Thanks to the movies, most people are convinced that any hitchhiker is a psychopath just waiting for the first poor sap to give them a ride. In reality, most of them are just normal people in need of a lift. While these stories may not convince anyone to pull over the next time they see some wandering soul sticking their thumb out, at least we can enjoy these amazing stories from the brave people who did just that.
1. Tread Lightly
Six years ago, my wife and I were biking through Oregon and Idaho. We'd just arrived outside of Boise and I had just gotten my seventh flat tire of the day—we later discovered that the tape on the rim had worn out and a spoke was puncturing the tire. We hadn't made it half a mile since the gas station where I'd just finished patching my sixth flat tire.
My wife was thoroughly fed up and wanted to get to the hotel room my mom had rented for us in Boise as a present. She decides to try hitchhiking and starts walking her bike towards me. Given that we've got two heavily loaded bikes, and that we're both obviously filthy from biking through Eastern Oregon, our hitchhiking prospects were slim. A van pulled up and a family of Latinos loaded our bikes in the back and drove us to our hotel. They refused money. It was awesome.
2. Culture Clash
Ten years ago, I backpacked in Central America for three months and everywhere I went, locals would offer me a ride if they saw me walking along the side of the road. It was very normal for them, as so many people don't have cars. It made me nervous at the beginning because I'd be an easy target for theft and sometimes the ride was a pickup truck with a few guys in back with machetes. But once I realized that they needed the machetes just to do their jobs, it became no big deal.
Everyone was super nice. That is, until I got to about 48 km (30 mi) south of Cancun, where more of the cars were American and tooling around in rented jeeps, etc. On that particular day, when I was trying to get to the airport to meet somebody flying in to meet me, nobody would stop, despite my putting my thumb out. I even walked up to a guy at a restaurant and asked him point blank if he would mind just dropping me a few miles up the road.
He just shook his head and rushed away, looked a little scared even. I realize that these people were bringing their context and reality into a new and unfamiliar context/reality—and I looked pretty scruffy by then—but it really made me realize what a nation of scaredy cats we've become, afraid to help a person who's fairly obviously in a pinch, because of the 0.5% chance I've got an ulterior motive.
3. Family Reunion
In university, I tried to surprise my girlfriend by taking a train out to Kingston, ON to surprise her the night of her birthday, which she wasn’t expecting me to do due to my late in the school year lack of funds. So after getting to the train station I hop off and hail a cab only to hop in and realize I left my wallet on the train, in the stupid seat back pouch. So I got out and started huffing around trying to text my girlfriend’s friends to see if they even had a car at school to come pick me up.
A young girl walked up to me and started making small talk asking me if I went to Queens, the school I was headed. I told her my situation and she offered to give me a ride with her friends who were picking her up. Two more girls show up and pick us up, and I tell them my lame tale. They were stopping to get booze on the way back and bought me a cheap bottle of wine to get things back on track with my surprise.
I couldn't believe it. They dropped me off at my girlfriend's and creeped me through the windows just well enough to see her do the old jump and wrap the legs around hug. The girls added me to Facebook and I realized, through looking at our mutual friends, that the driver was my second cousin, and we chat a lot more often than before, which was never.
4. Our Little Secret
When I was twelve or thirteen my Dad and I were on our way home from somewhere a few hours away and he decided it would be a good idea to pick up the hitchhiker on the side of the interstate holding a cardboard sign with the name of our town on it. As soon as we picked him up it was obvious that he was homeless. He smelled terrible and when we asked him where he lived he asked just to be dropped off downtown.
His name was Stepps. He turned out to be very nice and down to earth. He told us about hitchhiking all over the country and what he had seen. Before we dropped him off we bought him some McDonald's and then never saw him again. My dad's first words when he got out of the car were, "Don't tell your mother about this".
5. Fishy Situation
My father was working nights at an airport and I was his transportation back and forth. One night he calls me to show up early. As I pull up, my father is standing next to a small man with several boxes. My father instructs me to load up the boxes—they are cold and wet. The man gets inside and my father tells me to drive to downtown.
