Would You Get Naked?

Photo by Rob and Stephanie Levy via Creative Commons

Well, would you? If you have the balls (pardon the pun), you can march into Wicked Campers in Australia wearing nothing but your backpack, and receive a free day's van rental. Check it out: Backpackers Offered Nude Discount

For a backpacker, every penny saved adds up to additional days on the road, so this begs the question: how far would YOU go to get something for free?  And where do you draw the line?

I honed my penny-pinching skills in New Zealand and Australia, and perfected this art by pitching my tent in the backyard of many hostels, taking people up on their offers of free lodging, and hitchhiking (something I would never even consider doing in my own country).

In Adelaide, poor Ian was drunk at a bar with his buddy, Geoff, and the two of them struck up an innocent conversation with the backpackers. Ian happened to mention that he had room in his home for two of us to stay; the next morning, still hung over, Ian answered the door to find two grinning Americans reminding him of his invitation. He agreed to the deal, and the next day, my travel companion and I turned up with our backpacks and settled into his daughter's bedroom.
For a week.
And then another week.
He definitely got more than he bargained for because we were working on closing another spectacular deal, a free ride from Adelaide to Perth.

Adelaide to Perth is a three-day road trip across the Nullarboor, the vast, empty plain that runs across South Australia, save for a few emus and wombats. Some dude named Wayne, whose name I found on a hostel bulletin board, was helping to broker our safe passage across the Nullarboor with a truck driver who hated to drive alone. When the ride finally came through, there was nary a moment to spare; this ride was leaving in a hour. We scrambled out the door, and I'm sure Ian was relieved to see us go.

Enter Hippie. He was an enthusiastic, scrawny guy with shoulder-length hair, skin tight jeans (can that really be comfortable?), and a great attitude, and he was thrilled to have company. He defied all truck-driver stereotypes the moment I laid eyes on both him and the stuffed animal dangling from his rear-view mirror. He tossed our backpacks into one of the new cars that he was hauling on his three-trailer semi, and seated the two of us in the cab of the truck.

In the cab with Hippie

Hippie talked and talked and talked. When he stopped talking long enough to go to sleep (he had a little bed in the cab), I stretched out in the back of a brand new station wagon tethered to his trailer. I showered at the truck stop, learned a little bit about how to drive a semi and observed life on the road. And after three days, he made true on his promise and delivered us to Perth. For free.

The free ride with Hippie was trumped a few weeks later as two of us hitched up the west coast of Australia on a route that coincided with the tour of a Beach-Boys-esque band called the Delltones. Picked up by two roadies for the Delltones near Carnarvon, where we were too early for the banana harvest, the guys tried to convince us to join the tour. We begged off and spent a lovely few days in Coral Bay snorkeling on the Ningaloo Reef, and then carried on hitching our way north.

Nearly a week later, a taxicab driver in Broome mentioned that the Delltones were in town for a gig that night. My friend and I looked at each other and knew what needed to be done. We ran around Broome until we found the band, and ended up on the road with the Delltones from Broome to Darwin. We saw a few shows, slept on hotel room floors, and gambled with the guys at the casino when we reached Darwin. Here are the guys we trusted to drive us up the coast hard at work:

Peter & John making it work.

To come full circle, I will loudly proclaim that there was NO nudity involved in any of this wheeling and dealing. I found Australia to be full of friendly, hospitable people with no ulterior motives, and came to understand that traveling without an agenda allowed wonderful experiences to unfold. And as for lining up nude for a free day's car rental? Not my style.