in the Travel School"

Jovan, Serbia

"I told my parents I will go to the seaside this year. They thought I was gonna go to Montenegro or Greece (the closest seas to Serbia). Two days before the trip I told them I was hitchhiking to the Baltic seaside."

Kristina, Serbia

This is Kris. She's been with The Travel Club since the very beginning in 2005 and now she's visiting us in Liepaja for a few days. Thank you, Kris, for your support! 

Anne, Denmark

"I work in a nearby bar and I live in one of the hotel rooms they provide for me. BUT I come to the Travel School every day. I bring my food here, I cook for the people here, I eat here and I do my laundry here. I participate in the workshops and I use their WiFi. But nah, I don't live in the Travel School." 

Xi, China

"I started to travel around and I wanted to find out what the purpose of life is. And now I think it's just to be happy. To be happy and have some nice friends in your life and for your important ones to be happy. A nice, happy and relaxed life. That is the purpose for me."

Vladan, Serbia

"Thank you, Travel School, for having me and for letting me stay much longer than I should have. I believe that true riches are the places you see, the people you meet and how you spend time with those people. The things you did here are awesome and amazing. You made people feel welcome and safe, you helped them, guided them and showed them how important it is to travel and meet other cultures. Simply put, you INSPIRED them all. For that you should be poud!"

Ana, Nina, Lucija, Marina (Croatia)

Four out of five volunteers in this year's Travel School visiting a creepy doll village in Latvia.

Nina, Montenegro

We weren't supposed to have five volunteers this year, but Nina sent us a long, enthusiastic e-mail saying she would love to volunteer for accommodation and a bit of food. We couldn't do anything else but to tell her to come.

You can find more photos in our facebook album Humans of the Travel school.

On our facebook pages (The Travel Club and Klub putnika) we've been regularly publishing updates about events and people of The Travel School, and now we are giving you an overview. So, what have we done in the past two weeks?

We have had 17 travel-related workshops:

We brought a Barcelona-based band - Balkumbia - to play here in Liepaja. They play Balkan music, and the band member are from Catalonia, Lithuania, Turkey, Italy, Spain, Columbia, Chile. With them, we created a Balkan weekend in the Baltics.

Our Nataša came from Portugal to give a lecture on guerilla marketing:

We've had acroyoga and aerial silks workshops:

We have visited a local NGO Karosta Kids that helps teenagers and young parents that come from difficult socio-economic background, and we explained how to create a crowdfunding campaign to raise enough money for the renovation of their new space.

A local NGO, Radi Vidi Pats, is helping us host The Travel School this year through Erasmus+. Among other things, the organisation provides an alternative to regular Friday night drinking: Cycling around the city from 10:00 pm to midnight. The best party and the best cardio!

Sunsets are beautiful everywhere around the world, and they are the same on our beach in Liepaja.

We have seen many places in and around Liepaja. In a few days we'll publish a photo-gallery. In the meantime, here you have a few details from this year's Travel House-School:

So far we have been visited by travellers from: Australia, Austria, Bosnia, Canada, Croatia, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Japan, Latvia, Lithuania, Montenegro, Poland, Singapore, Serbia, South Korea, Spain, Tunisia. This is the second year of our new concept of the Travel School we have to say we love it. We don't have more than 10 people per night, so we can make friends with all of them. So far, we remember every person that has visited us, what they do, what their names are, where they're from... And because of the everyday workshops, there's a lot of "big talk" instead of "small talk". It's wonderful.

In this interview for The Travel Club, Mikael tells us about the future plans for HitchWiki, sleeping in abandoned hotels, why he sometimes hates hitchhiking in Germany and how fun it can be in Thailand and Laos. Besides, he speaks about HitchGathering, the traditional annual meeting of hitchhikers that will take place in Albania this August.

What is hitchhiking for you?

