A man and woman hitchhiking near Vicksburg, Mississippi in 1936, photograph by Walker Evans

A man with an outstretched thumb and a sign indicating his destination.

Hitchhiking (also known as thumbing, autostop or hitching) is a means of transportation that is gained by asking individuals, usually strangers, for a ride in their car or other vehicle. The ride is usually, but not always, free.

Nomads have also used hitchhiking as a primary mode of travel for the better part of the 20th century, and continue to do so today.^[1][2]

Signaling methods

A typical hitchhiker's gesture

Hitchhikers use a variety of signals to indicate they need a ride. Indicators can be physical gestures or displays including written signs.^[3] The physical gestures, e.g., hand signals, hitchhikers use differ around the world:

• In some African countries, the hitchhiker's hand is held with the palm facing upwards.^[4]
• In most of Europe, North America, South America and Australia, most hitchhikers stand with their back facing the direction of travel. The hitchhiker typically extends their arm towards the road with the thumb of the closed hand pointing upward or in the direction of vehicle travel. ^[4]

In 1971, during the Vietnam War, drivers invented methods to communicate various messages to hitchhikers (frequently soldiers in those areas of the U.S. near military bases). To indicate to a hitchhiking soldier that their vehicles have no additional space to accommodate them, drivers could tap on the vehicle roof. Another common message that drivers could signal to hitchhikers—who usually sought to travel long distances, distances too far to walk in a reasonable amount of time—was that the driver's destinations were located nearby—and of little use to the hitchhiker—by pointing at the ground for a few seconds.

Legal status

Two of the signs used in the United States, forbidding hitchhiking

Hitchhiking is a historically common (autonomous) practice worldwide and hence there are very few places in the world where laws exist to restrict it. However, a minority of countries have laws that restrict hitchhiking at certain locations.^[5] In the United States, for example, some local governments have laws outlawing hitchhiking, on the basis of drivers' and hitchhikers' safety. In 1946, New Jersey arrested and imprisoned a hitchhiker, leading to intervention by the American Civil Liberties Union.^[6] In Canada, several highways have restrictions on hitchhiking, particularly in British Columbia and the 400-series highways in Ontario. In all countries in Europe, it is legal to hitchhike and in some places even encouraged. However, worldwide, even where hitchhiking is permitted, laws forbid hitchhiking where pedestrians are banned, such as the Autobahn (Germany), Autostrade (Italy), motorways (United Kingdom and continental Europe, with the exception of, at least, Lithuania) or interstate highways (United States), although hitchhikers often obtain rides at entrances and truck stops where it is legal at least throughout Europe ^[7][8] with the exception of Italy.^[9]

Decline

In 2011, Freakonomics Radio reviewed sparse data about hitchhiking, and identified a decline in hitchhiking in the US since the 1970s, which it attributed to a number of factors, including lower air travel costs due to deregulation, the presence of more money in the economy to pay for travel, more numerous and more reliable cars, and a lack of trust of strangers.^[10] Fear of hitchhiking is thought to have been spurred by movies such as The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974), The Hitcher (1986), and a few real stories of imperiled passengers, notably the kidnapping of Colleen Stan in California.^[10] See § Safety, below.

Julian Portis points out^[11] that the rise of faster highways, such as freeways, motorways, and expressways, has made hitchhiking more difficult. He adds:

The real danger of hitchhiking has most likely remained relatively constant, but the general perception of this danger has increased. ... [O]ur national tolerance for danger has gone down: things that we previously saw as reasonably safe suddenly appeared imminently threatening. This trend is not just isolated to the world of hitchhiking; it has become a pernicious artifact throughout the American cultural conscience.

Some British researchers discuss reasons for hitchhiking's decline in the UK, and possible means of reviving it in safer and more-organized forms.^[12]

In recent years, hitchhikers have started efforts to strengthen their community. Examples include the annual Hitchgathering, an event organized by hitchhikers, for hitchhikers, and websites such as hitchwiki and hitchbase, which are platforms for hitchhikers to share tips and provide a way of looking up good hitchhiking spots around the world. While hitchhiking is on the decline, it is still in regular use around the globe.

Public policy support

Mitfahrbank with destination signs in Flensburg

Since the mid-2010s, local authorities in rural areas in Germany have started to support hitchhiking, and this has spread to Austria and the German-speaking region of Belgium. The objectives are both social and environmental: as ride sharing improves mobility for local residents (particularly young and old people without their own cars) in places where public transport is inadequate, thus improving networking among local communities in an environmentally friendly way. This support typically takes the form of providing hitchhiking benches (in German Mitfahrbänke) where people hoping for a ride can wait for cars. These benches are usually brightly coloured and located at the exit from a village, sometimes at an existing bus stop lay-by where vehicles can pull in safely. Some are even provided with large fold-out or slide-out signs with place names allowing hitchers to clearly signal where they want to go. Some Mitfahrbänke have been installed with the help of the EU's LEADER programme for rural local development^[13]

In Austria, Mitfahrbänke are especially common in Lower Austria and Tyrol, and are promoted by the Federal Ministry of Agriculture, Regions and Tourism under its klimaaktiv climate protection initiative.^[14] In 2018 the Tyrolean MobilitäterInnen network published a Manual for the Successful Introduction of Hitch-hiking Benches.^[15]

Safety

Wikivoyage has some tips for safe hitchhiking.