It was a quiet ride. We get near downtown and my father directs me towards the Greyhound bus station. I help unload the boxes and I wander around as my father talks a little bit with the man. Eventually, the man boards a bus and my father comes back to the car with one of the boxes. I ask, "Who's that?" and "What's in the boxes?" and my father just smiled. We eventually get home and he brings in the box. My mother joins us as we wait for my father's revelation. We all look over his shoulder as he pulls out…fish—frozen salmon, to be specific.
Apparently, the man was a fisherman that had been working in Alaska. He had saved up to transport himself and his cargo, but couldn't complete his goal of selling off some of his fish to get enough for cab fare to downtown. My father, always a generous man, had offered to give the man a ride for free. As a thank you for the ride, and for even giving him the time of day to ask if he needed anything, he gave my father a giant box of frozen salmon. We ate salmon for a while.
6. Educational Drive
I was dropping a friend off at the airport and some middle-aged guy with luggage came up to my car and asked for money for a taxi to where his hotel was. He kind of didn't know the city's geography, and a taxi would have cost around $80. He didn't look too happy when I told him that and explained that he had just flown in from a job interview in Detroit, and was in town for another job interview the following day.
After hemming and hawing, I let him jump in, and drove him the 64 km (40 mi) to his hotel. He was apparently an engineer, who I kid you not, worked on rockets, the Space Shuttle, and other various flying things. He said he was on his last legs, and these job interviews were the last bit of hope for him. We just talked the whole time about his previous jobs and various 3D rendering software technology. It was my first time picking up a hitchhiker, and he wasn't creepy at all.
7. Sweet Gesture
I live in Japan and I once picked up two guys hitchhiking. They had come from Okinawa—at the very southern end—hitched all the way up to Hokkaido, and were now hitching back. When I dropped them off they gave me a candy bar, and we posed for photos because they were collecting pictures of everyone who gave them lifts along the way. This was kind of a pay it forward thing for me because in Australia our Japanese exchange student got lost one time and some random guy picked him up and drove him to our house, dropped him off and drove off again without ever saying anything. This kid spoke NO English either.
8. Don’t Think Twice
For the past year, I've tried to pull over when I see someone by a broken down car. I don't drive much, but I've probably pulled over about fifteen times. This past summer I was on my way back to school and saw a guy who was sitting in his car on the side of the road so I pull over to see if he needs any help. He was broken down, had no phone, and was two hours from his home so I let him use my phone to call whoever he needed.
I've always thought that I wouldn't pick up a hitchhiker because, well, I don't know what would happen. But after he got off the phone I asked if he needed anything else and he asked for a ride to the nearest gas station, 20 minutes away. I didn't even think about it and told him to get in the car. If I had thought before answering I doubt I would have offered but I gave him a ride and no trouble came to me.
I felt terrible for the guy. He was 25 and was already divorced and lived three hours from his kids. So, every other weekend he drove three hours in his early 90s piece of junk car to see his kids. I knew he hated his life except for his kids, good god I could tell he loved his kids. I can only hope that someday I'm as loving of a father as he is.
9. Runs in the Family
I picked up a guy down in Dayton and drove him 48 km (30 mi) north. He smelled funny but was nice. He was telling me about this driver in Tennessee who purposely hit him with their car. He had a huge gash on his arm and it looked gnarly. As chance would have it I had recently gotten a piercing so I had a tube of Neosporin with me. It wasn't much but I gave it to him when I dropped him off. I was a tad nervous picking up an older male hitchhiker since I am a female and at the time I was maybe 19, but I'm glad I did it. When I was younger, my mom brought home two hitchhikers and they stayed with us for a few days, so maybe it's genetic.
10. All Aboard!
First time I picked up hitchhikers was when I was in Banff on a course and decided to go skiing. I had reserved a small rental car but ended up with a Dodge Charger that looked like a hearse. On my way back to town from the hill I saw a couple of kids with snowboards and their gear, offered them a ride and they were dumb-founded, readying themselves to walk quite a ways carrying their boards. They told me that they always walk because nobody ever stops for them with their boards. By chance I had this massive rental car and lots of time to kill. The look of stunned appreciation from people not expecting a favor is awesome.