I started back in 2006 because I needed to go the other side of Finland and I didn't have money – and I was like „Wow, this actually works!" After that I started hitchhiking more and more. Nowadays it's not about money at all. It's nice to save money, but there's much more to it: meeting local people, getting advice, sharing stories, getting to know the culture instead of sitting on a bus. Hitchhiking is freedom, freedom to change your plans and go wherever someone can take you.

Why do you think hitchhiking is important (obviously, important enough for you to dedicate your own time and energy to helping other people do it)?

Nowadays people don't trust each other anymore. People ask me if I'm scared to hitchhike, they ask me that even in Finland or Germany, the countries which are among the safest on Earth. It's important to hitchhike in order to restore the trust among people.

Also, I support the concepts of free economy and share economy. It's not only about hitchhiking, I don't mind people paying for a ride – they also are sharing the resources. It's much better than one dude driving a car alone.

Some people see hitchhikers as beggars or social parasites, waiting by the road and begging for a ride, instead of getting a decent job and buying their own car. We can clearly see that from some drivers' faces and gestures. What would you have to say to such people?

I think some drivers are scared and don't trust people they don't know. They were told not to talk to strangers since they were kids and it got incorporated in their brain, their style of thinking.

Some other drivers are simply selfish and miser. They probably think about how hard they had to work to have what they have and don't want you to just stand there and get the same thing for free. An advice to those people: Work less and enjoy more.

It's all accompanied by individualism. That's why I like Eastern Europe. Because of the unemployment problems, they need to rely on their families and friends, and consequently people build trust among them and it creates strong communities.

Tell us how everyone can help HitchWiki grow. And why should anyone bother to do it in the first place.

It's actually pretty obvious – you just fill it in. Anyone can create an account and update the articles. You use it to check the information others have shared with the world and you share the information you have so the others can check it.

There is also TrashWiki for dumpster-diving and the most recent one is NomadWiki. 

What is NomadWiki for?

For example, where can you put your tent for free or where can you find free wi-fi. It's all about free or the cheapest way to travel – it's like Lonely Planet but for hippies and tramps. But it's amazing, those Wikies – we just put up a form and people start filling it!

Think about distant future. Where do you see HitchWiki? Where would you like to see it?

This winter we organised a hackathon (a marathon where you hack a lot) in Lisbon and did a lot of programming for HitchWiki and BeWelcome. We rent a small house and 10-20 people come there. There can be up to 12 people at one time, which is not much comparing to the Travel House, but still, it's a lot for a small apartment. The landlord was chill and he actually brought us extra mattresses. Some people got friends with neighbours and got hosted by them.

We have plenty of ideas for HitchWiki. We're basically three dudes working on it, but the other two dudes don't have much time, so lately I've been doing most of the stuff. There are some usual ideas for upgrading the maps and other features, but in distant future I would like to see it not only as a source of inofrmation, but as a community. Now there are a lot of people searching for information on Facebook via hitchhiking-related groups, but I'd like to see it happening on HitchWiki instead. So we have to get people there to ask questions and share their info.

Another thing we're thinking about is HitchWiki hosts. The logic behind it is that people are more keen on hosting „their own kind", hitchhikers love to host and be hosted by hitchhikers, cyclists love to host and be hosted by cyclists because it's easier to be understood and to understand what the other person does, what they need etc.

Do you think CouchSurfing has changed?

It has changed a lot and in a horrible way. Nowadays they want you to spend more time on their website because that's the way to make money for them.

Also, now when you want to register, a page appears telling you that you have to pay €19 to register and somewhere down in the corner there's a tiny link saying that you can skip it. That way many people have been tricked into paying that fee.

The profile of an average CouchSurfer has changed and now a lot of tramps, hippies and alternative people don't feel comfortable there so they started moving away to BeWelcome and other hosting websites. BeWelcome is significantly smaller than CouchSurfing, it's even smaller than HitchWiki so it will take some time to build a community that is big enough.

Can you tell us about your weirdest, most bizarre hitchhiking experience? How about the most emotional hitchhiking experience? Have you ever felt in danger while hitchhiking? Tell us your scare-story.