Limited data is available regarding the safety of hitchhiking.^[16] Compiling good safety data requires counting hitchhikers, counting rides, and counting problems: a difficult task.^[17]

Two studies on the topic include a 1974 California Highway Patrol study and a 1989 German federal police (Bundeskriminalamt Wiesbaden) study .^[16] The California study found that hitchhikers were not disproportionately likely to be victims of crime.^[18] The German study concluded that the actual risk is much lower than the publicly perceived risk; the authors did not advise against hitchhiking in general.^[19] They found that in some cases there were verbal disputes or inappropriate comments, but physical attacks were very rare.^[20]

Recommended safety practices include:^[21]

• Asking for rides at gas stations instead of signaling at the roadside
• Refusing rides from alcohol impaired drivers
• Hitchhiking during daylight hours
• Trusting one's instincts
• Traveling with another hitchhiker; this measure decreases the likelihood of harm by a factor of six^[22]

Around the world

Two men tramping in Jerusalem

Netherlands

Hitchhiking (called liften) is legal in the Netherlands. This sign suggests a good place to get a lift.

In the Netherlands, hitchhiking is legal, and unofficial signs indicate where one may wait for a ride. These designated hitchhiking locations are called liftershalte or liftplaats in Dutch, and they are particularly common in university towns.^[24][25]

United States

Hitchhiking became a common method of traveling during the Great Depression and during the Counterculture of the 1960s.

A "slug line" of passengers waiting for rides in the US

Warnings of the potential dangers of picking up hitchhikers were publicized to drivers, who were advised that some hitchhikers would rob drivers and, in some cases, sexually assault or murder them. Other warnings were publicized to the hitchhikers themselves, alerting them to the same types of crimes being carried out by drivers. Still, hitchhiking was part of the American psyche and many people continued to stick out their thumbs, even in states where the practice had been outlawed.^[29]

Today, hitchhiking is legal in 44 of the 50 states, provided that the hitchhiker is not standing in the roadway or otherwise hindering the normal flow of traffic. Even in states where hitchhiking is illegal, hitchhikers are rarely ticketed. For example, the Wyoming Highway Patrol approached 524 hitchhikers in 2010, but only eight of them were cited (hitchhiking was subsequently legalized in Wyoming in 2013).^[30] Hitchhiking is still in regular practice, but hitchhikers must accept the risks.

In several urban areas, a variation of hitchhiking called slugging occurs, motivated by HOV lanes.^[31]

Notable hitchhikers

Two WPA workers hitchhiking in California, circa 1939

Notable individual hitchhikers include:

