Hitchhiker who planned three-week UK holiday ends up on odyssey through Africa where she spent just £16 on travel

A 26-year-old whose three-week UK holiday turned into a year-long hitchhiking trip said she spent less than £16 on transport crossing the length of Africa.

Courtney Allan, 26, hitchhiked from the tip of Morocco to Cape Town in South Africa, spending less than 20 US dollars on transport, in what she called an “intimate” and “beautiful” experience.

Taking almost a year, the epic journey involved more than 400 rides through 16 countries, spanning over 8,000 miles across every terrain.

She told PA Real Life: “It was eye-opening. It completely changed how I see the continent, and when I think of who I am now, it’s an exponential growth from who I was then. It was a beautiful trip.”

While some might worry about safety when hitchhiking, Courtney said “nothing bad happened” and the trip would have been impossible without the much-maligned mode of travel.

“There’s zero chance I would have been able to afford this trip otherwise,” she said.

“My budget would have gone up by thousands if I had been paying for transport.”

Courtney’s journey was initially only planned to be three weeks long, with return flights from her home city of Toronto in Canada to London.

Finding UK transport expensive, she decided to hitchhike from Bath to Wales and never looked back.

“My first lift was with a Welsh woman,” Courtney said.

“She was so bubbly and she tried to give me money. That happened a lot in the UK!”

Courtney then hitched into Wales, through Cardiff and up to Snowdonia, then took the ferry to Ireland and hitchhiked extensively there, before heading to mainland Europe. In Spain she met Timo de Jong who was hitchhiking from Southampton to South Africa.

With much in common, they got on well and soon Courtney had agreed to join Timo on his journey south, although she admitted she was nervous before reaching Africa.

“I was scared and looking back I was very North American about the whole thing to begin with, but I realised that people are just people wherever you are,” she said.

“Anyone can travel through Africa with lots of money but you’re in a bubble.

“When you’re hitchhiking, you’re with the people that live in that country. You get a much more intimate experience.”

Courtney first found herself hitchhiking in her home country of Canada.

Stranded in the middle of nowhere with a friend, it was out of necessity that they flagged down a passing car, and she soon decided that it was the best way to see a country.

“It’s such a good way to meet local people and get the best things to do in a place. This isn’t the stuff you see on TripAdvisor,” she said.

In Africa, she began in Morocco and travelled south through 16 countries until she reached Cape Town almost a year later.

In that time she amassed nearly 25,000 Instagram followers and spent less than 20 dollars on transport, more than half of which was for a single ferry across a river.

Despite catching 400 rides, she only felt physically unsafe once, but she hastened to add that was in one of the few taxis she took, not while hitchhiking.

“People always say, ‘Oh, what’s the worst thing that happened?’ or ‘Did you get hurt?’, but there was nothing bad at all,” she said, adding that occasionally people made inappropriate comments, but these never made her feel in danger.

Courtney admitted it helped travelling with a man, but she was eager to encourage other women to enjoy the benefits of travel.

“Women are often scared of going out into the world because of the risks,” she said.

“But there is a risk everywhere, every day, no matter what you’re doing. You can’t let them get the better of you. For me, the benefits of being able to explore the world outweigh those risks.”

Courtney’s highlight of the trip was a train ride in Mauritania. She said: “I don’t know if you’d call it hitchhiking, it was more train hopping, but we rode 200km into the Sahara Desert under the stars. The skyline was incredible.”

Her favourite ride was with a woman in Guinea.

“She was so confident and drove us half an hour out of her way. I was like, ‘hell yeah, finally we got picked up by a woman and she’s a boss!'” she said.

Despite loving her experience in Africa, Courtney’s favourite country to hitchhike in was Ireland.

“I barely waited for more than 10 minutes,” she said. “It was super quick and I was picked up by mostly older women.”

Courtney’s hitchhiking adventures are not over yet – in March she plans to hitch from South Korea to South Africa, travelling through Asia, Russia and the Middle East before hitchhiking down the east coast of Africa, a trip which will take about a year.

“We’re currently looking for brand sponsorship and raising money for a cancer research charity called the Terry Fox Foundation,” she said. “So we’ll have a bit more purpose this time.”

You can follow Courtney’s journey on her Instagram page @hitchhikercourtney.