Hitchhiking across the United States had always been on the back of my mind, but I was a little scared to try it. I’d hitchhiked up to Alaska, all over the western United States and hitchhiked across Baja the month before. Something about hitchhiking across the Great Plains and the Eastern United States seemed like it would be so different though. There is very little public land besides the interstate medians and interchanges. I had very low expectations of daylong waits and camping in swampy interstate medians during thunderstorms.
I quit my job at the end of January 2023 without much of a plan beyond knowing I wanted to be doing a lot of hiking and hitchhiking. After getting back from Mexico, my friend Elliot gave me a call and proposed hitchhiking across the country. This would dovetail nicely with starting the AT later in the spring. I agreed to meet him in Los Angeles in a few days.
A few days later, my friend Matt picked me up from my parent’s house. Matt drove me to Noè and Jordan’s house, we cooked a delicious vegetarian ragu for dinner. The next morning I said goodbye, and took the bus down to SLO. I had planned to take the train to Bakersfield, and the bus to LA, but some strong storms closed I-5 through the Grapevine Mountains, so that bus was canceled. Thus, I took the long way around, and boarded the Pacific Surfliner in SLO. As always, the views around Point Conception and southward are extremely beautiful. I got to LA Union around 10pm and took the Gold line to Elliot’s house.
Elliot and I hung out most of the next day and prepared for the trip. We agreed on the terms. Try to camp as much as possible, taking local and regional buses and trains was ok, but intercity buses and trains were not. We both set our expectations low and prepared ourselves for some long soul crushing waits. Somehow despite all this talk of preparing for the worst and how dire the trip could get, I was excited and getting restless, I took the Expo line out to Santa Monica as the sun set and had dinner with my old roommate Jordan. I Stayed with Jordan that night and went for a rainy walk on the beach the next morning. I Caught the train with my friend Benji back to South Pasadena, and hung out with Elliot more. We made one last big dinner, loading our bodies up with food for the big adventure.
Finally the morning of the trip was upon us. We set our alarms for 6am. We took the Gold line to Union Station and then took Metrolink to Rancho Cucamonga. We walked two miles to an interstate onramp we found on hitchwiki. It really wasn’t that good of a spot in hindsight.
About an hour in, a police car drove by and said that hitchhiking was not allowed, and to leave. His request seemed almost halfhearted though as he did not stop. We kept trying, fearing he might come back at any minute. Luckily he did not return. 2.5 hours later, we got our first ride, ten miles up the road to Rialto. Andres was a college student, stoked on life. He had hitchhiked up to Big Bear the previous summer and said it was way more enjoyable than driving. He was stoked to hear about our big plan of hitchhiking to NYC. We got a bit lost in conversation with him, so we eventually ended up off I-15 and on I-210. Woops
Andres said the ramp was a good spot to hitch, but a few minutes into hitching another cop pulled over and told us to leave on his bullhorn. This time he was serious. We changed the plan and took a city bus a few miles north and walked a few miles north to I-15. We quickly got a ride to Victorville as it started to drizzle.
Elloa was a very kind older gentleman from El Salvador. We spoke with him in Spanish and he said he was once also a “bago”, which he explained was a Spanish word for traveler or vagabond. He said to stay away from drugs, alcohol, and to just relax. That was the only thing he said in English “No drugs, no alcohol, just relax”. He said it over and over, and I was convinced. I felt relaxed as we drove up over El Cajon pass and into the Mojave desert. Hopefully the police wouldn’t give us as much trouble here as they did in LA.
We quickly got a ride from another man, a priest who was a bit out of it. He almost got into a collision on the interstate. He suddenly slowed down to 20mph in the middle lane for no apparent reason, and then switched lanes to exit. A car had to swerve out of the way at the last minute to not hit us. We got out of the car a few exits later and he gave us a blessing and told us god would protect us. I hope that god protects him as well, because if he is not careful, I fear he is going to get in a major collision on the highway.
