Hitchhiking - when did you last?

[Crackle]

My last hitch was Glen Coe too, in 2003.

Drove up from Winchester in the morning, did Aonach Eagach with a dog in the afternoon, then couldn't be arsed walking all the way back up the glen to get the car, so hitched from just down from the Clachaig Inn. First car stopped. "Still got the hitching magic", I thought - turned out my climbing companions had collared someone just leaving the inn and said "give him a ride up the valley, would you?"!

My record was Dieppe to Padova in Italy in four lifts (in winter with all the lakes in France frozen over).

Your dog did the Aonach Eagach? Are you sure it's actually a dog, not half goat.

 

[Venod]

IIRC we got the a nice last hitch into London ( going to see Canned Heat/War im Hyde Park 1970 ) with a bloke in an old Ford Anglia that was full of unpaid parking tickets, he let us stop in his flat in Kennsington, on the way back we got a lift in the back of an Army Truck, it was so uncomfortable we got out at Watford services and caught the train.

 

[Beebo]

i've never hitcehd and never picked anyone up either.
I'm a child of the 80's who was told too many scare stories.

 

[robjh]

I still occasionally try it when I'm on a walking trip and have done a long one-way walk and need to get back to somewhere with bus/train/my car. The last time was about 2009 when I'd been walking in the Rhinogs and needed to get back to Machynlleth for my train home. On a similar note we gave several lifts to walkers when we were in Norway in the motorhome (would have done it elsewhere too but I don't remember so many people trying to hitch).

 

[Globalti]

I could write a book on my hitch hiking exploits; I used to travel all over the country. My best ever was 8 hours from Newcastle to Glenbrittle in Skye, which I achieved by having a climbing rope prominently displayed on my rucsac so that drivers could see the purpose of my journey. I used to hold up cardboard box lids with my destination written on them but towards the end of my hitch hiking years I refined my act when I got bolder and started actually asking drivers for a lift as they emerged from motorway services cafes, which usually got me a lift in a couple of minutes and jumped the queue at the slip road. Actually I hitched a lift last May when I was out walking with pals and needed to get back home fast so I stuck a thumb out and the first car stopped, the driver was a climber and he saved me a weary hour of walking at the end of a long day.

You seldom see hitch hikers nowadays, fear and cheap bus travel have stopped them. If my bike ever broke while I was out on the road I wouldn't hesitate to shoulder it and stick a thumb out.

 

[swee'pea99]

Haven't done it since the early '80s, before which it was my basic way of getting around the country. Also hitched right round both islands of NZ, and up the east coat of Australia, from Sydney to Cairns and beyond. Best lift was with a Maori family - they stopped at lunchtime and bought a massive round of fish & chips, far more than we could eat, obviously so I wouldn't feel the least bit constrained in stuffing myself; worst lift, North Queensland, with a truly ghastly redneck father and son who insisted on telling really vicious racist jokes en route. The fact that I'd lucked out with a lift right through a 100 mile section known at the time as 'the murder mile' after a number of hitching incidents, dissuaded me from insisting on being dropped off.

 

[Ganymede]

Picked up a lad a couple of weeks ago - heading for our village. I'd seen him walking before (from my bike) so I knew he was local. He didn't hitch but I stopped and asked if he wanted a lift into the village. He walks 3.5 miles to work and back every day, he works at the bookie's. Round here it's hard if you've got no car and even harder if you've got no bike either!

 

[Cubist]

i've never hitcehd and never picked anyone up either.
I'm a child of the 80's who was told too many scare stories.

Rutger Hauer wasn't exactly the best recommendation was he?

 

[Beebo]

Rutger Hauer was exactly the best recommendation was he?

A bit like Jaws, I never felt 100% safe swimming in the sea after watching that film. Even now I still have a nagging 1% doubt that a shark will get me.
My mum spent holidays hitching round Europe in the 60's and still tells the story of giving a pint of blood in Greece to earn some money. But for some reason by the 1980's the term stranger danger was all too common.

 

[Brains]

Used to do it regularly back in the 70s and 80s but by the early 90s it became harder and harder to get picked up. I also used to drive frequently between Cornwall and London and often used to pick up hichers at the Chiswick roundabout where they would queue up. Not seen anyone hitch from there in years though

 

[robjh]

It got a lot harder as the motorway network spread - where once there were roundabouts and good honest junctions it is now just continuous motorway. Mind you, I got dropped straight onto the hard shoulder a few times in Belgium and Holland, which made getting the next lift dramatic as they raced past at 100+ kph.

 

[Foghat]

Your dog did the Aonach Eagach? Are you sure it's actually a dog, not half goat.

Dinnertime Buttress too, on the way up Bidean nam Bian!

 

[captain nemo1701]

I hitched a lot as a student and did Europe twice but haven't hitched for about 20 years. I took a book with me abroad while hitching through France, (then) West Germany, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Netherlands etc. It was The Hitch-Hikers Guide to Europe and legend has it, that off in the long-forgotten days of the early 1970's a certain young writer chappie named Douglas Adams was bumming through Innsbruck with a copy. I also had another useful tome entitled Europe:A Manual for Hitch-Hikers by Simon Calder.

 

[CopperBrompton]

Hitched everywhere when I was a teenager. Thought I had the best luck ever when, at 2am, I stood by the side of the road in Huddersfield with a sign reading 'M62' and a car stopped within 10 minutes. They asked where I was going, and I said London. They asked where, and I said Brent Cross. They asked where in Brent Cross, and turned out to be going two streets away.

But then I met a guy who stuck out his thumb in what was then Yugoslavia and a British truck stopped and gave him a lift to the end of his road back in Blighty.

 

[Brains]

Hitched everywhere when I was a teenager. Thought I had the best luck ever when, at 2am, I stood by the side of the road in Huddersfield with a sign reading 'M62' and a car stopped within 10 minutes. They asked where I was going, and I said London. They asked where, and I said Brent Cross. They asked where in Brent Cross, and turned out to be going two streets away.

But then I met a guy who stuck out his thumb in what was then Yugoslavia and a British truck stopped and gave him a lift to the end of his road back in Blighty.

Back in the late 60's/early 70's a friend of my parents was hitching London to Kathmandu (as you did in those days). His first lift he was picked up on the A2 and dropped off south of Tehran in Persia (as it was then, Iran today)
it then took him 4 days to get the next lift, and that was only 20 miles to the next town!