I've hitched a couple of dozen rides, and probably picked up half that many. Most of the folks who picked me up were great-- ranchers, families heading to the mountains, an Alaska court judge in a vintage Mercedes who took me all the way to Seward from Anchorage, prison guards, contractors, nurses, etc. Nice cross-section of America. Also had a fair number of drunk, high, weird, and f'd up rides. Those are less fun-- but memorable!
Best ride? Peru during a trip with my girlfriend (now my wife) back in 2001. Were trying to hitch back to town after spending the day at a wildlife refuge. An hour or two goes by with no luck, then a fire-engine red Landcruiser screams by, brakes hard and pulls over. We hustle up to the truck and notice the white cross against the red paint. I ask "Red Cross?" Yup. We hop in and the driver floors it again, passing everyone on the road. I ask, what's the emergency? Turns out we were delivering toilet paper to the next town! Sure enough, I look in the back and there's a small mountain of TP. Some emergency!
