Who has hitchhiked?

I had a (female) friend years ago, (1960's) that hitchhiked across Texas to California by herself, and never thought anything of it.
She was in her early 20's at the time, and never found any trouble or danger in doing that.

And she was a small petite cute girl, who thought her traveling ways was normal. :eek:
 

I never hitchhiked but a couple of years ago, I took the bus to my cardiologists office. But I had gotten on the wrong bus inadvertently. That line has an A & B route...with the same bus number. If you get on A, at a point about a mile and a half down the road it veers in one direction but if you get on B it goes in another direction. It had snowed the day before and the narrow two lane road I wound up on had no sidewalks for a couple of blocks. I was worried about getting hit. A nice young lady came by in a van and asked if I needed a ride. I only had to go a four blocks, two blocks before there were sidewalks again, so I took a chance and got in the van. I didn't even ask her to take me to the doctor's office, just let me off at the corner of the second block. Of course I thanked her and offered to give her something but she refused. Honestly, if it had been a man, I wouldn't have gotten in the van.
 
I never have myself.
My maid of honor and her hubby (with me in the back seat dressed for my lakeside wedding) picked up a hitch hiker. He climbed in back, shut the door, and then....looked over at me. They told him I needed a groom, and he was it! You can imagine what went through his head.....So funny!o_O
And NO, we let him out shortly after up the road before arriving at the lake.
 
Nearly every day in my teen years. I would walk out to the corner by Disneyland stick out my thumb and be at the beach within an hour, that was on a bad day. I had long hair and the tourists would pull up to a red light and lock their doors. Long hair in California was normal, not Ohio. I was even picked up by a reporter that took me to the newspapers office and interviewed me and took pictures. Made the front page. News was slow I guess. Lots of interesting stories and people. It was just how most teens got around back then and wasn't looked at as anything more than alternative transportation. Good times!
 
During my teens (1963-65) I hitch-hiked all across the U.S. I once totaled it up, and if I recall correctly it came to some 24,000 miles. Of course, in those days, there were very few interstate highways and most of it was 2 lane black top. Many interesting stories associated with those days.
 
I did lots of hitchhiking in the late 60's. Most rides were safe and fun, but some were very interesting. The drunk people who picked us up in a pickup on the Santa Cruz cliff roads. We had to beat on the roof to let us out. The guy who had $100 on the seat and asked "Do you want to model underwear?". The guy that ran us into a field while getting off the freeway! The girl that picked me up for a 80 mile ride with nothing on but her negligees. :eek:
The hitchhike to Shasta Lake, picked up in a step van with hippies. Spent the afternoon skinny dipping in the lake and laying around on the rocks.

"Hitchhiking is like a box of chocolates...." :)
 
Yep, both hitchhiked and picked up hitchhikers in my youth. I have told some of those stories here already.

Most interesting ride was from an old converted school bus full of hippies, they carried me about 200 miles.

I was trying to catch a ride close to this incident when it happened, reduced my hitchhiking:

The Heart-Eating Hippie Who Admitted "I Am a Cannibal" When He Was Arrested​

 
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I hitched a lot with my girlfriends when I was a teenager. We were all too young to drive. One time an older man picked us up and started talking dirty to us with a lot of sexual overtones. We were scared and planned the next time he stopped at a red light we would all jump out of the car which we did, all four of us. I didn't hitch with girls after that but sometimes did with guy friends. When we got our licenses we could drive ourselves so, problem solved. I think we were lucky. At least I've always felt that way.
 
My home was about 17 miles from my job. On the drive home after work, the car all of a sudden konked out about 5 miles from home. It was lightly raining, I was not wearing walking shoes. The weather was one of those in between temps, so I was not freezing or sweltering.

These were the days before cellphones. There wasn't anyone answering their doors when I knocked to ask to use their phone, so I started off walking in the rain.

I thought about sticking out my thumb, but said, don't. So, technically I shouldn't post, because I wasn't actually hitch hiking.

A man pulled his car over in front of me, waiting for me to walk further. He insisted I get in. I thought about it, refused, etc.

I did get in the car, kept my hand on the door handle just in case. When we got several blocks from my neighborhood, I told him I lived nearby and to let me out. He wanted to take me to my door. I insisted this block was close and thanked him. I was 19 years old.
 
The second time I was walking from the train station in a Welsh city, again, not actually hitch hiking.

The person was supposed to pick me up from the train station, but did not appear. Long story.

Anyway, I was walking for a couple of miles, along leafy lanes with narrow roads and fields on either side with brambles and stone walls. Sheep and cows grazing in the sun.
cow-5486293__480.jpg
Idyllic. I was enjoying my long walk on a Sunday morning.

A small car (they were all small back then haha,) pulled up and two people called out to me. Thinking I was lost (I wasn't) or ill, no , or crazy to be walking on a road like that- could be hit by a car.

It was a young man about my age (19) and his grandmother. I thought, oh yeah, craazzyyy granny kidnaps young woman for her grandson! (Maybe the fresh country air was messing with my head, haha.)

Well, I did get in the car, we had a nice chat and they dropped me off at my family's house.

19 years old was a great year for me.
 
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I was about 16 or 17... my friend and I wanted to go hang out at the city airport at night.. it was more fun there because there was entertainment , and amusement machines etc.. there was only the ferry to get us across to the general area of the airport, but in those days there was a good 3 or 4 miles to reach the airport.. nothing else around.. just fields and roads with no street lighting.. .. so we really didn't want to walk in the pitch dark over 3 miles of fields.. so we flagged down a passing car.

He was very pleasant, chatty, asked us where we were going, said that's ok, he'll drop us off...

He didn;t.....he just kept driving in the pitch dark.. all we could see was the lights of the airport as we drove past it and on further and further into the darkness... he'd stopped talking by now, we asked him to stop, he didn't reply.. .. so my friend and I both opened the doors while he was driving, very prepared to jump out... and he screeched to a halt right next to a field.

We were over that fence and running for our lives before he could even discover where we'd gone.. or even see us in the dark.. he was calling out to use to come back and he would drop us at the airport.. but we just kept running to safety..

never hitched again... :oops:
 
Nathan said:
I hitchhiked on and off over several years in the late 60s & '70s. Two things happened in life that put an end to h-hiking:
1. I became more affluent and could afford both a car and gasoline
2. The Freeway Killer was on the loose, several murdered hitch-hikers in my area. 🤔
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Sounds like the 90's I-45 killer in TX, only he targeted women.
 

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