We got a bit stuck so we took a free city bus up one exit. Eddy picked us up and drove us out into the desert to a very deserted ramp. We walked on a side road and got a ride from a cemex worker. We walked for two miles and reached the next exit. We tried the exit and the freeway, got a few stoppers but no rides, so we headed off into the desert to camp as the sun set. We had accomplished our goal of getting out of LA on the first day, but still had yet to get a big ride. We were off on a big adventure!
The next morning, we realized our camp spot was very visible from the interstate and off ramps, so we quickly packed up and hitched on the onramp. After 30 min or so of waiting, a kind firefighter took us into a truck stop in Barstow. The truck stop was marked as green on hitchwiki so stoke was high.
We ate some food, and charged up, we tried to solicit rides but got told “no soliciting” by the manager. They gave us a piece of cardboard though and we made a sign. On the onramp we got an icy reception from some cars, including getting flipped off, but as Elliot was putting on his sunscreen we got a ride from two kind women all the way to Vegas. Normally I feel sinful doing anything other then hitchhiking as cars are passing. But the people that picked us up explained that they decided to pick us up precisely because Elliot was putting on sunscreen. They explained that if someone is putting on sunscreen, they must be sane enough to be safe to pick up. From then on we put on a lot more sunscreen.
Sarah and Susie were headed to Vegas to meet one of their daughters for a Taylor Swift concert. We originally wanted to take I-40, but also didn’t want to turn down a good ride, so we debated where to get out between Barstow and Vegas.
We ultimately decided on getting out just before the Nevada border. The plan was to hitch to Searchlight, a small town in Nevada, and head across the desert from there. We waited about two hours. We talked with the construction workers nearby and lots of families passed us by. Finally, Shane, a very strong wildland firefighter, picked us up and drove us down to I-40. The ride was a bit in the wrong direction, but at that point we just needed to get out of the middle of nowhere and back to the interstate.
We hitched on the onramp for only 15 minutes or so until Fez picked us up. He was on his way to pick up his kid from his ex. He told us about his pharmacy classes and his love for baseball, he had lived in New York City before and wished us luck getting there. He dropped us off at a rest area on I-40.
Interstate hitching is boom or bust. We waited two hours in the sun. Despite Elliot’s best juggling, we were passed by many promising cars, including a Canadian couple in a campervan, and a young couple in a small converted van. It may be an alternative lifestyle choice to live the #vanlife, but it seems many still have traditional views around hitchhiking. It appeared that our goal of getting out of California that day may not happen.
Then we met Sally, a truck driver from Tennessee with 24 years of experience, who was going all the way to Albuquerque. Her truck had broken down, so her company had rented her a car to return home. We got in the car, and it immediately became apparent that Sally did not understand our trip. She asked us lots of questions and scolded us for not doing more planning. When hitchhiking, it is difficult to disagree too strongly with the driver. I usually just nod and agree with them so as not to get thrown out of the car. Sally did not like the desert, so for that ride, neither did I. “There is nothing out here, it is scary and it just looks like kitty litter” she mused. I begrudgingly agreed.
Sally kept saying that we could only cover ten miles a day on foot, and that it would be difficult to complete the rest of the trip in our allotted time frame. She said things like, “What were you all thinking, were you out of your damn cotton-picking minds?”, Over and over again. We swore up and down that we would do more planning for the trip ahead. We would got to a library as soon as we got to New Mexico and put in a solid day of planning, we promised. She shared stories from truck driving, and was very knowledgeable about the whole interstate system, knowing exact exit numbers and where truck stops were, all over the country.
As the sun was setting we saw a hitchhiker juggling metal pins off the side of the interstate. Elliot and I admired his technique and badly wanted Sally to pick him up, but Sally speculated that he was likely a serial killer and that he may die in the desert. It was a wild ride, but we were covering a massive amount of distance. Elliot and I offered over and over to stop somewhere and buy Sally dinner, but she was on a mission. She told us when on road trips it is best to not stop for anything other than bathroom and gas, pack snacks! We snacked on my bread carrots and nuts as the sun set.
Flagstaff was covered in snow, so we felt very thankful to be in Sally’s car and not camping there. “You didn’t think of the snow and mud did you boys?”. “I don’t know what you were thinking that desert is very dangerous there is nothing out there”. Albuquerque was a long ways a way but Sally drove fearlessly into the night, pointing out bad driving from truck drivers and cussing at many of the passing cars. She continued to criticize our poor planning and made us text friends all across the country to see if we could stay. Text them again, text them again, she said, and we obliged, not wanting to rock the boat.