11. Instant-ish Karma
I have picked up and been picked up. I was on my way home after dropping the bf off at his place, and I saw a van on the side of the road with the side doors open and a man waving cars down. No one stopped for him. I stop and get out of my car and there he is, with his pregnant wife, out of gas. So I offered him a ride to the gas station. Of course, it was closed, so we drove to another. Thankfully this one was open and we drove back. He was a really nice guy, tried to pay me but I couldn't accept it. I think I was 20 at the time.
The time I was picked up was only a year ago. I was at a club with my friend and her bf and she disappeared—tipsy btw. Her boyfriend was no help and I told him that if he wasn't going to help me find her he could go screw himself, so he left. The club starts to close and I'm stuck with no ride and not knowing anyone. One of the Bouncers at the club saw me and started chatting with me. I told him what happened and he offered me a ride home. Not only did he drive me home but he also drove around the immediate area of the club looking for my friend before we gave up and drove away.
12. Life Lesson
I'm from the Florence, KY area and have picked up a hitchhiker before on my way to a Chipotle with some friends. He was a nice guy, probably 30 or so, we bought him a burrito and chips and gave him a little money and said we were sorry that we couldn't drive him any further north because we just weren't simply going that way. He was a really down to Earth man and kept thanking us and saying we were, "the nicest buncha kids" he had ever met.
He told us he was going to Cleveland to live with a relative of his who said he could give him a job at his business. He was a great guy and it was the only time I have ever picked up a hitchhiker and I guess I am guilty of passing a few up from time to time, but I think this experience really showed me that sometimes, stuff happens to people and just because you are down on your luck, doesn't mean you aren't a human and everyone can use a little help from time to time.
13. Pit Stop
I saw a guy in LA who needed a ride out to my neck of the woods. I took him and had a nice chat with him. Turns out he wanted to go to a local speedway to see the NASCAR race. He was dressed pretty nice, so I asked how he would pull it off. He said he would say he was the cousin to someone in so and so's pit crew and that his wife was in labor. He said it worked all the time.
14. Life Savers
My Dad has told me this story several times. In the late 60s or early 70s, my Dad and his best friend are driving down a beat-up country highway in the rural South late at night, getting high on their way to a party. At one point, they see lots of cars parked on the side of the road near a bunch of fields so they slow down to see what's going on. What they saw was a giant Ku Klux Klan meeting going down—apparently, this was pretty common in that area. They're freaked out and just drive on.
About 15 minutes later, they can see someone in the distance walking toward them, on the same side of the road as the KKK meeting some miles back. Once they get closer to the guy, they realize it's a black kid around their same age—early 20s. They pass him and then a minute later realize what might go down. So they turn around, go back to where he is, stop, and roll down the window. "Hey," they asked, "Where are you going?"
The guy was sort of apprehensive—still a lot of blatant and violent racism in that area at the time—but finally said he was walking into the small town my Dad and his friend were coming from. My Dad says, "Look man, you should get in the car. We'll give you a ride". The kid is hesitant, but they said, "We're not going to hurt you or anything. Just get in the car. You'll see why".
The kid finally agrees, probably because my Dad and his friend were hippies and looked harmless, and they head into town. When they passed the Klan meeting, the kid realized the danger. They finally dropped the guy off at his house on the outskirts of town, the guy thanked them profusely, they offered him some of their joint, to which he declined, and then drove off, never to see him again. They quite possibly saved this guy's life by letting him hitch a ride.
15. Cereal Killer
I picked up a guy and his girlfriend one time. The guy sat in the front and his girl in the back. I'd been driving them for about 10 minutes, making small talk with the guy and not paying any attention to the girl. I took a look in the rear view mirror and noticed that the girl had opened a box of Captain Crunch cereal I was keeping back there and was helping herself. I pulled over and asked them politely to step out, and they did. I don't know about you guys, but if I found food in the back of a stranger's car, I probably wouldn't eat it.
16. Family Friendly
Two buddies and I were out of town doing some work. It was after the shift was over and we were staying at a hotel. We were on our way to the local Walmart to pick up some food and stuff when we saw this family—a young man, woman, and baby—walking on this desolate highway that was in the middle of a forested area. The Walmart was like 8 km (5 mi) away.
