h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Being in America, adolescent, and female, I can't boast any hitchhiking experience. I'm just fascinated by the experience, being a faithful kerouac/robbins reader, and would love to hear more stories. Come on... what's it like...

St Ioreth,

Try http://www.h2g2.com/a165566 for size

Also my travel tales are recorded in part at http://pws.prserv.net/planetchris in the newsletters section. I have contributions from a couple of other people who are making trips as well but haven't got around to posting them yet.

Weclome to the community, too.

Shall we start a h2g2 HitchHiker's Club?

Actually, SB, I've been here for a while, and I read through your thing about hitching and was thoroughly impressed... dunno why I never posted here. "Forumressurectapohbia".

I'll check out your page though.

thanks

Hello. Just thought I'd give my sixpence worth of thoughts.

There has been a couple of programs on Swedish television about hitching rides with people, and they all usually go by the same mentality:
- Never hitch a ride with someone you think looks suspicious
- Try to find someone that's going the same general direction, so you're not alone.
- Find a trucker's depot to find a trucker that could be willing to take a hitcher aboard.

They also mentioned that most Swedish trucking companies were willing to provide information about where to go to find these trucking depots, and if you were lucky, even get hold of a trucker for you to hitch a ride with. The down side of that was that they expected you to pay a little for hitching with their trucker. Nominal fee, of course, but a fee nonetheless.

No presonal hitching experience except for the unwanted one after I blew a tyre on my car and needed to get to a service stop to get help due to a non-functional spare.

Lost

I had a similar experience while travelling with two girls in Australia.

We blew a tyre and they didn't have a wheel brace. By the time I got back, armed with one I borrowed, they had flagged down "a big black man with the right tool" and thrown the whole wheel in a ditch. Then we had to go back and look for it.

How do you come to be lost in Scotland? Is there anything I can do to help?

Being

I do not enjoy this bleedin' operating system., It messes with my posting!!!

Anyways, what I wanted to say is that staying lost in SCotland is very hard, since they keep putting up road signs everywhere. Instead, I try to remain in a fairly constant state of mental "lostness" so I can still use this name without feeling like I was lying.

Blowing a tyre on a motorway isn't as bad as I thought it would be. I was doing about 75-80 mph in the fast lane when the tyre blew out, and all I had to do was just to slow down, ease over to the shoulder of the road and stop. No swerving all over the road or anything. Kind of almost disappointing, when I think about it, since cars always swerve all over the roads and tumbles over and all that in the movies. I didn't even have to make a good save.
Oh well, I got the car fixed the following day, since I blew the tyre on a sunday, and everything was completely closed, so I couldn't get any help. Ended up taking the bus home and getting a new spare the next day. Cost me £10 and a missed chance to go to T in the Park. *frown*

Lostness certainly has it's pluses. Have you considered losing your map and remaining consciously hazy about the geography of Scotland? Then they can put up all the roadsigns they like without it affecting your fundamental state of being.

I've tried that, but the problem is that I have a pretty good sense of directions, so as long as I see a road sign, I can pretty much figure out where I am, or at least almost.
I guess I'll have to do some field experimenting with it, though.

Hitchiking is indeed grand fun Ioreth, even in the US. It's also cold and quite often wet. By the way I can't believe nobody has mentioned using your towel instead of the more common weapons for self defence.

If you do ever plan on packing a backpack and seeing where your feet and the kindness of strangers can get you there are a few rules you need to follow.

Never carry large ammounts of money on your person. A twenty dollar bill in your wallet will keep you from getting arrested for vagrancy in most states, beyond that I advise either a credit card or some other means of not having cash on you.

Pick your rides carefully. Like someone said earlier, if you are uncomfortable getting in the vehicle of someone don't. Truckers are usually safe rides, as are families.

Always have your towel with you. Let me say that again. Always have your towel with you. Our dear Mr. Adams, though towel fan he indeed is, highly underrates the value of a towel to a hitchhiker.

If you need a place to sleep for the night and all else fails make a rude gesture at a police officer. While perhaps seeming like a bad idea at first this could save your life if you are hitching in one of the colder parts of the world. A warm jail is better than sleeping in a snow drift in a blizzard.

Well this post is getting quite long enough so I'll stop here for now.

Next year I will become lost in Israel, where I plan to get my first hitching experience, but I don't think I will be in danger of blizzards there.

Good luck to you, feel free to throw up some pictures if you pass something that looks interesting, and of course a picture of your towel.

I agree with most of you guys, carrying a gun will most likely get you in trouble. However, at least around here, hitchhiking is getting everyday more dangerous (especially for girls, like me), i always carry a pepper spray and so far i've only used it once... on a crazy, mean, big and all around not friendly dog =)

It gives at least some protection, experiences can turn out to be very bad.

BTW, hello everyone !

Pepper spray can be a good solution when facing a difficult situation when hitch hiking.
However, there are countries where pepper spray is considered to be equivalent to mace and is therefor illegal to use, or even to have in your posession, so that can have its drawbacks as well.

Just thought I'd point that out...

Well, it's been ages since anyone posted here but I'll ask my question anyway and maybe someone will happen across it. I'm interested in any information/experiences/tips anyone has for those simply hiking for long distances in the US, without the hitch part. I'm hoping to take to the roadside in a couple summers but don't want to be a moron and go out unprepared. Thanks! =]

Has been a while since something was said here. Hi.

I have worked out a method of making hitchhiking a bit safer.
I'm not sure if it works, and it has some drawbacks, but how about this:

Before you enter a car when hitching, make sure the driver is not drunk and looks sane enough. Memorise the car's number plate.

