Hitchhiking with children

Hitchhiking with children seems a big challenge. On the other hand side, it might seem that a hitchhiker with a child would have a certain advantage in being picked up.

Law

In many Western countries children have to be in special children car seats until a certain age (e.g. 7 in Australia). It's certainly a drag to carry these seats around while hitchhiking.

Safety

The road and especially the highway can be very dangerous. Make sure your child stays safe at all times.

History

Apparently, in Poland there were TV advertisements saying it was perfectly safe for children to hitchhike on their own until sometime in the 1970s.

A Polish driver told Fverhart that his father used to hitch-hike with him when he was a child (era of Polish People's Republic). His father would put him clearly visible and drivers, certainly female drivers, would almost guaranteedly stop.

Links

• CS hitchhiking group: Hitchhiking with child, 2011
• Digihitch: Children and Hitchhiking, a legal issue, a US perspective, 2004
• FB group discussion: Hitchhiking with child, 2015

This article is a stub. This means that the information available to us is obviously insufficient. In these places little information is available or the description is severely outdated. If you have been there, whether hitchhiking, for travel or as part of an organized tour − be sure to extend this article!