Your experiences of hitchhiking

[AY1975]

Have you ever hitchhiked or picked up a hitchhiker? Is it something that you might consider doing? Do many people still do it these days, I wonder?

In the 1980s and 90s you often used to see people standing by the roadside with a piece of paper or card bearing their intended destination but it seems quite a while since I last saw someone doing it.

My parents used to hitchhike a lot when they were in their 20s in the 1950s - my mum certainly did, both in Britain and in France and Germany. Back then Interrail passes hadn't been invented and personal safety was less of an issue than it is today. I've never done it myself, and it's not something that I'd do unless I urgently needed to get somewhere and for whatever reason I had no other options. I would only do it as the very last of all last resorts, though.

See also this now locked thread from 2016 on hitchhiking and being picked up by a bus: https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/buses-and-hitchhiking.127719/

 

[LSWR Cavalier]

I hitch-hiked a lot the 1980s.

Thousands of miles of free travel, met many interesting people. Only a couple of dodgy incidents among hundreds of trips.

Sometimes I only waited a few minutes before being wafted direct to my destination. Other times I waited for hours.

Gave a few lifts later when driving, too.

I do remember police advice, in printed form. Although offering or taking a lift is not illegal, the police advised against it!

 

[stuu]

I used to do it occasionally in the early 1990s as a teenager in the countryside because of the non-existence of a bus service. It was usually OK, but you had the occasional long wait, and the occasional loony.

I can't remember the last time I even saw someone hitchhiking, probably not even within the last decade. I was in Italy a couple of weeks ago and they still have very prominent signs banning it on motorways, so perhaps it is still more significant elsewhere?

 

[Ken H]

I did it in the 70's before I started driving. You learn where you can get the next lift from and where you wont.
Did pick ups till about 1990 then started to consider the risks. And the hitch hikers went about the same time.
All in UK.
No dodgy moments.

 

[Lucan]

I thumbed a few times in student days, displaying my scarf, 1970s. There was a stretch of road just outside town in the London direction where it was usual to wait - safe for cars to stop and it was obviously students thumbing. But the last time I did it I was picked up by an elderly couple who, it transpired, were only going 5 miles and they were taken aback to hear I was aiming for London. On my part, I had naively assumed every car passing was going to London, being the next significant place. So I was left by the roadside where they needed to turn off, in the middle of no-where, and it took a couple of hours to be picked up again.

It is years since I last saw a hitch-hiker. The last use of hitch-hiking seemed to be within the motor trade; drivers who had delivered a car (or were going to fetch one) would stand by the road showing their trade plates.

 

[bib]

I've seen hikers doing it in the north of Scotland, nowhere else really.

 

[PeterC]

I've seen hikers doing it in the north of Scotland, nowhere else really.

I hitched a lot in the 70s but hardly since. It was a lot easier then as there were fewer bypasses and free flow interchanges.

The last time that I ever hitched was of necessity to get home in the aftermath of the July 2005 tube bombings

 

[miklcct]

I don't normally do that, however, during my trip on the Baltic coast in 2018, the last bus of the day (there were only 2 per day, one morning and one evening) didn't turned up on time despite I booked a ticket before, and out of desperation the national park ranger helped me to find a car to get me through the section where walking wasn't permitted due to a border zone (I was travelling from the final stop before the border crossing to the first stop after it), although my journey was just 13 km and my bus ticket cost just 1€. (The best way of travelling there was a bike but I couldn't find any one-way bike rental there). There is only one road in the region so everyone is going to the same place.

