Arriving in Los Angeles

After a short stopover in Houston I flew on to Los Angeles and arrived at 5 in the afternoon. My Hospitality Club host Adam had already sent me some instructions about public transport from the airport to get to his place (more about him and his wife later), cautioning me that I'd be arriving in rush hour and that taking local public busses might be slow and difficult. They live 20 km from the airport between Beverly Hills and Hollywood.

In Amsterdam I asked mighty Google for a route and opened a few pages with tourist info about LA to read on the plane.

I was pleasantly surprised that there is a rather extensive public bus network here, and even though it takes a lot longer than driving, it looked as if it was definitely possible to get around the city by bus. I considered hitchhiking from the airport - probably would have been possible to get a ride somewhere to the North, but in the end decided it would be faster to just hop on the free shuttle bus to the local bus terminal.

There, took the first bus going north - very interesting ride, as is often the case when taking city buses in the U.S.. Besides an interesting mix of people, almost always will there be some harmless crazy person on the bus talking to him/herself without pause. This time it was no different. Had to change buses a couple of times, no problem at all (tip for Android users: mapdroyd is awesome when traveling, especially if you don't know the city - you can download OpenStreetMap based maps for any part of the world, and then coupled with GPS know exactly where you are - no internet connection required). After an hour and a half arrived within a block of my hosts.

Perfectly located there was a big news stand right on the corner, so I could do what I always do when I arrive in the U.S. - have a Dr Pepper (fell in love with this soft drink during my year as AFS exchange student in North Carolina in 94/95, it's hard to impossible to get in Germany). Opening the can, smelling the synthetic aroma and taking the first zip - jup, after 3 years and now 45 hours on the road I had arrived again in my beloved United States of America :-)

Greenland from above

A nice surprise while flying over the Atlantic from Amsterdam to Houston came halfway through the flight - I never realized those routes cross Greenland (I think in the past I might have flown at night or we took a more Southernly route).





There was no cloud cover around the coast so I got a really nice view of the snowcapped mountains, the ice drifting off, and of course the icebergs. Really strange to see those beauties again so unexpectedly - last winter we traveled thousands of kilometers to Antarctica to see them up close. Now some views from above.

Approaching the coast with ice drifting off.

Coast with icebergs

2 icebergs among drift ice

A last view of the Western coast of Greenland.

And then, before reaching Canada a lot of pack ice. I tried to spot some ice bears but couldnt see any ;-)

Sleeping in airports, Amsterdam edition

Since I didn't know when I would make it to Amsterdam and have a morning flight to LA I didn't contact any Hospitality Club members here, but just went straight to the airport to spend the night. Hitchhiking was great, so I have plenty of time here - 18 hours of time. Too bad that this airport really sucks. With the cold outside it's chilly and there are hardly any seats (and if, with armrests). Continental's checkin-kiosks don't work, so can't get a boarding pass and go through security til the morning either.

snowed-in observation terrace

At least there's 2x30 minuntes of free wifi, so in the end headed over to one of my all time favourite sites to see what others had done here - sleepinginairports. Got a couple of good tips - the cosiest place (to still sleep on the hard tile floor) seems to be on the third level in Terminal 2 - follow the signs to the conference center. Here you can also catch the signal for the KLM Lounge - password is KLMDDMMYY.

In the morning, we were woken up rudely by security guards. "It is not allowed to lay down in the airport after 5 o'clock." Yeah, this airport really sucks.

trying to get some sleep on the hard floor of chilly unfriendly Schiphol

However, when I was finally able to check in and go through security things got much better. Tons of nice comfortable seats and lounges - really, like a different airport all the sudden. No idea why Schiphol is such a two-faced airport. But now I had only a couple of hours left til boarding. There was even a tiny art gallery with paintings there...so got my first gallery on the trip in already at the airport :-)

Winter in Holland - on pictures and in reality.

Hitchhiking to Amsterdam

The cheapest way to quickly get from Europe to Los Angeles and back I could find was to fly from Amsterdam. A few hours ago I booked a flight for Wednesday morning (33 hours from now). I'll hit the road in 6 hours with the first daylight to hitchhike the 750 kilometers from Dresden to Amsterdam. Hope to get there at night, will then hang out at Schiphol airport and take the flight in the morning (I'm not really gonna bother about finding a Hospitality Club host for the night in Amsterdam because I have no idea when I'll get there, maybe I'll reach the airport just in time, and I'd have to get up and leave very early again anyway).

