UKC

 I read the thread title "Tips for reducing the cost of a long Alps trip" and my first thought was hitch hiking? Whatever happened to this traditional method used by the impecunious young of yesteryears?

Why don't people use this method of travelling any longer?

How times have changed, the perception of high risk -is it really that much more dangerous than it was half a century ago? The rise in car ownership particularly amongst the young? Countries and states banning it? The spread of motorways? There were very few in those days.

How many of the old timers on this Forum used to hitch hike to get to the mountains, crags and hills? When I was in my late teens and early 20s it was the accepted means of getting there. I couldn't afford a car, nor could my friends. We hitch hiked everywhere. I climbed throughout the UK and Europe by hitchhiking there. It was part of the holiday. Then when in my mid 20s I got my first vehicle, a 3 gear Ford van, I used to regularly pick up hitch hikers. A sure way of improving your chances of getting a lift was to drape your coiled rope over your rucksack. You met lots of interesting travellers and I never felt threatened or in danger, other than very occasionally being scared stiff by a bad driver and asking to be dropped off at the next town saying that I had changed your mind about where I was heading!

In those days lorry drivers and commercial travellers often gave you a lift and would buy you a coffee, even sometimes even a meal, when they stopped for a rest at a transport cafe. Hitch hiking in Europe was interesting and often amusing when trying to hold a conversation. Similarly understanding a lorry driver with a broad Glaswegian accent could be challenging for a southerner like me.

I even once, in the early 1960s got an, illegal, lift back to an airfield in Southern England with 2 RAF officers who had driven up to an airfield in the north of Scotland to bring back an Avro Anson. It's a long story how I met them and wangled the lift with them, but it was certainly my most exotic one.

Really sad .. Having hitchhiked everthing between Kurdistan, the Pyrenees, Greece and Norway.  Was fun and interesting, and I was taking youngsters now if there where any onvthe road. 

I've done it a few times both abroad and in the UK. Depends where you are. 

I feel like it can be virtually impossible to get a ride in certain places in England. Around climbing areas and national parks it's a lot easier.

I used to hitch a lot but then I grew up and got a decent job etc!

Still do from time to time if I'm doing a point to point route or cock up and end up miles from where I started. It's still easy to get a lift in the Highlands particularly if you look like an out door type and not just a scumbag.

I think there was a period of maybe 2 or 3 decades after the war when not many people had cars and hitchhiking was socially acceptable.  As people became more affluent and car ownership increased you began to see few hitchers.  I think drivers became more cautious about picking up random strangers.

I had mixed success hitching myself.  I once waited for hours outside Leeds, where I think the size of my rucksack was a deterrent because others who arrived after me got picked up.  However I eventually got a lift all the way to London in a Jensen Interceptor - the driver told me to watch the bridges for speed traps while doing the ton down the M1.

On another occasion I was driven into Edinburgh in grand style, in the back of a chauffeur-driven Bentley.  That wasn't typical - we took a bus out of town, slept under a hedge, and next morning found ourselves in a lorry.

As a driver, I picked up a couple hitching out of Glen Brittle on Skye and dropped them off in the Lake District. I never had that much luck myself.

I had some interesting experiences hitching but can't say I really miss it.

Best lift I got was from Kendal to a Ambleside in an open top E type Jag one lovely warm summers evening in the mid 60's, when we regularly hitched to the lakes for the weekend. Was praying that I could pass one of the lads further up the road so I could give them the royal wave as we passed, but didn't unfortunately,

Still give lifts to hitchers occasionally when I see them about.

I have a vague memory of a similar thread several years ago.  Like many others of my age I used to hitch a lot when I was a student (late 70s/early 80s), mostly to get around Scotland but also out to the Alps on one occassion. Never had any serious problems other than the odd extra bivy, including one night in Welsh graveyard when I gave up trying to get a lift late in the evening, hopped over a low wall & went to sleep on some grass only to discover it was a cemetry the next morning

Still stop for hitch hikers from time to time but don't see many

I picked up a hitcher last weekend and I last hitched in Scotland in February but it has gone very quiet...

Hitching is still pretty common in Ariège for some reason, locals as well as visitors. As I'm usually in a 9-seater van it seems rude not to stop a lot of the time, though I will still drive past anyone who looks a bit rough unless they're obviously an outdoorsy type.

I hitched around New Zealand a bit last year/ They haven't really got a motorway system like ours in the UK and there are relatively few roads so you could stand on junction and get a lift that was likely to be going where you wanted to go. With people doing long journeys on motorways I can't think it would be easy to hitch around the majority of the uk, maybe in more rural areas it would be easier.

Last time was 2 years ago, from somewhere in Yorkshire for about 10 miles ... the guy who picked my wife and me up was a climber off to Malham to work on an 8a, climbers are a good bunch!