Elliot and I discussed how to proceed in the men’s restroom at one of our two brief stops. I suggested getting out in Gallup and hitching some back roads to Taos, but Elliot came up with a plan to camp at a truck stop 15 miles before Albuquerque. The advantage of hitching with two people is you can talk through every decision. There were many decisions on the trip and it felt kind of like a board game. I agreed with Elliot, let’s ride with Sally as far as possible.
At midnight 50 miles from the truck stop, Sally said “Who’s driving” and I was very thankful Elliot volunteered. Sally slept in the back while Elliot drove, the ultimate display of trust while hitchhiking. While we have very different ways of thinking of life and the world, I am really glad we met Sally, and very thankful for the ride.
We said our goodbyes at the truck stop at 1:30am, we headed off into the bushes and camped for the night. It was quite cold and our water froze, but I slept great, exhausted from the long day of hitching. The next morning we quickly got a ride from a gas station employee down to Albuquerque.
We decided it would be good to rest up for the trip across the great plains, so we took the $2 train to Santa Fe, had lunch with Elliot’s grandparents, and took the free bus to Taos. In Taos, our friend Meli picked us up and we stayed with her for the night.
The next morning, clean and well rested we started hitching east from Taos. Ride #12 was from Nikolas, a Nigerian writer living in Taos, who took us to Angel Fire. He had gotten a grant from the Nigerian government to write plays in the United States. It sounded like he had a lot of romantic interests, but he lamented to us that they were getting in the way of his writing. Elliot asked about hitchhiking in Nigeria, and Nikolas told us the government may even give us a grant to do it. Nikolas had gotten a lot of grants to live in many different countries, it sounded like something he was very good at.
Ride #13 was a Philmont scout ranch employee who took us to Cimmaron. We heard pink Floyd coming from a car, and an elderly man David called out and told us to get in. He drove us out to I-25. He said he used to hitchhike all over in the sixties when it was a lot more common, and he felt bad for us.
Pretty quickly we got ride #15 to I-40 from a man named Luke, he was on his way back from dropping off his son to return to his mom’s house. He talked about politics, he was more conservative, but we found some common ground on foreign policy and a congressional stock trading ban. After a one minute wait we got a ride from a nice young man to Santa Rosa, NM.
Hitching out of Santa Rosa took a while. We met another man named Mike who had been on road for 15 years. He gave us some advice on hitching. Finally after 2.5 hours, a man named Anatoli picked us up with his big van. When he asked why I quit my job, I told him I wanted to take some time to travel. “So your a fucking lazy punk?”, he replied ” to be honest with you I hate lazy people”. I sat in the back in silence after that and only caught bits and pieces of the rest of the conversation, but Anatoli ran an antique moving company, and took us about an hour down the road to Tucumcari. He debated taking us further, potentially into Oklahoma or Kansas, but he had an antique shipment coming in and decided against it.
We spent a few hours attempting to hitch there, and another hours few eating and trying to solicit rides in the parking lot. After no success, we headed off into the bushes south of the highway and found a (semi) stealthy spot to camp.
I woke up Elliot 15 minutes prior to our agreed upon sunrise wakeup because I was scared of being discovered. In hindsight, we probably could have slept in a bit. I was still a little weary of stealth camping, but I slowly learned to be more confident doing it from Elliot. We waited about an hour on the onramp and then a guy Marcus stopped. It took a while to rearrange things, but eventually we fit everything in. Marcus initially introduced himself as the Texas chainsaw massacre, which was a bit alarming, but we quickly realized he had a good heart.
Marcus was going to Dallas for a friend’s funeral. We debated joining him to Dallas, but we ultimately decided to stop short in Amarillo, TX. During the ride, we slowly learned more about Marcus’s past, 23 years in prison, four years as a truck driver, his tattooing and his art. It was very inspiring to hear Marcus’s story about learning art and tattooing in prison and getting out and staying out. As we left Marcus showed us his paintings which were extremely beautiful.