Here's a little map of the route for you :-)



Update: made it to Amsterdam airport. Took about 9 hours with 4 drivers. Slow start in Dresden, then two very nice middle aged women and then one ride with a Dutch guy from behind Braunschweig all the way to Amsterdam. One last change to get to the airport - interesting older guy who just came back from ice skating 40 kilometers (yes, all the canals are frozen - Holland as we imagine it). He wants to take part in a 11-city-iceskating competition next week...200 kilometers in one day. Wow.

Now trying to find a nice and comfy place at the airport, have to get some sleep. Looking forward to LA and my Hospitality Club hosts there!

The Plan

After discovering the challenge 3 days ago, I spent most of my time since then researching flights, reading about Damien Hirst, following the trips of other "challengers" in their many blogs, articles, Twitter. By now, I have a rough plan for this adventure. I will update this post as it becomes clearer, but won't post it all at once, maybe it will be more interesting for you to follow the steps one by one. However, I will share some flights I found in case you also want to do the challenge (hurry!). You can subscribe to the blog by email (on the right), I'll also set up a Facebook and Twitter page in a bit.

A big part of this trip is to show some people interested in art the sculptures the father of my girlfriend is making. I'll be taking one of them along to take some nice pictures of it on the trip, and post more about it here later. You can already check them out here: www.bikbaev.de

Another big convincing argument to do this trip for me was that I don't know Los Angeles and Hong Kong - so I'll try to spend a fair bit of time in both those cities to get to know them.

Stage 1: USA and London
Tuesday, Feb 7: In 6 hours I'll hit the road in Dresden, Germany and hitchhike to Amsterdam. The cheapest flight to Los Angeles I could find starts from there Wednesday morning (460€ with a stopover in New York and ending in London). Let's hope I won't get stuck or freeze on those 750 kilometers.
If I make the flight I will be in LA for almost a week until Feb 14. Wish me luck!
I'll then be in New York on Feb 15 and London on Feb 16, both only during the day, before returning to Germany for Viola's birthday.

Here's a map of the flight routes during this first stage of the trip, thanks to Great Circle Mapper:


AMS (52°18'31"N 4°45'50"E) IAH (29°59'04"N 95°20'29"W) 296.6° (NW) 8067 km
IAH (29°59'04"N 95°20'29"W) LAX (33°56'33"N 118°24'29"W) 287.4° (W) 2219 km
LAX (33°56'33"N 118°24'29"W) EWR (40°41'33"N 74°10'07"W) 65.9° (NE) 3950 km
EWR (40°41'33"N 74°10'07"W) LHR (51°28'39"N 0°27'41"W) 51.3° (NE) 5576 km
STN (51°53'06"N 0°14'06"E) LEJ (51°25'57"N 12°14'30"E) 88.7° (E) 831 km
Total: 20643 km

Blog Updates

This is my first blog, ever. I've written about my travels before, mostly in longer mass emails (you can read up about my year in Latin America hitchhiking from Buenos Aires to Mexico here), and of course done a few other web projects ;-) Already after a few days I realize that I like to get a blog post out the door quickly (because I'm moving so fast right now), and then polish it, add more stuff and thoughts to it later (especially photos) as I have time. I'll continue to do this and put a note whenever I updated something in this post, so those (especially family and friends) who really follow this trip see what's new and updated. I will also backdate some of the more general overview posts, so you can start reading at the end and follow my trip naturally.

List of Updates
Feb 10: new post Gallery #1 - Beverly Hills
Feb 11: added a route map of the flights for the first stage to The Plan
big update to Sleeping in Airports, Amsterdam edition with photos and more text
Feb 12: long session of collecting links to Other Spot Chasers. Think I got most of those who are tweeting or blogging though.
Feb 13: extended Other Spot Chasers some more after other chasers connected on Twitter and Facebook.
Feb 14: quick post as I'm leaving Los Angeles for New York, London and Home.
Feb 20: three more fellow Spot Chasers added to the list.
new post about my Hospitality Club hosts in LA, Adam and Eva
added a Twitter widget and a little image of the challenge card to the right column
opened comments to anonymous users - no login necessary anymore
new post: Cost Summary
new post: Oscar campaign in Hollywood: "The Artist"
new post about my second HC host in LA - Peter
Feb 21: new post: Los Angeles attractions
March 2: new post: I love Hong Kong!
March 11: major update of my overview page of Other Spot Chasers and having a lot of fun reading through their blogs and connecting with them in the process (mostly in our dedicated Facebook group).