Communication there was very difficult as people there generally didn't speak English, and I didn't speak Russian as well, and as it was a rural area mobile reception was very bad, only 2G voice communication was effective. Adding further complication I was using a local phone card without long-distance capability but the bus company's number, and also the hostel's number, was an international number which I couldn't dial it using the traditional way. (I had tried to dial it by Viber and it connected a few times, but I couldn't convey any meaningful communication due to bad internet reception and it eventually made the hostel worried)

Finally, after the car carried me to my hostel, I regained communication with my friends, and only by then the friend, who helped me to contact the bus company, told me that the bus was gone without seeing me at the bus stop. Apparently it went more than 20 minutes ahead of schedule! (I didn't trust the schedule as the time shown was 10 minutes longer than a local bus which stops en-route running on the same route so I waited from 20 minutes before the scheduled time)

 

[61653 HTAFC]

Never hitched a lift myself, but picked up a couple of Polish farm workers once in Bridgwater, took them to a farm somewhere along the "scenic route" (by which I mean unclassified roads, not the A38) between there and Taunton.

 

[KT550]

I've had people stop and ask if I needed a lift probably two or three times in the last few years, two were in rural Scotland.

One, on the island of Colonsay, was particularly welcome as I was rushing from the airport to the ferry terminal for a re-timed ferry.
My lift was only going part way but flagged down another driver at a junction to complete the journey.

 

[Ediswan]

I was going to say none, but I was forgetting kayaking trips. On popular rivers, it is entirely normal to find somebody at the end seeking a lift back to collect their car from start. Or to stop and pick up somebody who is walking back to their car. The stand-out example was in Slovenia, giving a lift to a member of the Czech army.

 

[70014IronDuke]

Have you ever hitchhiked or picked up a hitchhiker? Is it something that you might consider doing? Do many people still do it these days, I wonder?

In the 1980s and 90s you often used to see people standing by the roadside with a piece of paper or card bearing their intended destination but it seems quite a while since I last saw someone doing it.

After quitting BR in 1975, I hitched a lot. In 76, I hitched to India, and back again in 77 (except for the desert bit, from Quetta to Zahedan, in Iran. This avoided Afghanistan, and the $50 visa, IIRC).

I hitched a lot in Europe. Yugoslavia could be difficult coming out of Greece, and it was a big country to get through back in the day. Hitched deep into Turkey several times. Didn't really save any money in Turkey, as the buses were cheap, but it was fun. Didn't feel like doing it in Syria, but after they wouldn't let me walk across the border (no man's land was about 12 miles!), I got a lift into Jordan, and hitched a bit there too. One driver actually gave me about $5 to get the bus on to Amman.

Did I have any trouble? Several times. No details here, but once in NW Iran it felt particularly dodgy (in a truck, but not with Iranians). I also had a mad doctor (well, he called himself that) from Tehran to the Caspian Sea plain one Sunday night. I confess I really felt scared on that trip, he drank some raki, smoked something and drove like a nutcase - but then most in Iran did back then. (NB, I like Iranians generally as people.)

But I always survived, without any violence. These scary trips were the exception. Most of the time, things were fine. Going across Afghanistan in 76, I got picked up by two British Pakistanis who lived about 10-12 doors down from where I'd lived in Derby, in 72 (Pear Tree Road, for any Derbyites reading). When we got to Kabul, they begged me to stay with them all the way to their home town in Pakistan, but I said I was going to stop in Kabul for a few days. Pakistan was actually a great country to hitch in back then, very friendly people. I dont think, as a white male, I'd want to be hitching in Baluchistan today though. Far too many friends of the Taliban around.

My parents used to hitchhike a lot when they were in their 20s in the 1950s - my mum certainly did, both in Britain and in France and Germany. Back then Interrail passes hadn't been invented and personal safety was less of an issue than it is today. I've never done it myself, and it's not something that I'd do unless I urgently needed to get somewhere and for whatever reason I had no other options. I would only do it as the very last of all last resorts, though.

Things were different back then. After the war, in the 50s, I think most people were struggling in the UK, and with the growth of universities starting in the 60s, it was common to see hitchikers at motorway junctions. Germany was usually easy to hitch in during the 70s and 80s, just you had to avoid the tough places, or get round them. Koln was a tough city to get round sometimes. And Munich.

When I got a car, I used to drive off the Autobahns looking for hitchikers to kind of 'pay off the balance'. Never had any physical threats, but a guy in Slovakia cheated me once - I needed a few crowns and he gave me an unstamped Czechoslovak note - that meant it was no longer legal tender. He was an ethnic Hungarian Slovak. I still have the note in my wallet. What a little #####.

