Road Junky Travel Stories

Road Junky Travel Stories

Road Junky features the kind of crazy travel stories that will leave you breathless, speechless and wondering whether you should just quit your job, grab a backpack and hit the road. We feature tales from travelers who walk the edge - and often fall off it.

Episodes

Hitchhiking across Spain to Morocco

April 12, 2022 • 16 mins
You can read more stories like this one in my book: Tales of a Road Junky: https://www.amazon.com/Tales-Road-Junky-Absurd-adventures/dp/1097822346
If you're enjoying this podcast and would like to hear other podcasts I make and also read the stories and articles I write, you can sign up for my newsletter: https://storiesoftomthumb.substack.com/
And if you'd like to meet me in person you could come to one of the events I organise such...
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Selling Fake Rolex watches in Tokyo

March 14, 2022 • 28 mins
The story of my 3 months selling fake Rolexes in Tokyo in 2001.
You can read more about it in my book: Tales of a Road Junky
If you're enjoying this podcast and would like to hear other podcasts I make and also read the stories and articles I write, you can sign up for my newsletter: https://storiesoftomthumb.substack.com/
And if you'd like to meet me in person you could come to one of the events I organise such as The Festival of Cre...
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Teaching English in South Korea

February 17, 2022 • 19 mins
The nightmare story of teaching English in South Korea on a fake university diploma.
If you're enjoying this podcast and would like to hear other podcasts I make and also read the stories and articles I write, you can sign up for my newsletter: https://storiesoftomthumb.substack.com/
And if you'd like to meet me in person you could come to one of the events I organise such as The Festival of Creativity in the Czech Republic https://r...
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Chased by Bedouin in the UAE

December 15, 2019 • 19 mins
When Tom Thumb came out of a rainbow gathering in the desert in Israel he discovered his friends were facing the death penalty in the UAE for smuggling drugs. A professional gambler in London paid for his ticket to go out and there and see if he could help. It ended up with him running down a mountain road, fleeing 2 Bedouin guys who were chasing him in a jeep..
If you have a great story to tell and would like to feature it on the R...
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Getting someone out of jail in India (part 2)

December 3, 2019 • 24 mins
So just imagine: someone close to you is in jail, a terrible jail, in India and they're going to be there for 10 years. Your lawyer there, perhaps the least trustworthy person you've ever met, asks you to send $15,000 in advance to bribe a judge and get her out. Would you do it?
This is the second half of the story of helping get a friend's girlfriend out of jail.
If you have a great story to tell and would like to feature it on the ...
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Getting someone out of jail in India (part 1)

November 19, 2019 • 30 mins
When a friend called up Tom Thumb in 1999 to ask for his help getting his girlfriend out of jail in Delhi, India, he was on a plane a week later. She was facing 10 years behind bars after having been caught at the airport smuggling kilos of charas (hand rolled marijuana) out of India.
It was the kind of dumb story he never should have got involved in. But then that's true of so many good travel stories...
If you have a great story t...
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Escaping India On a Fake Visa

November 5, 2019 • 15 mins
After hitchhiking to India in 1997, Tom Thumb was stuck there for a year and a half and by the time he managed to make some money to get a flight out his visa had long expired. It took some...creativity to furnish his passport with the necessary stamps to make it across the border.
If you have a great story to tell and would like to feature it on the Road Junky podcast feel free to be in touch to tom@tomthumb.org
Or just come and sha...
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Self-Publishing a Book on the Beach in India

October 29, 2019 • 20 mins
After hitchhiking to India with no money, Tom Thumb found himself penniless on the beach in Goa and his strategy for survival was to write a book, Hand to Mouth to India, about the journey there. Someone bought him pen and paper to write it and the manuscript was almost lost when a cow began to munch it while the author was getting a coconut.
He sold the book on flea markets, at trance parties, on the beach and in cafes, before hitc...
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Attacked by Crows in the Himalayas

October 22, 2019 • 22 mins
When a friend went to jail in Goa, Tom Thumb promised to take 37,000 rupees up to the charas dealer in the Himalayas and ended up renting a house there for the summer. For 15 dollars a month he lived in a clay and mud house at 2000 metres and spent a great deal of time alone communing with the lizards, spiders and crows.
When at the end of the season he climbed up to a holy lake at 4300 metres (and took a few hits of LSD once above ...
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Stories from the Goa Trance Parties

October 15, 2019 • 21 mins
The Goa trance scene of the 90's was a very special thing to be part of. Sound systems were set up in the jungle and you'd turn up at 3 or 4 in the morning, after the drunks and tourists had fallen asleep, and drop acid on a dance floor full of cartoon characters from around the world.
It was a wild, anarchic scene with the police extorting all they could out of the parties, people flipping out on the dance floor, coachloads full of...
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Goa Freaks and Swimming out to Sea

September 30, 2019 • 27 mins
When the Portuguese relinquished their hold on Goa in 1961 the state languished for a few years until the first freaks arrived in 1965. 8 Finger Eddie was one of the most legendary figures to have abandoned the material dream of the West to come East and never go back. Tom Thumb tells of hanging out with old hippies in Goa in the 90's and learning to swim 2km out to sea with an American Sufi.
If you have a great story to tell and wo...
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Hitchhiking from England to India (part 2)

September 30, 2019 • 26 mins
In the second half of the story of hitchhiking to India, Tom Thumb takes us through looking for Sufis in Kurdish Iran, driving through police roadblocks in Pakistan, eating melons on the top of trucks in the mountain, being threatened by a Sikh warrior with a sword in India and bouncing along pot-holed roads down to Goa.
The full journey can be read about in his book: Hand to Mouth to India
If you have a great story to tell and would...
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Hitchhiking from England to India (part 1)

September 30, 2019 • 21 mins
In 1997, at the age of 20 Tom Thumb hitchhiked from England to India with no money, taking with him just a sleeping bag, a loaf of bread, a clarinet and a toothbrush. In this episode we hear about his journey working with a busker in Luxembourg, falling in love in Hungary, being hosted by the police in Istanbul and being force-fed head of sheep soup in Iran.
Tom Thumb tells us of the highlights of the first half of his journey which...
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