Media

This is an incomplete overview of hitchhiking in media. Please add books you read, and more.

Books

Hitchhiking in literature:

• 'A Hell of a Place to Lose a Cow': An American Hitchhiking Odyssey by Tim Brookes 2001. A hitching journey cross the USA. In English.
• Carsick by John Waters. 2014. A memoir of cross-country hitchhiking journey from Baltimore to San Francisco. In English.
• Hitch-Hiker's Guide to Europe by Ken Welsh: outdated but contains great information for Europe, North Africa, the Middle East and the "Communist countries." Was the inspiration for the title of Douglas Adams' Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy. In English.
• No Such Thing as a Free Ride? A Collection of Hitchers' Tales. Compiled by Simon and Tom Sykes (Great Britain: Cassell Illustrated, 2005). A 192 pg. compilation of hitch-hiking lore and experience, contributed by more than a hundred, from both sides of the experience, mainly British. A great sampling. In English.

• Derelict Days... Sixty years on the Roadside Path to Enlightenment by Irv Thomas. (Bloomington, IN: AuthorHouse, 2004). Personal tales from across a 60-year span of American (and some European) hitch-hiking, in a 226-page text. Mostly written at the time of each adventure, these highlight the consciousness-raising aspect of the experience. Included is a newspaper account of the earliest American hitch-hiker on record (1916). In English.

• The Hitchhiking Grandmother by Grace Small, as told to Ruth Barton Davis (Forest Grove, OR: Pilgrim Way Press, 1990). Quite remarkable life story of a 46-year old woman who took up hitch-hiking in 1941, indulging her adventurous spirit thusly for some 25 years, both in the US and Europe. The 200-page book is cheaply obtainable on bookfinder.com. In English.

• Hitching: tales from the byways and superhighways, by Kirsty Brooks. A collection of stories by hitchhikers, mostly Australians, hitching in Australia, the US, Europe and some random places. Some interesting stories. In English.

• Off the map - A punk rock vision quest told in the tradition of the anarchist travel story, Off the Map is narrated by two young women as they discard their maps, fears, and anything resembling a plan, and set off on the winds of the world. This story is told with genuine hope, and a voice that never loses its connection with the mysteries of life. OTM.

• Norton's Ghost (2010) - A novel rooted heavily in homelessness and hitchhiking. His world thrown into doubt with the death of his father, Kyle Dearmond takes to hitchhiking, where he finds meaning, friends, and a new direction despite the chaos of the wandering road. Website. The book is also available under a Creative Commons by-nc-nd License. Download

• Vagabond in the axis of evil, a book by Juan Pablo Villarino about hitchhiking in Iran, Iraq and Afghanistan.

• Round Ireland with a fridge, a book by the British journalist Tony Hawks telling the story of his hitchhiking trip around Ireland (with a fridge)

• On The Road, Kerouac's classic written in 1951, about his road trips in the US, has been an inspiration to many hitchhikers ever since.

• Travels With A Road Dog: Hitchhiking Along the Roads of the Americas is a memoir describing the experiences of a young woman who gave away her belongings in the 1990's to hitchhike around the United States, Mexico, the Bahamas and Venezuela. Along the way she picks up a dog for a hitchhiking companion. This memoir describes her journey of road life that lasted almost five years.

• The Tao of Hitch-hiking by Marty Segal. With the hitch-hiker's road as the laboratory, The Proof and Technique of Human Energy Transfer, The Quantum Theory of Fleeting Encounters, Non-electronic Information Highways, The Suppressed Significance of Godel's Theorem, Perfect Recall and Creativity, and dozens of Peoples' Wisdoms fuse into a Science Of Living. In English.

• One People One Planet by Andre Brugiroux (Oneworld, 1994) is an account of an 18 year journey of discovery on the road that took the author through 135 countries and over 250,000 miles.

• Hitchhiking Tales from European Roads - My First Light Second by Miran Ipavec (2014) is a collection of tales resulting four decades of hitch-hiking adventures of the author in 38 European countries. Written by the most experienced hitch-hiker from Slovenia, the book is also available in German, Italian and in the original Slovenian version.

• Riding with Strangers by Elijah Wald. The tale of a crosscontinental hitchhiking trip mixed with philosophical reflections about hitchhiking and memories of past trips.
• Bill Bryson - A Walk in the Woods
• Robert Pirsig - Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenanc
• Jacob Holdt - American Pictures
• Colin Flaherty - Redwood to Deadwood
• Jon Krakauer - Into the Wild
• Katia Noyes - Crashing America
• Cheryl Strayed - Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail
• Tom Robbins - Even Cowgirls Get the Blues
• Richard Grant - Ghost Riders

List of books at autostop.lt

Russian

• In Russian there are a lot of books about hitchhiking, Praktika Volnyh Puteshestvyi by Anton Krotov being the most famous and according to many essential reading material for hitchhiking in Russia - if you read Russian that is.

