SUMTER, S.C. — A couple from France are now traveling here in the Midlands after a three year “tour of the world.”
They’ve been to more than 60 countries, hitchhiking or bicycling the whole way.
“Hitchhiking is the school of life,” Margot Neves Antunes shares, speaking in a thick French accent.
Along with Louis Boulard, Neves Antunues says she’s been learning for three years, documenting their journey through pictures.
“What motivates us to travel is to discover new cultures and to encounter people who are different from us,” Boulard says. “So that's really what drives us.”
“Our journey is really about people,” Neves Antunes agrees.
They set off on their “tour du monde” in 2020, spending just $20 a day and relying on local hospitality from people like Sumter resident Sharon Touchberry.
“I didn’t know what to think at first. I'm like how…I mean, the world these days, nobody just walks up to strangers at somebody's house and looking for a place to stay,” Touchberry laughs. “But I mean, they seemed like such a nice couple.”
A couple that met nearly 10 years ago and shared the same goal: to travel the world. They saved up money, working as a lawyer and a wine distributor in Paris.
“When we had enough, we just decided to quit everything and to travel the world,” Neves Antunes explains. “We covered by hitchhiking more than 50,000 miles only by hitchhiking and thanks to more than 1,500 drivers and captains who gave us lifts all over the world. And by cycling, we are now 9,000 miles…We don’t have any bad encounter. So everybody were super nice with us and we have a very good opinion of humanity since the beginning of our trip.”
“We hitchhiked through Africa, the Middle East, Central Asia, Asia. And from there, we bought the bicycles and we started cycling in Southeast Asia, then in Oceania, and in Eastern Asia before we came to the American continent, where we started cycling in Canada,” Boulard details.
Now, they’re passing through Sumter, visiting with people like Touchberry, Becki Christmas-McDaniel, Jessica McDaniel and McKenzie Lowder.
“We fed them and we asked 1,000 questions. And we started learning about their adventure,” Touchberry says. “We learned so much about them that being from paris, you know, that we had no idea. I mean, we asked religion questions, religious questions. We asked about politics. We asked about, you know, the welfare and everything in paris. I mean, they told us a lot of things that we just didn't…we had no idea about cuz we’ve never been there.”
The duo says that while they’re able to teach people about their Parisian culture, they’re learning about humanity from people of different backgrounds all over the world.
“We have traveled more than 60 countries and everywhere in the world, people still trust people and people are of the same value everywhere,” Neves Antunes says.
When it comes to their favorite place, the couple agree that they can’t choose one favorite. While each country had its unique flavor of people, food and culture, they say that one part of Tajikistan does stand out in their mind.
“On the Pamir side of Tajikistan. So it’s a very beautiful place in between Afghanistan and Tajikistan so it’s really at the border with Afghanistan,” Neves Antunes explains the mountainous, “remote” area. “It was really our definition of a little paradise.”
When it comes to the people, Boulard says they experienced “very good hospitality in the Middle East.”
“People were very, very welcoming with us,” Boulard continued.
Now that they’re traveling in the southern United States, the couple says they’ve been experiencing traditional Southern hospitality.
“We really experienced the Southern hospitality from New Mexico all the way to Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, and South Carolina,” Boulard shares. “And yeah, I think people are a bit more hospitable here than then let's say Washington State or especially near the coast.”
“We experienced that more south we go and more people trust,” Neves Antunes adds. “When we went south, people were always, ‘Oh of course, camp in my yard! Do you want to have dinner with us?”
The couple is planning to keep traveling for the next two years. After they visit family in Raleigh, they’ll head to Panama, then South America and West Africa before heading back north to Europe.
“I’m kind of inspired because I mean, you know, she talked about some cold mornings they got up and there was, you know, frost on their tents. And their bikes were like frozen and their hands were frozen and their determination was to still get on the bicycle and ride cuz they hit I think 60 miles a day is what their goal is each day,” Touchberry says. “I'm hoping they'll come back through one day.”
To follow along on their journey, you can visit their Instagram @onemap2bags.