Benjamin Lesage

Living Without Money

What if the dream came true?

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Special thanks to the great team of Permondo for the
translation. I especially thank Riteba McCallum, Paula Kattan,
Laura Streather and Kelsea Riddick for proofreading my book !

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“Anything one man can imagine, other men can make real.”
Jules Verne

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I have been living without money for five years. This book tells
why and how I came to this crazy decision.

This book is free and can't be sold, but must be shared!

Before printing it, please be aware of the ecological impact of
printing. Use recycled paper.

If you want more information about this journey, life without

money and our ongoing projects, please visit
sansunsou.wordpress.com
Thank you and have a great read!

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 I. Money

Paradoxically, whether we wish to live with or without it,

money is omnipresent in our lives. And if this book is about a
moneyless experience, this ageless concept which occupies the
mind of billions of people today is the main character.
To me, money is before all the pocket money mum used to give
me when I was younger. A coin of 10 francs which I would turn
in my hand while exploring the window of the candy shop. I
would spend a good quarter of an hour calculating the number
of sour licorice laces, Coca-Cola sweets or multicolored teddy
bears I could offer myself. Money, at that time, was the
freedom to choose.
A couple of years later, we used to spend our Saturday
afternoons at the mall. I remember the long rows of clothes in
the Kiabi store, the excitation when I saw a basketball tee-shirt
or a pair of Adidas pants and also my deception when my
mum, after having a look at the price, would shake her head
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negatively, taking away all my hopes of negotiation. Money
was then an obstacle.
I mainly remember the day my mum decided to open a bank
account in my name to put in the pension my father transferred
each month – about 1500 francs. She wanted to give me a
sense of responsibility. Money was therefore mine. I had
money and I was free to use it as I wished. The following day,
a Thursday afternoon while the history and geography teacher
was absent, I went to the city with a friend and I bought a
Nintendo 64. The financial freedom I had discovered the day
before became suddenly relative when my mum came back in
the evening and, furious because of my irresponsibility, seized
the play-station for an indefinite time.
Then, there was my first salary. I had just turned 19 years old.
After my high school diploma and one year spent between the
university of law, a failed political science competition and the
university of literature, I had become employed at Quick (kind
of Macdonald's). I felt rich, I was going to restaurants from
time to time, I was going out three or four times a week

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wasting a large part of my income on alcohol, I was buying
clothes that pleased me (brand-name clothes of course) and I
bought Kinder sweets every week – my mum always forbid me
to take them. I could buy whatever I wanted or almost, eat what
I wanted, I had choice, I was independent, free.
5 years later, I discovered that those multiples were in fact
limited, that in this globalized world where any item is
produced somewhere else, such a thing as independence didn't
exist, and that this money I owned represented more a
restriction that an actual freedom.

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 II. Wilson

Recife, 18 de junio 2010, about midnight, not a soul on the

streets of Boa Viagem, privileged suburb facing the sea. We
were walking along the high wall set with barbed wires,
reinforced doors and electrified fences. From time to time, in
the bend of a street, we met a group of pepenadores (trash
collectors) who dragged their carts and searched the trash cans
of the rich to get some metals, bottles, leftovers. A cool breeze
caressed our clammy skins, we had been roaming around for
more than an hour, following the fresh smell of the ocean. I felt
fine, relaxed, relieved. The 10 kilos I was dragging from The
Hague were long gone, in a gutter, a trash can, abandoned on
the side of a highway, or still under Wilson’s seat. Wilson, an
alcoholic truck driver who had seen in my backpack the hope
of a better living. Did he really think this backpack would be
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worth something? I didn't have time to tell him the computer
was broken, the solar panel didn't work anymore, that the only
items worth something, to me at least, where my passport, my
notebooks and my toothbrush.
For 5 months, I was predicating the “moneyless lifestyle” as a
solution, I spent hours debating about money, the system, how
the world would go better without it. I sustained
wholeheartedly that this journey, this moneyless trip was
useful, that all of that had a meaning.
Logic caught me up in the early hours of a sunless morning, at
a highway station, in the back of a truck. My bank card hidden
in the back pocket of my bag, gone. My passport, gone. No
more financial security, no more hypocrisy. From now on, it
was for real.
Some weeks before, driven by this idea of a sustainable
journey, all those incredible experiences on the road, I had
taken the decision, while we were navigating in the middle of
the ocean, to turn this temporary experiment into a true
lifestyle. I wanted to free myself from money forever.

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I just needed a little help and it was Wilson who gave it to me.
Washing away the last doubts I hung to like a child to his
security blanket. He took it in a moment of inattention, during
the night, smoothly. In the morning, a new life started.
Thank you Wilson.
This morning there however, opening my eyes on the empty
blank space left by my backpack, I didn't feel that grateful.
Anxiety seized me right away, I roamed in all directions,
looking for a clue, let some of my tears on the shoulders of
Raphaël, raised my eyes to heaven to ask this god I didn't
believe in “why?”
I needed several hours and this long walk towards the beach of
Boa Viagem to understand that this event was a logical result. I
wanted to live without money, I wanted to free myself from all
my ties, my possessions, my vices.... I had to start with my
backpack and this “in case of” embodied by my bank card.
Now more than ever, I was lighter, ready to resume the
adventure to commit to the remaining 7000 kilometers we still
had to cover to reach Mexico, our final goal. I had lost all my

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stuff but I had gained a purpose, a true goal. From now on, I
understood why I had dashed into such a crazy adventure.

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 III. An ecological bet

This journey had started in The Hague on the 19th of January

2010—The Hague was the city where we had all met. Raphaël,
Nicola and myself. We were then three students united by a
common wish: to do something useful for the world. This wish
become progressively a dream, the dream of going do Mexico
hitchhiking and boat-hiking, without money. The main goal of
such an idea was to realize the most ecological trip ever. To
consume as little as possible, using solar panels to boycott the
use of conventional electricity. To use a water filter to ban the
plastic bottle of our daily lives. To avoid any type of public
transport and do the whole journey hitchhiking....
But what was really motivating us was the perspective of doing
something unique, to be like pioneers, to walk on the less
traveled paths and film the whole trip to make a documentary
that would inspire young people around the world.
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We left The Hague on a Tuesday. It was really cold outside, the
wind blew from the north freezing our pale faces. We formed
an atypical trio, three young Europeans, tall and skinny, one
blond, one brown and another one red-haired. The blond,
Raphaël, born in Berlin, crazy about journeys, equipped with a
genius care-freeness and the certainty that nothing was
impossible in this world. The red-head, Nicola, born in a small
village around Padua, in the north of Italy, a genuine
photographer thirsting for great pictures and stories to tell, and
me, the brunet….

A normal dude

Normal doesn't really mean anything but it's the word that
comes to my mind when I think about myself, before. I was
inside the brackets of normality. A child raised by a single mum
in the suburbs of a small town: Besançon. I loved to play
soccer, I was shy in front of the girls, I smoked joints and drank

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beers because the others did. My mom was a primary school
teacher and didn't earn so much money. We couldn't afford
Nike air shoes like my other friends but I had all I truly needed.
My big brother and sister took me from time to time to the
cinema or to the frozen lakes of Switzerland, making up for the
absence of my father.
The first brain wave, the first time I opened my eyes to the
possibility of doing something special with my life, it was
watching Fight Club. At that time, I didn't really try to
understand why I loved it so much, why I was seeing it over
and over. Today, I know it is thanks to this movie I started to
dream of another life.
I went through high school without problems, I tried to study
law, failed miserably to enter Science Po, a renowned political
school—I dreamt of becoming a journalist—and I went to a
professional school. This choice was made because of the
insistent worries of my mum. Those moral restrictions pushed
me this same year to get a job in a kind of Macdonald's. Three
months later, I rented a studio. Real life started, I was frenetic,

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twenty hours per week doing hamburgers, thirty five hours
studying, ten hours in the student organization, two hours for
my theater courses and the rest of the time: parties, drugs and
alcohol.
It actually felt like everything was just perfect. I was in love
with one of the most beautiful girls of the school, had lots of
friends, good grades, money, nice perspectives for my future….
However, when I was in my room, on Sunday evening, when
there was nothing more to do than wait for the next day, I often
felt weak, tired ... all of a sudden, all seemed pointless,
tasteless. My video games, my movies, all. I explained those
strange moments with the accumulated fatigue of the week but
somehow, I also knew there was something else. A suffocating
feeling of emptiness was there.
Something was wrong but I was unable to identify it. When our
English teacher told us about the Erasmus program, the idea of
study abroad, another brain wave hit me. I had to leave. I
hesitated some days ... and then, without telling anyone around
me, I registered.

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The first weeks in the Netherlands were exceptional. No more
than 800 kilometers separated The Hague from Besançon but it
was a complete change of scenery. I had suddenly tons of
friends from Madrid, Lisbon, Los Angeles, Milan…. The
parties were the best, we talked all kinds of mixed languages.
And then, little by little, I got more comfortable in this new
routine which, despite the internationality of my relations and
travels, resembled the routine I had settled for myself in
Besançon: I washed dishes in a restaurant, I was more or less
interested in class, I worked in the student organization and
during my free time, same thing, drugs, alcohol and girls. On
Sunday evening, when I as alone with myself, this same feeling
of emptiness would come back. I could watch movies, play
stupid video games or smoke joints the whole night, the black
hole was still there, deep in myself, and kept growing.
After one year of this Erasmus life, debauchery disguised under
the terms of Student Exchange, I decided to stay in Holland.
No way to come back to my normal French life. I transferred to

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my host university and after another year of parties and some
little study, I went for my internship in Mexico.
I had gone to Japan when I was 11 for the wedding of my
brother. This trip to Mexico was the second big trip of my life.
I was 24. I fell deeply in love with this country, the charming
chaos of its streets, this melting pot of ancient cultures....
Unfortunately, I got quickly into the same routine that stuck to
my skin since I was 16. Alcohol, drugs and hangovers. The 6
months spent there went real fast and I suddenly found myself
in France again with the feeling of having missed something
important. The black hole in my stomach was bigger than ever
and I felt that I would get swallowed by it pretty soon.

On the road

It's summer time, Raphaël had arrived from Berlin to visit my

home town and convince me to go back to Holland to complete
our final study presentation hitchhiking.

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We left on a sunny morning, I was quite skeptical, sure the
people of this region would never give us a ride. My doubt
nailed us at the end of the city for 4 hours and then, a guy
stopped. Some hours later, we were stuck in a gas station. The
night was early over us, no traffic, few hopes of getting
anywhere. We tried to hitchhike on the highway but the cops
came quickly and after assuring we were not some kind of bad
guys, left us at the same gas station.
We had to spend the night there. It was warm outside, no
clouds in the sky. At midnight, while we were discussing in
front of the station, two Chechens came and offered us to
smoke a joint with them. We could barely talk between each
other but the joint was powerful. When they left, we were both
smiling and suddenly very happy to be here. We started to
dream about such a life. Being free, without money, without
plans ... we would go from a gas station to another, exploring
the world through the different encounters we would made.
And there I saw, I opened my eyes and saw what my life could
be.

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The idea

Three months later, we were in the room of Raphaël, the

headquarters of the Locomotive, a small foundation we had
created some months earlier to organize projects with the
university. It was more an excuse to not find a job and prolong
this student life we liked so much. We were talking about this
famous night and the idea of a free journey. We had two
Mexican friends who were getting married. For us, it was a
sign, we had to go. Raphaël had already gone to Mexico but
Nicola never. “Alright, but if we go there, I don't want to do
just a trip, something bigger, making projects, workshops...”
This is what launched the whole project.
He was right, we couldn't just go there and travel freely. I
mean, we could, I would be totally OK with that. I just wanted
to get this feeling I had at the gas station, to feel free…. But we
had to justify such a journey for our families, friends and the
whole society.
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Since we were already organizing small events about
multiculturalism and ecology, we decided to transform this free
journey into a sustainable journey. We didn't know so much
about environmentalism. We were vegetarians for some months
and started to adapt our lifestyle to something greener. It was
Home, a documentary by Yann Arthus Bertrand, which helped
us open our eyes and decide to change our lifestyles. Inspired
by this movie, we imagined our own documentary, the story of
three young Europeans hitchhiking and boat-hiking on the
other side of the ocean, a journey to show we can live and
travel while keeping a very low carbon footprint.
Basically, we wanted to inspire, to become those people, like
Yann Arthus Bertrand, who change the world.

