tell me your hitchhiking stories

[snorky]

* a new improved Snorky non confrontional non class war thread *

Patreus => Amsterdam in 2 days

Seattle =>NYC in a week ( Including a days work loading snowmobiles and the offer of sex from a 90 year old ex-IWW member and more drugs than I could shake a stick at at )

Amsterdam =>Berlin in a day

BUrcharest =>Vienna as the Romanina revolution happened & the borders fell

[????]

Hastings 2am,1981, February, minus 2, thrown out of nightclub "Saturdays?", penniless, erm, mate with car in nick, me and other mate picked up by two girls (just) took us near to Londonish, dropped us off in country, 20 mins later appeared in other ones car, had 'discussed us', bought fags and dropped us in New Cross and became 'friends'

..I used to love hitchiking no-one does it anymore...I have given lifts to some 'interesting' hikers once in a while too...my missus won't let me do it now :(

[giggirl]

Snorky dearest,

I don't leave home unless I'm travelling first class and that just doesn't include getting wet on a roadside.

Px

***** the a new improved, non-confrontional and non-class-war-waging Snorky loses it in 3... 2... 1... *****

[????]

When I said 'Just' I meant they nearly didn't pick us up. They were very nice girls - I was 18 freezing and miles from home, I still thank their kind souls.

[????]

How long before some one does the "there was this tapping on the roof" story?

[tommy]

Through the French Alps in a day - turned into a hitchhiking competition with two others who were doing the same - we ended up passing each other several times that day (we won)

[Brendan]

Johannesburg to Benoni (these places are in South Africa) in 15minutes, the journey at normal speeds normally takes at least 30minutes. On the open back of some drugged up Lebanese gangster?s pick-up truck. A very frightening 15minutes. Shouldn?t have got on but I was stuck in the middle of Jo?burg in the wee hours and this psycho who pulled over (who I coincidentally knew from school) would probably have kicked the crap out of me if I had turned his kind offer down.

Oh the joys of home.

I once picked up a hiker on a long cross country trip in SA (Transkei to Cape Town). It turned out the guy was carrying and entire rucksack full of ganga. So that trip turned out entertaining.

[*Bob*]

Nothing flash.. I've only ever hitch-hiked once: Sheffield to the Glastonbury festival in 1992.. 3..? around then anyway.

We had a variety of lifts: a travelling salesman's van filled with product demo stuff; An 18-wheeler with a bag of weed stowed behind the rear view mirror and tunes pumping out; and finally (appropriately) a VDub camper van with gallon jars of cydrrrr passed around as we crawled the last five miles with the doors open.

It was blisteringly sunny all weekend, which was fortunate as none of us has bothered to bring a tent.

[Mikecg]

I have never been in a stuation where I never had the ability to get home, why because I'm a bit of a sensible joe when it comes to a bed and getting to one.

On that note I am up at 5:00AM

Night Night forumites.

[JetSetWilly]

94 i hitched from the smoke to munich for the beerfest, camped and spent all the dosh i would have spent on travel,food etc, on booze. took 4 days to get there and 1 to get back, courtesy of a little lass from brisbane whose coach party i fell in with, as the tour leader said theres always more go out than come back.

[ruffers]

I picked up a hitch hiker once in my life - birmingham (ish) to Manchester. I spent the entire time absolutely shit scared of him, sitting in my car, with his bags, could have been a mentalist.

Never again.

[Asset]

Edinburgh to London several times in the old days. Once when I was about 8 with my mum and her boyfriend who had an HGV license. We stood at service stations and he waved his license. We did the whole journey in various artics, quite good fun. Did it a couple of times when I was about 18 too, some funny old people driving up and down the M6/M1.

[Strawbs]

Ive never hitched or picked up a hitchiker, always been too scared will get someone who would chop me up to be honest..

I think after the Ivan Millat case in oz people got pretty freaked and hitching became a thing of the past..

IM

[SeanMacGabhann]

Hitched pretty much every week for about 2 years back in the 80s. Only a 60 mile round trip in Ireland and mostly dull - but a few good days

I got picked up by this student (therefore older than me at the time) and started having a chat - decided to stop for a beer when we got to Cork.. that turned into a 12 hour session and I'm still not sure how I made it back to the coast.

[JetSetWilly]

did you bring a fridge with you?

[Cassius]

Back of the melon van from Kalkan to the village we were staying in (not very comfortable sitting on melons)

[Jah Lush]

When I was 16 I hitched down to Devon for a week or so with a mate (now long since deceased, god rest his soul) and we spent the nights sleeping rough. I left a few days earlier than him because I'd blown all my money and got home from Salcombe Bay in about five lifts, one of which left me just outside Taunton where I enjoyed a couple of very strong pints of "proper" scrumpy (full of bacteria and whatnot). I got back out on the road, stuck my thumb out and almost immediately got a 90 mile lift but spent most of it passed out in the back seat.

[Louisa]

I once hitched a ride from Canberra to Sydney in the back of a pick up truck containing 3 dogs. Took a fair few hours from memory and I was knocked about a bit, I had loads of bruises too. In the UK I have hitched pretty much everywhere, but the most memorable one was back in 1986 when I was drunk and I fell out of a pub in St Ives Cornwall and managed to somehow make it back to London overnight in a car full of people I had been speaking to in the pub (I was not meant to come home for another week but just for the hell of it thought it would be fun). When I got home I realised that all of my bags and personal belongings were still on a camp site in Hayle and I had just come back to London only to have to catch a train back down to Cornwall the next day to continue with my holiday. Fun times.

Louisa.

[Michael Palaeologus]

The "head being banged of the roof of the car" and the "bloke who disappeared off the back of my motrocycle while going through a Swiss tunnel" stories were told to me during a drunken evening with a strange Swiss couple in their posh villa on top of hill in Deia when I was very youthful and impressionable.

Believed every word.

[bon3yard]

There was this one time when my mate told me it was the end of the world and then a vogon constructor fleet hove into view and we were whisked on board and the Vogon Jeltz read us some terible poetry and there was a man who used to be president of the univere who had 2 heads and a manic depressive mechanoid, some Mice and a....oh, hang on. ::o

[espelli]

In the early 90s I hitched a lift from Ceres (South Africa) up to the Namibian border with a very nice bloke. It started with a few beers and then included a swim in a dam that was just too tempting to pass by, finished off by chasing another car with Windhoek number plates to the border (a long way out of this guy's way). The second guy then gave us (two 18yr old girls) the keys to his car and went to sleep in the back. He only woke up when we had to stop at a police checkpoint in the dark in the middle of the Namib desert. Brilliant fun. I loved hitch hiking, met some great and scary people and it made long journeys much more enjoyable. It also made me realise the lengths some people will go to to help a couple of strangers.

[brum]

Hitched a ride one evening from Berlin to Frankfurt in only 3 hours because driver had a big Mercedes and he 'loves to drive fast'. He stopped for fuel on the way which gave me the opportunity to climb into the back - sitting in the front was far too scary!