--- title: "#55 Traveling solo: on fear, hitchhiking, New Zealand and living life to the full – Eva Schrollová" description: "Eva Schrollová has been traveling for 10 years, mostly on her own. Why does she love it, what is she afraid of, how does she hitchhike and what does life on the road take from her? Listen to the Život na treku podcast." canonical_url: "https://gramino.com/blog/traveling-solo-fear-hitchhiking-new-zealand-eva-schrollova" last_updated: "2026-10-06" --- # #55 Traveling solo: on fear, hitchhiking, New Zealand and living life to the full – Eva Schrollová Authors: Barbora Vrátná Date: 2026-10-06 Eva Schrollová has been traveling for 10 years, mostly on her own. Why does she love it, what is she afraid of, how does she hitchhike and what does life on the road take from her? Listen to the Život na treku podcast. She gutted salmon in Alaska, taught skiing in Japan and regularly convinces someone that she's good enough to clean their house. **Eva Schrollová** has been on the road for ten years – and mostly completely alone. At 19, instead of going to university, she left for America, where she looked after a woman with severe depression – while barely speaking any English. For five more years she kept taking university entrance exams because, as she puts it, "I still believed I'd be normal." In the end she gave up, accepted the title of traveler and has been holding all her romantic ideas about travel up against reality ever since. In the podcast she talks about **why she loves traveling alone** and living everything to the full, what she's afraid of and which rules she sticks to when she hitchhikes or heads into the mountains on her own. She's also open about **what this kind of life takes from her** – time with family and friends, hobbies you can't take with you, and a lot of energy. We also get to **Te Araroa:** Eva first walked the entire South Island, out of season of course, because otherwise it wouldn't have been punk enough. Then, with no bikepacking experience, she rode the North Island by bike, and when she ran out of land, **she hitched a ride on a sailboat and crossed the Pacific.** ## In this episode, you'll learn: - Why traveling alone feels more intense to her and whether she misses having someone to share sunsets with. - What she'd tell women who want to set off alone but are afraid. - Why she ran away from New Zealand as soon as she started putting down roots there. - Who offered her a roof over her head in America – and what some of them occasionally offered on top of that. - How Te Araroa gave her the feeling of giving up on something for the first time in her life. - How you hitch a ride on a sailboat and why the whole thing looked like a scam at first. Tune in to this honest episode with Eva – we bet it'll give you the courage to set off alone, even if it's "just" a weekend in Barcelona. And if you don't want to miss future episodes, don't forget to follow our podcast on your favorite platform. ## Chapters - 0:00 Intro and her first trip - 6:33 How she picks adventures - 7:29 Travel as a lifestyle - 8:43 Why she loves life on the road - 10:44 From salmon to cleaning: all her jobs - 13:00 The flip side of travel - 15:52 Where she could settle down - 19:09 Why she likes traveling alone - 25:17 Her biggest fear - 28:32 How locals react - 33:12 Staying safe - 37:53 Advice for solo female travelers - 43:03 Te Araroa out of season - 45:12 River crossings on the South Island - 49:19 How her head coped - 54:58 The North Island by bike - 57:30 How to hitch a ride on a sailboat - 1:05:21 Next adventures Listen on: [Spotify](https://open.spotify.com/episode/4Y75HJtqYGpDWycFLoqZO2) · [Apple Podcasts](https://podcasts.apple.com/cz/podcast/55-sama-na-cest%C3%A1ch-o-strachu-stopov%C3%A1n%C3%AD-p%C5%99echodu-z%C3%A9landu/id1612950422?i=1000793412949) · [YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f3UXRnppABY) ## Eva Schrollová - Instagram – [@av.e.va](https://www.instagram.com/av.e.va/) ## This could come in handy - [Montane Women's Trailblazer 24 (2024)](/p/montane-womens-trailblazer-24-2024.md) - [Topo Athletic Women's Terraventure 4](/p/topo-athletic-terraventure-4-womens.md) - [DexShell Longlite Socks](/p/dexshell-longlite-socks.md) - [Sea To Summit Dry Bag Sling](/p/sea-to-summit-dry-bag-sling.md) - [Sea To Summit Silk Blend Liner Mummy](/p/sea-to-summit-silk-blend-liner-mummy.md) - [Gramino Gear List Women's](/p/gramino-tshirt-gearlist-womens.md) - [Gramino AURA Pouch](/p/gramino-aura-pouch.md) - [Turbat Prut Pro Wmn](/p/turbat-prut-pro-wmn.md) - [Liteway Base Wallet Ultra](/p/liteway-base-wallet-ultra.md) - [Sea To Summit Head Net](/p/sea-to-summit-head-net.md) - [DexShell Heathered Rib-Knit Beanie](/p/dexshell-heathered-rib-knit-beanie.md) This post is also available as [HTML](/blog/traveling-solo-fear-hitchhiking-new-zealand-eva-schrollova). ## Sitemap See the full [sitemap](/sitemap.md) for all pages.