Preparation

We took this idea very seriously. There was something clear:

environmentalism was about consuming the least we can, to

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ban the products and activities that were polluting the most.
The idea of going on the other side of the planet was already in
contradiction with it … but we believed traveling helps open
the mind and we needed it! We decided to combine the two.
First point: Transportation, exclusively hitchhiking and boat-
hiking. A website talked about a guy who had gone around the
world hitchhiking. We knew it was possible and that we had to
go to the Canary Islands first to find a boat.
Second point: Food, scavenging, recycling at the end of the
markets, in the trash cans behind the supermarkets, put in
practice “dumpster diving,” a true phenomenon starting to get
famous in the US, a great game consisting in investigating the
trash cans to get the unsold items.
Third point: Electricity, it had to be clean so our documentary
could be coherent. On Ebay, we bought three solar backpack
and two foldable solar panels. We didn't take any plugs to
ensure we wouldn't use any dirty electricity for our computer
and cameras.

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Fourth point: Water, crucial, vital. We knew once outside of
Europe, tap water wouldn't be suitable for our delicate
European bodies. We found a water filter from the army which
cost 300 euros but could filter anything.
Fifth point: Hygiene and health. There we didn't take any
precautions. Just a concentrated and environmentally friendly
Dr. Bronner’s soap. The care-freeness would be our best doctor.
Sixth point: No money, try not to consume anything, reduce to
a minimum our consumption of goods and, at the same time,
inspired by the Zeitgeist documentaries, question this financial
system which increases more and more the gap between rich
and poor people.

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 IV. Breaking in

We left with a bit more than 10 kilos on our shoulders. It was

freezing outside, a gray blanket covered the sky. We took our
time to have a last breakfast and it was already two o'clock
when we stood at the entrance of the highway. We had already
hitchhiked in this spot but this time was special. We were
leaving for the big jump. We were dancing on the sideway with
our cardboard where we had written our destinations: Belgium,
Barcelona and Mexico. The drivers smiled at us but no one
stopped. One hour later, I started to doubt about our timing. In
January in Holland, night comes at 17h … it was already
15h15. We had less than two hours of daylight ... what if we
postponed our departure to the following day?
A red sports car interrupted my thinking. Our first ride. No
coming back.

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24 hours later, we were in a gas station, still in the Netherlands,
frozen, famished, and Nicola was seriously thinking of
stopping this crazy trip. Traveling to him was not about
suffering, “sadomasochism, no thank you” he said. This was
the first slap of the journey. We wanted to show the world how
to travel sustainable without money ... we realized we had first
to learn how to survive!
A car came again to stop our doubts. Everything went really
fast then, we crossed Belgium in a couple of hours, and three
days later, we put foot on the Spanish territory.

Scavenging

Barcelona, European capital of “do it yourself,” refuge for all

the alternative people of Europe and the Africans who want to
step in. We arrived at night in this swarming of life. Our first
contact was an Italian trumpet player who opened the door of
his personal squat, a flat abandoned by an old lady deceased

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some months earlier. Her smell still stagnated in the flat,
nothing had been touched as if she had just left for groceries.
The few days spent in Barcelona were like intensive
internships to learn how to live without money. Here, they were
hundreds, Chileans, Colombians, Italians or Moroccans who
were living without a cent or almost, daily, simply, humbly.
They all scavenged food at the exit of the local markets or in
other stores. They had even a calendar with the different
closing times of the shops that were giving the leftovers. They
lived in abandoned buildings, waiting for the next expulsion,
going from one neighborhood to another, living like nomads in
the city.
In Barcelona, putting in practice our theories, we discovered a
fundamental truth. If there was more than one person in eight
who slept without food in the stomach in the world and about
3.1 million children dying of hunger per year, it was not
because of a lack of food. Abundance was a reality, the
problem was the distribution of this abundance. As shown
clearly by the figures and the number of people suffering from

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overweight: more than 1.4 billion in 2013. We could see it for
ourselves in this society supposedly in “crisis,” there was not
one shop, one grocery store, one bakery or one restaurant
which didn't throw away some food. This was automatic and,
often, these leftovers were sufficient to feed entire families.

The night

Andalusia, synonym of heat and sun. We were not running

anymore, fleeing from the cold. We could start to appreciate the
road, take our time. We arrived at night in El Ejido. Nobody
knows about this place in Europe but most western consumers
have tasted its specialty at least once in their lives: clandestine
immigrants getting asphyxiated 10 hours a day under the big
tarps which covered the hills of the region. Those fierce
workers were not angry about it. They laughed at us, watching
us waiting on the road with our thumbs up. Most of them had
come from Africa and were very happy about this opportunity
to send back money to their families.
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We spent the whole day waiting. No one wanted to take us.
When the night fell on us, we started our “recycling tour” of
the bakeries, restaurants and grocery stores, telling our story in
exchange for the leftovers. A vain enterprise until we got to a
Bulgarian grocery store. The mum didn't even want to here our
speech and just told us to take whatever we wanted. Just for the
pleasure of helping us. Then, we walked during some hours in
the city center looking for a quiet spot to spend the night. We
finally found a covered corridor that linked two streets. We
found some cardboard to make some mattresses. We had
already slept in stairwells, gas stations but this was the first
time on the bare street. We started to get used to the harshness
of the floor but we were not reassured. Anyone could pass by....
We slept curled around our backpacks, just in case. An
vagabond came to join us during the night. He also had some
cardboard with him and stank of beer. I got certainly a little bit
anxious but the fatigue of the day was a good lullaby. I fell
asleep quickly, forgetting I was in the street.

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Hitchhiking

Despite the fact that we were three men, we had crossed France
in two days, staying mostly on the highway. In Spain,
hitchhiking is forbidden and it was harder for us to make our
way. We waited a lot, walked a lot, and if we could finally get
to the other side of the peninsula, it was thanks to two
Romanians, one Ukrainian, one Algerian, an Argentine and a
French lady. The last ride was a Spanish guy named Raphael
and who asked us what we could do in Algeciras.
Algeciras is one of the most southerly points in Europe. 20
kilometers further, lights of the harbors of Africa were shining
in the night.
We spent the night on the top of a building, under the stars, and
we went early to the harbor. There was one ferry which linked
Tangier. Impossible however to speak to the captain or any
authority. Hitchhiking was not possible since the tickets were
sold for any passengers and not for a vehicle. Remained only
one option: the truck drivers. A dozen trucks were parked

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outside. One of the drivers told us they had the right to take one
passenger for free to cross the strait. This great news gave us
more energy and we asked all the truck drivers until we found
one Swiss, a German and a Moroccan driver who were willing
to help us. They had the right to declare a co-pilot when
coming aboard. The transport company paid the ticket, and a
meal was offered on board.
Our first obstacle vanished and Africa came before our eyes.

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 V. To let go

Once in Morocco, I started do understand what “living without

money” really meant. For most of the Africans, Morocco is
already like Europe, the waiting room of the dream land. For
us, Morocco was Africa, synonymous with adventure, dusty
roads ... we found there the values we were looking for in vain
in Europe and which here, seemed to spring from every corner:
simplicity, generosity, letting go....
From the first night, we were invited and if we slept from time
to time in the street, we were often hosted by strangers on those
comfy sofas you find in all Moroccan houses. Hitchhiking
presented some problems because of the language.... We
learned quickly to say “wallou flouz” to explain we had no
money at all. Our odd appearance and our greasy hair helped

30
convince the drivers and we never waited long on the side of
the road.
One evening, we had reached the end of a big avenue which
cut the city of Fez in two. Ahead of us, an arid steppe extended
far away, melting with the night. We had found refuge under
the light of lamppost. After a few minutes of waiting, some
youngsters sitting on a bench on the other side of a park began
to throw oranges at us. Nicola started with the idea, “And what
if we walked a little bit. Maybe the people will have pity and
stop?”
The idea was not bad but thinking about it afterwards, I have
trouble understanding what really pushed us. Rationally, all
was against us, it was dark, the cars drove fast and couldn't see
us, not a light at the horizon ... we could walk hours before
finding anything. If no one stopped, we would have to sleep
outside, under a great starry sky ... a romantic idea but also
dangerous in this harrowing obscurity. In spite of all that we
started walking, without thinking too much about it, as if we
felt all three of us that something would happen.

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When we arrived at a crossroad, we hesitated. Left or right,
what was the road going to the south. A truck appeared
suddenly at that moment, pointing his lights at us. We raised
our thumbs machinelike and the driver stopped.
“What are you doing here?
I told him shortly our story and he burst out laughing
“Come up!”
Shaken as never in this old suspension-less lorry, curled up on
the back seat, I was exulting. A truth came to shake my
conservative and rational mind. Here again, like this famous
night spent at the gas station outside of Metz, I felt free, like
born again.
We repeated the experience some days later. We were much
more in the south, close to the city of Tan Tan, on the edge of
the desert. A dusty road sunk in the horizon. Some rare vehicles
passed by, old cracked up Mercedes, overflowing trucks going
to Mauritania or luxurious camping-cars driven by friendly
Europeans who waved at us but didn't stop.

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Night came down on our hopes and there again, we decided to
walk, just like this, to see and because we thought there was
nothing better to do. After a ten minute walk, a car stopped five
hundred meters away from us. A unique chance. We
accelerated our pace. It was one of those old Mercedes and a
man, apparently alone, drove it. He was under the hood when
we asked him. He refused immediately, fearing we were some
kind of bad guys ... but seeing our desperate, burnt faces and
our passports we were holding in front of him, he finally
agreed. He was going to Laayoune, three hundred kilometers in
the south. Exactly where we wanted to go to find a boat. When
we arrived, like the truck driver some days before, he invited
us to his house to eat and sleep.
This time, I didn't doubt anymore. I understood the power of
this trip, of this moneyless experience, resides in learning to let
go, learning to not control one’s destiny but let oneself go with
the flow, trust in the goodness of the people, in the universal
law: if you smile at the world, the world will smile back at you.
It worked, we experienced it every day.

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Common sense

We wanted to reach Laayoune to find a boat. The city was

located just in front of Fuerteventura, the nearest island in the
Canaries. Unfortunately, the ferry no longer worked and the
transportation of sand had stopped. Since the 2008 crisis, Spain
had stopped building and no longer needed that much sand.
This was explained to us by the boss of the company. The sand
was now used for the beaches.
So, we had two options. Go south to cross Mauritania and
reach Dakar and hope to find a boat there or come back to
Agadir to find a sailing boat. Since we need a Visa to go to
Mauritania, we had to go back north anyway.
Agadir is known for its beaches, big hotels and luxurious
Marina. The anti-tourist atmosphere made it difficult for us to
find a roof for the night. Here, Moroccans had a specific
opinion about Europeans, and it wasn’t always positive… But
tourism also meant loads of left-overs. We roamed the streets

34
for a couple of hours before finding a corridor, half covered
behind a building which we could access from the hill. We
could protect ourselves from rain without having to trespass on
private land. We still wrote an explanatory note and stuck it to
our feet in case someone found us in the morning. We had been
chased before by a guy with a golf club in his hand…
Raphael woke up first and alerted us with a scream. When I
opened my eyes, I saw, at my feet, a tray with a succulent
breakfast on it: bread, tea, olives, marmalade, cheese and
fruit... Without investigating where this miracle had come
from, famished despite the food collected the previous day –
remains of pizzas, salad and old bread – we devoured this gift
of God in ten minutes.
When our helper appeared – a forty year-old woman, without a
veil and with delicate features – we tried to stammer some
thanks, and insisted on doing the dishes. In silence, she asked
us to stay where we were. She brought us a bucket with warm
water and soap and wished us a good day.