I felt things changed in the UK in the early 80s. I needed to get a lift on a rural road near the Northants-Bedfordshire border, and nobody stopped. On rural roads, people usually did, because you had to be going locally (more or less). Eventually a woman driver, on her own, stopped for me. By then I was only a mile from my destination - but I told her she'd restored my faith in humanity!

 

[Hassocks5489]

Not exactly hitch-hiking, but a welcome offer of a lift just a few weeks ago: I was on one of my regular summer week-long bus trips photographing churches and chapels, which generally involve 10-15 miles of walking a day in very rural areas. I'd just got off the morning X20 Salisbury-Blandford Forum bus at a place called East Woodyates, just off the A354 - a typical fast single-carriageway rural A-road with a bit of grass verge to walk on. I had to walk down it for a while until I found a footpath to Pentridge, the next village (about 2 miles away). As I set off, a pickup van came out of a side turning and the driver said something I couldn't hear, but I eventually worked out as "You goin' 'Andley?" (Sixpenny Handley, the next village down the road, and the only place of any size around these parts). When I said I was going to Pentridge, he said "oh, I'll take you there", so I jumped in. He said he knew the area well because he had never travelled more than 30 miles from East Woodyates, despite being over 70 (!). He was getting ready to go to some traditional festival that afternoon in one of the other villages down the road. That saved me at least 2 miles, which was welcome as I was walking all the way back to Fordingbridge (look at Google Maps to gauge the distance)!

Incidentally, 7 days of unlimited travel across Dorset, Hampshire and Wiltshire for £26 on Morebus, Damory and Salisbury Reds ... pretty good, and very reliable. Maybe I should do a report on the Bus Trips thread!

 

[AY1975]

In Germany they have a kind of system of organised hitchhiking. In most towns and cities there is an office called a "Mitfahrzentrale" or "Mitfahrerzentrale", which is an agency for arranging lifts. Motorists who are happy to offer a lift to someone can sign up to the scheme, and anyone who is looking for a lift can contact the "Mitfahrzentrale" to ask what is available.

In the pre-internet era this would have been done in person or by phone, but I would guess that it is largely done online these days.

It's probably safer than conventional hitchhiking, although I suppose there's still a risk involved in that you don't know who you will get a lift with (or who you will give a lift to) and what they'll be like.

I suppose the "Mitfahrzentrale" concept is best described as real-time ride sharing or car pooling. Car pooling or ride sharing also exists in other countries including the UK but probably not to the same extent and not on a countrywide basis. It potentially warrants a separate thread.

Of course another option these days is to ask for or offer lifts via social media platforms such as Facebook.

 

[Jagdpanther]

Hitched loads in the 70s, 80s and 90s. Got a lift in a Rolls Royce twice. Got a lift in a donkey cart once. Got a lift off the then Miss United Kingdom. Got a lift of a weird guy heading to Aberdeen to work on the rigs, bought me a meal and then suggested I should spend the night with him in a hotel before he went. I declined and he was fine with that. Got a lift off a guy who made a big detour to show me his cannabis plantation. Got a lift off a Green Goddess on the M1 which broke down. Jumped into the following Goddess which then broke down also. Jumped into the 3rd Goddess in the convoy which guess what, broke down a few miles further on. Loved it - always an adventure. Met loads of great people and only a few weirdos. Never felt scared. Saved a fortune. Haven't seen a hitcher for years, the youth just dont know what they are missing.

 

[nanstallon]

People are more afraid of each other these days.