There was this trailer park to the side of the road at the beginning of this forest and I think they came from it. When we saw them they were just walking down the side of the road and my friend pulled over really fast and we picked them up. I'm guessing they just didn't have much money and no car and needed to make it to Walmart in order to get some food and what not. The woman was clearly pregnant with another baby and holding their what looked to be about a one-year-old baby with them. They were very thankful.
17. Could’ve Been Worse
I was about 18, driving back in my Chevette from a family reunion at the beach in SC and I stopped and picked up a hitchhiker. The first thing that grabbed my attention was the hatchet he had strapped on his backpack, although I didn't notice this until he was throwing it in the hatchback. Made me a little nervous, but it turned out he was a nice guy, heading to a music festival up in the NC mountains.
Everything was good right up until I was driving through Cheraw, SC and got stopped in a speed trap. Not only did this guy look the part of a drugged-out hippy but, for reasons I won't get into, the T-shirt I was wearing had been ripped to shreds. I can't imagine what the officer thought, and I was sweating bullets the whole time about what quantity of illicit substances this guy had in his pack. Somehow, I managed to both avoid a car search and get off with a warning.
I later got to experience this from the other side a few years later. I hitched 2,500 km (1,553 mi) up the Australian coast from Sidney to Cairns. Luckily, I always caught rides from one big city to another, never getting dropped off in the middle of nowhere. All of the Australians that gave me lifts were great folks, one even putting me up for a night.
18. Family Wisdom
So I moved up to Ohio from Texas when I was about five because my parents split. Fast forward about four years and I have never seen or heard from my Dad. Seemingly out of nowhere he just shows up one day in Ohio and I guess he had talked to my mom, but she let him take us to the place he had rented for a few days. It was a weird couple of days being with him, but that story isn't really relevant.
I eventually figured out that he had hitchhiked the whole way up here to see us—my younger brothers, sister, and I—and the only money he had was for the place we stayed at, a rental car, and food. This was consequently the last time I ever saw him alive, so if it wasn't for a couple nice people that picked him up along the way, I would have never had a first-hand account of anything he'd done.
My dad was by no means a great person, in fact a very bad one, but one thing I remember from his whole visit was that we were on the way to get something to eat and my dad saw a guy on the side of the road. Mind you, I'm nine and my brothers and sisters are around six, four and seven at the time. He stops and picks up this guy and takes him out to lunch with us and then we eventually drop him off a few miles down the road.
The only thing I really remember my Dad telling me in my whole life was, "we don't have a right to judge the circumstances that got an individual to the place they are at today, and if you can help that individual in anyway you should". With all that being said I still don't think any lone female should pickup a hitchhiker. Nothing to do with gender per se, just brings me to one of my mom's most famous quotes, "Trust someone as far as you can throw them".
19. A Familiar Face
My dad grew up on a farm, so his high school was pretty far away from home. Anyway, he used to skip school occasionally and hitchhike home because his parents were both at work. One day he was walking down the road, heard a car pull up behind him and turns to jump in. It was his dad out buying parts for a car he was working on. Oops
20. Why Not
I have not picked up a hitchhiker yet, but I have been picked up. I happened to be walking down the highway to work and this car all of a sudden pulled over in front of me onto the shoulder. The driver backs up, rolls down the window, and says, "Do you need a ride?" I was taken aback because I wasn't looking for a ride. I looked at the car and looked inside and saw two little kids. I was like well what the heck, so I got in.
As soon as I got in I was greeted with 90-degree heat. I was like what the heck. The guy driving explained that he and his sons had just gotten back from rafting down the river and were trying to dry off. Long story short—I made it to work way earlier then I had planned and met a total stranger on the way. It's still one of my creepiest experiences because I have no idea what I did to make him think I needed a ride.
21. All Toot No Bite
In the summer of 2016, I was hitchhiking to a hippie festival in Slovakia when a car pulled over and offered to drive me to the next city. It was a man with the cutest puppy ever, which I got to hold on my knees for the ride. It was one of those huge white shepherd breeds—the dog was about three months old, but was growing fast! He was white and fluffy and was destined to guard his owner's workshop when he was fully grown. There was, however, a catch to his cuteness.
