Roy — Princeton, NJ

📍Princeton, NJ

instagram.com/iratepro

“its hard to give an exact time frame hitchhiking,
i am so sorry thank you for your kindness”

This was the message I got a day after declining a request due to them no-showing. I hesitated with reporting them, because we’ve never actually had a no show before, and I really didn’t want other hosts to have to deal with something like this. For one, I realized that the request was never confirmed, and two, at Apple we learned about assuming positive intent. I decided to follow my gut and let it slide.

I followed up with asking him if he still needed a place to stay. We found out he was about an hour out of the city, but fortunately right by where I grew up. I called up my parents to see if they would be willing to pick him up from the library and drop him off at the Marta Station a few exits down. They were a little hesitant at first, but I told them why we host, and why he was travelling. After a few moments they finally agreed.

Roy has been on the road for over a year now. He moves wherever the wind tells him to. He gets there through the kindness of others by hitchhiking, or by discovering groups of “Train kids” to help him find which freights to jump on. During his time with us he told us stories about these train kids, or of the kindness he’s experienced on the road. When you meet someone who’s lived off the passion for human connection, you regain your faith in humanity.