Once we were hitchhiking in Thailand and we hitchhiked a motorbike that already had two people on it so we were four in total coming down the slopy mountain roads. Hitchhiking in South-East Asia is always bizarre. I sometimes hate hitchhiking in Germany. People speak English and you move fast across the country, it's a bit boring, while in Laos you're hitchhiking in a jungle and nobody speaks English and nobody gets the concept of hitchhiking. There's five people standing around you trying to figure out what the heck you're doing. And then you end up in the back of a pick-up truck and it starts raining and you're in a jungle... The whole Asia is crazy.

I've never felt in danger, sometimes I just felt uncomfortable when a driver would drive too fast.

One time I was trying to go back from Ukraine to Poland. So I come to the border and the officials say that walking across the border is not allowed and that I need a car. It gets dark and I don't want to place a tent there so they don't think I want to smuggle something. I find this shabby hotel, there's no one there, it's totally empty and then this dude shows up asking what I want, do I want to stay the night. He gives me the key and I pay something small for the room. I enter and not only there's no hot water, but there's no water at all. Everything is very dirty, the linen looks like nobody has changed it for years but I just wanted to sleep somewhere so I put my sleeping bag there. In the morning the whole lobby is empty, there's nobody in the hotel, it appears that I'm the only soul in the goddamn building. I look behind the desk and there's nothing but the office chair there – no papers, no cassa (cash register)... I'm trying to find the dude but there's no trace of him so I figure that's an abandoned hotel and the dude just took the opportunity seeing that someone wants to pay some money. I leave the hotel and looking back I see that the half of the hotel sign is off and some of the windows are broken, but I didn't notice it the night before as it was dark and I was tired.

So I go back to the border and the officials say the same thing as the day before – no walking across the border. I finally hitchhike a car that agrees to take me to Poland, but it's full of prostitutes and they also get stopped at the border and they have to go back. Finally, one of the officials asks the next car: "Are you going to Poland?" and they confirm, to which he says: "Ok, take this hippie with you!"

Compare hitchhiking in different countries. Which is the best one, which is the worst one?

Western Europe is complicated, there are highways and it's hard to reach gas stations and it's always from one gas station to another... I prefer Eastern Europe, it's so much easier. Sometimes you can lift the thumb in the city centre and someone will stop! Especially in Turkey, it's a wonderland for hitchhiking.

Give us one hitchhiking tip that we probably don't know.

Many people don't know that there is HitchWiki phrasebook which can be found also as an app for smart phones. It's important to know the basic hitchhiking phrases so you can communicate better where do you want to go, where do you need to be dropped off etc. Just knowing how to say "I need to get to the other side of the city" can help you a lot.

You might already know this, but having a map of the region you're travelling in is extremely useful. I prefer paper maps, but on a mobile phone you get to see where are the gas stations, which is very useful in Western Europe. Actually, we're thinking of making a printable map where you can see the gas stations.

What is HitchGathering? What does it look like to be there? Why do you organise it, what is the purpose of it? How can people contribute?

The initial idea behind it is to promote hitchhiking. It's not actually organised, there's no programme. People often ask me if I organise it, but I'm just a dude who posts a lot on Facebook. The project is self-developing, so feel free to organise it.

The first HitchGathering was in 2008 in Paris, under the Eiffel tower. 150 hitchhikers came to Paris and camped in the middle of Paris. In the morning, at 6 a.m. the police would come and tell everyone to get going. It was very short, less than two days.

The next one (2009) was in Odessa, but it was more about camping and meeting hitchhikers than promoting hitchhiking. We were camping outside city centre and at night we would go to a park to hang out. Odessa was a bit out of hand so there was only 80-90 hitchhikers at that HitchGathering.

Afterwards there were HitchGatherings in Portugal (2010), Bulgaria (2011), Lithuania (2012), Slovakia (2013).