• Douglas Adams; author whose fictional space-travel book, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, was inspired whilst hitching in Innsbruck, Austria.
• Joe Bennett – New Zealand newspaper columnist and author; hitchhiked around the world for 10 years.^[32]
• André Brugiroux – from France; hitchhiked all around the world for 18 years, from 1955 to 1973.
• Simon Calder – author, broadcaster, journalist and travel correspondent. Has a regular column with The Independent which often features pieces about hitchhiking. Has published some 'classic' guidebook material on thumbing rides in the UK and Europe such as Hitch-Hiker's Manual: Europe (1984, London: Vacation Publishers).
• David Choe – painter, muralist, graffiti artist and graphic novelist, spent two years hitchhiking.
• Martin Clark and Graham Beynon – last hitchhikers recorded in the Guinness Book of Records for the Land's End to John O'Groats trip (17 hours 8 minutes).
• W. H. Davies – Welsh poet and tramp, who hitchhiked America during the early 20th century.
• Sascha Grabow – from Germany; hitchhiked in all but three of the world's 193 countries.
• John Howard Griffin – author, journalist, researcher. Hitched in the Southern States of the US to gauge the levels of racism and discrimination he would face. This resulted in the book (also made into a film) Black Like Me (1961).
• Tony Hawks—British journalist, comedian and author.
• hitchBOT – Canadian hitchhiking robot.^[33][34]
• Ludovic Hubler – French hitchhiker who toured the world entirely by hitchhiking from 1 January 2003 to 1 January 2008, and wrote Le Monde en stop about his experiences.
• Miran Ipavec – author, former Mayor of Kanal (Slovenia) and curator of what is probably the world's only Hitchhiker's Museum (a travelling exhibition that has had installations in several Slovenian cities, as well as once in Italy).^[35] He has published two books about his travels and hitching 'records' which have been translated into several languages: (2013) Tales of Hitchhiking on European Roads. My First Light Second, Kanal: SP. (2020) Hitchhiking Marathon: 42 Countries in 500 Hours. Kanal: SP.
• Ilmar Island (Saar) – the last and only hitchhiker recorded in the Guinness Book of Records for hitching between Key West, Florida and Fairbanks, Alaska (5 days, 20 hours and 52 minutes); the category only appeared once.^[36][37]
• Jack Kerouac – Beat Generation author who hitchhiked in America and wrote many books about his experience.
• Mark Knopfler hitched much to get around Britain, as well as in Europe such UK to Greece when he was about 17. His song Matchstick Man recounts a Christmas Day hitch from Penzance, after a gig, home to Newcastle, in heavy snow.^[38]
• Chris McCandless – subject of the book Into the Wild and related films; hitchhiked throughout the western region of North America in the early 1990s.
• Robert Prins – first (and only) hitchhiker recorded in the Guinness Book of Records for the 24-hour hitchhiking record (2,318.4 km).^[39][40][41] His website contains a page with links to a substantial number of academic publications.^[42]
• Stephan Schlei – from Ratingen, Germany; hitchhiked more than 621,371 mi (1,000,000 km); the Guinness Book of Records, before all hitchhiking records were removed, once said that he was the World's No. 1 Hitchhiker.^[43]
• DeVon Smith – listed in the Guinness Book of World Records for most cumulative miles hitchhiked (1973 to 1985), over 290,988 mi (468,300 km); held the record for hitchhiking all 48 contiguous US states in 33 days during 1957^[44]
• Colleen Stan, who was kidnapped by Cameron and Janice Hooker, and tortured and abused for seven years before Janice helped her escape.^[45]
• Kinga Freespirit (b 1973 d 2006) – travel writer, book author; hitched five years in cars, a boat, plane.
• Andrzej Stasiuk – writer, journalist and literary critic.^[46]
• John Waters – filmmaker, writer, actor and artist; author of Carsick: John Waters Hitchhikes Across America.^[47]
• Nedd Willard – writer, artist and journalist.
• Trevor Daneliuk – Self-proclaimed professional hitchhiker documenting and livestreaming hitchhiking on Twitch.^[48][49]

In popular culture

Claudette Colbert and Clark Gable attempt to hitchhike in It Happened One Night.

See also

• Murders of Jacqueline Ansell-Lamb and Barbara Mayo – two unsolved murders of hitchhikers in England in 1970
• Carpool
• Flexible carpooling – hitchhiking formalized via designated meeting points
• Freighthopping
• Hitchwiki
• Ridesharing company
• Slugging – hitchhiking motivated by HOV lanes in several urban areas

References

Bibliography

• Brunvand, Harold (1981). The Vanishing Hitchhiker. American Urban Legends and Their Meaning. New York NY: Norton & Company.
• Griffin, John H. (1961). Black Like Me. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
• Hawks, Tony (1996). Round Ireland with a Fridge. London: Ebury.
• Laviolette, Patrick (2016). Why did the anthropologist cross the road? Ethnos: Journal of Anthropology. 81(3): 379–401.
• Nwanna, Gladson I. (2004). Americans Traveling Abroad: What You Should Know Before You Go, Frontier Publishers, ISBN 1890605107.
• Packer, Jeremy (2008). Hitching the highway to hell: Media hysterics and the politics of youth mobility. Mobility Without Mayhem: Safety, Cars, and Citizenship. Chapel Hill: Duke Univ. Press (77–110).
• Reid, Jack. (2020) Roadside Americans: The Rise and Fall of Hitchhiking in a Changing Nation. Chapel Hill: Univ, of North Carolina Press.
• Smith, David H. & Frauke Zeller (2017). The death and lives of hitchBOT: the design and implementation of a hitchhiking robot. Leonardo. 50(1): 77–8.
• Sykes, Simon & Tom Sykes (2005). No Such Thing as a Free Ride. UK Edition. London: Cassell Illustrated.
• Tobar, Héctor (2020). The Last Great Road Bum. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
• Kabourkova, Michaela (2022). Solo Female Traveller: What I Learnt from Hitchhiking in 70 Countries. Valencia: Amazon.

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Hitchhiking.

• The dictionary definition of hitchhike at Wiktionary
• Tips for hitchhiking travel guide from Wikivoyage
• Hitchhiking around the world travel guide from Wikivoyage
• Hitchhiking phrasebook travel guide from Wikivoyage
• Hitchhiking at Curlie