Carefree (mostly) and carless: Hitchhikers in the motherland

By Christopher Parker | Special to the Vermont Guardian
photo by Christopher Parker

posted June 23, 2006

The first use of the word “hitchhiking” is reported to have come from a Sept. 19, 1923, article in The Nation about three young women traveling through Vermont.

Many people put hitchhiking on the other side of an invisible line that divides “safe” from unknown. Yet, the practice continues, and Vermont has a good reputation among hitchhikers, who say people are friendly here.

Hitchhiking is legal in most places in Vermont, but it is illegal to solicit rides on interstates and on highway entrances past the “no hitchhiking” signs. It is also illegal to stand in the roadway.

“I have amazing luck hitchhiking,” reports Brattleboro resident Ian Bigelow, 23. “I have been able to get there time after time. Not all the time.”

“Most of the media teaches us to be afraid of each other, and one thing in my time hitchhiking, is that it really gave me faith in people,” said Serene, a 20-something at Brattleboro’s Common Ground who didn’t want her last name used.

The hitchhikers contacted for this article said meeting people was the most positive aspect of hitchhiking.

“I believe that hitchhiking is on a rise back up,” said Bigelow. “There’s more and more young people who believe that those old wives tales aren’t so true and are willing to risk it,” he said. “I think that in Vermont, with gas prices rising and we don’t have a good minimum wage and a shortage of good housing, there’s a lot of people hitchhiking because they just have to. It’s not always easy to repair your car.”

Is it safe?

No, says Sgt. Bruce Wolkenbord of the Vermont State Police. “I don’t like ’em hitchhiking — it’s not a safe thing to do.”

Wolkenbord noted that sometimes hitchhikers are wanted by police. Still, he allowed that “we haven’t had any issues of late.”

Many hitchhikers contacted for this story did mention questionable situations, or ones they had heard about. Mostly, these were uncomfortable interactions, although they said robbery and sexual propositions are a risk. But the same hitchhikers put the rare uncomfortable experience in the context of many positive encounters.

Robert Putnam, who wrote the landmark book, Bowling Alone, about the decline of community in U.S. society, cited the decrease in hitchhiking since the ’60s as an indicator of lowered social trust.

“I don’t feel that overall it is a really dangerous thing,” said Bigelow. “My step mom still says to my little brothers that hitchhiking is dangerous. But at the same time, my dad would pick up hitchhikers. I just decided later in life that it wasn’t dangerous at all. My mom is still worried about that.”

“It’s a million times scarier to be the hitcher than the one’s picking you up,” reports Serene. “It’s all about assessing the situation. As long as people are scared of each other, they’ll never see a purpose in talking to their neighbor.”

Who is hitchhiking?

Hitchhikers seem to fall into two somewhat distinct groups: young people in their 20s who travel by hitchhiking, and people, usually just going to work, who lost their licenses or don’t have a car.

A surprising number of regular commuting takes place by hitchhiking. “For the first five months I was here, I hitched to work every day between West Brattleboro and Brattleboro — a two-mile ride.” reported Jared, who didn’t want his last name used. “Around here, hitchhiking is pretty much hanging out by the side of the road until somebody I know goes by.”

Long-distance hitchhikers are much more likely to be in their young 20s and of the anarchist or hippie persuasion. “There’s a subculture,” according to Serene, along with “traveling” (not always by hitchhiking), Dumpster-diving, and riding freight trains. Hobos were almost extinct a generation ago, but freight hopping has seen a resurgence, even though trains are very dangerous to board and jump when moving, and the practice is illegal.

“There’s a whole lot of traveling kids out there,” said Bigelow. “There’s a lot more girls out there nowadays that are feeling brave.”

But according to Jared, “It’s defiantly a white, middle-class thing to do.”

What’s it like?

Hitchhikers said meeting people is the biggest reward, more important even than getting a free ride. “It was an interesting way to see Americans as I would like to see them — people from all walks of life,” Brattleboro’s Pamela Workman recalled from her experience hitchhiking extensively around the country a generation ago.

“I meet a lot of normal people,” said hitchhiker Dylan Clifthorne, whom I picked up passing through New England. “I guess I’m often surprised,” he said. “I feel like only the weird, alternative-minded, progressive people are going to be into meeting a new person. But it’s not just like the thrifty hippies that pick you up.”

“The most interesting of all the people I rode with were the truckers,” said Workman. “They were always making sure that I was going to be safe where I was going to go. I found them to be excellent people. I found them realistic, unpretentious, down to Earth, and they always behaved as gentlemen.”

People skills help. Bigelow, who is outgoing, explained: “If you’re a super hippie guy and you get picked up by a regular guy, there’s enough things you can talk about, like you can talk about your trucks, the woods, the river you go swimming in.”

But getting picked up isn’t easy.

“Signs help,” said Bigelow.

“I know a guy and a girl who hitched all the way to Burlington from Brattleboro. They had a sign that said, ‘We’re fun!’ ” Jared said. “The majority of the time I would travel with a sign that just said, ‘Please.’ ”