So far we had no problems apart from Paris and Odessa when police was coming to tell us we can't drink there. In Slovakia we got a fine because of the fire and at that time it wasn't allowed to have a fire at all in Slovakia. So we got a €60 fine and got told to get away, but they also pointed us a field where we could go. In the local newspaper there was an article about us saying that there's an illegal trance party in the woods! (laughter)

Where is HitchGathering this year? How do you decide on location? When is it?

There's no real decision making. For example, someone writes: „Hey, I've found a location, do you like it?" We need someone local to confirm that the spot is good for HitchGathering and basically, the location that gets the majority of votes by potential atendees is the location we choose.

For example, this year one Albanian girl found a village and there's a lot of space for camping outside of it so she talked to the locals if it would be okay that a bunch of us comes there and camps. But the location can change even 3 days before the HitchGathering – I mean, not to another country, but someone finds a better spot to camp so the location can move a few kilometers.

So, the HitchGathering 2014 will take place beginning of August in Albania. The local people said it's ok for us to camp there, but I'm not really sure they understood what they invited there – it's going to be a bunch of hippies running around!

And sometimes there's a chain of events, pre-gathering and post-gathering. There were local gatherings in Finland and Norway in June, then one in south of Germany, maybe one or two in Croatia on the way to Albania.

You often mention hippies. What's your definition of hippies? Who is a hippie? Do you think hitchhiking is strictly a prerogative of certain subcultures?

That's a good question. I'm using the term "hippie" broadly because it sounds funny to say "alternative people". Also, if you'd ask my mom or folks from the office, I'm a hippie. I'm sometimes saying just tramps, vagabonds, nomads, travellers... those words are maybe more describing?

To me it looks like "subcultures" are more alive and becoming more mainstream than ever. "Weird things" are more accepted than before and people are seeking more alternative stuff. As for hitchhiking... It's still a hobby of a very small group of people. In Western Europe, that is.

Faces of New Yorkers are nervous, anxious. After more than two months of watching their sullen faces, I was craving to meet someone with a positive attitude. The guitar player had a cardboard sign in front of his money box: "I offer guitar lessons" and his phone number. I wrote down the number.

Upon leaving the station, I sent him a message. "Hey, I don't want to learn to play guitar, but I do want to meet you. I'm going for a beer with a friend. Wanna join?" He replied that he'd come, asking for the meeting point and how to recognise me. "Union and Metropolitan Av. crossroads. Black shirt, black pants, black Converse and a hippie bag with a large peace sign." Within a minute I got his answer: "How beatnik! I'll be there in five."

I sat on a park bench near the stated intersection and waited for him and my friend. (My friend was called Đurđica and, although this has nothing to do with the story, try to imagine what kind of problems Americans had when pronouncing her name. It ended up with her getting the nickname Jeetsa.) Jeetsa was late, of course, but the guitar player arrived on time.

- Matt, nice to meet you – he extended his hand and smiled.

- Nina, nice to meet you too – of course it was nice to meet him. For the first time in a long time I was in the company of a person who radiated positivity.

When he told me that he had moved to New York just two months ago, I shouted: "I knew it!" to which he replied with a puzzled look. "I knew you could not be from New York! If you were from New York, you wouldn't be so peacefully happy."

Matt was 29 years old at the time and his best friends were his guitar and an amplifier. Apart from those two things, he had nearly nothing. Before he came to New York, he lived like a bum. He spent five years hitchhiking all over the US in the company of his guitar and the amplifier.

When Jeetsa arrived, we took Matt to Union Pool, our favourite pub. All night we were buying rounds of beer. As usual, the best friendships rise from getting drunk together. Over the next few weeks, Matt met our friends and we met his, and we bar-hopped in a herd all over Williamsburg.

Jeetsa and I have wisely arranged our summer. We worked in Manhattan, where the best money was and went out to cheaper places around Brooklyn, usually Williamsburg and Greenpoint. These two neighbourhoods are filled with artists, free or cheap gigs and quite affordable beer. It is clear why we were going to those particular places.

