For a guy with a guy, hitchhiking is never thought of. For a guy without, it’s a daily reality. I don’t know anyone in my family that has ever had to hitchhike.

In fact my grandfather hated hitch hikers. He’d even throw our leftovers at them whenever he saw them standing by the road at my mothers place.

Which is kinda funny because the very first time I ever tried hitchhiking was on the day of his funeral.

I was five years old. My family were all piling into my mother’s van. I had seen a fair few hitchhikers hail vehicles when standing by the main road near our house.

The way these mystical travellers stuck their thumb out and summoned a ride from nothing was something out of this world.

A car would stop, the driver and hitchhiker would chat about something, then the hitchhiker would throw their baggage in the back and hop aboard a random express.

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So I had my thumb out on the side of the road, not quite sure how it all worked. Freight trucks began to sound their horns at me and I was quickly yanked aside and dragged inside the family van.

Whenever I drove around with my mum it wasn’t quite the same. I knew where we were headed, most of the time at least, because it was either school, the grocery store, or the bottle shop. Or in this case a funeral.

But when it came to hitchhiking it seemed as though the destination wasn’t always known. Maybe you’d get to where you wanted to go in one swift breeze, maybe it’d take six car rides.

What I’m trying to say is sure hitch hiking may have been the cause of death for some people. In saying that; more people die driving their own car than being the passenger.

For those that hitchhike, it gives them an opportunity to not only strike up a conversation with a complete stranger, but also enter them into a social interaction where they may learn something bizarre or compelling about the current landscape of humanity. Or maybe it would just be an awkward silent ride, those happen too. The gamble is all the thrill.

But some of the most interesting conversations I’ve ever had have been from riding in a random person's passenger seat. Some of my near death experiences have been from riding in a random person's passenger seat.

It’s all the roll of the dice, a game of chance. What I’m trying to say is sometimes it's okay to let go of the wheel and let the ride take you where it wants. Sometimes it’s the rides you take that you never knew you needed that allow you to find what you’d least expect.