The Joy of Hitchhiking

There is a thrill to hitchhiking: the thrill of the unknown. When that car slows down on the side of the road, nothing is set. I don’t know who is in the car, where they are from, where they are going, or even where I’ll end up. Sometimes it takes jumping in and out of 2 or 3 cars to get to my destination for the day, and some drivers have tried to convince me to join them wherever they were going.

Hitchhiking is like an adventure sport: the adrenaline, the small sense of danger, and the journey. My German friend Alex used to joke that if I was with him, he’d always get picked up. I was magic, he said. I suspect my only magic was being female, but I like to imagine I’d do well if it was a sport.

The first time I hitchhiked, it was out of need. I was living and working in Franz Josef Glacier, a town of 350 people, two tourist gift shops, a dairy (tiny NZ grocery stores that are closer in size to a 7/11), and a movie theatre that shows one film on loop about the glacier. When the weather started to get colder, my British friend, Sophie, (who loves adventure but who is even shyer than I am) and I found ourselves without a car but with a need for warmer clothes. We realized hitchhiking to the nearest town with a warehouse (similar to Walmart), Greymouth, might be our only option.

Since Grey is three hours drive, we knew we could not take the bus. We only had one day off from work. But our co-workers assured us that many people drive from Franz to Grey in one day. We would have no problem getting picked up, they said, because there is only one road from Franz to Grey—the winding two-lane State Highway Six—and it’s filled with trucks, campervans, and buses travelling through New Zealand.

I was nervous walking out to the road with Sophie, but we had already decided we were hitchhiking. There was nothing else to do, so I stuck out my thumb. Less than a minute later, a car full of Kiwis screeched to a stop in front of us. And five cars, two artists, one father, two guys that wanted a date, one invitation to stay the night in a woman’s spare bedroom, a night trip to see the glacier, and nine hours later, we made it safely to Grey and back, exhilarated.

I like hitchhiking, and that surprises even me. When I first arrived in this country my only experience with hitchhiking was from movies where people got abducted or robbed. I thought that anyone who would dare try hitchhiking was either crazy or stupid. But in a small country full of immigrants and travellers, hitchhiking seems like a normal form of transport. I hitchhike to the supermarket if the nearest food store is too far to walk, and why shouldn’t I?

I like hitchhiking for all of its possibilities. It allows me to meet to people outside of those in my daily life and throws me into a conversation with them because of the social contract we all live by. No one can get a free ride from someone and not at least ask them how they are or who they are, and the answers I get are always surprising and never dull. Need inspiration? Crave human connection? Come to New Zealand and stick your thumb out.

I no longer have any trepidation about hitchhiking in New Zealand; it left me that first day. The only anxiety a hitchhiker ever has in New Zealand is that the conversation will die. And that is something a hitchhiker never wants to happen because in my experience, the type of people who pick up hitchhikers all fall into two categories:

• People who relate to hitchhikers—either they hitchhiked themselves or they have kids and view helping you as aiding one of their own.
• People who are lonely—a really nice Czech girl picked me up once in a fancy rental car, and just as I was wondering why she had cared to stop for me when so many other people in nice cars passed me by she admitted she hadn’t been able to get a radio signal for the last 50 km, and she was so bored she was scared she’d fall asleep at the wheel.

When being picked up by either type of person, it is the hitchhiker’s responsibility to fill the car with conversation. Share your story, and listen to theirs. Since many hitchhikers in New Zealand are foreigners backpacking through the country, many people I’ve met wanted to pick me up to see what I thought of their country—how did it compare to my own? A few times I had nothing in common with the driver who picked me up. A few times I rode with a person who asked me if I was stuck working for those Indians in a way that I knew meant racism. And it’s those days when I arrive at my new noisy hostel, and think man, hitchhiking is hard work. And maybe the next day, I decide to take the bus.

Often though, hitchhiking forms friendships, relays wisdom, or at least provides that simple human need for good conversation. I’ve met locals who tell me what they like about living in New Zealand, details about the country’s history, industries, weather, cultures, some who offered me a free place to stay or a job. I’ve met other travellers who shared tips about the best places to visit, hiking trails, or stories about their homelands. Most of the people I’ve met will share whatever they have to give.

When I return to the United States I think I will miss the community of hitchhikers and all of the people who pick us up. But I cannot imagine hitchhiking in the U.S., especially if I am living in a large city like Washington, DC. So when I return, I will try to find another way to connect with travellers and foreigners living in the United States. I want to give back to people the way so many Kiwis went out of their way to share themselves and anything they had with me in New Zealand.