35
We washed ourselves quickly, quite astonished by all that and
went back to the Marina. One of the policeman we had
established contact with told us “there’s a sailor looking for
you, he saw your note”. We then saw a two-meter tall blond
guy coming towards us. “Are you the ones who were looking
for a boat? I’m going to Fuerteventura in a week and I can take
you with me.”
Incredible. Raphael jumped with joy. Nicola and I were
stunned at the news.
We had been looking for this opportunity for about a month,
and this sudden encounter came too quickly. It was hard to
believe.
The day before our departure, we went back to the corridor
where we had spent the night before. In the morning, again, a
tray with breakfast waited for us. After we’d started eating, the
woman from the last time came out with another tray. Seeing
how hungry we looked, she gave us her own breakfast, smiling.
The first tray had been given by another resident, a woman
who talked a bit more with us. For her, it was just natural to

36
give food to the people who needed it, and we looked like we
needed it. “it’s written in the Koran and more than this, it’s just
common sense.”
Since our arrival in Morocco, we’d experienced the kindness
that its people showed to what they called “passers-by.” This is
who we were, people passing by, and they gave us food and
shelter. Moussa, the truck driver from Fez, had pushed this
kindness to the limit. Following the message of the Koran to
the letter, he “forced” us to stay three days in his house, giving
us the best food ever and after that, coming to an agreement
with his boss to take us 600 kilometers further on our journey
up to Agadir. Each time we wanted to thank him, he just
answered “Machi Mouchkil mes frères, Machi Mouchkil”, a
kind of Moroccan Hakuna Matata, “no worries, it’s normal”.
These situations were not so easy to deal with for a French guy
like me who was raised in a country where individualism and
independence were virtues. My ego suffered quite a lot. To
receive can be perceived as being belittled in front of the one
who gives.

37
I realized that I had received for years without even noticing it.
All that I had consumed had been made by someone else, an
illegal immigrant in El Ejido, a Chinese child in a tax-free
sweatshop, a Moroccan woman in the king’s strawberry
fields… An army had been at my services so I could live
comfortably. Without the barrier of money, without this idea
that by buying I had all the rights, I could open my eyes to this
reality, I understood I was not alone in this world and that
everything I consumed had a human and ecological impact.

38
 VI. Waiting

The crossing was fast but epic. Robin, the captain, didn’t
expect the sea to be so wild for our first time. It was the first
time we had been on a sailing boat. At first, we were very keen
on helping out: Nicola held the helm firmly, and I helped Robin
to take the sail out with Raphael. But as soon as we got out of
the harbor and the waves started to overturn our stomach, our
faces suddenly became pale, our vision became blurred and,
twenty minutes later, we were nothing but useless weight
moored in the hold, waiting for better days. The slightest
attempt to move would make us throw up. Pathetic landlubbers
but happy to have this experience. On the following day, the
waters were calm again and we could see the volcano of
Fuerteventura.
In the Canaries, we discovered what waiting really meant, the
true frustration of waiting that drowns the biggest hopes. We

39
spent three weeks on the island of Fuerteventura, a mix of
European tourists who wanted the African climate and
European security… Three slow weeks in which we could take
a step back from the first three months of our journey. That was
the deadline we had given ourselves to get to Mexico. Our
Mexican friends were getting married next week and we had a
lot more distance to travel.
A seaman was stopped in the small Marina of Corralejo. It
turned out to be Wim, a friendly Belgian guy who had been
living on the island for ten years, and he decided to help us. He
went to Las Palmas with us just for the pleasure of helping us
out and doing some sailing. Las Palmas, on the main island,
where hundreds of sailing boats make a stop every year to
resupply and make some repairs before the big crossing. This
time, we were only sick once and it was my turn to feel the
power of the elements unleashed against the shell of this 10
meter-long ship. I felt the most perfect illustration of “let it go”
that I had felt on the road. I was holding the helm in the palm
of my hand. I had the sensation of directing the boat but

40
actually, it was the wind, the waves and the currents which
drove us. This was what all this trip was about: Without money,
we didn’t decide anything, like the elements which were
pushing this ship, the encounters we made were taking us to
our final goal: Mexico.

Las Palmas

There are more than 400,000 habitants in this rather imposing

city, with its heavy and noisy traffic, its high concrete towers
and the crisis which has hit everywhere, leaving entire blocks
abandoned. These old houses were inhabited by anarchists
from the continent and African immigrants waiting to be
deported to Spain. We stayed there by obligation, the main
harbor was surrounded by the smelly and sticky mass of the
city.
Every day, we would go to the harbor, talk to the barmen,
exchange with the sailors who had mostly come here years ago
and lost their hope of going any further. They had abandoned

41
their dream facing their own fear or the rising cost of having a
ship nowadays. We were in April, most sailors cross between
November and February… But we didn’t loose hope, some
captains told us this period was just a trend, people go to spend
the winter in the Caribbean sea and the summer in the
Mediterranean. Until July, when the storm season would start,
we could still find something.
Las Palmas also meant coming back to civilization with its
containers full of groceries and, if we ate like princes, we
couldn’t help feeling sad about all this waste. Every two or
three days, we would go behind a supermarket close to the
place where we slept. At 4:30pm, a member of staff took the
bins out and we had until 5pm to take all we could, before the
garbage truck came past. In this half hour, we always
scavenged about 50 kilos of fruit, vegetables and dairy
products, not to mention the meat and fishes we let rot in the
containers. There were about 10 supermarkets like this one in
the city, each of them with equal waste. You don’t need to be a
good mathematician to understand the scale of waste and we

42
could see with our own eyes the figures of the FAO: In the
world, more than a third of the food produced is thrown away.
Every second, 41,200 kilos of edible stuff are thrown away. We
lived in abundance, force-feeding ourselves with out-of-date
products or ugly fruit and vegetables.
On the other side of the island, fields of plastic tents housed
hundreds of immigrants who earned some euros in exchange
for their health. Seeing these people confirmed our choices to
us. Living without money was a Utopia, but what else could we
do to boycott money, the base of this perverse economical
system?
Buildings in ruin, food waste, beaches covered with plastic in
the morning before the clean up truck came, young people
exhausted in bars, this gray color sweating from the city and
contaminating the countryside. It was there, in the middle of
this mess, this scenery of apocalypse we had around us since
our childhood, that I understood why our quest had a true
meaning. We were looking for a certain coherence. We found
the meat industry repulsive, so we stopped eating meat. This

43
system based on money horrified us, so we tried to use it as
little as possible, living off what was already there. This was
our goal, a desperate but relentless attempt to make things
right. Each morning, when opening my eyes, I reinforced
myself in my convictions and I felt like trying even more.

“OK”

7 weeks passed by before a light of hope came to us. We found

it at the bottom of a container, of course. A Mexican flag some
sailor had decided to throw away. A coincidence? Impossible.
For Raphael, this was a sign. I recall seeing him jumping with
joy with the flag in his hand.
The following day, we went around transport agencies to find a
way to embark on a cargo ship. Hopeless, we needed papers,
certificates… In the end, we went back to the harbor,
dismayed. A friend saw us and immediately informed us:
“Chicos! A boat came in this morning. Two Italians, they’re
looking for a crew!”

44
We ran to check out the boat on the arrival deck. It was there, a
beautiful brand new sailing boat. We called for the crew. No
answer. The neighbor told us to check at the bar. He had seen
them going there. We followed their lead and found them.
Nicola took a breath and made the speech we had told so many
times:
“We are three Europeans traveling without money to show we
can live and travel in an ecological manner. We have solar
panels, we only hitchhike and boat-hike, we scavenge for food,
we filter our water… We want to go to Mexico and would like
to know whether you need a crew…?”
The taller one looked at the other and just said:
“OK”.
A simple OK. This was the fateful moment of the whole trip.
Yes, they agreed, they were leaving in ten days and needed
help to clean, make the crossing, take turns. They admitted that
they had actually been looking for two blond girls but couldn’t
find any.

45
Over the next 10 days, we cleaned the boat, polished the
guardrail and the other metal parts of the ship. This was the
first part of the deal. During the crossing, we would take our
turn, cook and give Spanish and English courses. All that in
exchange of three seats and food.
We enjoyed our last days in Gran Canaria. Our biggest obstacle
was getting smaller. From now on, we knew nothing was really
impossible, it all came down to knowing how to wait. We had
arrived on the island of Fuerteventura at the beginning of
March, On 12th May, we left for America.

46
 VII. The crossing

At sea

Marco and Francesco were an atypical couple. Two characters

diametrically opposed. On one side, a rich man from Milan:
tall, shaved head, tattooed all over, a fan of extreme sports and
easy women. On the other side, a Sicilian: a small and thickset
seaman with thick eyebrows, who had put all his savings into
this boat. His financial shares were divided with two other
partners in Italy and Marco. 50,000 euros each. This boat was a
business. They were going to Brazil to welcome rich Italians
who wanted to learn sailing. This was the reason why we
couldn’t bring any salvaged food on board. “No way””, Marco
told us, “this boat is a work tool, it must remain impeccable”.
Life on board was like a dream. This boat, which was heavier,
resisted the assault of the waves better. Less rolling and

47
therefore less seasickness. We cooked, took our turns, taught
Spanish and English and spent most of our time sleeping and
reading. The ocean makes you feel tired, we ate 6 times a day
trying to follow the advices of Marco: “at sea, there are three
enemies: hunger, cold and fatigue. You have to remain
operational at any moment.”
After 6 days, we arrived in Cape Verde, a small archipelago
situated off the coast of Senegal. The air was sweet, the
atmosphere relaxed, Capeverdians sung a kind of Portuguese.
Like us, most of them were dreaming of America but they were
more attracted by the US. Televisions showed American TV
shows, alcohol flowed easily down their throats, traditions
were getting lost. Some were still fishing in a sea where they
had to go further each time to find something. At night, far off,
the lights of the European trawler furrowed the horizon, their
nets scraping the bottom of the sea.
We didn’t spend much time in these paradisaical islands. Marco
and Francesco went for a night out and the following day we
went to the market to get fruits and vegetables. Marco

48
calculated more or less 15 days to get to Brazil. He reproached
us for eating too much. “It’s because you are vegetarians!” he
said. We tried in vain to convince him to scavenge for some
food. We went back on the boat with just a little fresh food with
the perspective of eating mainly crepes on board.
A few days later, we passed the equator line, the dead zone
where winds became rare. Marco took the spinnaker out, a
huge sail of 90 square meters. We could then keep an average
speed of 6 knots, being helped sometimes with the motor. This
trip in a sailing boat was in fact less ecological as what we first
thought. Maintaining a boat is expensive and Marco was in
such a hurry that he used the motor every time the wind slowed
down. Added to this were the liters of anti-corrosive paint that
washed little by little into the sea; we could expect a high
ecological footprint… But still a lot smaller than the footprint
of a flight.

Revelation

49
On board, a revelation hit me like a wave in my face. We had
been sailing out in the unknown for five months, we had
learned how to live without money. At first, it was just an idea,
a trip, a challenge… But now, while sailing towards America,
this idea represented much more to me. We had already seen
and felt so much. We had received so much, the generosity of
the world, of the Moroccans in particular had turned my world
upside down. The faith that drove them and chased their fears
and doubts away… That faith was now in me. Without money,
I was learning to trust, but not an artificial trust in a piece of
paper or an institution, a real personal trust. I believe in myself,
and therefore in others. I was understanding that the world is
not made of borders and that if I opened myself to it, If I let life
guide me, the world would open.
Marco repeated it daily. We were not traveling without money.
We traveled with the money of others. It was a valid argument,
I couldn’t deny it, but this journey brought us beyond that
interpretation. Living without money, more than boycotting
money or the financial institutions, consisted in giving up on

50
monetary exchanges. We were creating a new type of personal
economy where all we needed was obtained with a human
exchange, friendly and trustful. It was this type of exchange we
want to favor, to consider all beings on this planets as brothers
and sisters, not to sell anymore, not to buy, to share, to give and
to receive.
It was on this ship that I made the decision to transform this
temporary experience into a true lifestyle. I wanted to live
without money to burry these monetary barriers held between
my needs and the world. Raphael felt the same way, he didn't
want to buy or sell anything in the future either; he wanted to
give away, like the apple tree gives away, freely, without
expecting anything in return. Gift was natural and in our search
for harmony, it came to us as the only viable economic system.