It was the first solo trip for the puppy and he was obviously feeling car sick. After a few hairpin bends on the road, the car filled with a putrid smell. We stopped and examined the snow-white fur, but fortunately, they were just toots. We rode the rest of the way with the windows down while the pup whined a little each time he let his noxious gas escape.
22. Universal Language
Winter. It was getting dark. My husband and I were near the railway station of Sorrento, Italy, not even on the outskirts of the city, trying to catch a ride to Naples. My hands were buried in warm black gloves and nobody could see I was hitchhiking, so I decided to take them off. But then my hands turned blue from the cold, like a real-life Facebook "like" button.
We spent more than an hour waiting in the cold, until finally an elderly couple stopped and picked us and immediately offered us some candies. They spoke only Italian, while we didn’t speak a word, so our conversation consisted entirely of gestures and mimicry. When we reached our destination, we took their address and later sent a small present to our saviors.
Ivalina from 203challenges.com
23. Breadwinner
My mom and I were on a vacation in a small village in the Rhodopes Mountains in Bulgaria and had to get to a bigger town, Smolyan, 50 km (30 mi) away. It was Saturday and there were no public buses running to our destination, so we hopped on a bus to the next village where, the locals swore, there was some kind of transport going to our destination.
After having arrived in this other village, we were approached by a local elderly man who informed us that there were actually no buses for the next few hours. "So, let’s hitchhike," my mom said—my mom is not the kind of person who would usually say this, so I was pretty surprised and amused. She raised a thumb by the road while I was taking photos of her.
No car stopped. Then we swapped roles and I managed to stop the local bread delivery truck. It turned out that the driver had seen us in the first village and, with a slightly offended tone, asked us why we didn’t ask him to give us a lift. All the way I was holding a box of eggs so they didn’t break. The best part—when we hopped out of the truck, our suitcases smelled like freshly baked bread!
24. Lucky Break
Was leaving from a ski resort a couple of years back, and gave a ride to a couple of guys who lost their car keys on the slopes—they had to go home for the spare key. Funny thing was after they got in I recognized them both from high school, and even better for them is that my destination was just around the corner from the house with the spare keys.
25. Tough on the Outside, Soft on the Inside
I picked up a hitchhiker while road tripping through Ireland at the start of a backpacking trip around Europe with one of my best friends from home. We were soaking in the sights on a complete "life-high" when we saw a bedraggled man on an empty stretch of road. There wasn't a town or city for miles in either direction and he looked a bit rough—caked in sweat and dirt from walking for who knows how long.
I was a little nervous as we were two girls with no knowledge of our surroundings but our adventurous spirits won out and we pulled over without much hesitation. The look of complete relief and appreciation on his face as he started a slow jog to the car made us instantly convinced we made the right decision.
He was a guy in his 20s too, from Romania, and had gotten stranded while visiting a friend during his travels as a competitor in a jiu-jitsu tournament, and yes, as a UFC fan, I did have a fleeting tinge of nervousness when he said he was a professional fighter! In fact, he ended up being a complete sweetheart. Over the course of the one hour drive, in broken English, he told us his story and excitedly convinced us that we had to extend our travels to Romania. He wrote down a list of places and things to do which we were able to reference later in our trip, with a fond memory of a new friend.
26. Who’s Helping Who?
I drove to Alaska from Wisconsin to work for the summer of 2006 with two friends. On the way back, we picked up an Italian woman in Destruction Bay—Yukon, I believe. She introduced herself, "Hello, my name is Maria Carolina, and I am from Italy. I am trying to get to White Horse. Will you take me?" in the cutest of 50-year-old Italian woman accents. She was super well dressed and had a purse and a suitcase.
As soon as she got in and we started moving, she gave us her address in Tuscany, her e-mail address, and phone number, and kept telling us that we could visit and "wouldn't even have to bring any towels," we could use hers. She also told us about her travels—said she takes three months out of the year to go travel around a region of the world, and spends a lot of the time hitchhiking. She was looking for people to drive to Mumbai with the following summer. She'd met a ton of people before us in Alaska and northwest Canada.