[post backdated from Feb 9 to Feb 6]

Links and articles

If you want to do some reading, here are some articles about the exhibition and the challenge:

- official challenge page
- Gagosian galleries - I'll visit 11 of them :-)
- German deals community where I first read about it while browsing travel deals
- Independent article
- Reuters article
- NY Times article
- greg.org post one and two
- Star Wars Modern posts one, two and three
- Chelsea Gallerista
- John Powers on Google+
- Paper Plane Studio
- Artslant Magazine
- art Kunstmagazin (German)
- Focus article (German)
- Financial Times Germany (German)

Other Spot Chasers

Since the challenge has been going on since early January, I could read up on the adventures of some of the others out there, which has been fun. It's fascinating to see the different people, approaches and ways to write about it.

I set up a Facebook group for all of us, join if you're doing the challenge: https://www.facebook.com/groups/spotchallenge


Below I collect links to blogs, articles, Twitter and profiles of other spot chasers, let me know by comment or email (veit@hospitalityclub.org) if I overlooked you and you want to be added, or if you want something changed or added to your entry. Spot challenge user names are in bold.

Gagosian has a photo gallery of most challenge finishers on Facebook.
Twitter tag #spotchallenge is where most action is happening there.


Met in real life:
- galfromdownunder (Lynette) from NYC. Had seen her blog before I even left home, and ran into her in the Beverly Hills gallery. She's sharing her thoughts and the trip on her blog Chelsea Gallerista and also posting photos and notes on Facebook. She also issued a side challenge to herself - doing the trip with just a  tiny self designed traffic cone bag.
- tonkatoytruck (Jason) from NYC. Also met him in the Beverly Hills gallery, no online presence though.
- Sohavealook (Jos Bauer) and Diddy II (Dirk den Hartog) have a little gallery on lockerz and another one on Facebook, and are also on Twitter: @josbauer and @GalerieMJoosten. We actually managed to meet up on the day I finished the challenge in Athens and talk and celebrate a bit together - a very nice meeting, great guys!

Fellow spot chasers:
- imgwt (Eduardo) and Seeingspots (Helena) are keeping a great blog with lots of photos of their trip. Twitter: @LookSeeSpots.
- Princessnowflake from LA just finished the challenge. He filled a helpful blog with his experiences called RAspotchallenge and is on Twitter @RAspotchallenge.
- CFalvey and Ryan Falvey (Cherie and Ryan) are doing the trip on frequent flier miles (so essentially for free!), their extensive blog is at chasingspots.tumblr.com and they are tweeting @Ryan_Falvey and @CherieFalvey.
- Sur (Stacie) is blogging about her trip at surstudios.tumblr.com and on Twitter @SURstudios.
- artruby (Valentine Uhovski) was actually the first to complete the challenge - his posts are on artruby and on Twitter @ARTRUBY.
- Cristina is blogging about her adventures on the site of The Art Newspaper.
- jtwchu (Jeff) was the second to finish a few hours after artruby. He wrote an article about his trip for the Wall Street Journal and is on Twitter @jeffchu.
- Aaron Ricchio is doing the challenge on weekends, blogging about it and tweeting @OddMenOut.
- AverageJoe (Josef Valentino) is doing his project with a twist: he collected 500 donations of 20 pounds and will share ownership of his Hirst with his investors. josefvalentino.com and @JosefValentino.
- Rob is @ElevenSpots.
- juggernut3 (and some others?) from Arrested Motion finished the challenge and put up a blog with lots of pictures.
- Nicholas Wai is @nickwai.
- Trunk Magazine is @trunkmag.
- Seth Stolbun has a dedicated blog and is on Twitter @sethstolbun.
- Artcaste is doing the challenge and tweeting a bit @Artcaste.
- Huw Lougher just pinged me on Twitter - he is is doing the challenge and tweeting @Art_Informer.
- Ross is at @_Ross_Ross_Ross.
- Lameteodujour - if my school French serves me right this post he/she sent me on Twitter means he/she couldn't really attempt or complete the challenge but treasures the experience and the card nonetheless.
- gago11 has a dedicated blog and is on Twitter @gago11usa.
- The Count finished the challenge, and while I don't really understand who he is, and what the connection is, @KatHands was tweeting updates throughout his trip.
- jessica h. is doing the challenge, since she seems to be a hyper-tweeter her tweets about it are hard to spot in the stream @tuckerbaileyco.
- Alex Noschese is a young film maker and working on a documentary about his trip - the trailer looks very promising. He also is on Twitter @akn220, but the feed is protected. And there's also an interview with him on artspot.it.
- 9RG (Kenneth Spriggs) got in touch through the comments below. He is from Colorado, finished in Rome, and posted some photos on Facebook.
- durrette (Elisa Durette) introduced herself in this post in our Facebook group. She's a law student and was the 9th to finish the challenge.
- JasonIsBatmanNow and he kept an awesomly entertaining tumblr blog to prove it.
- wendiroyal also blogged very nicely at tumblr. Warning: do not go to the blog if you're hungry - it looks like she tracked down some of the nicest food in all the places on her trip (and eating all this probably would have doubled my budget ;-).
- Malina Arevalo has been tweeting @Bellainthesky, don't know how I missed her before.
- TimboBrowne apparently also did the challenge, according to this tweet.