It was looking grim in Amarillo, we had gotten off at perhaps an unwise spot. There was no room to pull over. However, soon we saw a truck veer sharply off the interstate, through a grass ditch and onto the frontage road. we sprinted up to him, and we were surprised to find a man with a rainbow bandana and not a cowboy hat on his head.
The ride was not along I-40 but we took it anyways. We made about 30 miles of progress, but we ended up about 8 miles off the interstate. Our driver shared tales of his travels around the west, hitchhiking back and forth between LA and Seattle numerous times. He gave us some advice on stealth camping in the great plains, which provide little cover and even less public land.
We began to walk north back to the interstate, which ended up being a good call since we couldn’t get a ride. The miles went by fast though, and we got to physically feel the vastness of the great plains. There’s nothing like walking across a place to really feel how big it is. Eventually we reached the interstate, a very low traffic onramp. We juggled on the shoulder for a few hours. Having yet to get an interstate hitch, it felt more like we were entertaining the public then having any real shot at a ride. Cars were screaming by at 80+ mph and the 10ft shoulder looks a lot narrower at that speed. We walked a mile or so up to the next onramp which was very low traffic.
After three hours walking and a few more juggling, spirits were low. We thought we were imagining an Indian restaurant, but as we got closer we saw the open sign was lit up. Outside the restaurant, there were mattresses and other debris strewn about. We walked in and saw no one seated and no one behind the counter. Eventually a man appeared and took our order. The paneer masala and rice lifted my spirits, and we even met a local that said we could camp in the abandoned shack behind his house.
Things were looking up, but still looked bleak. The onramp had only a few cars an hour, and hitching a car on the freeway seemed unlikely at best. We thumbed for a bit and then I told Elliot I was going to put an hour of solid hitching on the interstate. I put on some music and walked out with low expectations. Before the first song was done playing, I heard Elliot yell at the top of his lungs. Soon we were both sprinting down the freeway at a Toyota 4-runner backing up on the shoulder. I didn’t even see that he had stopped for me, but luckily Elliot spotted him from up on the on-ramp.
Rob introduced himself and said he was going to Conway, Arkansas. In those few moments we went from worrying about being able to continue our trip, to a massive ride, it felt incredible.
While Elliot napped, Rob told me about his 20 years on the road, linking together temporary jobs, studying meditation, and eventually buying property in North Carolina to build an eco village. After a few hours, Rob trusted us enough to let us drive his car, and he slept in the back. It felt like Elliot and I were on a road trip just the two of us as we drove into the night. Eventually at almost 2am we reached a rest area in Arkansas and said our goodbyes. We camped at the back hoping no one would bother us.
I had suggested hopping the fence to camp more in the woods, but it was a good thing we didn’t. A mean looking dog woke us up in the morning, barking from the other side of fence. We hitched at the rest area exit, but there was not much traffic. I started juggling to draw the attention of interstate drivers, and soon we saw a car reversing down the shoulder at an impressive speed.
Joshua (ride 21) was on his way to meet his parole officer in Little Rock, he told us about life in Arkansas, many of his relatives had gotten addicted to meth and “dragged him down with them” he recently chose to ” love his family from a far” and get a fresh start in a new town. The marks of meth addiction had worn down his face and teeth, but he said he felt better about his future since getting a fresh start in a new place.
He took us to a truck stop 10 miles before Little Rock and we are at Waffle House for breakfast. Elliot had trouble understanding the servers accents and remarked that it felt like we were in a different country.
We went to the onramp to start hitchhiking, and had our sites set on getting a ride past Little Rock. In hindsight this was a bit unwise. We probably should have just gone into Little Rock and taken the bus through. A young man pulled over soon after we started hitching, but he was going to a place before Little Rock so we turned him down. We juggled, made a sign, smiled, danced, tried looking stoic, but no one was stopping.
A few hours in, Elliot went over to the gas station to try the direct-ask strategy, while I manned the onramp. Soon enough a car passes by, and Elliot flashed me the peace sign from the passenger seat as they stop to pick me up. Z was a very kind women who likely would not have picked us up if not for Elliot talking to her in person. She told us about finishing up RA school and her two young kids. She drove us to the outskirts of Little Rock, where we planned to take a series of buses through town.
