Carrying dope is not advisable, and although searching you is illegal, few pigs can read the Constitution. If you are carrying when the patrol car pulls up, tell them you are Kanadian and hitching through Amerika. Highway patrols are very uptight about promoting incidents with foreigners. The foreign bit goes over especially well with small-town types, and is also amazingly good for avoiding hassles with greasers. If you can’t hack this one, tell them you are a reporter for a newspaper writing a feature story on hitching around the country. This story has averted many a bust.
Don’t be shy when you hitch. Go into diners and gas stations and ask people if they’re heading East or to Texas. Sometimes gas station attendants will help.
When in the car be friendly as hell. Offer to share the driving if you’ve got a license. If you’re broke, you can usually bum a meal or a few bucks, maybe even a free night’s lodging. Never be intimidated into giving money for a ride.
As for what to carry when hitching, the advice is to travel light. The rule is to make up a pack of the absolute minimum, then cut that in half. Hitching is an art form as is all survival. Master it and you’ll travel on a free trip forever.
FREIGHTING
There is a way to hitch long distances that has certain advantages over letting your thumb hang out for hours on some two-laner. Learn about riding the trains and you’ll always have that alternative. Hitchhiking at night can be impossible, but hopping a is easier at night than by day. By hitchhiking days and hopping freights and sleeping on them at night, you can cover incredible distances rapidly and stay well rested. Every city and most large towns have a freight yard. You can find it by following the tracks or asking where the freight yard is located.
When you get to the yard, ask the workmen when the next train leaving in your direction will be pulling out. Unlike the phony Hollywood image, railroad men are nice to folks who drop by to grab a ride. Most yards don’t have a guard or a “bull” as they are called. Even if they do, he is generally not around. If there is a bull around, the most he’s going to do is tell you it’s private property and ask you to leave. There are exceptions to this rule, such as the notorious Lincoln, Nebraska, and Las Vegas, Nevada, but by asking you can find out. Even if he asks you to leave or throws you out, sneak back when your train is pulling out and jump aboard.
After you’ve located the right train for your trip, hunt for an empty boxcar to ride.
The men in the yards will generally point one out if you ask. Pig-sties, flat cars and coal cars are definitely third class due to exposure to the elements. Boxcars are by far the best. They are clean and the roof over your head helps in bad weather and cuts down the wind. Boxcars with a hydro-cushion suspension system used for carrying fragile cargo make for the smoothest ride. Unless you get one, you should be prepared for a pretty bumpy and noisy voyage.
You should avoid cars with only one door open, because the pin may break, locking you in. A car with both doors open gives you one free chance. Pig-backs (trailers on flatcars) are generally considered unsafe. Most trains make a number of short hops, so if time is an important factor try to get on a “hot shot” express. A hot shot travels faster and has priority over other trains in crowded yards. You should favor a hot shot even if you have to wait an extra hour or two or more to get one going your way.
If you’re traveling at night, be sure to dress warmly. You can freeze your ass off.
Trains might not offer the most comfortable ride, but they go through beautiful countryside that you’d never see from the highway or airway. There are no billboards, road signs, cops, Jack-in-the-Boxes, gas stations or other artifacts of honky culture. You’ll get dirty on the trains so wear old clothes. Don’t pass up this great way to travel cause some bullshit western scared you out of it.
CARS
If you know how to drive and want to travel long distances, the auto transportation agencies are a good deal. Look in the Yellow Pages under Automobile Transportation and Trucking or Driveway. Rules vary, but normally you must be over 21 and have a valid license. Call up and tell them when and where you want to go and they will let you know if they have a car available.
They give you the car and a tank of gas free. You pay the rest. Go to pick up the car alone, then get some people to ride along and help with the driving and expenses. You can make New York to San Francisco for about eighty dollars in tolls and gas in four days without pushing. Usually you have the car for longer and can make a whole thing out of it. You must look straight when you go to the agency. This can be simply be done by wetting down your hair and shoving it under a cap.
Another good way to travel cheaply is to find somebody who has a car and is going your way. Usually underground newspapers list people who either want rides or riders. Another excellent place to find information is your local campus.
Every campus has a bulletin board for rides. Head shops and other community-minded stores have notices up on the wall.
Gas
If you have a car and need some gas late at night you can get a quart and then some by emptying the hoses from the pumps into your tank. There is always a fair amount of surplus gas left when the pumps are shut off.
If your traveling in a car and don’t have enough money for gas and tolls, stop at the bus station and see if anybody wants a lift. If you find someone, explain your money situation and make a deal with him. Hitch-hikers also can be asked to chip in on the gas.
You can carry a piece of tubing in the trunk of your car and when the gas indicator gets low, pull up to a nice looking Cadillac on some dark street and syphon off some of his gas. Just park your car so the gas tank is next to the Caddy’s, or use a large can. Stick the hose into his tank, suck up enough to get things flowing, and stick the other end into your tank. Having a lower level of liquid, you tank will draw gas until you and the Caddy are equal. “To each according to his need, from each according to his ability,” wrote Marx. Bet you hadn’t realized until now that the law of gravity affects economics.
Another way is to park in a service station over their filler hole. Lift off one lid (like a small manhole cover), run down twenty feet of rubber tubing thru the hole you’ve cut in your floorboard, then turn on the electric pump which you have installed to feed into your gas tank. All they ever see is a parked car. This technique is especially rewarding when you have a bus.
BUSES
If you’d rather leave the driving and the paying to them, try swiping a ride on the bus. Here’s a method that has worked well. Get a rough idea of where the bus has stopped before it arrived at your station. If you are not at the beginning or final stop on the route, wait until the bus you want pulls in and then out of the station. Make like the bus just pulled off without you while you went to the bathroom. If there is a station master, complain like crazy to him. Tell him you’re going to sue the company if your luggage gets stolen. He’ll put you on the next bus for free. If there is no station master, lay your sad tale on the next driver that comes along. If you know when the last bus left, just tell the driver you’ve been stranded there for eight hours and you left your kid sleeping on the other bus.
Tell him you called ahead to the company and they said to grab the next bus and they would take care of it.