At the end of the summer I was supposed to quit my job and go travelling around the United States, but I didn't have a strong desire to go to any particular place. Matt told me that he had a gig with a band in Florida and that, if I wanted to, I could go with him.

We spent a week in St. Petersburg, Florida. We were hosted by a family he knew from his bumming and busking years. Mom, dad and a 15-year-old son. Son talked openly with his folks about weed, mushrooms and other drugs of natural origin. There was no smoking cigarettes allowed in the house, but you could light up a joint without any problem.

Not only the family was unusual! St. Petersburg is an unusual city itself. St. Pete celebrates every first Friday of the month. The Central Avenue (where the most of the bars are) is closed for traffic so that people could drink undisturbed, without fear of being run over someone while staggering from one bar to the other.

Every Sunday, there's a drum circle organised on the beach where residents come to drum out and dance out the accumulated stress to have a relaxed start of a new work week.

Every now and then they organise festivals and that year Matt played at one of those festivals with his band.

Those seven days with routine "beach – party – lazying around" passed quickly. I had to continue wandering around the US, Matt had to go back to New York. He accompanied me to the airport. I had a flight to San Francisco. It was Tuesday and it was raining. Matt and I haven't seen each other again.

*

Three years have passed. Although we rarely talk to each other, I often end up "stalking" his Facebook profile. Nostalgia, I guess.

We often miss people who do not exist. They aren't dead, they just don't exist in the form in which we miss them. If Facebook is to be trusted, Matt is no longer that zen being whom I met three years ago. He became a true New Yorker. His statuses are filled with anxiety and frustration, and I haven't seen a smile on his photos in a while.

The happiest man in New York has become a New Yorker.

—

The author of the first picture is Bee Colins ("Under the Williamsburg Bridge"), second by Luke Redmond ("Street art after dark, Williamsburg Brooklyn"), and the last one by Scott Lynch ("Banksy NYC, Greenpoint, This Site Contains Blocked Messages"). All pictures are under Creative Commons license.

Being a female independent traveller is the same as being a woman generally in life – use common sense. You can do everything that men do, but with two doses of extra precaution.

Luggage

The first thing to bear in mind when going on an independent trip is how to pack. Don't take a suitcase you can't even lift, and then use your big eyes on the nearest man to help you with it. Pack a small amount of clothes in a backpack and bring a little bag of detergent. Be aware that going on an independent trip doesn't mean going on the catwalk. However, it is very important to have enough clothes for different weather conditions. You don't need different wardrobe combinations for uploading pictures on social media.

Wardrobe

You need to take care that your clothes are in accordance with the local customs. That doesn't mean that you need to put on a burqa upon entering an Islamic country, but longer sleeves and shirts without cleavage leave an impression of respect towards their tradition, and shows that you don't want any male attention which is more than friendly. Yes, we know women should be allowed to dress as they want and that female clothes are not an excuse for intrusive male behaviour, but these are advices for safe and comfortable travelling, and not a sociological and philosophical debate on the rights of women.

Hygiene

When packing, you need to take care about the hygiene as well as about your wardrobe. Again, consider the culture of the lands you'll be travelling to and the length of your travel. You won't be able to easily find pads and tampons in some countries, so it is better to bring them from home. Except for daily pads, you can also buy disposable, which will seem more valuable than gold to you when your monthly cycle starts somewhere in the Saharan desert and the nearest restroom is some 354km ahead.

Also, always bring 3 tampons and 3 wet-wipes in single packs for you-know-which-part-of-the-body. Carrying extra three grams doesn't make a big difference, but can help a lot, if the need be. There is an alternative for longer trips – silicone cups. They can last for years, are washable and don't contain any chemicals. You can get them in pharmacies. In Croatia, they are sold in bio&bio stores and cost around 30 euros. (Please, contact us with information about other sellers and their prices) If you are on the pill, make sure you have enough for the whole journey.