51
 VIII. Recife

We disembarked in Brazil in the city of Recife, a huge

metropolis of inequalities. It was hard to return to the streets
and our daily globetrotters’ life, especially during the first
nights spent in the colonial city center, the Casco Viejo.
Hundreds of homeless people were strewn over sidewalks,
doorsteps and all kinds of shelter. We walked several hours
before we could find a quiet place, in front of the police station.
The following day, we strolled around this contrasted city. On
one side, huge commercial centers, high luxurious towers
protected by voltage barriers, big hotels facing the sea, empty
private flats belonging to the rich and, at their feet, shanty
towns spread in the dust, waste lands where thousands of poor
people lived. Some billboards praised the efforts of Lula for his
“social reconciliation”. Behind the propaganda, images were
eloquent, aimed at those not used to injustice.

52
One extra night in this misery and a nocturnal confrontation
with two teenagers, high on glue, brought our three-man band
to an end. Nicola was tired, fed up. He started to disagree with
our new ideas, this philosophy of gift economy. For him,
money was a necessary tool to transform the world, a means
that could help accelerate the change. He wasn’t wrong, but
Raphael and I were determined. We didn’t want to touch it
anymore. The separation was hard, but we still had 7000
kilometers to cover, and we were half way there, so there was
no giving up now.
A few days later, we went as a new duo on the road. That’s
where we got stuck at a gas station, where me met Wilson, a
friendly and strange truck driver who was going to steal my
backpack and, at the same time, help me achieve that long-
searched freedom. How strange that, when the police came to
take us to the tourist police station at the airport, we bumped
into Nicola, who was just about to board his plane to go back to
Italy.

53
Brazil!
The robbery initiated a new kind of journey. Our official
cameraman gone, no more computer or voice recorder, our
documentary project came to a sad end and with it the idea of
the most sustainable journey ever. More than just ecological
traveling, energy and water savings, we realized it was in the
most complete destitution that we would be able to become one
with nature. We stayed a week in the house of two friends we’d
met some weeks ago. It was time to reorganize ourselves with a
new project. We were now on a revolutionary quest, we wanted
to share this moneyless experience to share our findings along
the road. I found a small school backpack, a toothbrush, some
clothes and a knife, and we started again.
The streets of Recife were full of party-goers, the first rounds
of the World Cup had been played and the Brazilians were
celebrating their national team. Impossible to avoid, there
wasn’t a single shop or restaurant without a TV showing the
matches. When Brazil were playing, the whole country would
stop. No schools, no traffic, political debates were suspended,

54
everyone, women and men, children and elders, were watching
the screen holding their breath for 90 minutes. When Brazil
won, regardless of how they achieved it, parties burst into life
throughout the city, the beer flowed, and bars and clubs became
packed. All was perfect in a perfect world. No more poverty, no
more inequalities, no more problems; Kaka had scored and it
seemed it was the only thing that mattered.
We became trapped at another gas station, this time for five
long days, desperately wanting a truck driver to lend us a hand.
The car drivers coming to the gas station just ignored us. We
spent all day in the restaurant where the truck drivers were
having lunch. We were eating the scraps from their plates
before they returned them to the tills. Thankfully, the truckers
would just eat the meat and leave the salad, rice and boiled
manioc most of the time – a complete dish for two happy
vegetarians!
Finally, one guy took pity on us and, on a sunny afternoon, just
after receiving his load, invited us to come in. This was the
longest wait ever as hitchhikers. Darli drove us over 1000

55
kilometers. In the countryside, far away from the city,
hitchhiking was working again, people were friendly and
curious to meet us. After some happy days, we arrived in
Belem, another chaotic city perched on the edges of the
Amazon river.
Like Recife, Belem presented a two-speed society. Shanty
towns, squalid and unhealthy, mounds of trash ran along the
river. The well-off neighborhood was fenced and surveyed by
police cars. There were huge commercial centers that we could
enter thanks to our shallow white faces. Those places were a
great place for recycled food left by customers. Fries, leftover
pizza bases; we always found plenty food.
The owner of the boat company to cross the Amazon was
called Ruth and had the physical appearance of a German.
Maybe she was the grand-daughter of a German couple who
fled during the war. She listened to our story and before we
finished, just handed us two tickets « boa viagem » she just
said. The following day, we left on a big barge where more
than fifty hammocks were swinging in the breeze.

56
It would have been a dream to go up the Amazon and reach
Bolivia. But without passport, I knew it would be impossible.
We were happy to spend 24 hours on an aquatic labyrinth and
admire its beauty. We thought the Amazon looked like a brown
ocean winding amongst jungle islands where we could
occasionally make out small villages resting above the water.
We met a family of evangelists from the Assembleia de Deus.
When we got to the other side, in Macapa, they invited us to
stay with them and meet their parishioners. About 50% of
Brazilians were affiliated to this new church that didn’t exist 30
years ago. Even in the middle of the Amazon, we could see
small churches with the « Assembleia de Deus » written on the
front. The pastor was proud to say that he’d built 16 churches
on his own. He tried to convince us to spread their faith. They
weren’t too fond of our beliefs and adoration of universal
forces and mother earth, and we weren’t really on the same
wave length.

57
 IX. Borders

I had never really felt as free as these last few weeks. Without a
passport, I felt like everyone else here. It was just my skin that
made me stand out. Unfortunately, although the Brazilian
authorities weren’t really concerned about this, entering other
countries without a passport was almost impossible.
Being surrounded by the Amazonian jungle and entering
France was quite a shock. Roundabouts, neat lawns, clean
roads and precise signposting. Most of the inhabitants of
Cayenne were black and the houses built in wood but for the
rest, it was as if we were back in the West.
The weather was hot, humid and asphyxiating. We had to spend
two weeks getting together all the paperwork necessary before
being able to register my passport. Then, we still had to wait
two weeks.
This was a second waiting period after the Canaries where we
could think over the new turn our adventure had taken.

58
However, each day was one less day spent on the road and we
were waiting impatiently for the passport.
We’d bought a lot of stuff beforehand to ensure we would leave
a minimal carbon footprint. A solar panel, for instance, to avoid
“dirty” electricity. Three solar backpacks, two foldable solar
panels and one battery pack. This gear had suffered on the way
and we knew these items would not survive the trip. We had
only used the solar electricity to charge our cameras and laptop
during 6 months but at what price? With some investigations
on the Internet, we found a website which explained the impact
of the production of a machine compared to its life expectancy.
This impact was called the “embodied energy”, the energy
consumed for the conception, fabrication, production,
transport, commercialization and recycling of a product. This
embodied energy was, in most cases, higher than the energy
consumed during the life of a product. We discovered for
instance that the energy used by a computer during three years
accounted for just 17% of the total of the energy spent. The
83% remaining were the embodied energies. Another example

59
was the aluminum can. Each can needs about 10 000 watts to
be produced, which corresponds to the amount of energy a
family would spend in an entire day in the north of Europe. We
then understood that our solar panels had needed more energy
to be produced than all the energy we could get from then, even
if we exposed them for 10 hours over 10 years. With all our
purchases at the beginning, we had seriously compromised our
efforts to live in a sustainable way. This information confirmed
us that to be ecologically coherent, we should never buy
anything new.

Visas

Living without money is possible. I was convinced of it and

had spent a good deal of time in Guiana writing articles for our
blog and writing a bit about this great idea. However, to do
something it is not always enough just to want it. We were
invited on local television. The mayor of Cayenne received us
and granted us an interview, coming on television himself to try

60
to convince the consul of Surinam. Nothing could be done. We
had to pay for a visa. “The Surinamese needed a visa to enter
France so why could two French people come to our country
for free?”, said the consul using logic. We had to pay 10 euros
each. It was not a large sum but it was symbolic. We added
them to the 40 euros we spent for each passport. From the
beginning we had anticipated a few exceptions at borders but
ever since the robbery I was on cloud nine and was convinced
that I could live without money forever. The relentlessness of
reality brought me back down to earth.

61
 X. The road less traveled

This inevitable route through French Guiana lead us to take one

of the least traveled roads of South America, a continent that is
well known to all the globetrotters of the world. The Guiana's
and Venezuela were not on the typical to-do list of backpackers
back then. This was a true godsend for us. The locals were
more enthusiastic to welcome us.
We did not hang around on the roads of Suriname, the former
Dutch colony, which was characterized by its maze of small
canals and multicolored dolls houses. Three days later, we
entered Guiana. No visa was required and our welcome was
one of the warmest. In the capital Nieves, the girlfriend of
Raphaël, joined us. We were again three travelers and
everything became easier, the hitchhiking as well as
scrounging. ‘Strangely’, the presence of a beautiful Spanish
lady in the team ensured that from now on we would at least

62
get a balanced meal everyday and a roof over our heads under
which to rest.
Since we were more comfortable, our adventure had now
become a study trip. Each stage of the trip taught us to observe
a characteristic of a people or a culture which resembles with a
character trait of all humanity. In this sick globalized society
which spread to the most remote corners of the world, we
contemplated our own reflections, vices, laziness, egotism. In
Guiana the take-away trend shocked us with its tons of light
and innocent plastic packaging waste flying around and ending
up in fields, sides of roads or canals and then sooner or later
ending up in the ocean. The beaches, a sort of dump where
inhabitants came to burn their rubbish, received a tired ocean
whose backwash tirelessly vomited new waste.
A horrible and repugnant spectacle... But still, we knew that the
Guianians were not the biggest plastic consumers in the world,
far from it. These beaches, flooded with oil residue, were
identical to all the beaches in the world before cleaners arrived.
Pristine beaches did not exist anymore. Man marked his

63
territory with his bottles, deodorants, sandals that had been half
eroded by the sea… This was the heritage we were passing on
to future generations.
In France, every inhabitant consumes on average 20 kilos of
plastic per year. From this 20 kilos, less than 30% will be
recycled, and about 40% incinerated... What about the rest?
They are in the countryside, the rivers, flying around and
sooner or later ending their journey ending up in the sea.
In the middle of the jungle, the same thing happens. An
indigenous man, convinced we were ecological experts, asked
us, “What can we do with our trash? Burn it or bury it?”.
We did not know what to say, and for good reason there were
no correct answers to this puzzle. They were invaded by by-
products, beer cans, plastic packaging and frozen
products...They were not given a note to explain how to get rid
of these things. Maria hosted us in her desperate native village.
Modernity made her people feel lost. Powerless, she could only
see the decline of her people. It all started with the advent of
electricity, followed closely by the advent of the fridge, a

64
symbol of modernity which changed the eating habits of
everyone in the space of a few weeks. To sustain the very
enjoyable consumption of beer, chocolate, sweets and frozen
food men left their jobs as farmers and hunters and went to
work in the mines. Straw houses were abandoned for concrete
blocks, and people began watching TV in the evenings instead
of gathering around the fire. This was the end of a world.

