"So here for you is the tale of my latest solitary ramble. The journey covers, as you shall see, some two hundred odd miles, through five southern counties, and was conceived on an unusual plan. For I went neither on foot, nor by any of the wonted means of conveyance beloved of tourists; neither by motor, nor cycle, phaeton nor ambling nag. Moreover, I kept clear of the main roads, and, with two exceptions, the great towns; shunned nearly all the guide-book points of interest; sought out the least frequented lanes and by-paths; and found my history in the happy places that have no history, other than that writ large over their moss-green roofs and lichened walls - the English villages, which - as I look back on the long white road of the journey - lie in the memory now like pearls on a silver string." --Take from dedication.

The first English-language social science book to comprehensively explore hitchhiking in the contemporary era in the West, this volume covers a lot of ground—it goes to and fro, in an echo of the modus operandi of most hitchhiking journeys. As scarification, piercings, and tattoos move from the counter-culture to popular culture, hitchhiking has remained an activity apart. Yet, with the assistance of virtual platforms and through its ever-growing memorialisation in literature and the arts, hitchhiking persists into the 21st century, despite the many social anxieties surrounding it. The themes addressed here thus include: adventure; gender; fear and trust; freedom and existential travel; road and transport infrastructures; communities of protest and resistance; civic surveillance and risk ecologies.

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