Eventually, we stopped to camp, and out of her suitcase she pulled some leftover pizza, some spices, some oil, and a giant slab of caught-that-day salmon that another one of her drivers gave to her. We cooked it over the fire on the tin foil from the pizza, and it was easily the most delicious salmon I've ever eaten.
She spent the night in our car while we camped outside. We got to Whitehorse the following morning. She bought a bunch of groceries for us and made us sandwiches and when we left, she waved at our car until we couldn't see her anymore. She was pretty goofy, and it made for a heck of an experience. I'd highly recommend picking up hitchhikers. Alaska is a great place to do it.
27. From Land to Sea
My buddy has the best hitchhiking story I've heard. I'll recount as best as I can here. This happened along the south shore of Nova Scotia. He was hitchhiking along the "lighthouse route," which is a small highway that runs along the coast as opposed to the interstate style highway that was inland. He gets picked up by a gentleman driving a minivan. They quickly determined that they were going to the same town, so all was good. However, the guy explained he'd have to make a stop along the way.
He pulls into a marina, and it becomes clear that this guy is meeting his family at the wharf by a cruiser sailboat. The guy explains that he's sailing his boat to the destination town, but the wife is driving the minivan—they were getting the boat to the town for a regatta. So my friend had an option—ride in the minivan, or go yachting. So yeah, in coastal regions it's totally possible to end up hitchhiking via boat.
28. Almost Too Good to Be True
I've only picked up a hitchhiker once. I was driving to Memphis and a couple was on the highway and as I passed, the woman’s smile made me stop the car. My wife freaked and asked what I was doing. I told her they looked nice. It turns out they were Swedish college students traveling around the world. Before I go any further, I just realized this sounded like a Penthouse letter and, it is nothing of the sort. These two travelers didn't have a place to stay in Memphis, but had contact to a family on a couch surfing website.
We suggested they come to our friend's parents' house for dinner. They have a large family dinner every Friday night and we don't miss it when we come for the weekend. Halfway through the dinner, the couple brings up couch surfing. Our friend's brother said he was on it and it turned out he was the one the couple communicated with. What are the chances that of all the people who picked these people up, we accidentally bring them to the house they had arranged to stay. This was definitely one of the craziest coincidences I can remember.
29. Deadly Joke
I picked up a hitchhiker. I asked him if he was an escaped serial killer. When he said no I said great, only one in the car at a time. You should have seen the look on his face.
30. Cold Hearted
I don't usually pick up hitchhikers due to the obvious security risk, however, one particular winter I was driving the Icefield Parkway between Jasper and Banff—I should mention that as soon as you leave Jasper there is a big sign suggesting to check your fuel level, as there are no services for hundreds of kilometers. The road is a sinuous highway through the mountains with nothing but a few scenic lookouts.
Anyway, the temperature is somewhere in the negative 20s, and a good hour or so into the trip, I come across a man on the side of the road, hitchhiking, in a pair of shorts and a T-shirt. I'm a long way from anywhere, with no apparent traffic, and here's a guy who's going to freeze to death in the middle of nowhere if left there, so I pick him up. As it turns out, he had been a passenger in his girlfriend's car just a few minutes ahead of me, and they had had some sort of epic fight, and she'd kicked him out of the car. Had I not passed by, he may very well have been another unfortunate soul who chose death over the wrath of an angry woman.
31. Always Willing to Help
I've picked up plenty of hitchhikers in my life. One I remember was a 28-year-old guy who was trying to get to Madison to be a test subject for a new ADD medication. Apparently, they lock you up for a couple months, regulate your diet and exercise, then give you a few grand and set you free. You know, if the meds they're testing don't kill you. Anyway, I got him another 80 km (50 mi) down the road before I had to turn south. He was nice though.
This past June, right before our wedding, my now ex-husband picked up three crusty kids and their dog. They were hitching their way to a Rainbow Gathering, so he brought them home to me. We fed them and packed them goody bags full of aspirin and hand sanitizer, along with 10 pounds of dog food, then drove them to the next state. They were a nice bunch of kids. I've also not picked up hitchhikers who I thought were suspect, but I usually go to the nearest gas station and put together a bag of water, Gatorade and granola bars and bring it to them. Even if I think they look creepy, I still don't want them to go hungry.
