Hitchhiking Can Be Risky As a Woman. But I Love It.

This article originally appeared on VICE France.

I first met Nastasia Nia, 34, while she was standing by the side of the road, her thumb stuck out, carrying a cardboard sign with something scribbled on it in a runny felt tip. She kept getting honked at, or else guys in passing cars looking her up and down.

These days, it’s quite rare to see hitchhikers out and about. Unfortunately, hitchhiking is now mostly associated with scary movies and urban legends. It’s certainly no way for a young women to get around – or so people would say.

“When I was younger, I was a bit freaked out by it,” Nia says. “But once, my car broke down on my way to work and I just stuck my thumb out.” After that incident back in 2017, Nia never went back to individual transportation. Little by little, she went on longer and longer trips, including a solo journey across South America. 

For her, hitchhiking is a winning combination: It’s free, fun and eco-friendly. “I don't like to use my car when it’s just me, it makes me feel anxious and guilty about the climate,” she says. Hitchhiking has allowed her to make unforgettable encounters along the way, but of course, not all her experiences have been pleasant.

“At the end of one of the trips, a guy tried to kiss me, it was very embarrassing,” she said. “He thought I had asked him to pick me up so I could flirt with him. You have to be responsive, and that comes with experience.” Even though these kinds of situations do happen, Nia says most of her trips have been very positive. She doesn’t let the bad ones stop her from hitchhiking. 

Besides, Nia always takes precautions. For instance, she jots down a car’s licence plate before jumping in it. If something doesn’t feel right, she tells the driver she actually needs to go in a different direction and doesn’t get in the vehicle. If she does get inside, she keeps her phone close in case she needs to text or call someone.

“I learned to trust my instincts, I feel it in my gut,” she said. “If I think something is off, I'm not getting in. Many of us women hitchhikers have worked out this way of doing things.”

This also rings true to globetrotter Lucie Azema, author of Les Femmes Aussi Sont Du Voyage (“Women Travel Too”, only available in French). “Hitchhiking is built around a lot of danger, but women manage to overcome it,” says Azema. The problem is, society only values risk taking in men, Azema continues. “The more considerable risks a traveller takes, the more their trip is seen as adventure in its truest form,” she said. “But for women, we think of travelling as dangerous, because a woman's place is in the home.”

Of course, the threat of sexual assault is very present in any woman’s life, and that’s true for female travellers, too. But as multiple studies show, women are much more likely to be assaulted by people they know than by strangers on the street, despite what most of us grow up believing. 

Azema thinks this framing of the issue is all wrong. “We have a very sexualised image of female travellers,” Azema said. “But instead of telling women to be careful, we should be better at educating men not to attack them. To be provocative, maybe we should ban men from travelling, since they are the ones who are dangerous.”

After peaking in popularity in the 1970s and 1980s, hitchhiking lost its appeal with the rise in car ownership and the advent of car-pooling, cheap long-distance buses and many other new services. What certainly didn’t help is that during its hay day, multiple high profile serial killers chose hitchhikers as their victims, many of whom were women. These brutal murders – committed by criminals like Edmund Kemper, William Bonin and Ivan Milat to name a few – still cast long shadows over our perception of hitchhiking.

But today, hitchhiking has arguably become a lot safer thanks to location technology and constant internet access. Quitterie Clouet, 23, from Paris, decided to go on a hitchhiking trip across Europe in January 2022 after finishing her studies. She’s since launched an online dashboard of her journey, where she documents each step by taking a selfie with her drivers. This allows her to keep the photo as a memento, but she also finds this reassuring.

Clouet has had one bad encounter. “A driver touched my thigh,” she says. “I pushed his hand away and he apologised.” At the same time, she thinks the good experiences outweigh the bad. For instance, during a three-day trip in Norway, she and her driver got stuck in a snowstorm. It may sound like hell, but actually, the two built a bond. “When he left, he had tears in his eyes,” she says. “It touched me.”

Even though Clouet feels good about this way of travelling, she’s struggled to get her family used to it. Before going on her trip, “Some relatives kept telling me I didn't realise how dangerous it is,” she says. They still haven’t come around to accepting her. Dealing with other people’s fears is often one of the biggest challenges for women hitchhikers.

Iliana Holguín Teodorescu, author of the book Aller Avec La Chance (“Go With Luck”, only available in French), says she’s had to reassure some of her drivers in the past. “Some even offered me a knife or pepper spray after picking me up, to protect me,” she said. She’s never refused to get into a car. Shady guys have already crossed her path, but she’s made a point to confront them anyway. “I want to show them that I'm not just a body, and I try to explain to them why their behaviour is wrong,” she said.

Alice Magrini, a 23-year-old hitchhiker, even thinks that there are some advantages to being a woman on the road, too. "People are afraid for us so we never really have to wait for that long,” she said. “Generally, as soon as I get in the car, I am told that I was picked up for that reason.” Clichés can sometimes work in our favour.