We got the next hitch in the most unusual way. As we waited for the first bus to come, we went into Wendy’s to use the restroom, eat some food and fill up water. Jack, a med student and Doordasher, was picking up an order and struck up a conversation with us. We stuck out with our packs and general appearance in the south, and many people asked us what we were doing. Jack offered to drive us to the edge of town after dropping off Doordash. We joined him to drop off Doordash and then he drove us way out of his way to the edge of town.
From there, we waited under an hour untill Chase picked us up and drove us all the way to Memphis. Chase said he worked on cell towers all over the southeast. We talked about many things from Arkansas to skiing and snowboarding out west.
Chase dropped us off northeast of Memphis and we took a one-dollar bus to get to the freeway on the outskirts of town. We learned our lesson from Little Rock on the importance of busing through town and not trying to hitch through it. We waited about an hour and a half on the onramp, juggling, sign waving etc. A short time, but it felt long compared to earlier hitches that day.
Immediately upon stopping Steve, clearly laid out his expectations. “If you fuck with me or try to do anything to harm me I am armed and will put a bullet in your head”. We both nodded solemnly and assured him he would not need to draw his weapon on us. As we got in the car, Elliot asked if Steve had any bad experiences with hitchhikers, and Steve made a joke about how unfortunately he hasn’t been able to kill anyone yet. He then went on to express his concerns with the “Black people in the south”, saying that none of them were friendly. Normally we didn’t disagree too strongly, but Elliot pushed back politely saying that we had had nothing but good experiences with the many Black drivers that had picked us up. Steve changed his tune a little bit and recalled some positive experiences he had had recently.
Despite the rough start to the ride, our trust grew in Steve as he was very friendly and curious about our trip. Steve offered to buy us dinner, we told him that we should be buying him dinner since he was driving us, but he insisted. We offered to buy so many drivers dinner, but none took us up on it. I think everyone assumed we were dirt poor because we were hitchhiking, when in reality we mainly chose this method of transportation for the adventure. We got to Jackson, and ate at Five Guys. Steve told us about his job as a heavy equipment operator working on building a factory nearby, he worked 12 hours a day seven days a week indefinitely. Steve was very generous and gave us lots of food, he kept insisting on giving us more, trail mix, gloves, bars, dried fruit etc. He dropped us off on the east end of town, we walked into the woods a bit and gratefully laid down to rest after a long day of hitchhiking. A camp spot that probably would have stressed me out a week ago felt ideal now. I felt very comfortable and happy and slept great.
In order to increase our hitchhiking odds, we walked three miles to the next exit. After an over two hour wait, we started taking turns asking people at the gas station. Got a lot of polite responses, but people were hesitant. One women told Elliot that two hitchhikers were murdered at this same gas station a week ago. This was clearly made up in an attempt to scare us off. I met a women named Angie who offered us a ride 20 miles down the road but on the condition she could keep her gun on her lap. I agreed to her terms and we went to pick up Elliot. She took out her pink hand gun and set it down on her lap. Angie had originally lived in California, but really enjoyed living in Tennessee. She told us about her seven kids, seven grandkids, she has fallen into drugs but has been clean for eleven years and was happily remarried.
It was a long three hour wait at the next exit. Elliot and I took turns asking people for rides and thumbing it on the ramp. In contrast to California where we had gotten kicked out of a truck stop, the owner offered Elliot some food here. We were getting very discouraged. We had been hitchhiking since sunrise, it was close to 2pm, and we hadn’t gotten more then 20 miles down the road. This would be honest progress on foot, but is terrible progress for the thumb. Then JT pulled over, Elliot ran over, JT had talked to Elliot briefly, and when he saw me decided to give us a ride. Thumbing doesn’t work well in the south, talking does. JT had just gone through a divorce and was moving back to Jackson. He had a big utilities company and worked all over the state. He drove us very close to the center of Nashville. We walked around the crowded streets of Nashville, and marveled at all the people, music and sites. After getting some food, we took the Music City Star commuter rail to Lebanon where it ends. It was 6pm and I knew we needed to act fast if we were going to get out of Lebanon.
