Harmonisation 3.2 - The Hitchhikers Guide to Sustainable Travel

Over the Christmas period my girlfriend and I went for a little hike near the New Forest and got caught in the rain as it was getting dark. We didn’t have enough money for the bus and the walk was rather longer than we expected – our only option was to hitch a ride. Now I am always up for a free ride and a new friend, but it seems like the people of the New Forest do not see the positives of such an interaction. And let’s get this straight, there are many positives.  Fortunately the bus driver offered us child tickets and we made it to the pub in the end.

Thumbs Up! Taken from another great hitchhiking article:
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/lovingthejourney/2012/10/picking-up-a-hitchhiker/

Chester and Smith (2001) review the literature on hitchhiking, which is sadly quite limited. Hitchhiking was a common form of travel before the 1970’s but has since declined for a number of reasons. One more prominent reasons is that of the serial killer Rosemary West and her husband, who picked up a young French girl one December night in 1995 and murdered her; a headline story that scared many hitchhikers into using other forms of transport. Chester and Smith also find suggestions that the ‘under 25 railcard’ and increased car ownership may have contributed to the decline of the hitchhiking era. 

An interesting but logical social trend ensued from then on, with the parents who used to hitchhike evoking the negative aspects that were often blown out of proportion by the media. Sadly there have been murders of hitchhikers (in real life and in many films) and this has developed a strong psychological fear which is hard to break. I was fortunate enough to be brought up by parents that provided me with a neutral view of hitchhiking and because of this I was able to see that there is more to be gained than lost.
Chester and Smith offer the idea of hitchhiking being used in public policy and demonstrate that car-share sites have popped up all over the world which have been developed to provide a safer way of hitchhiking. I would go further as to say that we should make hitchhiking popular again. There is no better time than now, when we are releasing so many greenhouses gases by transportation and most people travel alone every day. Hitchhiking is most certainly a form of sustainable travel; while unsustainable resources are still used, if each car carried twice as many people we’d be half of the way there!

My polite sign got my all the way from the Isle of Wight Festival to Newquay in just two lifts!

I have hitchhiked multiple times over the past few years and have never had a bad experience. I have always been met with good conversation and often a share in whatever sweets are going around. I have been picked up by a horse box and travelled in the back of an open topped truck. Perhaps that sense of risk makes it that little bit more exciting, but more importantly that risk is a lot smaller than you may believe it to be. Let’s all hitchhike!
Here is a fantastic article from the independent by a guy who hitchhiked from Land’s End to John O’Groats back in 2011. A positive time all round!
To get you started on your hitchhiking, here are a few websites I have used in the past, but this list is by no means exhaustive:

• HitchWiki.org – Everything you will need to know about hitchhiking around the world!
• Hitchhikers.org – Lots of people travelling long distance post their journeys up for people to join in on. There is someone driving from London to Arnhem in the Netherlands on the 27^th, fancy it?
• Carpooling – A car-share site similar to those mentioned by Chester and Smith. Not free but pretty cheap and thought to be the safer way to hitchhike. There are loads of sites like this, just type in car-share on Google.