Travel and transport

Thumbing a Lift

There was a time when a student with little money and a free summer might simply walk to the edge of town, write a destination on a piece of cardboard and wait for a stranger to stop. In many countries the sight of a hitchhiker at the roadside has since become something of a rarity. Cheap coaches and ride-sharing apps have removed much of the need, and a general wariness of strangers has done the rest. Those who still travel this way are often asked whether they are not afraid, and they tend to reply that the risks are smaller than people imagine and the rewards far larger. What they value above all, they say, is the [1] (SPONTANEOUS) that such travel allows: setting off without a fixed plan, changing direction on the strength of a conversation, and never knowing whether the night will be spent in a city or a farmhouse. A ride-sharing app, however efficient, arranges all of that in advance.