Hitchhiking in the 1970s
August 19, 2025
by William P. Meyers

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It is summer. I need a break from writing about the environment and Trump world. I just finished reading William Faulkner's Light in August, which features a young woman hitchhiking in the rural areas of Mississippi and Alabama in the 1920s. That reminded me of my hitchhiking era in the 1970s, when I was a teenager transitioning into a young man.

I was a child in the 1960s, a decade of great excitement, of rock and roll music, political protests, and economic prosperity. But my parents were right-wing control freaks, so my ability to experiment was limited until I went off to college in 1972. My mother refused to give me my airline ticket until I got one last crew cut in that era of male long hair, so I arrived at the U the only freshman male with a crew cut. I immediately volunteered for the McGovern for President campaign.

Hitchhiking had been a common practice in America since its inception, but it was particularly popular in the 1960s. Unfortunately tale of the Manson Family and other mishaps started to make people shyer about picking up hitchhikers, so it was declining in the 1970s. I was living on an extreme low budget, so it appealed to me. In the summer of 1973 I decided I wanted to see some countryside. I went out to I5 in Providence Rhode Island and hitched up to Vermont. You would think I would remember the first person to give me a ride, but I don't. I remember seeing the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant and sleeping in a state park. I remember a roadside stand and buying the best tomato I ever ate. I remember one of my rides was in a hippy van. Then I hitchhiked back to Rhode Island and went back to work.

I hitched down to Delaware, and back, to see a girl I liked. Nothing came of it.

Since everything went well, and money was always an issue, hitchhiking became my default mode of transportation. I hitched to Boston and Cape Cod. When I dropped out of school I decided I would see the nation and try to find a job in California. But I quickly found that longer hikes were frustrating. Sleeping beside an interstate highway is not all that relaxing. By the time I made it to Nashville, three or four days later, I was ready to stop and look around. Near the interstate was a very run down old hotel with very cheap rates, so I decided to stay there a night and take a shower. Then I stayed another day, and despite it being a recession I found both a daytime and an evening job. Well, I had more money than I had ever had in my life, 60 hours a week at minimum wage, but I was young and restless. I was flush, so instead of hitching to California I took a Greyhound bus.

I did not hitch for a while, but soon found myself back in Nashville. I was influence by Carlos Castaneda and so set southern New Mexico as a goal. Again, I hitched. No problem, to all the way to Gila National Forest, where I camped out for a couple of months, living off the land. Then I hitched back to Jacksonville, then up I5 to go back to college. I was sexually assailed, I guess the guy thought all young men with their thumbs out in the evening were looking for a hookup or some cash. After that I always stopped hitching well before sundown. Made it up to Providence okay, and continued to hitch locally when I needed to.

It being the stagflation (it is now 1976) and me being off the Wheel, I graduated with no job lined up. But I volunteered with some Buddhist friends who had a farm in West Virginia. I hitched there. But along the way I was picked up by a truck with three young men in it. By then me hair was long, there were not so many hippies around any more, and they stopped the truck on a remote stretch of highway area and started hitting me. Another car came by so they abandoned the project. The next day I hitched to Wheeling.

At the end of the summer I hitched from Wheeling to Jacksonville. I bought an ancient car for $150. I would never hitch again. But I did pick up hitch hikers whenever I could. Sure, a few bad things have happened to people who picked up hitchhikers. But for the most part it is the hikers who are at risk, and I empathize with them.

I suppose if I were trying to get this published I would fill in more details, including things various drivers told me, but it is summer, and I am on vacation.

Take it easy.