Patria socialista o muerte

We were really excited about the idea of discovering the

country of Chavez and his Revolución Bolivariana. Did he
succeed in defeating capitalism and in perpetuating the idea of
communism? The first few months after our arrival in these
cities confirmed to us that the situation was totally different.
Behind propaganda billboards showing a gleaming Chavez
with his finger pointing upwards McDonald’s and Coca-Cola
signs towered above. The citizens were caught between a rock
and a hard place. They were caught between two ideologies,

65
the dreams of Chavez and the opposing view of relentless
capitalism as relayed by Hollywood and multinational food
companies.
We met a lot of people who painted a Venezuela that was at
times revolutionary and at times corrupt. Each person went by
their own version, either loving or hating the current president.
Some only spoke of the unfair expropriations and the political
scandals, and others restricted themselves to speaking about the
free hospitals, the minimum wage for all. Each person turned a
blind eye to a part of reality. This resulted in a divided society
undermined by inequalities, violence and insecurity.
The situation was summarized for us in a few words by an
adorable grandmother of twenty children. She lived peacefully
at the seaside, in a posada that welcomes a few tourists from
time to time.
“The people are not ready. The ideas are good but the people
are not ready.”

66
Everything has been said now. No change was to be expected
from the top; the biggest social advances remain in vain if the
people do not adhere to them.
Thanks to Nieves being there, we rarely waited, gliding with
ease from one end of the country to the other. We ate our fill
since Venezuelans, rich or poor, were so kind to us. We slept
outdoors many nights, in shopping center halls, hospital
parking lots, or on the beach, but we were also often invited to
people’s homes.
Colombia, the sister nation of Venezuela, had chosen the
opposing side: excessive capitalism. The Drug War was all the
rage. Drivers never stopped, hiding their fears behind the tinted
windows of their beautiful cars. We moved forward bit by bit
following the waves of police and the military who blocked the
road at each village exit. Each time they made a point of honor
to convince a driver or bus driver to take us with them. They
also asked us to not travel too far from the main road. There
were regular bursts of gunfire but if we did not witness them
we could still feel them.

67
After a few rainy days, we arrived in Cartagena, a seaside
colonial city where we hoped to find a sailboat to reach
Panama.

68
 XI. To change

There were no roads between the North and South America,

supposedly to prevent diseases from spreading all over the
continent, or maybe just to limit immigration in North
America. We had chosen to stop in Cartagena because we knew
that sailboats regularly crossed to the city. After 10 days, we
met an Austrian anarchist who was also the captain of a 40-
meter-long old Dutch trawler. Seduced by our story and our
“struggle”, he agreed to take us on board in exchange for a few
favors: to find clients for the crossing (he organizes trips
between Cartagena and Panama for the modest sum of 400
dollars!), clean his boat, cook for the passengers and
participate in housekeeping tasks.
After three days in the open the sea, we arrived in paradise, the
archipelago of islands belonging to the Kuna, an autonomous
indigenous tribe which carefully protects itself from the outside
world. They ferociously resist foreign invasions and alcohol is

69
forbidden, as are mixed marriages. They watched us from afar,
only coming to us to sell us some fruit and vegetables. Some
rich people from Panama City also came to us in a helicopter to
party on their yachts in the middle of these idyllic islands.
Their lively evening contrasted with the tranquility of the
Kuna, two parallel worlds that stood alongside each other but
did not mix.

The price of comfort

Like their Latin American neighbors, Panama City

accommodated the injustices and inequalities of the world: tall
glass towers like those in Miami encircled insalubrious
neighborhoods encircled them. We had seen enough of those
urban monsters where people mix with the most complete
indifference, and which we pass by without wasting time. We
entered Costa Rica a few days later and discovered a small
country which was markedly distinct to its neighbors. It had a
more egalitarian society. Historically, the Spaniards, having

70
been unable to find any gold on these lands, sold them at a low
price to the peasants of the Northern Spain. Therefore, this kind
of bourgeois feudalism which determined this two-tier growth
in most countries of Latin America did not exist there. On
entering, we were surprised to discover that the roads were in a
good state, and that there was no trash on the roads. We were
also surprised to discover ecological propaganda which incited
the people to save water and take care of nature.
Costa Rica is also the kingdom of the pineapple. Wide fields
spread across the hills as far as the eye can see. Costa Rica, the
world’s primary producer, gives priority to the production of
the king of fruit above anything else. A farmer clearly
explained to us the ecological disaster that he was obliged to
create to satisfy European whims: “You want beautiful fruits
without marks, forcing us to use tons of pesticides to repel
insects, impoverishing the soil. It's a disaster but we have no
choice!”.
This was even more obvious in Nicaragua, the small sister
country of Costa Rica, which did not benefit from the same

71
starting conditions. Rich farmers had plundered a country
which henceforth collapsed because of poverty. Nevertheless,
we met a people who were generous and open. It was
impossible for us to scavenge and everyone insisted on offering
us food.
On our way, a couple picked us up from the side of the road
and invited us to their home. The woman worked in a tax
exempted zone, in the offices of what they call there a
maquiladora, which is a textile industry that outsources for big
brands. A company which subcontracted for big brands. She
told us about the continuous exploitation of employees in these
firms which evade tax and violate the international rights of
employees to produce jeans that cost two dollars fifty each on
average. She admitted to us that two employees passed away
the previous month from a cancer and that the firm denies all
responsibility.
Whether pineapples, jeans or any other product, the reality
came to light for us in the cruelest way. The life of a European

72
was enjoyable because it was based on an unjust exploitation of
human and natural resources of other countries in the world.

Vegan

This observation lead us to make a new decision. We had

started our journey as vegetarians, mainly for ecological
reasons and to avoid, for instance, those ten thousand litres of
water and ten kilos of grain needed to produce one kilo of beef.
However, being vegetarian was not a complete solution as this
diet had to go hand in hand with local consumption without
processed or dairy products which were often just as polluting
as the meat. We had met a veterinarian who worked in one of
those enormous chicken factories. He helped us open our eyes
to sixty thousand chickens locked up in a shed which laid
forty-five thousand eggs per day in coops that measured 35
square centimeters. We knew it was the same story for the
industrial production of milk, which is incidentally not very
digestible for humans.

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At first, we thought that a vegan diet would be difficult to stick
to on the road but once we arrived in Central America, with
this abundance of fruits and vegetables, we took the firm
decision to turning our thoughts and feelings into decisive
action. No more daily products, no more meat, and one more
step towards consistency and harmony with nature. We did not
have the jaw of a carnivore nor the stomach, so why continue
being stubborn and eat meat?
For the taste or for the enjoyment? How enjoyable is it to kill
or exploit animals?
To respect our culture? This same culture which enslaved three
quarters of the inhabitants of this planet?
In our quest for freedom it became clear that we had pass by
there, free ourselves from our eating behavior, and put an end
to keeping human and animal enslavement alive and well.

The King Dollar

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Unfortunately, our actions cannot always match our thoughts.
We had a tourist tax dilemma. The customs officials were not
very lenient and to be able to continue our trip we had to pay. I
refused knowing that our quest was well and truly utopian. To
live without money was a dream, a vision for the future that we
tried to keep alive but could not make a reality on that very
day. This was a fact. Nieves still had a few dollars and marked
a key point on this journey. I understood that I should not be
stubborn in not spending one cent. The reality of this trip was
not to be found in this effort but rather in the idea of
eliminating the use of money, limiting our ecological footprint
and maintaining this simple way of living which leads to
harmony.
We found simplicity daily with the Nicaraguans, Hondurans,
Guatemalans and Belizeans. It appears everywhere on the Pan-
American highway that crosses through Central America. We
discovered the generosity of these poor but happy peoples. In
Honduras, the White Revolution, the rising up of the elites
against the socialist government (discretely supported by the

75
US Army), had plunged the country into a hopeless crisis.
However, the inhabitants received us with a big smile and
shared their meals with us without batting an eyelid.
Incidentally, many of them understood us, having made a
similar trip without money, and hitchhiking. The main
difference was that they went to the United States to make
money...and then come back having been forcefully repatriated.
Our European passports ensured an easy route. We were
received well everywhere and the firemen hosted us at every
stop we made. We crossed Guatemala and Belize without a
hitch. The last leg of our journey before Mexico and our last
obstacle was: a tourist tax of 35 dollars. In a small country such
as Belize with its 300,000 inhabitants, it was easy to get a
meeting with the secretary of the Minister of the Interior. She
listened to our story, glanced at the article that appeared on the
first page of the Honduras newspaper and gave us a tax
exemption. Two days later, we crossed the Mexican border!

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 XII. To give

In concrete terms, we did not travel without money, having

been in constant indirect contact with money. People paid for
petrol, electricity and food... We knew this as it was clear, and
yet, we were determined to continue. By receiving so much, we
learnt to accept the reality of this world just as it was, without
having the financial means to bend or alter it as we pleased. We
had discovered that it was possible to live on earth as a big
family, donating and sharing.
Inevitably, after having been the guests of the world, we only
had one desire: to donate when it was our turn.
The first stop was the Klimaforum, an alternative forum at the
climate summit, the COP 16. In exchange for food and
housing, we agreed to spend more than 10 hours per day
cooking, cleaning, receiving people, translating, organizing…
We were looking, in vain, for ways to repay our hosts for all
that they gave us.

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Nieves became pregnant at this time. She decided, together
with Raphaël, to go back to Europe to give birth to the baby
there. I could not imagine going back so soon. I had not had
enough and had an enormous thirst that needed quenching. I
dreamt of traveling the world with no money, crossing the
Pacific Ocean and still having more crazy adventures... At the
end of the Klimaforum, a Danish guy gave me a bike that he
could not take on the plane and I found myself with a new
vehicle to continue the journey with. I continued alone this
time, nourished by the same convictions, with a saying that
would become my own little by little: “Be the change you wish
to see in the world”. Gandhi came with me. I wanted a world
without money, without injustice, and without human and
animal exploitation. I therefore tried to apply these values to
my life while waiting to be able to do more.

On the bike…

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This new chapter of our journey without money began with
painful effort. The first few days were exhausting. Somehow I
cycled in torrid heat and had long breaks from 11am to 4pm to
prevent myself from getting heatstroke. Alone, I found it
difficult to motivate myself to scrounge and so I ate a lot less,
mainly relying on some fruit and the flapjack that I took from
the kitchens of the Klimaforum. With my accomplices I was
able to allow myself to be get tired or to not want to ask. If my
morale was affected, Nieves or Raphael made up for this by
smiling. Everything was easier. When I was alone I faced new
challenges: explaining the trip to people on my own,
responding to all the critics, boosting my mood and
permanently smiling. Luckily, the bike was of a very good
quality and transported me more than 600 kilometers to a small
village on the edge of the gulf of Mexico. It was the evening of
the 31st December. I managed to get myself offered a succulent
meal in a cevicheria, a salad with frijoles and some tortillas. I
then wandered about in the town on the lookout for a smile or
an invitation. I felt terribly lonely and I could not find a

79
charitable soul to offer me somewhere to stay and spend the
new year with. I ended up on the lawn of a petrol station, in
tears, asking myself what I was doing there, far away from
everyone and with my bike as my only company. It was the
first time on this trip that I sunk into depression and I realized
that until now the journey seemed enjoyable because we
formed a good team with Raphael and the others. When I was
alone everything changed. The next day, I continued the
journey driven by a certain desire. I become open to others,
creating projects where the community would dominate over
the individual, and I decided to thumb a lift while cycling.
Thanks to the abundance of pickup trucks in Mexico it worked
and five days later I arrived in Mexico City.

