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(norsk: Jeg liker å haike, spesielt i Nord-Norge, hvor man kan slå opp et telt nærmest hvor som helst. Hvis du lurer på noe, så skriv en mail, siden jeg bare gidder å skrive en "internasjonal" versjon...)
I like hitchhiking. Except for the food, perhaps some cups of coffee and sometimes ferry fares, it's completely free. That's certainly one of the reasons why I tried out hitchhiking, and why I still hitchhike, but I don't consider it as the major reason any more. I just like it. You never know what people you'll meet, and it's a little bit easier to start a conversation when hitchhiking than when going by any other public transport.
Once, I picked up a hitchhiker that was about 35 years. He looked like a normal, middle-class, well dressed man, and normally normal, middle-class, welldressed Norwegian men in that age do afford the plane fare. The only reason why he hitchhiked was that he actually liked it best. During my mandatory military service I gave another man at the same age hitchhike twice. He looked a little bit more shabby, but had a job, wife, big house and children. He just used to hitchhike to and from the job.
I must admit it's very boring to wait for transport. I've been waiting for more than two hours sometimes. The bad thing is, I feel like I can't leave the position, because the friendly driver might pass by while I'm away, and I can't do anything useful. Well, I've sometimes though of just setting a sign at the rucksack and then sit and read a book....but I just don't think the "lazy" hitchhiker will have such a good chance.
It seems to me like it's more difficult to get hitch when the traffic is dense. I've never experienced that a car stops if beeing a part of a queue of cars.
Nowadays, the hitchhikers are less frequent than ever, and so are those drivers who stops to pick up a hitchhiker. I think it's a pity. I guess one of the reasons may be the higher crime, and horrifying stories about violent hitchhikers.
I guess it's a result of todays development. Today it's possible to live and earn money perfectly isolated from other human beeings, even though living more dense than ever in the cities. I guess some people live with no human touch - the only kind of communication is "How much?" at the supermarked and the daily staring into a TV that delivers nothing but violence and porno. I can imagine that people living in this way may loose the touch with reality and become violent. I don't know if you catch my drift, but anyway, let's talk about hitchhiking again!
I guess some people compares hitchhiking with begging, but that's very unfair, I think. The drivers who stop to pick up hitchhikers don't have to contribute much, they do have free capacity anyway. Hitchhiking is even the best thing to do when thinking about the environment and traffic jams. During my mandatory military service I went home by hitchhiking very often. Once nobody stopped to pick me up I had to ride by taxi home and then drive by car to the military just to get there in time.
There is two different "modes" of hitchhiking; the "useful" hitchhiking where the hiker is going from A to B, perhaps he'll have to be at B at a certain time, and hitchhiking is the only way to reach this. Or perhaps it's just too unconvinient or expensive to get there by public transport or a car. During my mandatory military service this was certainly my situation. I was home very often, and it was very unconvinient to use public transportation, because there was almost none. It would also have costed a lot to do all this travelling by car or public transport, indeed I used quite a lot of money before I got hooked on hitchhiking, and during a periode where I went by car. I also hitchhiked once to deliever the car to repair. At first, I hitchhiked in my normal clothes, but I soon found out hitchhiking in the military uniform was smarter; then people realize why you're hitchhiking. I think it's very frustrating when doing this sort of hitchhiking and a lot of "empty" cars passes by.
The other kind of hitchhiking is the purely vaccational, where the time and place is less important. Then I find it more reasonable that "empty" cars pass by, 'cause I do have a lot of luggage, it's my own choise that I'm hitchhiking and I guess those people don't want to conversate anyway.
Hitchhiking with camping equipment is very nice in the northern Norway and over the Norwegian mountains, because you may camp free wherever you'd like, and it's fairly easy to find drinking water - the water in the streams and rivers are clean if there aren't any farms uphill.
I think it's a little bit exciting too, you never know what people that will stop next time. I have met friends too at the roads (but only during my mandatory military service), and sometimes the driver and me have found common friends.
I also drive a car, and I always stop to collect hitchhikers. Well, I must admit I do have some negative experiences. Once I picked up a sort of a bum. I could have seen it, he wore dirty, old clothes and looked quite shabby. Well, he was very nice and polite, talked a lot and was very grateful...BUT he obviously hadn't washed his clothes for a month!! He really smelled bad. Luckily, the distance we were going wasn't more than about 25 kilometres.
I've heard rumors people have escaped from the mental hospital here in Tromsø and hitchhiked away from the city; I once hitchhiked with somebody that once had picked up an escaped girl. They found out she was a little bit mad through conversation. I've also picked up strange people twice at this distance. One of them had a very strong belief in paranormal fenomens, and talked A LOT about strange things. When he left the car, he was still standing in the passenger door for about one minute giving me "good advices" about what I should do and what I shouldn't do. Another strange guy also talked A LOT, and it seemed like he was bragging about...nothing at all.