Media

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

Books

Hitchhiking in literature:

• Hitch-Hiker's Guide to Europe by Ken Welsh: outdated but contains great information for Europe, North Africa, the Middle East and the "Communist countries."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.

• Hitch-Hiking by Mario Rinvolucri. A pound a gallon and more for petrol — cars increasingly have to be shared and hitching is one good way. This book, written by hundreds of thumbers, lays bare the feelings, fantasies and justifications of the roadside. 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.

• 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.

News articles

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

• Stranded Warburton hitchhikers get help from Facebook 18 May 10
• 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

• A Hitchhiker's Audio Tour Of The United States

Scientific articles and research

• See literature on psychology of hitchhiking

See also

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

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