In sedentary fashion

Traveling without money is one thing, living without money in

one place, many weeks later, is another.
As soon as I arrived in this impressive megalopolis, I needed to
solve my housing problem. I had a friend living there who was

80
willing to host me for as long as I wanted. Nevertheless, I felt it
was out of the question for me to squat at his place without
making myself useful. I felt too much like I was taking
advantage of the people the last few months. I therefore
suggested to him that I would take care of the housework and
transform his apartment into an eco-flat. The goal was to save
water by putting buckets everywhere in order to collect this
precious liquid and use it for flushing, create a vegetable roof
garden, to get food so that he and his fellow flatmates could
have a meal – vegan it goes without saying – every evening
and organize events on the subject of ecology. My friend and
his flatmates were immediately thrilled by this idea. The
project was developed in a few weeks and was an immediate
success. Unfortunately, the price of success meant that we
attracted too many people too quickly and by the end of three
months, the neighbors and the landlord put a stop to this
project.
While I was at it, I threw myself into organizing free vegan
camps around Mexico City. Thanks to the network I had

81
established with our eco-flat, I succeeded in gathering about
fifty people on a site where each person could suggest an
activity or a workshop that was related to ecology in a wider
sense: spirituality, health, respecting animals, ecotechnics and
sustainable development.
I endeavored to increase the activities and give more than I
could. I had learnt to receive but not yet to give, and often I lost
myself in these projects that were too short-lived and which
were born and then died out immediately afterwards. I got
angry and complained to my friends who did not want to
follow me or my ideas and choices.
Confusion reigned in my soul and, after a year, I decided to
continue my trip but this time towards the United States. I had
still a lot to learn and I knew that the road was a good teacher.

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 XIII. On the trail of the spider

On 1st November, we were sitting on the wall of the cemetery

of Mixquic, a small village where we watched lights dance to
the wind and where hundreds of candles adorned the graves.
The village families moved slowly like caterpillars in between
the tombstones, which were decorated with flowers and seeds.
These slow processions headed towards close relatives, to
dedicate some of their time and lives to them. I myself was in
the middle of mourning a chapter of my existence and was
ready to go on the road again.
On the other side of the wall, the fair was in full swing. A man
was shouting into his microphone to sell come carpets, spoiling
the silence of the candles on the graves without meaning to.
Thousands of people were crammed into this small village on
this festive Day of the Dead to consume and perpetuate the
semblance of tradition by stuffing themselves with sweets, hot
dogs and getting drunk with beer and Mezcal.

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The following day, three of us left for the United States.
Yazmin, an adorable Mexican lady with whom I had fallen in
love and who taught architecture at the University of Puebla.
She had taken four months off to come with us. Mike
completed the trio. He was a young British man who I had met
in Cancun and who dreamt of attempting to make the journey
without money.
A few months earlier, we had registered to attend a meditation
course which would last 10 days and would start in exactly one
a month’s time in the Mojave desert, a two hour journey from
Los Angeles. A friend had told me about it. He said it would be
ten days of silence to meditate for more than 10 hours per day.
The food would essentially be vegan and the course was
completely free, which was a piece of information that made
me jump at the chance. I needed help to distance myself from
the last two years, the trip, and life without money. I could not
imagine anything better than silence.
We needed four weeks to get to Los Angeles. I was happy to
get back on the road again and I was particularly happy to

84
share this experience with new traveling companions. I savored
the long waiting times such as waiting for 6 hours in the
grueling sun, at the foot of the espinazo del diablo mountain
range. When the sun disappeared behind the pine trees of the
valley, a pickup truck finally stopped, picked us up and then
began its crazy race in the mountains. We rode for 3 hours on a
winding road, under a starry sky so that we could finally sleep
on the oceanfront of the Pacific Ocean.
Getting food was easy in the markets. We were often offered
tortillas or entire meals. This time we had each taken a tent. It
was more convenient for us to be able to lose ourselves in
nature or on wide beaches of the Pacific. We work up to
Monarch butterflies, wonderful beings with orange wings
which traveled more than 6000 kilometers to come to die in the
Michoacan mountain summit. In this particular spot, butterflies
gather in thousands on the conifers of the region to wait for a
ray of sun so that they could be brought back to life again.
We arrived at the border after spending thirty-six hours in the
cabin of a heavy goods vehicle, a journey that was necessary to

85
cross the sand dunes of the desert that separated the
Tarahumara mountains from Tijuana. We spent our first night
an abandoned house in the Tijuana suburb, feeling not very
safe and starving. In the night, some careless kids threw some
firecrackers at us, waking us up startled. This was the only
incident that happened that night, and the next day we went
across the city to get to the other side. Entering the United
States without any money would have been a dream. The
customs official listened carefully to our story but assured us
that exceptions were not possible, and that we would
incidentally encounter problems “in this country where even
the air is not free”. he told us. Yazmin had kept on her a few
dollars just in case and she paid the twelve dollars that were
necessary.

Vipassana

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Vipassana was a real shock. After the ten days of meditation,
we stayed for another two weeks at the center to help out
voluntarily and to perfect our understanding of the technique.
Vipassana is the technique that came from the teachings of the
Buddha. Vipassana means to observe reality as it is, to learn the
art of living, the art of keeping calm in all situations, and of
never reacting out of fear or pleasure, but to be happy to act
calmly and keep smiling.
In fact, the course consisted of getting up at four in the
morning and meditating following instructions until nine in the
evening. There were short breaks every hour and two hours
dedicated to meals, one at six thirty and the other at eleven,
and then fasting until the next morning. They were ideal
conditions to cleanse the mind of all confusing thoughts. After
the first three days, meditators start to empty their minds,
observe the sensations which constantly come and go in their
bodies. The goal of this observation is to let the unconscious
understand that everything is transitory and that it is useless to
get attached to short-lived pleasurable or uncomfortable

87
feelings. Through detachment, the meditator is cured of his or
her flaws bit by bit.
At the end of the stay I felt liberated of an enormous burden,
happy, a big smile across my face. We returned to civilization
on the 1st of January, arriving in the middle of Los Angeles.
This month of intense happiness and peace was followed by
several days of depression. I realized I was not someone that
was as good or as generous as I had claimed I was. Throughout
my journey, my stubbornness to live without money was
perverted by my ego, my thirst for recognition, the desire to
show that I was superior to others. By meditating, I could
clearly see my mistakes, this aggressiveness which I put in my
actions, the lack of acceptance when faced with the desires and
wishes of the people I lived with. I understood, finally, that
what was more important than living without money, was to
live in peace with the world.
I did not call into question my ascetic life either. Vipassana
advocated simple living, without possessions, and the path of
the Buddha, carefully explained to us in evening speeches was

88
enough to confirm my choices. Living in complete poverty is a
noble thing, I just had to learn to do it with peace of mind and
without trying to be against society but with it, while feeling
compassion for other beings.

Waste land

Coming back to American consumer society was brutal.

Through couchsurfing, a wonderful website which allows
travelers to stay over for free with a host, we met a young
American guy who was a house sitter in an uptown
neighborhood of Los Angeles, North Hollywood. On the first
night, we explored the area to check the containers of Trader
Joe’s, an organic supermarket in California that was quite
popular. When opening a container, the sheer size was
surprising. There were kilos of food inside including vegan
cheese, eleven jars of almond butter, which were thrown away
because the labels were too sticky, and all types of fruit and

89
vegetables. On the way back, we explained our journey to the
manager of an uptown bakery run by Belgians. The manager
listened attentively and told us to come back at closing time. A
bag of organic wholemeal bread which weighed five kilos was
waiting for us. We discovered the crazy abundance which
irrigated California. Surely enough food to feed all of Africa is
thrown away. All kind of products ended up in the containers
because of wet labels, dates that were not easily legible or
simply because there was no more space on the shelves. We
happily profited, organizing big feasts and shared our finds
with the abundance of nomads in the city.
After Los Angeles we went to San Francisco, a more conscious
city and less food waste but enough to feed ourselves with.
Then we left to go to Oakland, a home for anarchists who
were squatters and protested night and day against this system.
We found ourselves right in the middle of the Occupy
movement revolution. The streets seethed with bitterness.
Protesters occupied public spaces, even camping on concrete to

90
denounce the injustice of the American system and the 1% of
rich people who exploit the people of this world.
In Las Vegas we camped with the demonstrators of Occupy Las
Vegas, a submovement of Occupy. About fifty tents were
erected in a parking lot in front of luxury hotels. A rudimentary
kitchen was placed on planks and crates and there were some
get-togethers with beer. In the end, there was not much
conviction in the hearts of those who searched for the hope of a
better and more comfortable life. Crushed by the burden of
protesting, constantly against instead of for, some of them got
tired and quit the struggle to find work as cashiers or security
guards.
We needed two days to get out of Las Vegas, a sticky city
where hitchhiking is forbidden. We ran into other nomads who
were traveling along the motorway trying to avoid the police.
We also had to be cunning to hide from the police and position
ourselves at the entrance of the freeway. After a freezing night,
since it was January, in a commercial zone, three of us in a tent,
we finally found a mother who was a former hobo. She did not

91
hesitate for a second and took us in her car to a small village
twenty kilometers away. On the same day when night was
falling quickly over the bare mountains of Nevada, one last
vehicle took us for a long ride in the desert to Grand Junction.
We slept there under a tent on an icy floor, shivering until
daybreak.
The following day, after the police tried in vain to forbid us to
hitchhike, we reached Moab, a small city of 20,000 inhabitants
deep in the middle of the canyons of Utah. This was the
location where Daniel Suelo lived. He was a hero of modern
times, an inspiration for our trip with no money. He himself
lived without a cent for more than 12 years and spends a
peaceful ascetic life in a cave, lost at the deep end of the
canyon.

Follow the spider

Daniel was laying on a rock in a cave he had chosen as refuge

for the last few weeks. The cave was located in a canyon that

92
was deep in the middle of a nature reserve, a 45-minute walk
from the city of Moab, at the end of a long craggy path. It was
far away from the noise and lights of society. He looked at the
ceiling of the cave, blackened by the years and by camp fires
and let his thoughts wander. Suddenly, he saw a large spider
climbing up a slope, slowly but surely. Suelo got up and got it
into his head to follow it. He climbed onto the side of the rock
to then let the spider move quickly at the top of the canyon. He
was struck by a revelation. This is what he had been looking
for: to be like the spider, to move without stress or fear while
searching for a spot to weave its web.
We were around the fire when Suelo told us his story. His eyes
were shining, the dancing flames of the fire were reflected in
his childlike eyes. Daniel could talk about politics, economics,
the perversion of the banking system, capitalism, social
injustice in the world, the obesity of Americans in contrast to
hungry Africans. However, when it came to explaining why he
was living without money, he was happy to tell the simplest of
stories, like the day he found he had 30 dollars in his pocket,

93
lost in the middle of nowhere, in a petrol station on the side of
the road. He suddenly realized that this handful of 30 dollars
was completely useless because if something serious were to
happen to him these three dollar notes would not be of any use
for anything. What’s worse still is that they would prevent him
from being completely liberated. left them in a phone booth
and start walking. Since this day and for the next twelve years,
Suelo did not touch one cent. He scavenges, scrounges, walks,
hitchhikes, hangs off freight trains and sleeps in a cave. Suelo
decided to live ethically. He breaths the easiest in the world and
does not demand recognition, nor does he try to impress people
or make an impact. He is content with being true to himself and
his thoughts and feelings match his actions.
This encounter marked a decisive moment in my way of
looking at myself. With him, I understood I was not anymore
this arrogant French adventurer who wanted to show the world
another lifestyle was possible. Little by little, I was becoming a
human being looking for his own truth, his own happiness.

