Without money to the end of the world

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Without money to the end of the world is a travel report by entertainer and journalist Michael Wigge , who set out on a self- experiment in summer 2010. Like his famous role model Michael Holzach , who had hiked across Germany for six months in 1980 and wrote his bestseller Germany for free , Wigge also traveled to Antarctica in 150 days without a cent in his pocket , covering 35,000 kilometers .

The journey took him from Berlin via Cologne and Antwerp by ship to Montreal and on through a total of eleven countries ( Germany , Belgium , Canada , USA , Costa Rica , Panama , Colombia , Peru , Bolivia , Chile , Argentina ) and four continents (Europe , North and South America, Antarctica).

In his own words, the free transport was "the most difficult and varied part of the trip." Two ships brought him across the Atlantic and the Drake Passage at the South Pole. Seven planes flew him to two Hawaiian islands, Costa Rica, Colombia and Peru. A horse-drawn carriage, an old bicycle and a strenuous hike helped him across Ohio. He was also on the road in two trains and in over twenty cars and trucks.

The second most difficult part of the trip was the 150 overnight stays. In total, he was accommodated by over 40 people as a so-called couch surfer . He also slept in an Amish barn , in Albuquerque Park, in two motels, in a bus station (sitting), on the warm beach of Waikiki (with a tent) and on windy rocks in the icy high mountains (without a tent). He got to know the most diverse climatic zones: polar region, desert, subtropics, tropics, temperate zone and the alpine high Andes.

It was less difficult for him to stay afloat for five months with free food - mostly as a supplicant "in 500 shops, restaurants and cafés", where he talked about his special kind of trip around the world and was able to soften the hearts of his fellow men , or via dumpster diving : The aim is to “search the dumpsters in supermarkets for food that can no longer be sold because the expiration date has expired or because it no longer looks good enough.” What could not be begged earned he does 13 different and sometimes quite bizarre jobs: as a butler, as a girl for everything, as a commercial filmmaker, as a “human sofa” for tired passers-by in Las Vegas , as a sun oil creamer, as a “hill helper” (the Pedestrians up the hilly streets of San Francisco), as a pillow fight organizer, as a moving helper, as a singing double, as a porter, as a fruit seller, as a ventriloquist and as a light sailor.

Even if he was protected against starvation in an emergency by a credit card (which he never used), the most important experience he brought back home was the knowledge that “little possessions mean not little luck” and that “the negative image of man, that is conveyed to us by the media ”, by no means corresponds to reality.

Text output

  • Michael Wigge: Without money to the end of the world. An adventure trip . Cologne: Kiepenheuer & Witsch (2010). ISBN 978-3-462-04181-1

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Michael Wigge: Without money to the end of the world. Page 192.
  2. ↑ Michael Wigge: Without money to the end of the world. Page 12.
  3. ↑ Michael Wigge: Without money to the end of the world. Page 68.
  4. ↑ Michael Wigge: Without money to the end of the world. Page 85.
  5. ↑ Michael Wigge: Without money to the end of the world. Pages 196 and 197.

TV series

  • Without money to the end of the world . Series of reports by and with Michael Wigge (5 × 30 min) ZDFneo