32. The Right Leg
I used to do a little hitchhiking around Santa Cruz, where I went to college. This was pretty much accepted, so I never worried too much about safety. During finals week one semester, I decided I didn't want to take the bus, so I thumbed for a ride for a while. A beat up old pick up truck stopped for me. I climbed into the truck, driven by a mid-twenties-ish guy.
His entire left leg was in a cast. I'm talking from the crotch to the toe, in one giant cast. What was particularly amazing about this was that the truck was a manual transmission. When he started driving, I was very impressed to see him manage to shift gears in this old beater truck, with a clutch that looked like heck, with only his right leg. He even managed to keep it pretty smooth.
33. A Tale of Two Mikes
I saw a guy wearing a suit on the side of the road. I usually don't pick up hitchhikers, but the guy's in a suit! So I pull over. It was a last minute decision so I had pulled over quite a ways in front of him and he had to jog to get to my car. Turns out my eyes suck and he was wearing a filthy sweater and looked semi-crazy. He gets in and I introduce myself as Mike and he says that is also his name. I asked him where he's hiking from, he says a town nearby and this convo ensues:
"Oh so you haven't been hiking for long then?"
"Nope, but I've already got a bunch of crazy stories..".
…30 second pause while I wait for him to tell me…
"Uhhh are you gonna tell me the stories?"
"Well this is one!"
"What do you mean?"
"You picked me up and we have the same name!" begins laughing
…Great, I'm dead. This guy is going to kill me and take my car. So I stop at my exit to drop him off and he starts fishing around in his pocket and I'm thinking this is how it ends. Then he grabs $10 and throws it on my seat. I yelled out "You didn't need to do that" and he replied with "You didn't need to pick me up" and like a bald man's hair he was gone.
34. Well Played
One of my uncles went hitchhiking with a friend after they finished undergrad. His best story is that one day while they were in California someone offered to give them a ride towards where they were going. They said the guy seemed nice and they enjoyed his company. After he drops them off on the side of the road, they start heading in the direction they were headed and find someone to give them a ride.
After a number of cars that seemed to speed up when they say my uncle, they started to wonder if something was going on. Then, a cop car pulls up and offers to give them a ride for a few miles. During the ride, the cop told them that about three yards away from where they were dropped off was a sign that said "HITCHHIKERS MAY BE ESCAPED CONVICTS" because they were a few miles from a local jail. The guy must have had a good sense of humor.
35. Driver Wanted
My mom was once driving the Icefields Parkway from her dad's house in Jasper to our house in Calgary in our old car, she was coming to pick up my dad so they could return to Jasper and my dad would drive our new car back to Calgary. She sees a young guy hitchhiking so she picks him up. They get to talking and he's barely 19 and is from Germany, hitchhiking across Canada.
My mom comes to like this guy so much that she turns around and drives him back to Jasper and asks if he will drive our old car back to Calgary for her and she can drive the new car. He agrees and ends up staying at our house for about a week and we became friends since we were close in age. We have each other on Facebook and he always sends me messages to send to my mom and tells us how welcome we are at his house in Germany if we ever make it over there.
36. Different Meaning
I have picked up hitchhikers before, and would again, but haven't seen one for at least three years. I have also hitchhiked before, when it seemed appropriate. However, my two best hitchhiking stories are from Australia. I was attempting to hitch after my car broke down. I stood at the side of the road between two small towns for 45 minutes, with my thumb up before catching a ride.
I was a little mad at the guy who drove by and gave me a thumbs up. I was wearing a dress shirt and dress pants at the time since I had just got off work, so not a sketchy looking hitchhiker. It wasn't until many months later that I learned that Australians point at the road to hitchhike, instead of using a thumbs up sign.
About a month after I hitched there, I saw a woman hitching on the same road, so I thought I would pay it forward and give her a ride. It was awkward as hell, as she sat in the car crying for 20 minutes until I got to the next town. She said she was ok and didn't need help though.
37. Best of Intentions
While in the Coast Guard, I was assigned to a polar icebreaker. On a trip down south, we stopped in Valparaiso, Chile. A bunch of us got to town all right, had a good time. I decided to pack it in after being gone all day, with duty the next morning, so I started walking, looking for a cab and hitchhiking. A guy stopped, and I said to him "barco rojo gordo," which is what it was, a fat red ship.
