Riding with Strangers: A Hitchhiker's Journey

This fascinating tale of the author's cross-country hitchhiking journey is a captivating look into the pleasures and challenges of the open road. As the miles roll by he meets businessmen, missionaries, conspiracy theorists, and truck drivers from all ages and ethnicities who are eager to open their car doors to a wandering stranger. This memoir uncovers the hidden reality that the United States remains hospitable, quirky, and as ready as ever to offer help to a curious traveler. Demonstrating how hitchhiking can be the ultimate in adventure travel — a thrilling exploration of both people and scenery — this guide also serves as a hitchhiker's reference, sharing the history behind this communal form of travel while touching on roadside lore and philosophy.

"There are those who travel just to get somewhere, and those who value the journey as much as (or more than) the destination. Wald (Narcocorrido) is fervently in the latter camp. He declares early on in this celebration of hitchhiking that while the voyage is enlightening, the people one meets along the way enhance the journey; hitchhiking is a method of traveling that is 'a perfect antidote to alienation.' Wald's book tracks his cross-country ramble from Boston to the Pacific Northwest, a trip he makes seem easy and, at times, unexciting. Wald describes his more personable encounters, explaining that the immigrant truckers — like Martina, a chatty, 30-something Czech — were more likely to pick up hitchers. While working his way west, Wald passes along a thumbnail history of hitching, as well as a few pointers for those keen on practicing this mostly lost art: dress in a clean and unthreatening manner, chat up drivers at rest stops instead of sticking out your thumb on the interstate, don't expect an SUV to pull over for you, and avoid Nebraska, lest you wind up joining the 'stripped and desiccated bones of myriad marooned wayfarers.'" Publishers Weekly (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)

"There are those who travel just to get somewhere, and those who value the journey as much as (or more than) the destination. Wald (Narcocorrido) is fervently in the latter camp. He declares early on in this celebration of hitchhiking that while the voyage is enlightening, the people one meets along the way enhance the journey; hitchhiking is a method of traveling that is 'a perfect antidote to alienation.' Wald's book tracks his cross-country ramble from Boston to the Pacific Northwest, a trip he makes seem easy and, at times, unexciting. Wald describes his more personable encounters, explaining that the immigrant truckers — like Martina, a chatty, 30-something Czech — were more likely to pick up hitchers. While working his way west, Wald passes along a thumbnail history of hitching, as well as a few pointers for those keen on practicing this mostly lost art: dress in a clean and unthreatening manner, chat up drivers at rest stops instead of sticking out your thumb on the interstate, don't expect an SUV to pull over for you and avoid Nebraska, lest you wind up joining the 'stripped and desiccated bones of myriad marooned wayfarers.'" Publishers Weekly (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)

"Tedious chronicle of a cross-country hitchhiking trip....The concluding poem is just embarrassing. 'The hitchhiker's most constant, implacable enemy,' writes Wald, 'is simple boredom.' Readers of his book may share the feeling." Kirkus Reviews

"While [Wald] did find his share of kooks and weirdos, he also found to his surprise a largely untapped reserve of kindness, courtesy, respect, and friendliness. He emerges victorious with this look at a vanishing way of life." Library Journal

Elijah Wald has published six books, both alone and with various cowriters, including Escaping the Delta: Robert Johnson and the Invention of the Blues; Narcocorrido: A Journey into the Music of Drugs, Guns, and Guerrillas; and River of Song: A Musical Journey Along the Mississippi.