 

[contrex]

Lots of lifts in late 1960s, early 1970s. Three sample lifts in 1970, when I was 18: 1. Heading to Cornwall, intending to stay in Youth Hostels, from London with girlfriend - got to Exeter. late in the day - picked up by hippy couple with baby and little girl in Renault 4 - were only going locally, but offered tea at their cottage and a lift to the bypass after - stayed 6 weeks, made lifelong friends. Still in touch 50 years on. 2. Returning to London, picked up in Chard by Marley Tiles lorry - girlfriend in back, me in cab - coming into Yeovil - driver says he'll take us to London if he can have it away with girlfriend in the back. I said 'Drop us off here'. Got train from Yeovil Pen Mill to Bristol TM and then Paddington. Found out driver was almost certainly a local delivery driver at Marley's Yeovil depot, and was never going further than mid-Somerset. 3. With girlfriend to Portsmouth (IOW ferry for 1970 Festival). Picked up in Arundel by elderly fellow in Austin Cambridge - took us to ferry terminal, as we got out, presented us with a huge Bakewell tart his wife had made for him to eat, and saying "I hope you don't mind?', pressed a pound note into my hand.

 

[route101]

Rarely see them but Abington Services was the last place I seen one last year on the M74.

 

[Dr_Paul]

I used to hitch around quite a bit in the early 1970s when I was a plane-spotter, as did quite a few of my pals. Mostly little bother, occasional long waits for a lift, some interesting vehicles (E-Type Jaguar up the A1, great!), a van-load of hippies who invited me to their picnic (good fun!); one scary ride with a nutter on the A11 in a decrepit Ford Anglia (only the driver's door opened) who, so he told me and a pal, was in a bad mood as he'd just split up with his wife and overtook things on a two-lane road with oncoming traffic. We were glad when he turned off to Chelmsford and dropped us off. I stopped hitching when I bought my own motor: driving was fun in those days, with petrol at 37p a gallon (none of this litre nonsense), but let's not digress.

 

[PaulLothian]

This thread has awoken so many memories! Almost all my hitching was in the early 70s. I did a 28-hour hitch from Edinburgh to London, which included an hour in the fully loaded rear of a Reliant 3-wheel van (we only went 30 miles), a luxurious trip from Berwick to Newcastle in a very posh taxi returning from delivering an American lady to her hotel (she apparently didn't fancy the train!) and about 100 miles in an old Bedford minibus driven at speed by a nun who kept the driver's sliding door open for ventilation - no seat belts, of course. The trip also had downsides, included the depressing sight of umpteen squaddies wandering past the queue of despondent hitchhikers to be instantly picked up, heading for Catterick. There was also an unsuccessful attempt to sleep in a bus shelter after the friends in Doncaster who had promised me a bed whenever I was passing turned out to be away on holiday...

 

[Acey]

About 49 years ago we were on our way home from a two week jaunt around the Cornish coast path,we didn't have much money so we hitch-hiked down there and spent an idyllic two weeks walking around the coast path ,south to north,spent our time sleeping in a tent ,on the beaches mainly--learning how to surf and pretending we were in California ,had a great time but we finally ran out of money at a place called Perranporth on the north coast ,so we dumped most of our gear ( sleeping bags/tent etc )and started to hike our way back home ( it was different in 1973 ) we got a ride straight away to a place called Summercourt on the A30 ,we were still there about 7 hours later !! despite a steady stream of vehicles heading east towards home we just couldn't get a lift ( I even showed a bit of leg at one point,probably not a good idea ) we had enough money to buy ONE can of beans and ONE bread roll and we were about 300 miles from home with no money ,not good at all,the A30 is not Ventura Highway for sure ! Well of course we finally made it home via Plymouth/Southampton ( what a dump ) and Croydon where we jumped on a bus bound for Bromley and hoped we wouldn't get rumbled for the fare,it took us the best part of 3 days to get home ,I remember saying never again and yet 2 months later I was on my way to the Lake District ,same mode of transport ! what an idiot ! still we enjoyed our West Country excursion ( even the time when we were picked up at about three in the morning by a minivan full of rum drinking, dope smoking Rastafarians who were going to Plymouth to pick up their instruments ( or something) they were nice people though ,as were all the folk who stopped to give a lift to two dodgy looking hippy types ,thanks for taking the time to read this ! ;ps-If Putin wants to test one of hie nukes he could do worse than aim one at Summercourt ! ps-haven't been that keen on beans either since then !