---
type: Tip
title: Stick a thumb out
description: Hitchhiking is Harry's default when transport fails or money runs out — the first car often stops, and the driver who does is rarely the one with the good car.
tags: [transport, hitchhiking, hospitality, budget]
timestamp: 2026-08-05T12:00:00Z
---

# Stick a thumb out

Harry hitches for two different reasons, and both are worth separating. The
first is practical: when he has no money, no ticket or no working transport, a
lift is the solution and he asks for one without embarrassment. The second is
that hitching is a way of meeting the country — you end up in a stranger's car
for hours, which no other form of transport arranges for you.

His observation from doing it in very different places: **the driver who stops
is usually not the one with the good car.** People with the least give the most,
which he says he has found everywhere in the world.

The corollary he is honest about: it can take a while, and the wait tells you
nothing about the place. In Russia he was ignored for an hour, sworn at and
given the finger, was on the point of concluding that the stereotype about
Russian coldness was true — and then got picked up by a man who drove him four
hours to exactly the city he wanted.

## How Harry applies it

Spending 24 hours in [Karachi](/places/karachi.md) with no money at all, his
first problem was covering an hour's walk to the cheap food district. He flagged
a car down and the first one stopped, then took him despite being headed
somewhere else entirely.

Crossing southern Russia from [Volgograd](/places/volgograd.md) to
[Elista](/places/elista.md) — with flights cancelled after overnight
bombing — he hitched the whole way with a Russian fur hat and a bottle of vodka
as props to get attention. It took about an hour and two cars. The one that
stopped was in poor condition, had no air conditioning and no back seat, and
drove them four hours to the destination. Harry's summary from the passenger
seat is the general rule above.

## Demonstrated in

- [I Survived 24 Hours in PAKISTAN with NO MONEY 🇵🇰](/videos/bB3dBuPkKfM.md) —
  hitching as the solution to having nothing, and the first car stopping.
- [Entering the Side of Russia You Don't Ever See 🇷🇺](/videos/OgY_LeUShM8.md) —
  the long version, including the hour of being ignored and sworn at that nearly
  became the video's conclusion about Russians.
- [Hitchhiking with Rebels through the New Syria](/videos/wF17Hx5ul7o.md) — the
  most deliberate use of it: Harry hitchhikes [Damascus](/places/damascus.md) to
  [Aleppo](/places/aleppo.md) specifically to demonstrate that the road is safe.
  About 25 minutes to the first ride, the hard part being that nobody understands
  a foreigner who doesn't want a taxi. His rule for the day — take the lift for
  free, but pay for the drinks — collapses immediately when his drivers buy him
  cigarettes he was trying to buy them and then pay for his onward taxi.
- [Madness in Mozambique's Maputo! 🇲🇿](/videos/3Imq-hamRZM.md) —
  the unplanned one. Harry gets off a commuter train at a stop he hadn't chosen,
  finds no taxis, and puts a thumb out. What the lift produces is the most serious
  thing in the video: the driver speaks perfect English, works hard, holds a
  passport, and has never left [Mozambique](/countries/mozambique.md) and expects
  he never will. Harry's response — that he moves between countries barely
  registering them and this is a slap in the face for a Westerner — is the
  argument for getting in strangers' cars in the first place.