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Introduction

© Bernd Wechner

Welcome to Suite 101's page on hitch-hiking!

I suspect we all know what hitch-hiking is, but what some might be asking is "why do we have a page dedicated to it?".

I was invited by Suite 101 to act as contributing editor in the subject of my choice. With limited time available to me, and a variety of interests and passions, I aimed for something that was small in scope, and needed in my opinion a higher profile on the web.

Hitching is something I enjoy, and something I find to be under-represented on the web as in society in general. This is an opportunity to collect what little information the web has to provide on hitching, and keep it in the one place for easy access and reference. It should further provide me with a forum, in these editorials, in which to express the ideas and experiences I've gained in the years gone by.

The pages that the web has to provide seem to fall into two broad categories. There are pages that offer advice and there are pages that offer stories. There are (fortunately) even pages that offer both.

Hitch-hiking is also a difficult thread to explore using the gamut of search engines available. Not least because there is no consistent and unique keyword to describe the matter (try hitching, hitchhiking, hitch-hiking, hitchhiker, hitch-hiker, hitcher, and so one), and because a range of unrelated themes will score hits on those (pages on the Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Ride sharing and car pooling groups, and some rather esoteric scientific phenomena among others).

It is my hope that this page can provide a central jump off point to hitching resources as they appear, and help to escape the jungle of pages that will emerge from any search engine.

I would love to hear from hitch-hikers on the net, and to see a mailing list grow out of it, a forum in which hitch-hikers can share experiences, stories, warnings, tips, and general community or just find one another as time goes on, and maybe even help one another out in person should they pass each other.

I would like to promote hitching, not merely as a means of transport, but as a source of adventure and exposure to culture, and local people. Things that tourism so often fails to provide. These are passions of mine.

I hope you enjoy it ... and I hope to hear from you.

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