Hey!
I hitchhiked from bath to paris with a mate of mine. it was fab. Few points:
1) most people that picked you up had hitchiked in the past
2) virtually everyone said that if it had been two males they wouldnt have picked us up but because we had one female and one male they felt it was safer.
3) one of the best places to hitch lifts is at petrol stations when people are filling up. mainly because they can stop/chat to you etc and it's more convenient to pick you up.
4)because our trip was all for charity we had massive charity t-shirts on so notsure how much that helped...
All in all it was a fab experience, so much fun! would recommend but just becareful and never go with anyone you're not comfortable with!
posted by KATHRYN RENSHAW
We set of to find a bus that would take us to Morningside and got off when we felt it was right, just to end up on exactly the road we needed out of town. We were outside a service station but a guy told us we would be more likely to get picked up a bit further along the road, we went a bit further along where we ended up waiting for an hour and a half to get picked up, our signs getting more and more desperate until a guy picked us up for my sign sating 'Out of town'. He explained to us that he was only going a short distance but he had hitchhiked before all over the country. we asked him what was the reason why people are hitching less nowadays to which he replied 'there are more nutters around nowadays'. He dropped us off in a lay-bye just before a petrol station just past the edinburgh ringroad, we got out wrote a sign for a Carlisle and a sign saying south, within a minute, a lady called Jan pulled up and told us that she was going through Carlisle, to which we told her we were actually on her way to Manchester, which, low and behold, so was she! Jan was lovely but my oh my did she talk, half way through the car journey me an Ally, knew everything about her family, her school years, all her jobs, her ex-boyfriends, her nephews potential footballing career, after this Ally nodded off, cos she was in the back but I had to keep up the conversation which ultimately resulted in me just nodding and saying yes and regular intervals. 
Eventually she realised i was absolutely knackered so she told me i could recline and put my head back, i did so with much gratitude, but she put on the radio and faithless insomnia came on so i decided i felt bad and carried on the convo with more gusto than ever, those 30 or so seconds with my eyes closed really perked me up though. By then anyway we were in Manchester and about 2o minutes from the stating she was going to drop us off at so we could get into the centre.
We set our signs for South and London and within half hour a guy who had pulled up asked me what i was doing. I explained that we were researching for a campaign to bring back Hitch hiking to the UK, to which he replied, 'cool, so your going to london then, do u want a lift' it turns out he was going to visit his mum in enfield a relative stones throw away from where i live. His name was Abe, an english born nigerian car trader who had a great passion for boxing and actually boxed himself. He had his puppy in the car, who Ally cradled for the entire journey, only to smell completely of dog for the next 2 days. We had a big chat about boxing and then he also told us a story about how he had been arrested because his uncle, who was in the country without papers had put Abe's name down when he had been arrested. Abe was a lot less talkative than Jan, in a good way, so the ride was a lot more chilled out, a mood which was aided by the funky nigerian RnB playing in the background. 
That night we stayed at my home in London, i hadnt actually told my parents that we were staying so it was a pleasant suprise for them. We met up with my mates Mesh and Hannah who had also hitched to Morroco over Easter so we got their views too. The next morning we went for a quick bite top eat at my mums café before getting the train across town to get to the start of the M3. We waited for about half an hour in a lay bye before a danish lady, i cant remember her name, picked us up and told us she was going to Basingstoke, it turns out she used to study at Bournemouth, so we spent a while talking about how the club scene had changed and where we are living. She dropped us off on the Hard shoulder of the slip road just outside basingstoke, where we waited for about 25 minutes. Ally was getting a bit stressed cos she couldnt work out why people weren't picking us up, especially as we clearly weren't in a situation to get a bus, I, on the other hand was skanking to JME! Another car trader picked us up, this guy was a lot less chilled out than Abe, quite intense actually, and he seemed liek the person who felt that his opinion was always right. He had hitch-hiked before, as part of his work, if a car broke down, he would hitch back to where he was based and drive back to pick it up. He explained to us how people always make judgements on face value, and therefore it was easier for him to get picked up because he would be wearing a suit. He also explained how its worthwhile going up and introducing yourself in service stations, as that gives you a chance to portray yourself better to potential drivers. 
He dropped us off on the turn off to the A33 from the M27 just outside southampton, and i have to say that is probably the most dangerous place i have stood in my life, cars going by at 70 mph + on either side. We wrote our final sign to bournemouth and then commenced to make our way up the M27 hard shoulder, as we started walking we noticed a car pulled up with its hazards on about 100m up the road. We went over to him to ask if had stopped for us, and he explained that he had seen us writing our sign and thought anyone going west along the M27 would be heading to Bournemouth anyway. His name was Andy and he was also an ex Bournemouth Student, he ended dropping us off outside O'neils on Landsdowne roundabout, bringing an end to our journey, but more importantly putting the possibility of an after hitch pint beyond doubt!
