Tactics and Demographics

Just thought I'd go a little moe in-depth about the art of hitchhiking. There's tons of factors adding up and subtracting, that determine how long you'll wait by the side of the road.

Using a sign is probably the one technique that hitchhiker's will disagree on. On the one hand, you like like you've got your shit together when you use a sign, and it attracts some gazes that wouldn't otherwise look at you. But I think the most important factor is what's on the sign. Destination names are obviously the most common, but this all depends on where you're heading and how far you are from there. Even if someone's heading from Calgary to Vancouver and your sign says 'VANCOUVER', they might drive right by just because they don't want to take a chance that you smell or are weird and that they'll get stuck with you. I think the best bet is to have a sign, but put something somewhat original on it. 'further', 'please', 'concert', or even 'i support bc teachers.

Whenever I wasn't holding a sign, I'd be reading my book. Mostly just because I enjoy reading, but also because I was toying with the idea that I'd appear a little more trustworthy. I didn't just crawl out of the ditch, hell I might even be a university student. But I'm undecided on whether that helped or not.

To protect yourself and also attract more people, I think looking confident is a huge deal. Back straight, head held high, arm held out, smiling, and EYE CONTACT. Eye contact is so important. I'm absolutely certain that I activated people's brakes with only my eyes. And maintaining eye contact till the last possible second. And I never put my arm down until the person was past me.

Location is also huge, if people are zooming by, don't see you till the last second, and there's nowhere to pull over, there's barriers, and hitchiking is illegal, then good luck scoring a lift. Obviously the edge of town is the best place. No one is gonna pick you up in town, it's just too busy, plus most people aren't leaving town, so you're just gonna get discouraged. I'd usually wait at the edge of town beside a good pull-out, but if that wasn't working, and it looked like it wasn't too narrow of a road, I'd just start walking down the highway. I must've covered at least 20km all together doing that. Helps the time pass, you get a workout, and you look determined, but willing to take a ride, regardless of how far the person is going.

Aside from being a female, which is some sketchy ass shit, I think being a young guy is gonna get you picked up the quickest. But you have to look like you've got your shit together. Look somewhat clean and organized and approachable. I had lots of people tell me they don't pick up hitchhikers, but that I looked like a nice guy. I think staying clean-shaven is helpful too, but I just kept my neck shaved. Being my age, as long as you look confident, no perverts are gonna pull you over. Of course, if you do get picked up by a psycho, theres a whole new realm of strategy involved, but I'm not gonna go there, mainly because I didn't experience that. I'll never be sure, but I think that 2-3 females subtly came onto me, but I didn't reciprocate. I think that on average, I probably waited between half to two-thirds as long as the average hitchiker. It was a lot easier than I thought. I've heard of peple waiting 2 days to get a ride, but I only had to wait more than an hour 3 times, and never more than 2 hours.

Common sense would say that you don't want to thumb it on less-travelled roads, because there's less traffic, but I think it's inversely proportional. The more traffic, less chance of getting picked up per 100 vehicles, because no one feels responsible for you. The less traffic, better chances per 100 vehicles. I got picked up relatively easily on Queen Charlottes. Of course, there's a limit. If you're on the edge of town and there's less than 1-2 vehicles every 10 minutes that are leaving town, then it's probably not worth it. That's why I abandoned going to Stewart and Alaska this trip (from Stewart, you walk 3km to Hyder, Alaska).

You'd think you'd be more likely to get a ride in the rain, due to pity, but I don't think this is necessarily true, possibly because people don't want to get their interiors wet.

Truckers can be your best friends, because they're usually going the distance, but lots of trucks aren't allowed to pick-up hitchhkers (although some will anyways) or don't have room (like dump trucks and logging trucks). If the truck looks like it's privately owned, then he's your best bet, but of course, that's tough to tell from a distance.

I've been stoked to count up all the rides I got, in order to figure out the demographics of people that gave me rides. Generall speaking, you're gonna get picked up by people that have hitchhiked before, and you're chances of getting picked up by people over the age of about 60 are very slim. No couples either. Ok, I'm gonna count it up here. Keep in mind these stats could be completely different on the Trans-Canada. I got picked up by a lot of old work/farm trucks, but you wouldn't see that as much on a major highway, me thinks.
I separated ages, younger as looking below about 35 (but usually older than 25, not many young people), older being above 35.

I got 32 rides altogether.
23 were from males, 15 older, 8 younger
9 were from females, 2 older, 7 younger. Notice the reversal in ages from males to females.
1 colored male, 1 native female, 4 native guys.
I was picked up once by two young guys, once by two young girls, once with a young girl with three young kids, once from an older lady with a kid. But generally, my rides came from single occupants.
11 trucks, 11 cars, 4 SUV's (big/small), 3 vans, and 3 semis. Not one ride was from a newer luxury car (think Buick).

My most common rides were from guys older (than 35) males driving big old trucks, but my wildcard was older subarus, lots of them too. But both of these oculd jsut be due to the fact that smaller vehicles couldn't pick me up with my big pack. For every hour I'd get driven, I'd usually spend an hour on the side of the road. I travelled 2700km and thus my average distance gained by each ride was about 85km.