As the train stopped I started asking everyone and anyone on the train platform for a ride to I-40 (2 miles away). Linda and her grandkids said yes to our request. They also said they could take us an hour along the interstate to Cookeville. Score! Linda was a very strong women, she had been through a lot in her life including the death of her daughter, and many other family members, but she was a fighter. She had just bought an acre out in the “styx” in northern Tennessee, chopped a few dozen trees to clear a plot of land and put her trailer on it. She had taken her grandkids to Nashville for the day to see the zoo and the trains. The grandkids were working multiple jobs to support their family since they had lost their mother. Linda worked in Louisville remodeling a few days a week, and had a trip planned out to “Warshington” to remodel out there. She hated CA with a passion, and told us a story of a California moving to her area and she told them that if they try to bring “California values” to the area they will be killed “body hung on a branch or dumped in the river”. Linda also told us about how she shoved a man down in a bar for trying to grope her. Linda dropped us off and offered to take us to the local men’s shelter but we declined. We tried to hitch a ride out as the sunset but were unsuccessful, so we camped in a nearby field that a person told us would be chill to camp in.
The brush was thick and spiky, and we woke up with frost on our bags, but I slept well. The next morning we pretty quickly got a ride from Paul, an insurance man who drove us down a few exits. He again shared negative beliefs about California, saying he traveled there a few years back, bt would be afraid to go there now. All of these people seemed to have this idea in their heads that the whole state was like the Tenderloin or Skid Row. Those must be the main areas shown on certain news channels. Sure the state has its problems, but it is still one of the most desirable place to live in the country. Liberal media doesn’t show footage of poor Appalachian meths towns 24/7, so conservative media’s obsession with our state is a bit bizarre. I didn’t say any of this though of course, I smiled and nodded and he dropped us off, and wished us well.
We walked through a small town, brought some bread, and juggled on the side of the road for a while until Monica pulled over and gave us a ride about another 20 miles up. Partway through the ride we picked up Monica’s friend from a campground, and they reminisced on how good the hitchhiking was in the 70’s.
We waited at that next spot for three hours, hundreds of cars passed by. Just like the day before we were getting discouraged, it was mid afternoon and we had only gotten 30 miles or so after hitching all day. We chose to walk three miles to a Bucees convenience store at the next exit. Bucees is an excellent place for hitchhiking as it is a massive convenience store, with hundreds of people and around one hundred gas pumps. After four hours in the hot sun, the air conditioned store with an abundance of southern comfort food and smiling employees sure felt like paradise.
After eating some nanner pudding, Elliot and I began asking people for rides outside by the 100+ gas pumps. After a few minutes we got a ride from a group of three men: pastor Monte and his disciples Jeremiah and Isaiah. Monte told us about 24 years battling drug addiction and then how he came to the Lord at 40, had been sober for the last12 years. Becoming clean had given him the gift reunited with his family, and recently they had bought land out in rural Tennessee for a discipleship program and addiction recovery center. He offered us a place to stay for the night and we gratefully accepted. Monte and Isaiah were both 18 year olds from LA, who were in the discipleship program. When we got back to the farm, we met Monte’s family and a dozen or so other men who were doing a rehab program.
Monte’s mom cooked us a delicious dinner, and we talked to some of the other people in the program. They told us stories of jail time, and drug addiction and how coming to this rehab program had helped them get on a better path. Monte showed us around the beautiful 13 acre property, and we slept great that night warm and in beds.
The next morning, we woke up at 6am for Bible study, where we studied proverbs 31. I am not very religious but it was interesting to read the bible and hear their interpretations/takeaways. Unfortunately, they took some of the more sexist parts of the bible pretty literally and seemed to blame women for a lot of their problems. Monte made us breakfast and we helped out with some chores around the farm, including moving three pigs. At 11am, Monte dropped us off back by the interstate and we said goodbye, and each made a small donation to his church.
