Meet the man who’s hitchhiking his way around the world – and livestreaming it all Trevor Daneliuk sleeps in a tent, washes with wet wipes and has had to fend off drivers who proposition him and take drugs

Washing “infrequently”, beating a hasty retreat when hosts start doing drugs, and livestreaming your every waking moment. It may not sound a covetable lifestyle, but Trevor Daneliuk loves being a professional hitchhiker – and even gets paid to do it by his online fans.

For the last eight months, Daneliuk has been hitchhiking his way around the world, sleeping in a tent and livestreaming it all (almost) on the video platform Twitch TV.

The 24-year-old, from Vancouver Island in British Columbia, started his journey in April. He thumbed his way through all 50 US states, then all 10 Canadian provinces. Now he’s on a two-and-a-half month road trip through Europe – and he’s just reached the UK.

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The i caught up with him during a pitstop in Ambleside in the Lake District earlier this afternoon. And the good news is that hitchhiking in the UK is easier than in North America, he reckons.

“I’ve found the rides have come quite a bit quicker, even though the roads are a lot narrower here so it’s awkward for the cars to stop sometimes,” he says.

“My average wait time has been 10 minutes, except for London and Brighton. Today I haven’t stood on the road for more than five minutes for my three rides.”

He even wangled a free lift on a catamaran to the Isle of Wight. “Out of 36 rides, everyone’s been extremely friendly and treated me really well. I’ve been here 15 days and had three roasts in different people’s houses: a beef roast, pork roast and a lamb roast. One thing I miss on trips is home-cooked food.”

‘After a few days things start to get ripe’

Several of his UK lifts have also offered him a bed, which has been a relief because it’s harder to find forests to pitch his tent in here than across the pond.

How does he wash when he’s camping? “Infrequently. After a few days things start to get ripe. I usually have some anti-microbial wet wipes with me that kill the bacteria that make you smell. The longest I’ve gone is nine days without a shower.”

“The same goes for my clothes. Everything next to my skin is made of merino wool, which is naturally anti-microbial so it doesn’t hold an odour. Now if I spill food on it, that’s another thing…”

Toilet stops also have to be strategic. “Every town, village, city has some kind of facility, so I stop in for a cup of tea and use the washroom then. I carry toilet paper with me just in case.”

‘I trust my gut’

Daneliuk caught the hitchhiking bug when he was 19, and catching a six-hour Greyhound bus from Central British Colombia to the coast every month. “One day I thought: ‘Screw it, I’m going to hitchhike instead.’ I got picked up in 20 minutes, got there in three hours, and they drove me right to my friend’s front door.

“Within three months, I was on a trip across Canada and back. Eight months after that, I was on an eight-month trip around the world through 23 countries.”

It costs him $600 a month in data to broadcast his every movement on Twitch, but he doesn’t pay a dime himself. He gets a small amount of money from ad revenue and donations from viewers fund the rest.

But having your expenses paid by an adoring public comes at a price. He turns his camera on when he wakes up and doesn’t turn it off until he pitches his tent – he doesn’t like the whole world to know where he’s camping.

He even takes his camera to the toilet because he doesn’t want it to be stolen; he points it away and mutes the audio.

He’s taken over 1,100 rides in the past five years, but Daneliuk says he’s rarely felt unsafe. Instead, he vets each driver before he gets in their car.

“I trust my gut and I don’t really get in cars until I talk to the person. If someone pulls over, my line is: ‘Hey, whereabouts are you headed to?’ or, ‘How’s your day going?’ Based on their response, I can figure out whether I’m comfortable or not to get into their car. And I have turned down rides because of people being aggressive.

“Several times I’ve had people say ‘Just get in’ in an aggressive tone. I just thank them for stopping, say I’m going to wait for the next ride, shut the door and walk away.”

Sometimes, he has to make a speedy exit. “I had one person do coke in the car and another do a hot rail of methamphetamine. In that situation, I say, ‘This is my stop now. I’m going to meet my friend here.'”

He’s been also propositioned – by men more than women. “Usually it’s very subtle. People will lead a conversation down a path, but if you steer the conversation away, that’s a clear enough point.

“I had one guy that pulled over with all his stuff out, ready. And I just had to walk away: ‘Not interested, thank you’.”

‘You have to have the confidence to turn down a ride’

Daneliuk is currently zigzagging his way to Scotland and planning to spend another week in the UK, before taking a ferry to Ireland. He has no idea where he’ll be by Christmas – it depends where the rides take him.

So is he hoping his livestream will encourage others to follow in his tracks?

“I think it’s a really interesting way to see the world and I don’t think it’s as dangerous as people make it out to be, but I hesitate to blindly recommend it,” he says.

“If you’re going to hitchhike, you need to also have the confidence to be able to turn down a ride. That’s the caveat.”

Follow Trevor at twitch.tv/hitch or instagram.com/hitch_live