Behaviour

Slowly, we are approaching the most important topic, which is how to behave on a trip like this. We assure you, you don't need any supernatural talents to keep safe – common sense and rational decision-making are enough. Dangerous situations on trips are similar to the ones you could see at home, so you will be able to use tested techniques for avoiding them.

Try to be as discreet as possible in confronting unwanted comments and provocations instead of retaliating. A big number of uncomfortable situations could be avoided before they really get serious by not showing any interest, by not responding or starting any discussions, by just ignoring some things or just leaving the place where someone sees you as a target. Some girls carry a deodorant with alcohol, which is, unlike self-defence sprays, legal in all countries. That depends on you and on what gives you the feeling of safety.

Hitchhiking

Although here at The Travel Club we tend to have strong positive feelings about hitchhiking, and we know many females who do it alone, we recommend the winning boy-girl combination: boys will get a ride easier because they are accompanied by a girl and girls will feel safer in the presence of a boy. If you find yourselves in a tricky situation, you can always improvise a fake wedding ring from a can of Coke and say you two are married. That should be enough in most cases to immediately stop inappropriate offers from others.

What if you can't find a travel companion but still don't want to stay at home and you decide to go hitchhiking on your own? As we previously said, both men and women face the same dangers, but we recommend women to double their measures of precaution. If you don't have any hitchhiking experience, we recommend all beginners (regardless of their sex) that they first "feel the road" in a group and then decide to take it up on their own. It is very important to "feel the road", as some things just can't be explained in textual or illustrated guides.

When you go hitchhiking for the first time (you probably won't be able to fall asleep the night before due to excitement), it is important for you to feel ready and self-confident, but with eyes wide open. If you don't like the driver offering transportation, don't get into the car. Think of an excuse, even a lame excuse such as "Sorry, but I need to use the restroom immediately." or "My friend just texted me that I should wait for him to continue the trip." or "I planned to study during the trip, but I left my notes at home, I need to go back and get them." It doesn't matter if they will believe you and how stupid your excuse sounds, it is important that you don't get into a car with a person who doesn't have "a good vibe."

If you got into a car with a person who seemed to be OK at the beginning, but you start doubting whether it was a good decision, here's a couple of tricks:

• Direct the conversation on talking about family. Ask the person if they have any kids. Try drawing parallels with yourself, such as comparing them to your parents and comparing yourself to their kids. If the person has no children, he/she must have nieces and nephews or something else. Aiming at their compassion works.
• Direct the conversation on talking about your life goals and dream, friends and family. Let the person know that you have something to live for, someone who you live for or who lives for you. Again, we repeat: aiming at their compassion works.
• Ask the person when you'll be arriving to a destination because you promised your mother/father/friend to pick you up somewhere. (Of course, never go hitchhiking without credit on your cell phone).
• Make your answers determined, but never argue.
• If you are hitchhiking in outside of your language area, learn some basic phrases in the language of the country you'll be hitchhiking in. One of them has to be "I texted my father with the number of your registration plates". Just in case you need it.

Our editor Nikolina said that she encountered uncomfortable situations three times in so far four years of hitchhiking experience. Once the driver only had bad vibe and she and her friend used the above-mentioned tactics of evoking compassion and called a friend on his cell phone, so everything went totally fine. One truck driver offered her sex, but she refused it, whereupon the driver apologized and said he just wanted to ask. 

Bon Voyage

Don't allow the fact that you're a woman to be the reason why you spend your holidays watching passers-by from a café in the neighbourhood. The idea of the world being a dangerous place where maniacs, murderers and rapists lurk from around the corner, waiting for the chance to turn you into a headline at the black chronicle is as big of a nonsense as the idea of the world being a fairy-tale where everybody has good intentions and acts friendly.

The only way to figure that out is to go out and see for yourselves, but with a well-thought plan and acting responsibly. We wish you a safe trip and successful exploring.