French

• Tôt ou tard. Politique de l’autostop , Hervé Décaudin, Fabien Revard ([1]) Quite hilarious indeed.
• Pratique des voyages libres, Anton Krotov, Pontcerq
• Pouceux : 60 récits de bord de route, Collectif, Éditions Cardinal.
• Le monde en stop, Ludovic Hubler, Géorama.
• La Bible du grand voyageur, Anick-Marie Bouchard, Nans Thomassey & Guillaume Charroin, Lonely Planet. Has 4 chapters out of 40 about hitchhiking (cars, boats, trains and planes)
• La Route et ses chemins, André Brugiroux, Robert Laffont

German

• Hit The Road, by Abgefahren e.V. and published by User:Quarim Quarim - Collected hitchhiking tales

Dutch

• 6 Minuten wachten op geluk, by Marjan Knippenberg

Book Reviews

Carsick by John Waters 2014

Part 1, the best possible. Part 2, the worst possible. Part 3, the truth. It was a good read. I'm not extremely familiar with his work as a director, though have heard stories, and he does reference a lot of pop culture material. So it's a little hitch hiking novelty experience, a little namedropping, and a little fantasy. Beautifully short chapters dividing every ride. A book to be savored, read sparingly and daily. Enjoy! -Reese

Hitch-Hiker's Guide to Europe by Ken Welsh 1977

I think that the book really does some injustice to some countries. Not a source I would want to discuss when traveling to certain areas of Europe. But all the praises to first part of the book instructing all of us how to hitchhike. -Bojan

nomad:books

News articles

Some links to hitchhiking in the news media. See Google News for some current news items.

• The Telegraph - The sad demise of the hitch-hiker, 2 July 2014
• Restore the trust among people, 24 July, 2014 (Also in Serbian)
• Na estrada - Rodar o mundo de carona é mais do que uma aventura. É um estilo de vida (Portuguese) 24 June 2014
• Nómadas 2.0 - À boleia pelo mundo (Portuguese) 8 May 2014
• Stranded Warburton hitchhikers get help from Facebook 18 May 2010
• Guardian - Would you stick out your cyber thumb for a lift?, 4 October 2008
• Hitchhiking My Way Around Cuba: Cubans are required to pick up hitchhikers, August 31, 2006
• What killed hitchhiking?, date unknown
• High-tech pioneers go hitchhiking across America, August 27, 2006
• Hitchhiking All 50 States, October 10, 2006
• Pros and cons for paid hitchhiking, no more "paid hitchhiking" in Nanjing
• Student hitches his way around nation to prove it's friendly, September 25, 2006
• Hitchhiking travel in Russia, October 5, 2006.
• William Shaw sets off on a wild, verge-hopping road trip from Land's End to John O'Groats Sunday, 26 August 2007

Audio

• Hitchhiking: Myths, Facts and Beyond podcast, June 2014
• A Hitchhiker's Audio Tour Of The United States
• The Abgefahren e.V. Podcast and Audio Collection

Video Games

Year	Game	Genre	Publisher	Original platform(s)	Metacritic Score
2021	Road 96	Adventure, Action	DigixArt	PC, Switch	79%
2021	Hitchhiker	Mystery, Adventure	Versus Evil	PC, Switch, Playstation, Xbox

