I turned 18 somewhere on the Alaskan Highway. I hitch hiked to Homer from Ventura, worked a little but never had a place. I started the trip back halfway through summer but the Canadians would not let me in for lack of a car and insignificant funds… they caught me sneaking across the border. I went back to Homer and got enough money clearing out weeds for a ferry to Kodiak and got a job there to pay for airfare back to California. I did it again two summers later.
All in all not bad…sometimes really fun…sometimes quite hard.