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 XIV. Living together

Crossroads

It took me several months to digest all those new

feelings that had shaken me during this trip to the United
States. In the meantime, I worked as a volunteer for a couple of
ecological projects in return for accommodation and food. I
understood that even if Daniel Suelo was a great source of
inspiration with his simplicity, his natural way of being, his
lifestyle didn't attract me. He was alone for many years, with
the exception of the few visitors that he received from time to
time. Some nature lovers tried to follow him but, despite
himself, he remained mostly alone. I was more in love than
ever with Yazmin and I was in-between two ideals: living
without money, an ascetic life, in nature - maybe I would join
Suelo; or choosing to live with others, creating collective

95
projects to help promote global change, finding alternative new
ways to live in a more ecological and human manner – to be
happier.
Yazmin had spent four months with me living without
money, or almost without money. There were two exceptions:
once to pay the tax for the three of us to enter the US - 12
dollars in total; and another to buy a jar of peanut butter in
Colorado – a necessary dalliance after three months of ascetic
life!
Back in Mexico, she resumed her teaching job and
confirmed that even if she did indeed like the idea of living
without money, she nevertheless wanted to keep some savings
as a nest egg, just in case. Of course, she didn’t mind spending
less, but she didn’t want to deprive herself too much either.
On my side, I remained convinced that I didn't want to
use money again. I felt so great, so free. However, as I was
living with people who used money everyday, it was hard to
stay moneyless. It didn’t matter that I was struggling to find
food, or working in exchange for accommodation, it remained

96
clear that there was nevertheless a minimum spend involved in
my lifestyle, whether this be electricity, internet or gas.
I hesitated but I finally chose in favour of Yazmin,
sacrificing this coherence that I held in my heart to be with
others, to develop a sense of togetherness, putting my ideals to
the side to serve a common purpose, trying to contribute to this
unstable society.
This resolution was the start of a new chapter in my life,
a new stage. We started organizing other free and vegan camps
with some friends. This time, we were more open to others and
therefore received more responses, with 200 and 400 hundred
participants respectively, and dozens of workshops and
conferences spread over three days. We realized this was the
key, creating self-managed and free activities open to everyone.
Everyone, without exception, left transformed from this three-
day conscious escapade where they learnt to compost, build dry
toilets, create a permaculture garden, think about the
importance of conserving grains, and eat delicious vegan and
local food. We also found our way. We wanted to continue

97
creating spaces where people could forget about this world of
financial oppression for a few days, spaces where people could
be themselves, sharing and finding harmony with others, the
world and all living beings. This was the dream that unified us,
Yazmin and I.
These camps were nonetheless fleeting, and if they
showed us anything, it was that we dreamed of something
based on the same concept, yet bigger and longer lasting.
We shared our feelings with Raphael and Nieves over a
skype call. They were now parents of an adorable little girl and
they were also very interested in the idea of creating a vegan
and moneyless eco-village. After the journey without money a
new dream united us, and made me think of returning to
Europe. I had left three years ago.
Mexico was a true paradise and the ideal place for
creating this kind of community, but I felt society still was not
ready for it. The political situation was getting worse with Peña
Nieto coming to power - he was a corrupted man, and he was
old school. He had bought his way into power by using a

98
Mexican supermarket chain to offer vouchers to anyone who
would put a cross opposite his name. The voting office could
not justify more than 25% of the fraud, and the election stood
firm despite the protests of the people. Even though Mexico
was not as dangerous as the media made out, it was still clear
to me that it was not so peaceful either. Unfortunately, Mexico
had other priorities, such as rights for the indigenous
populations, gender equality, and the fight against corruption,
which were more important than ecological concerns.
I was also European and couldn't find a way to relate to
the Mexicans. Yazmin hesitated but finally accepted to go back
with me. The perspective of spending the winter in Europe
didn't please her all that much. We got married and went on the
road again heading for America. This time we wanted to find a
sailboat on the East Coast.

Coming back

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 The trip from the Netherlands to Mexico was born out
of the idea of avoiding travelling by plane to be more eco-
friendly. As many know by now, a ten-hour flight amounts to
an ecological footprint of 4 tonnes of CO2 per passenger. As a
comparison, a French citizen emits, on average, about 8 tonnes
of CO2 per year. For a French person, two return flights from
Europe to America would double their carbon emissions for the
year.
Taking a plane then, for the innocent ecologist I was,
was like signing a deal with the devil. However, after a month
and a half of wandering the roads of America in the cold month
of March, along with some setbacks and the inability to get in
touch with skippers in Florida, we decided with Yazmin to
make the one big exception of the journey: fly back to Europe.
It was hard for me to accept and still today I feel like a
coward. If even I had given up, then how could I hope the
world would change? However, it was a difficult situation.
Yazmin, whom I loved deeply, had had enough. She was

100
exhausted by these setbacks, from the lack of sympathy, and
from the difficulties that surrounded us.
We hitchhiked up the coast to New York. My mum paid
for my ticket - Yazmin had some savings. It would take 7 hours
to get to Germany. 7 ridiculous little hours compared to the 11
months it took to get here. The comparison illustrated perfectly
the ecological consensus - longer, more tiresome, and harder to
keep up could not compete with comfort that was served on a
plate. My mum spent 300 euros, a very small amount for the
2600 kilos of CO2 I emitted.
Getting onto the plane I told myself that this time would
be the last time. My ego suffered from this choice. I was no
longer an exceptional traveller – I was going back to Europe
through the back door. But this experience was also part of the
process. I was learning to let go of this need to be someone
extraordinary, I was learning to just be. I put my foot on the
ground in Germany with the certainty that I wanted to keep
living without money, but that I would try to do it with
humility, without criticizing others – since I had used money

101
myself! – without putting distance between myself and others. I
went back to Europe to build something, to participate in the
global effort to create a better world, to promote the idea of a
life of giving and sharing. I had to merge with the crowd to do
it.

Eotopia

Our first stop was in Berlin to visit Raphael, Nieves and

Alma Lucia, their daughter. Since our separation in 2011,
Raphael had also kept his moneyless lifestyle. He also faced
some hard choices. Nieves received some help from the
government and dipped into her savings. However, she never
spent more than 50 euros a month, using the money from the
government to pay medical insurance.
This story of a moneyless family propelled Raphael into
the limelight – he was on talk shows and prime-time TV, his
picture was on the front page of magazines. It was a notoriety
that enabled him to broadcast our ideas on a large scale. He

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also participated in the creation of Foodsharing, an official
network dedicated to scavenging and sharing expired food.
This project attracted even more attention and became a
recognized organization in Germany, with several thousands of
people joining this online platform to share leftovers from
supermarkets.
Raphael was therefore always busy and was also
writing a book. We only stayed one week but it was enough to
define the principles of our new dream: Eotopia. We were
aware that our moneyless lives were becoming a lie. Electricity,
internet and other amenities implied the definitive spending of
money. It was this observation, which we were constantly
reminded of by our critics, that led us to think about this idea of
community. This initiative was our chance to experiment with a
truly moneyless lifestyle, not alone but together with many
others. It was our chance to create a sustainable place to live in
harmony with nature and all beings - a kind of laboratory to
find solutions and alternatives. We only needed those few days
to get to work on turning our dream into a reality.

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 Eotopia, the cradle of our utopia, started gleaming on
the horizon - a sustainable vegan eco-village based on gift
economy. We wanted to try to build everything without money,
to get everything for free, starting with land. More than using
money or not, the idea was to create an economic system based
on Gift.

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 XV. Gift economy

“The Human is a communicative animal. It listens, speaks,

answers. Most of his activities are activities of reciprocity and
free exchanges. Friendship, love, seduction are not driven,
generally speaking, by monetary grounds...” Bernard Maris

What is money?

Various theoreticians, authors, and philosophers have

mentioned the possibility of a gift economy in our societies.
Most agree that our actual economic system is not viable
anymore – was it ever? – and that gift could cement the bases
of a new society that would be fairer, more balanced and more
functional: a society where all beings would get an equal
chance to access resources.

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 There is first one question we must consider before
looking deeper into this quite paradoxical idea of a gift
economy: what is money? Or better, what does it mean for us?
It is hard to find the origin of money since all civilizations have
been trading it for thousands of years. It seems that the
majority of populations that have inhabited this planet have, at
some point, using units of measure – currencies –set up a
system for the exchange of goods. For example, currencies we
have seen in the past have included salt in the Mediterranean
basin, shells in America or precious stones in the Mayan Age.
These currencies were made to facilitate a global exchange
system, allowing people to get what they needed directly,
without having to provide the giver with whatever they needed.
Today however, money plays another role. Firstly, it doesn't
correspond to a ground and concrete value anymore. According
to Marie-Louise Duboin, about 97% of the money which
circulates around the globe is fictitious, created from nothing
by the banks. The author of “But Where Does the Money Go?”
clearly explains the process of money making which starts with

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the right given to the private banks to create 9 euros from 1 real
euro. This makes the possibilities infinite for the banking
system. A documentary called “The Debt” was made in 2013
and unveils the secrets of monetary creation in France and
brings us to reflect on the money we believe we own in our
bank account.
Concretely, money is a tool that allows us to get things. A
simple tool. However, money today represents much more than
a simple exchange tool. Charles Eisenstein, an American
economist and author of Sacred Economics sees money as the
symbol of security: the security of getting what we need, of
realizing our projects, of securing our children’s future.

Money is trust

By experiencing life without money, I have confronted this

idea. On a daily basis, I was asking myself these questions:
How could I eat? Where would I sleep? How could I heal
myself? I had to replace this security that was normally offered

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by money. The substitute became evident in Morocco with this
unconditional faith that animated the people there.
This was a small revelation concerning what gives its value to
money: the trust we give to it. I used to trust money to get what
I needed… a trust put into the banks and the monetary system.
The economic crisis of 2008, whose shadows still remained,
was suddenly explained. The investors had doubted, they had
lost their trust, contributing to the bankruptcy of the whole
system.
The Moroccans seemed more prepared for this kind of crisis. If
money went missing, everyone would just count on God,
trusting in His guidance towards the light. Their faith
guaranteed their future. Following this discovery, I didn’t start
to believe in God nor turn to religion, but I got passionate
about the idea of an universal faith, a general trust towards life
itself, the natural forces, the basic law of the universe: We are
what we give.

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Charles Eisenstein imagines this hypothesis: If we could put
our trust directly into the hands of the providers instead of the
bank system or money, what would happen?
This is the idea of a gift based economy. An economic system
based on direct and mutual between all the people.
Jean-Michel Cornu explains in his book tirer bénéfice du don
until what extend a gift economy would be preferable in many
ways. He says that if the exchange, monetary or non-monetary,
allows a desire or a need to be fulfilled almost instantly, it
always requires a counterpart and exclude automatically the
ones who have nothing to exchange. Therefore, it doesn’t
facilitate an egalitarian repartition of the resources.
Giving, on the contrary, allows this repartition, basing itself
mainly on the needs of the people more than the possible
counterparts.

Local economy

Obviously, such a hypothesis can only work on a local scheme.

Which is fine since it comes to agree with the theories of the

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deep ecology movement which talks about the fragmentation of
the economy into thousand of smaller and self-sufficient
economic systems as the only remedial to the diminution of
greenhouse gazes.
The question is recurrent : how can we trust 7 billions people,
60 millions French, or even a thousand of individuals ? We just
can’t. This kind of trust is called faith and it seems human
being are not ready to share this faith towards their own
humanity.
A study lead by the British anthropologist Robin Dunbar
precise that a human being can only recognize about 150 faces.
Trust requires at least this: recognition of a face, a smile to
develop a certain feeling of familiarity, to be considered as a
friend or neighbor. Therefore, a gift economy could only
function in a configuration where we would have the creation
of local economic systems composed of a hundred individuals
at most. Each group would be as self-sufficient as possible on
the area of lodging, food and energy supplies. . For the rest,
each local system could specialized in a certain area and share

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this production with the others systems with the trust that the
other groups would do the same. The products that are futile
and less interesting – often the more polluting too - to design
will be abandoned since nobody would want to take care of it.
Can you imagine it ? Why not. This doesn’t need a drastic
come back to the middle age but, obviously, ir requires certain
changes and sacrifices. Anyways, this change is becoming
crucial with the last news given by the last report from the
GIEC (Groupe Intergouvernemental d’Experts sur l’Evolution
du Climat). It shows clearly that an “economical revolution is
vital” and “drastic changes” in our ways to consume the earth
are necessary. We can’t ignore no more the urgency if we wish
to take part in the well-being of the future generations and the
natural ecosystem.
The question is not anymore : Do you want to change ? but
rather : would you prefer to change by yourself or wait for
someone to enforce this change ?

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Auto-gestion

A local economy has to come with a local type of governance.

