Hitchhike from Montreal to San Francisco

I’ve actually hitchhiked tens of thousands of miles across North America, and while I haven’t done any in the past few years (so things may have changed a little) I think it’s certainly possible to do this in under two weeks. I’ve gone from Massachusetts to California in six days, for instance.

What I don’t have is any experience hitchhiking as a woman, so I can’t give much advice there. I will strongly recommend you keep your passport, phone and money/cards on you at all times, though, never in a purse or backpack.

I mapped this out on Google Maps and I’m fairly happy with the road route it gave as a hitchhiking route. The things I want to note in particular are:

• Use public transit (where available) to get into and out of large cities. On the proposed route, this includes Montreal, Toronto, Detroit, Chicagoland, Omaha/Council Bluffs, Salt Lake City, Sacramento and the SF Bay Area itself. It’s extremely difficult to hitchhike from within a city itself, though I have managed it on rare occasions. Google Maps’ public transit search will be very helpful here and I wish it had been available when I was out on the road.

  This also includes using the Tunnel Bus to cross the border at Detroit/Windsor. (Don’t accept a ride across the border unless you’re both willing to spend a couple of hours in secondary inspection.) Once you clear immigration, take SMART bus 830 south to West and Grange in Woodhaven near the end of the line and then follow I-75 south toward Toledo. Though, given the state of Detroit today, I’d also consider taking a bus all the way to Toledo.

  Chicagoland is going to be the worst of these. If you are dropped off anywhere around here, your goal will be to get to Joliet, to continue your trip westbound on I-80. Alternately you can take I-88 (the Ronald Reagan Tollway, formerly known as the East-West Tollway) out of Chicagoland; you may get shorter but more frequent rides through Illinois on this route. Take the Metra train from Chicago to Aurora. This is a lot of ground to cover either way, and you absolutely should use public transit to get into and out of Chicagoland.

• Carry bottled water. You’re going to be crossing desert in the western US and will dehydrate quickly, not the thing you want to do while at the side of an interstate exit ramp 30 miles from nowhere. I’d keep one for drinking and one for a spare, which I’d replace whenever the opportunity arises.

• Hitchhiking is not legal on the Interstate highways themselves on any part of this route. It is almost always tolerated if you are at the top of an exit ramp where it connects to the cross street. You may still have trouble in Indiana (where police usually don’t know it isn’t illegal) as well as Utah and Nevada (where it actually is illegal). As a general rule, I would not pass the sign which says pedestrians are prohibited. If stopped, be respectful to the police and you’ll be fine; I’ve actually gotten several rides from police officers this way.

Some location-specific advice based on my own travels:

• Despite what I said above, it’s possible to remain on I-80 and bypass Chicagoland to the south. If your driver is going into Chicago and not taking I-80 himself, get out at Portage, Indiana at Exit 21 where I-80, I-90 and I-94 all converge. There are two truckstops right in the middle of this interchange where you can seek a ride which is staying on I-80. But be aware your driver may not want to stop here due to being charged an extra toll. In that case I’d just take public transit through Chicago from wherever. If your driver planned to exit here anyway, confirm exactly where he is going, as some of the areas immediately west of here in Gary are not someplace I would want to find myself at any hour of day or night.

• If you have to hitch near or in the Quad Cities at the border of Illinois and Iowa, ask the driver if he is going at least as far as Walcott. This is just outside the beltway west of the Quad Cities. It has the “world’s largest truckstop” (it is actually a large complex housed in several buildings, of which most people only see one) and very heavy traffic from long distance travelers of all sorts. This is a good place to wait for a long distance ride. In the reverse direction you may get a ride all the way to Chicago or even farther.

• Near Des Moines, Iowa, try to stay on I-80 rather than going onto I-235, which passes through downtown. A truckstop is just east of the split at exit 142 (Altoona) which will make a good jumping off point if your ride is going north from Des Moines, or into the city. There’s another truckstop on I-80 at exit 125 (Clive), but traffic there will be more likely to be going south, or back into Des Moines, than west. I once had to wait here several hours to get a ride going the right direction.

• In Omaha, buses 55 or 97 will get you to 120th and L streets, where you can rejoin I-80 westbound at exit 445. (Note that the Omaha bus system extends into Council Bluffs and you can catch a bus there if necessary.) But the interchange here is a cloverleaf in a suburban area; you should expect to wait here quite a while. Unfortunately all the other options within Omaha are worse. Accept any short ride, as the next few exits farther west are much better. A truckstop and outlet mall are at exit 432; a friendly driver might be willing to go a few miles out of their way to take you there.

• When you reach Wyoming you should start packing extra water if you aren’t already, as you are about to enter the Rocky Mountains and then the desert.

• It’s illegal to hitchhike anywhere in Utah or Nevada. If this concerns you, stop at Evanston, Wyoming, just across the Utah border, and try to get a ride all the way to California, or at least to Reno (which is near the Nevada-California border), from the truckstop at exit 6.

Finally, some general advice:

• Consider hitchhiking from rest areas (haltes routières). You are more easily able to attract attention from drivers here, and it is often safer. I’ve seen this done, but have never done it myself; I mainly present it as an additional option to consider. If you’re on a time constraint, though, you might not wish to do too much experimentation.

• You will almost never get a ride from a trucker. While many of them would like to give you a ride, their company policies and insurance prohibit it. I wouldn’t bother with hitchhiking from truckstops unless you already happen to be at one or you are entering or leaving a city, and even then, expect to get a ride from someone in a car. If you do get a ride, it will likely be one who owns his or her own truck, rather than a driver for a large trucking company.

This is the “Relative Ease of Hitchhiking Each State of America” from Hitchwiki. I will presume you are not an experienced hitchiker so you’d want to avoid the red areas. Now Montreal is not on this map but it seems you will have problems in Ohio-Indiana-Illionis or if you get further south the Kansas-Oklahoma. This http://expertvagabond.com/hitchhiking-america/ fellow did a coast-to-coast hike — but it took him five weeks.