Best I ever had was in 1980 from just outside Paris to Matlock, 8 miles from home. I was completely broke, except for the saved ferry fare. My rescuer (a businessman who'd done the Cuillin traverse) not only paid my fare plus a meal and a few beers on the boat, he gave me £10 "for emergencies" and told me to pass it on to some other needy hitchhiker when the opportunity should arise, which it did, 10 years later.

They are still out there but not as much. I see probably 1 or 2 hitches a month around the Yorkshire motorway network but the majority are carrying trade plates rather than a rucksack. I always stop if I'm going their way. You meet the odd interesting person. 

'Commercial travellers'! That's a term not often heard nowadays. Always takes me back to my time in the building game where we used a set of boning-rods, 3 t-shaped pieces of wood of equal length. One was placed at  a fixed height at each end of a line and someone would sight across them, the third rod (the traveller) being moved up or down until it was level with the others, the bottom was then marked, thus transferring intermediate levels. Anyway, one of the guys was a big Irishman, Joe, and whenever we were going to used the rods/travellers he'd dish them out whilst loudly proclaiming, "Commercial travellers! Commercial travellers!"

See quite a few hitchhikers around here (N Wales, so maybe not surprising) but they tend to be obviously walkers or climbers and you can usually predict where they are going and that it will be a fairly short journey e.g. recently given lifts to one guy along Ogwen valley to his car at Idwal, another from Llanberis to PyP. Had a lift myself from a van driver to take me back to my car after doing some hills in Glen Shiel - again, a fairly predictable route. This is a bit different to someone at a services or a motorway junction who could be going anywhere but, as has been said, there tends to be less and less of these long-distance hitchers around. 

A few weeks ago I had just turned onto the slip-road to join the A55 and about 10m along it was a 'plater' (a trade-plate delivery guy) with his thumb out. I would have stopped but had cars coming up behind me and was getting up speed to join the main road - I didn't think it was the best place to choose to hope to get a lift, I wonder how long he waited.

As with John Arran, I wouldn't stop for anyone who looks rough (my dynamic assessment and definition applies at the time) or that they might be a bit of a nutter.

BlaBlaCar Is used extensively on the continent, and several times it has paid for long journeys. It's never really taken off in the UK, though.

An old partner and I hitched from South East Turkey back to Surrey and then onto North Yorkshire. The last leg of the journey being the hardest.

Nothing but amazing experiences and lovely people. I’ve got a huge dept of hitch hiking karma to pay back, which I’m still waiting to start payments on. 

Yes me too - would think nothing of hitching anytime and anywhere back in the 70's/ 80's - not always successfully - but find I don't need to now. But I will always give a lift to anyone I see with a rucsac - didn't have any luck ten years ago with my daughter after finishing the Aonach Eagach- nobody stopped to give a lift back to the start - it was a hard trudge back!

Pre 2017 before I passed my test I used it regularly. Once, expecting nothing I checked for an overnight lift from Bristol to Stansted for my 6am flight, lo and behold someone leaving at 12am and arriving at 4am! For about £9. Couldn’t make it up. 

When I passed I gave someone a lift from Bristol to London for about £10 and decided it wasn’t really worth it unless you’re doing it regularly, was a faf finding them and they loaded my car with luggage and then had me going to a random part of London. 

Dont know why it’s bit bigger here. Maybe people just prefer to pay for the mega bus and not have to meet a stranger. 

I hitched across the UK and Europe throughout the 1980s, not always successfully, but I never had a truly bad experience. That era ended when, in 1989, I gave up trying to hitch out of Bristol on the M32 after a couple of fruitless hours, caught the train to North Wales instead and later met my first wife on Bangor railway station after my first successful go at the Welsh 3000s. She had a car.

One of the best - Salzburg to the Austro-German border (10 km) three hours. Austro-German border .. First car stops and gets direct lift to Chamonix ...

My experiences says it is easier to get a lift on motorways. Stand where a vehicle can pull over. Always face the traffic. Don't wear a hat. Have a sign that states your destination. (e.g. M6 North then local towns) Don't walk with your back to the traffic with thumb out otherwise drivers will think you haven't got far to go, nowhere to pullover and don't stop.

In this country I have had a lift with somene who was moving an illegal still to a different part of the country, a lift from someone who was using drugs whilst driving, a lift from someone who was on the run from the police. Didn't ask if it was his car. They saw hitch-hikers as anti-establishment so stopped to give a lift.

Best ever lift was a 3 day lift from Ljubljana (Yugoslavia 1983)) to Athens with a Dutch lorry driver. Also got the worst lift when a Turkish lorry driver wanted to kill me and share my belongings out with 2 other people he'd picked up. Did have an Italian male car driver physically try to get my trousers off. Same trip I had a gun pointed at me at the Greek Turkish border.

