--- type: Tip title: Give strangers a lift description: Rent something with wheels and use it to pick people up β€” the vehicle turns you from a foreigner filming a street into someone doing a favour, and the conversation starts itself. tags: [transport, meeting-locals, tuk-tuk, generosity] timestamp: 2026-08-05T17:00:00Z --- # Give strangers a lift A small habit that recurs whenever Harry has rented something he can drive: he stops and offers people a free ride. It is not a route from A to B β€” he is usually going nowhere in particular β€” and that is the point. **The vehicle supplies a reason to talk that doesn't involve a camera.** Why it works better than approaching people in the street: a stranger with a camera is asking for something, and a stranger with a spare seat is offering something. The exchange starts from the opposite end, and in both demonstrations the conversation lasts as long as the ride does. It pairs with [ride out past the tourist strip](/tips/ride-out-past-the-tourist-strip.md), which is about where to point the vehicle. This one is about who to put in it. ## How Harry applies it **In [Kandy](/places/kandy.md)**, driving a rented tuk-tuk himself, he spends the run home stopping for people who need one. Three women he picks up assume he must be a Sri Lankan who grew up abroad, because his Sri Lankan friend is doing the talking in Sinhala β€” and are astonished when they look properly. Another passenger turns out to watch the channel. None of it was arranged and none of it would have happened on foot. **In [Jeddah](/places/jeddah.md)** the vehicles are rented electric bikes and the whole afternoon becomes giving strangers rides on the back of them, in a country he had arrived in expecting to find reserved. ## Demonstrated in - [Local Girl Shows Me Sri Lanka's Burj Khalifa πŸ‡±πŸ‡°](/videos/lflY_l0wZFQ.md) β€” free tuk-tuk rides around [Kandy](/places/kandy.md), and the best unplanned encounters of the day. - [Inside Saudi Arabia's Billion Dollar Future City πŸ‡ΈπŸ‡¦](/videos/OKVUlN2Jjss.md) β€” the same instinct on rented bikes along the Jeddah Corniche.