He evidently saw my camera and assumed I wanted to get some shots, so instead of going back to the boat he drove up into the hills. He would stop periodically and get out, and show me the view and the vista with the dang ship down at the bottom. So, my mistake I guess, I went ahead and took some pictures. This went on a few more times, with me repeating "barco rojo," and him driving further up the darn mountain. It took a few tries, but I finally got him to understand that I wanted to go back, and he took me there. I gave him some money. Frankly, I was glad I didn't get hit in the head for my Canon.
38. Bad at Small Talk
Years ago my best friend and I did a long trip around the southern tip of Nova Scotia. We were in Halifax, and we took a bus to the outskirts of town. Our first ride was this middle-aged man with this East Coast country vibe. I wanna say he was driving a four-door pickup. He sounded a bit concerned for us, so he gave us his business card.
I didn’t keep the card but I’m pretty sure the job he had listed was "pig roasting," which was a little strange. I can’t remember his exact words, but he started telling us about these two women he picked up 10 years ago. These women were backpacking, basically doing the same thing we were doing. He said a few months later he was called by the authorities because these two women were found lifeless somewhere in the bush, and his card was on them.
He told the officers he’d given them a ride, and gave them a card just in case something bad happened. At this point I had my phone open, ready to call 9-1-1 just in case. I remember thinking if something weird happened I could press call and they would hear what was going on. I mean that’s not a great way to make someone feel comfortable on a ride. Nothing ever came of it, he never got charged. I don’t think he did it, but he could have, I don’t know. I don’t think we ever looked it up. I don’t think it was a conscious decision, but I haven’t hitchhiked again since that trip.
39. They’re Both Not Wrong
One night I got off work pretty late, probably around midnight. I lived in a not-great part of a not-great town, but this area was commercial and not bad. I saw a waitress walking across the road, much older than me, and she looked so tired. I could totally empathize because I felt exactly that tired as well.
So I rolled up to her and asked if she needed a ride. She briefly sized me up, then got in. After we settled where she was headed, she told me, "You shouldn't pick up strangers". I replied to her, "you shouldn't take rides from them either" and that was all we said for the rest of the ride, probably 10-15 minutes.
40. Not What He Said but How He Said It
When I was 17 my friend and I—we are both female—picked up a hitchhiker. The guy gets in the back seat and says, in this really creepy voice, "Does your mother know you pick up hitchhikers?" My heart starts racing as I'm thinking that we just made a really stupid mistake by picking up this weirdo. I turn around to look at him and realize that he's an old friend of my mom's who I hadn't seen in a few years. He had grown his hair long and it was lighter than before from living at the beach. Scared the heck out of me for a few seconds.
41. No Laughing Matter
Not my story, but my history teacher's hitchhiker story. As a teenager, my teacher lived in Cook County, Illinois and would frequently walk around town/the city as most people do. One day he was offered a ride by a large-ish man in a car and hitchhiked home. The driver had a clown suit and makeup kit in the back of his car because he said he worked as a clown part time, which should have sent bells ringing, but my friend thought nothing of it. So he got driven to his mom's house and thanked the driver and left. My history teacher said the driver was one of the most polite people he had ever met. A few years later my teacher found out that the man he got into a car with was John Wayne Gacy, Jr.
42. Rollercoaster Ride
First time hitchhiking I got picked up by this somewhat older man. He was driving a pickup with wheelie bins in the back. To strike up a conversation I asked him what he was transporting. His response in a deadpan voice, very serious expression on his face, never taking his eyes of the road, "Bones". Ooookkkkaaaaaayyy".
What kind of bones?" was my second question, still trying keep the conversation going. Again he responds in this super serious/psychopath way, "Hitchhiker bones". I nearly messed my trousers. First time hitchhiking, hearing heaps of horror stories, and this was going to be one in the making. A good five seconds later he starts laughing, tears running down his cheeks. "You should've seen your face!" pointing at me. Insert rage face here He took me all the way to where I wanted to go, going 50 km (30 mi) out of his way to drop me off. Best. Hitchhike. Ever!
