How can you hitchhike in this day and age?   Aren’t you afraid of being murdered?  This is the question I get asked all the time by people who pick me up.

The first time a lady stopped for me, I nearly fell over. She was about my 5th ride ever, years ago now. Everything I’d heard about hitching had made me think, ‘theres no way in the world women are going to give rides to strange men standing beside the road’, but when I stuck my head in the window, there she was.

Valerie was around fifty, with streaks of grey in her shoulder length hair. She had a warm, confident manner, and a very genuine smile. I couldn’t help asking her whether she often picked up hitchers. 
“I do sometimes, yes. You looked clean, and you had a bag. I hitched myself when I was younger” she said. “Ive hitched all over Australia, and Europe too. I must have spent 15 years traveling off and on. I never had any serious problems in all that time, and I loved it.”

Valerie turned out to be representative of a lot of rides. People who had made the leap of trust, and put their thumb out, grew into people who weren’t afraid to pick up travelers themselves. 
Since then around 30% of my rides have been with female drivers, sometimes alone, sometimes with their friends, sometimes with their kids in the back seat, on the way home from school.

We’re all taught to fear strangers from the day we are old enough to walk, but conquering that fear as an adult is one of the most beautiful parts of hitching. Every person is judged on their individuality.

Like Will Rogers said: ‘a stranger’s just a friend you haven’t met yet’.