Hitchhiking! How many have done that/will do it

[Pensive]

I would be interested in hearing opinions about hitchhiking. Will you ever do it with friends? Will you do it alone? Will you do it at all? How safe do you think it is where you come from? If you have tried and have any stories to share you are also most welcome to do that. :)

[PeterL]

I've only travelled about 400,000 miles by hitchhiking. It used to be a wonderful way to travel, but too many people have become too unpleasant. Here in the U.S.A. it was safe and fun. I mostly hitchhiked alone, but some people preferred company.

[Lokasenna]

I've never hitchhiked myself, but I will pick up hitchhikers if I've already got some company in the car - I'd rather have at least one other person with me, just in case the person I pick up is a lunatic of some description.

[YesNo]

I don't recall ever hitchhiking myself, but I may have as a student. I have picked up hitchhikers in the past when I lived in rural areas where there were hitchhikers available. Once I even drove out of my way (over 30 miles) to get two hitchhikers home because one of them was ill and pregnant and public transportation was no longer available since it was evening.

[Paulclem]

I hitchhiked as a student and really enjoyed it. I once had to wait 3 hours for a lift but on that occasion the bloke took me out of his way into my hometown.

Another bloke gave me a lift from Sunderland in the North of Enland to London in the south and dropped me at a tube station handy for a train to Southend. I met some really nice people.

My wife and I also hitchhiked briefly from Yorkshire to Coventry and back. Once we witnessed a car crash on a motorway bridge and my wife - a nurse - Was able to give first aid.

On the last occasion we hitched we got a lift from the edge of Coventry almost to my Mother in Law's house in an ice cream van. Superb.

[The Comedian]

I hitchhiked once near Glacier National Park in Montana. I got picked up by a guy driving a semi, which was haulin' hogs to Oregon. Nice guy. Said he got sick of the radio and just wanted to talk with someone. No harm, no foul. Just a good experience.

[Iain Sparrow]

I would be interested in hearing opinions about hitchhiking. Will you ever do it with friends? Will you do it alone? Will you do it at all? How safe do you think it is where you come from? If you have tried and have any stories to share you are also most welcome to do that. :)


I hitchhiked and took the Greyhound across America quite a bit in my middle and late teens while on Summer Vacation from school, and never had anything bad or funky happen. Sometimes a family would even let me stay the night at their home. If you're a guy, I say go for it... if you're a woman, than absolutely no way.

[stephofthenight]

Once upon a time I believe it would have been both fun and fascinating. Here in my little town it is still rather safe with the understanding 99% of people in this area carry a gun at all times. The trick is to have the bigger gun and faster draw ;) Then again most everyone here knows you by name anyway. I couldn't imagine it in a big city. I took the greyhound once was very thankful for martial arts training, the stops where in the most shady areas. I pick up hitchhikers in my area fairly often, in a city as much as I hate to say it-it's just not worth the risk to me. Sure they may be legit, but is it worth the risk that they are a psychopath and I don't return home to my family?

[cacian]

I only hitchhiked about twice in my life. once in Greece and another in Ibiza and funnily/spookily call it whatever but both cars were the same type.. an open top range rover. both holidays were years apart. quite weird. I was not alone however. I would not do it on my own. I don't really trust it that much to want to do it as a matter of fact.

[Whifflingpin]

I hitchhiked a lot in my late teens and early twenties, mostly in Britain but a bit in Europe. The slight randomness of journeys made it always a bit exciting. On one occasion I hitched from Portsmouth to Exeter (about 120 miles) faster than I could have done by train. On another time it took me a day and a half to do the return journey.

The variety of people who offered lifts was always interesting.
I remember hitching in Scotland in about 1970 where one driver, a farmer, said that no-one in Scotland really wanted independence, and the next lift was from the secretary of the Moray branch of the Scottish National Party, who said that independence was the first essential for Scotland.
And there was the Rhodesian who gave exactly the same reasons for not giving black people the vote as had been used a century and a half earlier by those opposed to franchise reform in England - that added some spice to my A-level history studies. As I was a fervent admirer of Cobbett, we did not quite agree on that, but we soon made up as we both abhorred split infinitives.
And the family who picked me up near Glencoe, as dusk was falling - they had already squeezed two parents, three children and their camping kit into a Hillman Imp, but they got me and my rucksack in as well - luckily I was able to make sense of their tent for them, because they'd never put one up before.

Of course it was and is dangerous to trust yourself to the mercy of random strangers, and there is a risk in picking them up, but it's no use letting the fear rule. I pick up hitchhikers whenever I can (i.e. whenever the wife is not with me.) One day I might get the lunatic or the psychopath, so far the worst I've suffered has been a few strange or awful smells.

[Scout85]

Whifflingpen you have a whole book there in just that comment :)
I notice it's mainly men who have hitchiked alone, I think it would just be irresponsible for a woman to do it now, although the chances of something happening are probably no worse than they were a few years ago, but people's attitudes towards a woman who did it alone wouldn't be great. Sad really that we have to think of things like that.