When you are inside, send an SMS to a friend containing only the car's license number. Your friend should of course know about it. Don't let the driver see what you are typing, maybe you can pretend just to finish an SMS you started earlier. Power off your cell phone and make sure password protection is enabled.

When the driver threatens you, tell him about the SMS. If he hasn't stolen the car, faked the plates or is completely crazy, he should let you go.

If you weren't threatend on the ride, write a second SMS to your friend or call him telling him everything is OK.

As I said, it has some drawbacks: I don't like cell phones myself, specially they can destroy the hitchhiking experience. Second, If you're caught sending the first SMS, the driver might get mad. Third, It isn't a full protection.

Please write what you think about it, I'm not so good at predicting people's reactions on something like that.

MedO
Short-distance hitcher, quite unexperienced.

Weeell... Not sure if I entirely agree, but you're on the right track. In my experience it's really not necessary to be quite so paranoid - although it could be just me, I doubt it.
I guess it's better to be paranoid than not, but there's no point going too far overboard either.

I agree it's a good idea to memorise the number plate of the car before you get into it, although in practice I tend to only take note of it if I get out of the car while my bag's still in it. (Eg. If the driver stopped at a service station, and I'm about to move more than about one metre away from the car.)

Your cellphone should always be in your pocket, and it's best to have it turned on the whole trip, if possible, because that way if anything happens you don't need to waste time turning it on and waiting for it to connect to its cellular network before being able to call emergency services. You certainly don't want to keep it in your bag because the most likely (negative) thing to happen is that your bag gets stolen, and then how do you call the police?

<"Power off your cell phone and make sure password protection is enabled."> I assume this is so that the driver can't take your cellphone off you to read the message you just sent; but because of the reason above, I'd say it's better to simply delete the sent message instead.

<"When the driver threatens you..."> It's interesting that you say "when", not "if". I've been in roughly 1000 stranger's cars, and only one has been even vaguely worrying. Not threatening or violent, mind you, just weird and dodgy. And every single one of those roughly 1000 strangers have been friendly. I guess all the ones who aren't friendly are the ones who've been driving past for the last hour or so.
Come to think of it, the /second most/ dodgy thing I've had happen to me was when I (small white boy) got into a car with two gang members (large black men, with leather vests, rottweiler on the back seat and probably lots of drugs in the boot) - they must have decided they liked me, because after telling me to shove the dog over to make some space to get in (and fear for my fingers), they asked me the average questions - 'where are you going', 'why are you hitching?', 'what, don't you own a car?' and then offered to steal a car for me. See? Friendly, like I said.
I've mentioned this to a couple of people, and they seem to agree the correct response was the one I gave: "Nah mate, it wouldn't help me. I can't drive." Another interesting theory is that it would have been a pretty good joke - you'ld have to understand the local sense of humour, but picture this: me, driving down the road in a freshly stolen car; my two new "friends" driving behind me, still going in the same direction for now, calling the police on their cellphone. ("Yeah bro we just saw this guy stealing a car... yeah we're following behind him right now...")

Er... anyway, where was I?

IMHO, sending two SMSs per lift can lead to a very expensive trip. And I'm not sure if it's just my experience here, but people who are hitchhiking tend to be doing it because they have no money. If they had any money, then they'd get their own car.

Also, even if something has happened and your friend needs to know the license plate number of the last car you got into; it's still too late to help you. It's much better to be more prepared... especially if you can be prepared to the point where you know some decent self-defence before you start travelling. SMS texts may help a little, and may help your self-confidence a lot, but knowing that you can do more damage to the driver than they could do to you will help you a lot more.

Bear in mind, though, that I'm speaking from my own point of view - that of a 23 year old male, who usually travels alone, who had a rough background in a relatively violent society. I'm certain any experiences you will have or have had would be worlds away from mine.

If you're hitchhiking for the experience, though, you want to be confident enough to enjoy it, otherwise what's the point in going?

And if you're a female hitchhiking alone in my country and get picked up by one of my mates, expect to be abused for travelling alone, and then expect to get dropped off at the door of your destination, even if it's four hours out of their way. What where you thinking in travelling by yourself, anyway?


Jerms.

Thanks for your reply! I thougt I'd never get one.

<<"Power off your cell phone and make sure password protection is enabled."> I assume this is so that the driver can't take your cellphone off you to read the message you just sent; but because of the reason above, I'd say it's better to simply delete the sent message instead.>

Well, I rather thought he might send some messages to your friend, like "Everything's fine" or the number of a different plate, so that he isn't easily found... But maybe it might be better to leave it on so he can check that you really sent it (if you did, that is). Hell, good point, I don't know what's better.

<<"When the driver threatens you..."> It's interesting that you say "when", not "if".>

My mistake here, I meant "IF he threatens you". But I think "when" is not that wrong, because I'm referring to the time when he threatens you, in the rare case that he does...
Please consider that I'm only 18 and that I'm not a "native speaker".



The idea was to use one of the power of this information to protect you. Your friend knows the license plate of the driver, so he has probably the means to identify him. IF you are really threatened, you tell him that your friend knows the license number.

So, the driver finds himself in this situation: If he hurts/kills/rapes you (being paranoid, I know... but things like this DO happen), he will be searched for by the police within two or three days, and if (when)he's found, he'll be in for some years in prison. He probably doesn't want that.
If he just leaves you alone (before really doing anything bad), he can just put you down by the road and drive on.
He is really in a situation where he hurts himself if he hurts you. And I think this is a pretty powerful protection.

However, please keep in mind that I only invented this method while waiting for the next bus to come, so it's all grey theory... I probably wouldn't use it myself. It just seemed a neat idea and I wanted to see what others think of it.

MedO

Fair enough!
It's certainly better to be safe than sorry...

Take a crow bar. Or better yet, a bit of lead pipe.