Elliot got the first ride very quickly, talking with people at the gas station. Carson was 23, had just graduated college studying mechanical engineering and worked with cell towers. He drove us two hours up the road to a rest area. At the rest area, we met Sarah a women from Germany. She initially declined my request for a ride, saying she didn’t feel safe as a solo women. I told her I totally understood, and to have a great day. A few minutes later she came back, we talked for five minutes or so and gained her trust. She drove us about two hours up the road to just before Staunton. She told us about her travels around Europe, Africa, and North America. She was currently on a road trip from Utah to DC. She taught English in Germany, and was very curious about our trip and the USA. Sarah was a frequent couchsurfer, and recommend we get on the app.
It was raining pretty hard, we got off at a gas station, and it took a while to get the next ride. We asked people for multiple hours across three different gas stations. Finally I got a call from Elliot, he got a ride! Walter had initially said he didn’t feel comfortable, but then Elliot asked what would make him more comfortable. They agreed he wouldn’t take us all the way to DC just to the next rest area. Walter was a young computer scientist and libertarian who lived in the mountains in North Carolina. He had a beautiful young dog as well. He felt comfortable with us and drove us an extra thirty miles to the next rest area. Midway through the ride he revealed he had a gun in the car but he felt safe and didn’t anticipate needing to use it.
At the next rest area I stumbled on my words and awkwardly asked a young man, “we are hitchhikers doing some hitchhiking, do you want to pick up some hitchhikers?”. He smoothly replied “sorry, not today”, and I gave him my customary, “that’s ok, have a good day sir”, but then after googling “is it safe to pick up hitchhikers?” in his car, he came back, talked to us for a bit and changed his mind. He offered to drive us all the way to Philadelphia. What a turn of events! We went from probably camping in the rain in the trees in an interstate median in Virginia, to a ride all the way to Philadelphia!
In the long ride Allen shared his story and we told him ours, he went to a military institute, was currently in med school, and then would serve in the military after. He was unsure about medical school and contemplating dropping out. We talked for hours and suddenly we were at my friend Arman’s house in Philadelphia. Arman fed us with delicious bread and cheese and other sauces and we talked into the night, catching him up on the first nine days of our journey.
I woke up the next morning feeling extremely well rested, and went for a walk with Arman and his dog. Elliot and I went out to breakfast and then said goodbye to Arman. We walked to downtown Philadelphia, took the PATCO to Camden, and then took an NJ transit bus to an I-95 travel stop.
We traversed down to the travel stop from a side road, but unfortunately it was closed. Plan b was trying to hitch at a ramp two miles north on I-295. We snuck through some bushes and eventually got to an on ramp. Unfortunately, five minutes after we started hitching we were pulled over by a police officer. He told us that hitchhiking was illegal and that we had to leave the township immediately. Luckily a PCT hiker “Squirt”, saw what was going on and turned back to pick us up as soon as the cop left. He drove us a few miles up I-295 to a gas station. There we got about 20 minutes of hitchhiking in on the turnpike on ramp before two police officers pulled over simultaneously. The policeman was entertained by our story, but he told us that hitchhiking was illegal in NJ and we would need to take transit to NYC. He ran our ID’s and let us go about our way after we promised to stop hitchhiking. Elliot asked for a picture and he obliged.
We walked a few miles to the NJ transit river line light rail and then transferred to the NJ transit mainline. Soon we were in the heart of New York City, we marveled at Times Square in the rain and then went to hang out with Elliot’s friends, had pizza for dinner, and then went to a party until 6am. We had achieved our goal of hitchhiking from LA to NYC.
When we got in people’s cars and told them we were attempting to get to NYC, many people reacted with disbelief. Most people told us hitchhiking was dead, yet we kept getting picked up. What a journey it was! I feel like I truely saw my country for the first time. I Met so many people whom there is no way I could have met in any other context. There were some low moments (like spending most of a day getting out of Los Angeles or eight hours stuck in the Texas Panhandle), but those just made the highs all that much higher. People from all over the country shared their vehicles with us and their life stories. We heard stories of despair, triumph, perseverance, and happiness. We had lots of time to sit and listen. 10 days and 36 rides later, we made it across the United States.
Anthony Ottati 