Imagine my surprise to find that Ilmar's 1980 record wasn't the first at all! Ilmar provides us with a web page claiming to have generated the first Guinness Book entry for the 1980 edition (see Key West to Alaska: Not Without a Hitch under Stories and Anecdotes). Well, to be fair, he mentions an existing record covering the 48 mainland states of America, but his was the first long distance, high speed hitch. I think he's talking about a Guinness Book of Records specific to the United States though, to which I've no access -- because I can't find any reference to his record anywhere! (a likely theory in light of the anglo-centric records the international edition cites).
I found all the Guinness Books from 1973 to 1997 with the sole exceptions of 1974, 1977 and 1979. I'd like to have gone further back but lacked the time. These old books are all archived deep in the bowels of the library and are fetched on request. The librarians have some strange aversion to carting the entire series of Guinness Books up to the reading room at the request of some nut researching Hitch-hiking records. The excursion into records has proved amusing though, I have to confess.
The most consistent record the Guinness Book cites is simply for the furthest distance traveled in a lifetime. Devon Smith held this record steadily until 1985, whereupon a curious battle breaks out between would be record holders, that appear to be doing little else but hitching around in an effort to break the record. In the last year alone Stephan Schlei, the current record holder, claims to have hitched almost 1000 km per week every week for a year! Does the guy ever stand still?
I'm still amazed at the power he and the Guinness Book display
in measuring these distances to the nearest kilometer! But just take a
look at the records the Guinness Book accredits (take a moment to reflect
that planet Earth measures a mere 40,000 km around the equator):
| Record Year | Distance Hitched | Record Holder |
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| 1973-85 | 468,300 km | Devon Smith |
| 1986 | 468,308 km | Raymond L.Anderson |
| 1987-90 | 492,248 km | Bill Heid |
| 1991-92 | 579,510 km | Bill Heid |
| 1993 | 613,578 km | Stephan Schlei |
| 1994 | 673,200 km | Bill Heid |
| 1995 | 695,597 km | Stephan Schlei |
| 1996 | 726,117 km | Stephan Schlei |
| 1997 | 776,955 km | Stephan Schlei |
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