Money

One of my mantras is: traveling doesn't have to be expensive. When this challenge was first announced, some writers complained that it sounded like a thing for the jet-setting 1%. I'd like to show that it can be done with a budget that is in reach for any of us, at least in this rich Western part of the world.

I love hitchhiking (have hitchhiked hundreds of thousands of kilometers in 64 countries over the last 16 years) and I founded Hospitality Club 11 years ago (my motivation wasn't really to enable people to find free accommodation - it's a very nice side effect though, especially for young travelers from not-first-world-countries).
So of course I'll make good use of both on this challenge - hitchhike wherever possible and stay with "my" HC members around the world.

Leaves us with the flights. I don't have any frequent flier miles (simply didn't fly much in the last decade), so I'm gonna have to pay for all flights. And with the limited time available and the crazy locations of the galleries (can't really hitchhike to Los Angeles or Hong Kong) it's gonna be hard to find good deals on flights. Still, I hope to get all flights for about 1000€.
Update: see blog post with overview of all costs.

Ecologically speaking, I can't convince myself that flying around the world for a Hirst print is a sensible thing to do, so I'm probably gonna buy climate certificates for the flights I'll be taking. My first calculations show that this is gonna clock in at around 500€.

Also, I think I'm gonna sell the print. Nobody (probably not even Damien Hirst) knows what it's gonna look like, and how much it's really gonna be worth. Still, if you really really want your own Damien Hirst, make me an offer - either now (buying the "cat in the sack" as we say in Germany), or later when I received it and had a bit of time to marvel at it. If it's feasible at all I'll bring the print to you and thus end this project with a nice photo of both of us with the print when I hand it over. And maybe the trip will be free after all :-)

Finally, if you like this crazy idea, are entertained and want to support my little project - send me some money (Paypal: veit@hospitalityclub.org, other bank account info on request) and I might whip up a little supporters page here. And of course you'll get a nice photo of me, the Hirst print, "dedicated personally to you".

Time Constraints

I found out about the challenge late Friday night (Feb 3rd), arriving a bit late to the party really (the challenge had been announced early January and some 12 others had completed it by then). Now it's Monday, Feb 6, I am in Dresden, Germany where I live - the nearest gallery is probably the one in Geneva.

The exhibition in Beverly Hills (Los Angeles) closes Friday Feb 10 - so less than one week to get there. New York (3 galleries) and London (2 galleries) close Feb 18. All others close in March.

My girlfriend Viola's birthday is on Friday Feb 17 - no way I want to miss it, so I have to be in Dresden on that day. She can't come because she is working (that's also the reason why we're spending the winter in Dresden this year, usually we head to warmer shores then).

Not a lot of time, especially when considered together with the Money constraints.

The Challenge

So far, I've created my travel challenges for myself. Hitchhiking one year from Buenos Aires to Mexico City 2001/2. Hitchhiking around the world in the quest to find 1,000,000 members for Hospitality Club 2002. Trying to go with our peace bus from Germany to Iraq just before/during the Iraq War 2003. Hitchhiking to all game cities during the World Cup 2006 when there was a game that day. Using Ryanair's free flight promo in Europe to the max 2007. Getting to Antarctica as cheaply as possible 2010.

Until 3 days ago I had never realized that they were all challenges and that I had a knack for them. Then I found out someone had uttered another explicit challenge: Damien Hirst - visit all 11 galleries in 8 cities (Beverly Hills, New York, Hong Kong, London, Paris, Geneva, Rome, Athens) where he's exhibiting his spot prints right now and "receive a signed spot print by Damien Hirst, dedicated personally to you".

Racing around the world to get a piece of paper? Ok, it's a piece of paper from one of the most famous and maybe richest artists of our times. And apparently similar pieces of paper sell from 3,000 to 50,000$. Still, pretty crazy. That's why I loved it the minute I discovered it. Challenge accepted!