Australian Tourist Completes 500 km Hitchhiking Journey to Pushkar Camel Fair

Australian traveller Duncan McNaught has captured global attention with a viral video documenting his audacious 500-kilometre hitchhiking journey from an unspecified starting point in northern India to the legendary Pushkar Camel Fair, describing it as "one of the craziest festivals in the world". The 30-something adventurer, who has been backpacking across the subcontinent for several weeks, rode atop tractors, inside trucks, on motorcycles, and in private cars to reach the dusty desert town in time for the annual spectacle, which peaked between November 4 and 12, 2025. His footage—amassing over 334,000 views on Instagram—showcases unbridled immersion in the mela's chaos: playing impromptu cricket with Rajasthani locals, spinning on vertigo-inducing Ferris wheels, dancing amid swirling dust clouds, and even riding inside a stunt car during a daredevil well-of-death performance.

The Pushkar Mela, a centuries-old tradition rooted in livestock trading, has evolved into one of the planet's largest camel gatherings, drawing over 200,000 visitors and 50,000 camels, horses, and cattle to the sacred town's outskirts along the Thar Desert fringe. What began as a pragmatic marketplace for nomadic herders from Rajasthan, Gujarat, and Haryana now blends commerce with carnival: camel races, moustache competitions, turban-tying contests, and cultural performances under starlit skies around Pushkar Lake—a site revered in Hindu mythology as created by Lord Brahma. McNaught's clip encapsulates this metamorphosis, from dawn livestock auctions to midnight fire dances, earning praise for portraying an unfiltered, joyful India often overshadowed by negative stereotypes on social media.

Netizens flooded the comments with admiration for McNaught's seamless assimilation. "Bro is enjoying India on premium membership," quipped one user, while a Pushkar resident gushed, "This is why it's the absolute best place in the world!" Another Indian viewer lamented, "I feel like you are enjoying India more than me, who is a native." The traveller, known online for raw, positive content, used the platform to counter prevailing narratives: "Social media has done India wrong. I'm not denying its problems—any country of 1.5 billion people will have them—but the reality is a beautiful country with rich culture, diverse landscapes, and amazing people." Over the next three months, he pledged to highlight these facets, from Himalayan treks to southern backwaters.

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McNaught's odyssey mirrors a growing trend of experiential tourism in Rajasthan, where international visitors increasingly bypass luxury circuits for authentic rural engagements. The fair itself generated an estimated Rs 500 crore in livestock and handicraft trade this year, bolstered by enhanced infrastructure like widened access roads and dedicated camping zones for digital nomads. For locals, encounters like McNaught's foster goodwill; one camel trader featured in the video gifted him a traditional pagdi, symbolising honorary Rajasthani brotherhood. As the mela winds down with the ritual Kartik Purnima bath in Pushkar Lake on November 15, McNaught's tale stands as a vibrant testament to cultural exchange, proving that sometimes the richest journeys begin with a thumb outstretched on a highway.

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