Scientific articles and research

Author	Year	Title	Published in/at	Language	Online available
Julian A. Compagni Portis	2015	Thumbs Down: America and the Decline of Hitchhiking	Wesleyan University	EN	yes
Mewes, M	2016	Riding With Strangers, An Ethnographic Inquiry into Contemporary Practices of European Hitchhikers	University of Hamburg	EN	yes
Jahns, W	2016	Und so weiter und so fort – Eine Ausstellung über das Trampen und die Sehnsucht nach Leben	Hochschule Mannheim	DE	yes
Chesters, G, Smith, D	2001	The Neglected Art of Hitch-hiking: Risk, Trust and Sustainability	Sociological Research Online 6/3	EN	yes
Clifford, MM, Cleary, P	1971	The Odds in Hitchhiking	University of Iowa/University of Wisconsin	EN	yes
Connecticut Legislative Committee	1975	Report of the “Committee To Study The Solicitation Of Rides On Motor Vehicles”	Connecticut	EN	no
Crassweller, P et al.	1972	An Experimental Investigation of Hitchhiking	The Journal of Psychology 82, pp. 43-47	EN	yes
Dallmeyer, KD et al.	1975	Hitchhiking: a viable addition to a multimodal transportation system?	Center for Urban Transportation Studies, University of Colorado at Denver	EN	no
Delannoy, R	2011	Liften en liftgevers. Een exploratief onderzoek naar vertrouwen tussen onbekenden	Universiteit Gent	NL	yes
DiMaggio, P	1971	Sociability and the Hitchhiker; unpublished honours thesis	Swarthmore College, Pennsylvania	EN	no
Fiedler, J et al.	1989	Anhalterwesen und Anhaltergefahren: unter besonderer Berücksichtigung des “Kurztrampens”	BKA-Forschungsreihe Sonderband, Bundeskriminalamt Wiesbaden	DE	yes
Franzoi, S	1985	Personality Characteristics of the Cross Country Hitchhiker	Adolescence 20, pp. 655-668	EN	yes
Garner, A	2008	Risk and reward: the (lost?) art of hitchhiking	University of Melbourne	EN	no
Garner, A	2008	Time & The Hitcher	University of Melbourne	EN	no
Graham, Janet	1966	Rule of Thumb for the Open Road	Sport's Illustrated 6 June 1966	EN	yes
Guéguen, N	2007	Bust Size and Hitchhiking: A Field Study	Perceptual and Motor Skills, 105, 1294-1298. (doi: 10.2466/pms.105.4.1294-1298)	EN	yes
Guéguen, N	2010	Color and Women Hitchhikers’ Attractiveness: Gentlemen Drivers Prefer Red	Col Res Appl, 37, 76 – 78, 2012; DOI 10.1002/col.20651	EN	yes
Grundstad, R	1982	Anti-hitchhiking Laws	Legislative Research, Legislative Administration Committee, Salem, Oregon	EN	no
James, BH	1966	Helping and Hitchhiking	Northwestern University	EN	no
Johnson, RW, Johnson, JH	1978	A Cross-Validation Of The SN Scale On The Psychological Screening Inventory With Female Hitchhikers	University of Wisconsin/University of Utah	EN	yes
Kath, C	2014	Das Trampen - eine soziale Praxis zwischen Individualtourismus und Lebensstil	Augsburg University	DE	yes
Keck-Szabel, M.	2011	A cheap imitation, or tourist innovation? Polish tourism during state socialism through eastern and western eyes	University of California	EN	yes
Mahood, L.	2014	Hitchin’ a Ride in the 1970s: Canadian Youth Culture and the Romance with Mobility	Histoire sociale / Social History, University of Ottowa	EN	yes
Morgan, CJ et al.	1975	Hitchhiking: Social signals at a distance	Bulletin of the Psychonomic Society, University of Washington, Seattle	EN	yes
Mukerji, Chandra	1978	Bullshitting: Road Lore among Hitchhikers	University of California	EN	yes
Müller, A	2013	Trampen als soziale Praxis. Zwischen Individualtourismus und Konsumkritik	Universität Wien	DE	yes
O'Regan, M	2012	Alternative Mobility Cultures and the Resurgence of Hitchhiking	In: Fullagar, S et al., 2012; "Slow tourism: experiences and mobilities", pp. 128-142	EN	yes
O'Regan, M	2013	Independent Travel: Creative Tactics in the Margins	e-Review of Tourism Research (eRTR), Vol. 10, No. 5/6	EN	yes
Packer, J.	2008	Hitching the highway to hell: Media Hysterics and the Politics of Youth Mobility.	In: Packer, J, 2008: Mobility without mayem. Duke University Press	EN	yes
Pomazal, RJ, Clore, GL	1973	Helping on the Highway: The Effects of Dependency and Sex	Journal of Applied Social Psychology 3, pp.150-164	EN	yes
Pudinski, W	1974	California Crimes and Accidents Associated with Hitch-hiking	California Highway Patrol, Operational Analysis Section	EN	yes
Purkis, J	2012	The Hitchhiker as Theorist: Rethinking Sociology and Anthropology from an Anarchist Perspective	In: Kinna, R, 2012; "The continuum companion to anarchism", New York	EN	yes
Rinvolucri, M	1974	Hitch-hiking, or here on hitchwiki	self published, London	EN	yes
Schlebecker, JT	1958	An Informal History of Hitchhiking	The Historian 20, pp.305-327	EN	yes
Schmauks, D	2003	Nonverbal Interaction between Hitchhikers and Drivers / Nonverbale Interaktion zwischen Trampern und Autofahrern	Semiotica 147, 1/4, pp.209-218 / psychosozial 94, pp.119-127	EN / DE	yes
Snyder, M et al.	1974	Staring and Compliance: A Field Experiment on Hitchhiking	Journal of Applied Social Psychology, University of Minnesota	EN	yes
Tobin, N, Sexton, S	1972	Attitudes toward and the effects of physical variables on hitchhiking; unpublished masters thesis	California State University, San Jose	EN	no
Trescher, U, König, H	1987	Trampen: bekannt – unbekannt – verkannt. Eine umweltplanerische Untersuchung.	Projektarbeit am Institut für Landesplanung und Raumforschung, Hannover	DE	no
Viard, S	1999	Auto-stop. Approche géographique	Université de Paris, Nanterre	FR	yes
Wechner, B	2001	A Dearth of Research: Does anyone really know anything about hitch-hiking?	self published online	EN	yes
Wechner, B	2003	Experiments in Hitch-hiking: What works best?	self published online	EN	yes
Vivienne Plumb	2012	Hitchhiking: the travelling female body	University of Wollongong	EN	yes
Timo Riekko	2008	Maantieltä verkkoon: liftaus ja sen uudet muodot 2000-luvulla	University of Jyväskylä	FI	no

If you're interested in more articles, we have also a private collection. To get access, contact Mikael ([email protected]).

We also have a mailing list for people interested in scientific research on hitchhiking.

See also

• Multimedia for an overview of different material on hitchhiking
• Hitchhiking in movies
• Music about hitchhiking
• Videos about hitchhiking

trash:Media

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