Generally in this country I have found it easier to get lifts on motorways but harder to get to the final destination as drivers may be doing shorter journeys. Much easier in Snowdonia/Lakes/Scotland with a rucksack as fellow mountaineers are probably used to helping out. I have had some crackin' lifts with some interesting people and I am not averse to picking people up if I am driving.

Happy hitching.

I had better luck 3 years ago, trying to get back to the Clachaig. After 20 minutes with my thumb out I was picked up by a retired Scotsman who was on a day-trip (!) from his home in the central belt  - "better than watching daytime TV", he said.

I hitched regularly as a youth and would often pick up hikers in my car. That ended when the hitcher to whom I offered a lift from Broadford to Kyle smelt so appallingly bad I don't think I could put myself through the horror again.

Another ex hitcher here,although in Scotland only a couple of years ago I hitched round from the end of Glen Etive back round to my parking spot on the road to Oban, having spent a few days walking through. 3 lifts, one after the other, with hardly any waiting in between. Still an excellent way to get around the Highlands. 

Last time I hitched was some time in the 1980's. I wanted to get back from Grassington to Edale. I ended up by being given a lift by someone who was going down the M1 to London. They dropped me off at a roundabout near Doncaster. Unfortunately, this turned out to be a junction between two motorways, where I was stuck just as it was going dark. Eventually, a police car pulled up and asked what I was doing. When I explained they offered to drive me back to Doncaster and drop me off by the station. When we got there the station was closed for the night.

They then offered to drive me back to the police station where I was welcome to stay the night in an unlocked cell. I was given a good breakfast in the morning and they drove me back to the railway station! Can't imagine that happening nowadays!

It's possible I'm just a scumbag - any advice on how to look like a proper outdoor type?

One of the first books on 'how to climb' that I read back in the 70s had a chapter, or at least a section, on how to hitch hike & from memory it recommended having a rope visible & using an umbrella when it rained

As a student in the 80's I did a charity jailbreak. As far as you can get in 24 hrs without paying for transport or accommodation. Hitched from Dundee to the Isle of Wight and back again dressed as convicts. Great laugh. Pickup hitchhikers in the Highlands quit often now. 

Wish you'd been there in July 1984. I hitched from Wiltshire to Sligachen in 3 days. Got to Peterhead in one day, having got into a lorry on the M6 and fallen asleep before the driver and I had properly discussed the difference between east and west, then spent an entire Sunday moving Skye-wards inches at a time. There seemed to be almost no cars on the road, or anyone that would look me in the eye.

The last time I hitch hiked was around 1981.  I was on a flight to Glasgow, and discovered the plane was going to Teesside where it would spend the night. Teesside is much nearer my home (but not too near  ).  I asked for a lift off the stewardess and after checking with the captain I got a free flight to Teesside!!

But my wife had an even better hitch hike when she was married before me around 1970(?)  She lived in Eire, and asked a Captain of a geerman merchant vessel, a tanker, which was on some jetty near where her then husband worked if she + family  could get a lift to the Scilly Isles which she knew the vessel was passing.  The skipper checked with his company and said yes as long as she could arrange a pick up off the coast. The tanker was too big to pull alongside any jetty!  This was done (she had a friend in the Scilly isles who arranged this)  and the ship stopped off the scilly Isles, at night and rendezvoused  with a fishing vessel off the coast.  She also happened to have a 18month old child and three young kids to lower down into the hands of the fishing boat's crew!! - 3 weeks later this was all done in reverse!!

I'm not sure  you'd manage any of that now!!!

That's a classic

Hitchhiking is still going on the continent, even though BlaBlaCar and similar ride-sharing services have taken its place for many routes. I still try it ocassionally when just trekking in the countryside when convenient, although for longer routes I prefer more scheduled kind of transport (alas, the student days of not minding when one arrives somewhere are now long gone). Although I even made a few long-time friends (as a driver) that way.

Back in the university, one summer we hitchhiked from Central Europe to the Romanian mountains and then back with a friend, she even had a small dachshund dog with us (the dog really helped!). Mind you, the truckers were a little less concerned about regulations then...

Again rope on show. I got a lift once with someone who said he could tell I was a genuine mountaineer from my fluffy, wool balaclava....I wouldn't use this method now as I'm too wimpy for the itchiness to be worth it.

Actually I think its important not to look too outdoorsy regarding grime and stubble (I always try and carry a small shaver).

I'm too impatient to hitch long distances and use public transport when possible. Five hours near a motorway entry was enough for me. However I often hitch around an area locally where public transport is infrequent or absent. Skye and Arran great where everyone appreciates travel difficulties, also being older maybe I don't appear as a threat. 

Best experience with a mate in Pyrenees in winter. We were taken miles past the driver's intended destination to our own, weather terrible so he took us back, paid for meals and bed in hotel, then took us back next morning.