女生靠社交網絡免費穿越美國

As part of an experiment by Audi, Lindsay Rule made it from Boston to San Francisco relying only on the kindness of strangers and the electronic networks that now tie us all together.
作爲奧迪公司的一項實驗，Lindsay Rule僅僅依靠陌生人的幫助、和將我們連在一起的網絡，成功得從波士頓抵達舊金山。

Hitchhiking, especially as a woman, has never been the safest activity. But the rise of smartphones and social networks has made the prospect of sharing a car--or a house--with a stranger much more palatable. Add that to the fact that young adults are buying fewer cars than ever, and there’s a strong case for car companies to start digging into carsharing and other alternative revenue streams.
搭車旅行從來都不是一項安全的活動，尤其對女性來說。但是隨着智能手機與社交網絡的發展，與陌生人搭車甚至共享一所房子都成爲了可能。加上越來越多的年輕人都不再買車，是時候讓汽車公司開始發展共享租車業務和其他的賺錢渠道了。

As part of a partnership between Architizer and Audi’s Urban Future Initiative, which examines the convergence of mobility, architecture, and urban development, Rule was sent on an ambitious assignment: traveling from Boston to San Francisco in two weeks without spending any money (there was a $100 emergency fund). She succeeded.
Architizer與奧迪合作構建的城市未來倡議能夠檢驗城市發展、機動性及城市架構是否全面。而作爲倡議中的一部分，Rule得到了一項高難度的任務：在兩週內，從波士頓出發前往舊金山，途中不得有任何金錢支出（有100美元的緊急基金）。她成功了。

I met up with Rule at her final destination: Audi’s Powell Street Promenade in downtown San Francisco. She was surprisingly exuberant for someone who spent the last 14 days coordinating free journeys Westward. How did she do it?
我在終點遇見了Rule：站在位於舊金山市中心的鮑威爾步行街上，她對於自己在過去的14天裏做了一次免費的西部旅行感到異常興奮。而她是如何做到的呢？

There were a handful of services that made the trip possible: Facebook, Craigslist, Ridejoy (a ridesharing service), and CouchSurfing. When Rule began her journey in Boston, she didn’t know what to do--how could she start organizing the trip without WiFi? So she spent a little bit of her emergency cash on a cheap bus ticket to New York City that came with WiFi and a power outlet. Rule ended up hitching a ride with a photographer that she found on Craigslist all the way to Chicago, where she used Facebook to find a friend’s couch on which to crash. Soon Rule discovered a woman on Craigslist who was giving away a free bus ticket to Madison, Wisconsin--Rule accepted it and continued her journey, staying in Wisconsin with a couchsurfer who later drove her to Minneapolis.
一系列的服務設施讓這次旅行成爲可能：Facebook, Craigslist（資訊黃頁網站）, Ridejoy（自行車共享服務網站）以及CouchSurfing（沙發客網站）。當Rule在波士頓準備出發時，她完全不知道自己該做什麼——她該如何在沒有WiFi的情況下組織行程？所以她用了緊急基金裏的一點錢買了一張到紐約市的車票。車上有WiFi，還有插座。在去芝加哥的路上，她在Craigslist克雷格列表網上找到了一位願意讓她搭車的攝影師。在那裏，她還通過Facebook找到了願意讓她睡一晚的朋友。之後Rule又在Craigslist上遇到一位想要免費出讓一張去威斯康星州麥迪遜市的車票，Rule得到了這張車票並繼續她的旅程。在威斯康星州里，她遇到了一位沙發客，最終載着她抵達明尼阿波里斯市。

Rule’s trip across the country continued like that--completely unplanned, made possible entirely by the kindness of strangers, including an entire CouchSurfing community in Missoula, Montana called Orange Acres. "This would have been impossible without social media," she explains. And yet, she never realized before the trip how vast this digital sharing network really was. "I had confidence in it. I’d do it again," she says.
Rule的全國旅行完全沒有任何計劃，全部通過陌生人友善的幫助完成，其中還有在蒙塔納州米蘇拉市的一整個沙發客社團。“如果沒有社交網絡，這一切都是不可能的。”她解釋道。而在此之前，她還沒有意識到數字網絡究竟有多廣大。“我對此很有信心，我會再來一次。” 她說。

Audi, for its part, realizes the significant of how easy it’s becoming to travel in the U.S. without owning a car. "Mobility in cities is getting more and more relevant to us," says Dominik Stampfl of the Audi Urban Future Initiative. "In the future, we’ll need more than cars."
而對於奧迪來說，他們意識到了做一次環美旅遊是多麼容易，即使自己沒有車。“城市中的交通設施對於我們來說越來越重要了，”奧迪城市未來倡議的Dominik Stampfl說。“在未來，我們需要的不僅僅是車輛。”