This economy can only work in self-management with the
participation of all the members of a community in the process
of decision, a true democracy which would take some time to
get installed but would allow, later, a true social justice.
Self-management is the belief that anyone can be his own
master, decide for himself what is best, it is the trust that
anyone can behave for the better of all. Gift economy brings an
automatic responsibleness.
Concretely, this means that each autonomous community will
have its own decision-making process to cover its basic needs.
A sort of council of the communities could be also installed
with representative of each group to ensure all are going
towards a similar direction : preserve the earth and create an
equal justice for all beings.

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There has been many experiences of self-management all
around the world with the Zapata movement in Mexico or the
takeover by citizens of certain enterprises in Wales or France.
Today, many communities experiment this form of
management…. And it works ! The only inconvenient is that
we are obliged to trust “blindly” the other groups and
community. Here again, the gift economy is based mainly on
trust.

Gift

Giving is a kind of moral contract. Marcel Mauss wrote a very

good essay where he explains what represented the idea of
giving in primitive society. He said himself that the gift
economy was the only natural system that could be visioned for
humanity. « Le don a toujours été présent et représente
l’économie naturelle assignée à l’homme comme “animal
économique” ». He opposed it to the market economy which

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has for only goal the accumulation of wealth instead of the
circulation of wealth.
He didn’t talk about altruism but morality. Giving gives status,
reputation which guarantees the participation of all the people.
Marcel Mauss preferred to see the gift as an obligation that
creates social links and reinforce trust and security.

Waiting for the human being to become altruist is a far-fetched

utopia. But establishing a system which creates giving and
sharing dynamics could help to increase consciousness.
Some say that the gift economy is unfair, that a large number of
people would not give anything and would be excluded. This
affirmation doesn’t acknowledge what Marcel Mauss
concludes: “we receive when we give”. We all have a lot to
give and sometimes, the simple fact of receiving with gratitude
can help make a better society.

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 XVI. Eotopia

Eotopia is born out of this utopia, a dream a bit crazy which

want to pioneer gift economy in a community.
Why not ? Personally, we don’t have anything to loose, on the
contrary, whether this experience function or not, it can help us
to reflect on new models of society, truly local and fair, with a
low ecological impact. The question about its doability doesn’t
have to be asked. What we know is that the time where
humanity had the choice is ending. During the last decades,
humans have taken freely the resources of the planet for its
own comfort. Today, those resources that feed the actual
system have overcome their production peaks (Petrol, Natural
gaz, Uranium) and will be sufficient to perpetuate our way of
life for another twenty or thirty year at most. The people of this
world are not any happier than before, worst, the inequalities
are stronger than ever between the one who have too much and

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the ones not enough to live. The huge amount of waste as well
as the billion people who suffer from overweight illustrate
perfectly the unbalance in our system.
To change our way of life has become an evidence for us and
Eotopia is an attempt to make this evidence concrete.
This dream is based on four pillars which summarize well the
philosophy that was born during this moneyless experience.

Ecology

The first and the most important. This was the original drive of
the journey without money, a drive that evolves then but which
remained strongly axed on the idea of a deep ecology. We are
not talking here just about energy savings or water
consumption; it is more about finding a symbiosis with our
environment
Humans perturbate the biotopes at a fast pace. This is not
sustainable; we can see the effects clearly today. And I am not

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talking about climate change. Who can continue to affirm that
the earth is our garden, that it is our playground?
Find a new harmony is a necessary step, not for the planet
which can easily override us but for our own specie.
As we see it, ecology means question oneself, understand our
belonging to the world and diminish our impact. This goes
through a radical change of diet. We are what we eat and we eat
three to four times day !The products which take care of our
health are often the one who pollute less : vegetables, fruits,
non-transformed products, cereals… We therefore have chosen
a vegan diet.
Being vegan is understanding the necessary personal sacrifice
to recover a certain balance, accept privation of certain things
to re-learn to eat correctly, without killing or harming nature
and its animals, and in accordance with our teeth and digest
system. We got the same stomach as the chimpanzee who eat
only rarely some meat, some insects at most. All those animals
fat we eat are not sane for us… is it an evidence on a biological
point of view.

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Being vegan, it’s understanding that humans can be happy
while consuming only natural treats and, by the same means,
reduce its own ecological footprint.
Ecology is also about living and inhabiting the planet.
Therefore, living in small and home made houses which are
harmonious with the natural surroundings.
It is the creation of a life style centered around global well-
being.
It is autonomous energy and reduction of sound and visual
pollution that impede us to be with ourselves.

Gift Economy

Second pillar, the gift economy.

We can’t boycott money. It is there, here, everywhere, we
should let if flow. However, we wish to reduce monetary
exchanges and build the village out of the gifts. When
something is given, the vibration that comes with it is always

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positive. These positives vibrations are the cement of our
dream.
Of course, the inhabitants will use money from time to time but
the idea is that everyone learn to give and receive freely,
without looking for compensation, to learn to trust, to share
without counting, to harmonize oneself with the universal law
of nature, mother of all which gives unconditionally to all !
We wish to experiment a new economic system, to confront
this idea of gift economy to corroborate the theories we spoke
earlier and, maybe, find solutions to make our society evolve
towards a fairer and happier one.

Free education

The moneyless journey was like a des-education, we learn to

unlearn, to question everything we had learned, or, better put,
recorded since we were little.
Eotopia will also be a place where we will install different
educational dynamics to transmit our knowledge and

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knowhow, a place where adults and children will be all pupils.
No sectarianism, total openness to exterior people, ensuring
that all can freely learn what they need or want to learn.
No school in itself, no particular places, but a plural education,
multiple education in the whole area.
The main idea is to learn to accompany each other in the
process of education as Paulo Freire explained : « No one teach
anyone, no one teach himself, we teach ourselves together,
through the world. »

Personal growth

The more decisive and complicated pillar. Whatever life

choices we take, we know the hardest is to live together. I have
experiment it sufficiently to know that I am not even ready. The
people of Eotopia and the visitors will have to learn to accept
the other the way they are, their differences, to love accept
themselves as well, to deal with their ego and succeed in
putting their own priorities after the priorities of the group.

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This will be a continuous learning process to fin the way
towards harmony, to create a big united family, strong of its
own differences and conscious of its interdependencies. This
pillar will be our spirituality. Whatever techniques we will use,
non-violent communication, meditation, Yoga and other, our
spiritual goal will be to learn to grow together.

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 XVII. The utopia is on the horizon…

Today, I don’t live without money anymore. I am still

convinced that money is just a tool we don’t need to be happy.
But with the birth of our child and the starting of Eotopia, I
also understand that this tool can be very useful to advance a
bit further.
We bought land for Eotopia and starting June 2016, we
will start making the dream come true. Yes, we are and will use
money but we keep in mind the utopia that shines on the
horizon. We’ll keep on giving until we don’t need money
anymore. And hopefully, you’ll join us too !

After several days in Berlin, we returned to France. Liv-

ing without money in this country is a totally different issue. If
waste is not as substantial here as it is in the United States,
putting together a daily, balanced meal is rather easy. We wait
for the end of the markets to salvage what’s left over while be-

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ing asked every now and then to help pack up the stalls. I don’t
miss going through trash cans but they are becoming less and
less accessible, and several of the stall owners require the em-
ployees to pour bleach on the food that has been thrown away.
The discussion that we present for the first time in more than
15 countries and in 5 different languages, takes a completely
different dimension in my home country. I am no longer a sym-
pathetic traveler with a charming accent, but simply a French
citizen. This process is a practice that has become common in
our country and I am only another “parasite” as some do not
fail to point out. I see the contempt in the look of many stall
owners, a feeling that I have nearly never encountered this dur-
ing my trip. In particular, I think about all those Moroccan peo-
ple who offered us shelter and food without prying and I can
only regret that the French are not more open to other cultures.
They have so much to learn.
As far as housing goes, we have to resort to the exchange
of services. It is a practice accepted quite well in French soci-
ety and we find, without difficulty, many places and solutions

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for housing; in the city and in the country in exchange for
babysitting, doing odd jobs or helping with truck farming.
However, it is rare to find people who will, on a whim, invite
us to stay with them. Elsewhere outside of France, when dusk
is approaching, to be invited to stay has become almost auto-
matic. Here, one drops us at midnight at the edge of a highway
or at a gas station. Individualism has overridden generosity.
I have succeeded, nevertheless, to persuade a dentist to
examine several of my teeth for free. In exchange, I help her
and her 84-year-old mother for one month in the summer. I at-
test to the fact that living off of donations is much more agree-
able than a monetary exchange, even if sometimes the concept
of the compensation remains (here, the time). Each time, a
more intimate contact is created; we become friends.
In general, my family welcomes me with open arms ac-
cepting of my preference to live without money and they do
not talk about it too much either. In fact, they encourage me.
My sister stands by it completely and only asks me one thing:
“If only you could at the least insure yourself, just in case!” My

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fully comprehensive insurance wouldn’t suffice.
My mum houses me while holding back tears. Arte had
had the great idea to release the movie Into the Wild just after
I’d left. My mother seriously thought she would never see me
again. Over the years and after many family reunions, she now
worries about Yazmin, this little Mexican girl who has to en-
dure my narrow-minded convictions.
Seeing the state of my shoes, my mum tries to buy me
some new ones at Decathlon, two pairs of tennis shoes Made in
China. I then beg her to never again buy me anything brand
new and definitely nothing made with plastic and so on. There-
after, she settles for cooking us two delicious, organic and ve-
gan meals. She adapts wonderfully to our mode of living and I
am forever grateful for it and her. My stepfather is, lastly, the
one in whom I find the most support. He has always remained
in contemplation and observation; he admires to some degree
my acting out.
Today, I no longer live without money. My daughter was
born, add that to other priorities which have arrived merely due

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to my existence. In any case, I know that for our community
project, we must utilize a little bit of money from time to time,
whether it be to pay the taxes or take care of unexpected emer-
gencies.
My style of living is not as consistent as I would like it to
be, but I continue to favor “donation economy,” the scavenging
of food and the searching for alternatives in regards to living
without monetary exchanges.
The use of money has become very insignificant in our
society and it is difficult to measure the impact of it. It was
only once I decided to deliberately give it up that I was able to
understand the impact of it on my life and on my relationships
with the world that surrounds me. To eat, to sleep, to get from
place to place, to take care of myself, I create human exchange.
The trust that many put into money, I put into the other.
It is for this reason that today I still persist in not having
money on me, in buying only the bare minimum and in selling
nothing; in order to preserve the exchanges, bonds of the over-
all human family and, on my scale, to make an economic

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change that seems quite necessary. If the banks go bankrupt to-
morrow, if the system just falls apart, what will we do? I would
like to, therefore, be able to give and share freely. I am con-
vinced that the gift of giving brings happiness. This is maybe
utopian, and many will say that man is inherently too evil for
this, but I believe in it.

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 XVIII. Here and Now

Living without money is a path, an experience that can

bring certain lessons, help us find certain personal truths. My
path allowed me to find happiness and gives my life a deeper
meaning. This is not to say that this is the only way, for there
are many paths that lead a person.
However, there is a suggestion that I think I can pass on.
No matter what path is taken, inner harmony is necessary in or-
der to find happiness and peace. One cannot be well with him-
self while living in inconsistency. If I want to continue to live
without money, if I try every day to diminish my ecological im-
pact as much as possible and if I force myself to live off of do-
nation and love, it is because I know and because I feel that
these are the things that I must do. If I listen to my heart, if I
pay attention to my thoughts, then I know which decisions and
actions are beneficial, and if they are to me deeply beneficial,

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they are so for the rest of the world. This I think is the only
rule, the paths are numerous but the one that works must find
inner harmony, it must agree with his or her thoughts, feelings,
and actions. When these three centers are aligned, happiness is
no longer sought for, it is there, here, and now.
To you the reader, I hope that you find your way, and
above all, dare to take the first step.

With love,
Benjamin

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 The website for Eotopia: www.eotopia.org
We finally started the project ! Get in touch !

The author’s blog: sansunsou.wordpress.com

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