Hitch hiking. Advice for a student, not me!

You used to see a lot of soldiers hitching. My dear FiL always gave them lifts. And the people carrying trade plates for cars. Someone told me they were paid expenses but kept the cash and hitched.

I wonder is it any more risky now than when I was 14 and hitched with my friend . My mother would have had 10 blue fits. But was it ever a high risk activity, really? Did it go out of fashion here because people had more cars, more money, better public transport? When DS2 was a student he always managed to get a friend to give him a lift.
Last time we picked up hitch hikers we were in Ireland and just as we were leaving a small town spotted a young african couple. They had a baby a few weeks old. We drove them, slowly, to the next town. It carried on being common in Ireland long after it went out of fashion here. Changed when ireland became more affluent.

Yes. The answer to that could be interesting! Especially since he had no money.

My father hitched and walked all the way to Rome when he was a student. I think it was a kind of pilgrimage. He acquired a small Spabish guitar from a monk, a bite from something or other that caused his eye to swell up alarmingly every now and then for the rest of his life, and the respect of a priest in a remote part of France. Dad had slept on the gravel outside the church one Saturday night because when he asked for somewhere to kip the priest told him to go away. Dad went to the early mass next morning (he was a devout catholic). The priest gave him a slap up breakfast afterwards.

When we were kids, my dad often picked up hitch-hikers.

I still see hitch-hikers in Scotland quite frequently. DH has sometimes given lifts, but I don't.

Ask him how he hitched across the Irish Sea!

I heard from him today, a text! He's safely in Dublin and loving it. I know no more than that.

Isthis lilygran I wonder if he knows there is a "watery bit." I think lorry drivers might worry about taking him thinking he might be an illegal immigrant or something.

It really isn't a good idea but as you say what can you do.

When I used to hitch hike [met some fantastic people doing so] I tended to prefer having a lift in a lorry, my school of thought being that they were on the road because of their work not because they were looking for young girls to pick up. However, not sure that lorry drivers do pick people up these days in case of accusations? When I had my own car and stopped hitching lifts myself I used to always give other people lifts until my husband told me not to as it wasn't safe [I listened to him cause he wasn't in the habit of telling me not to do things or being worried about what I did]. Terribly sad, really; it was a nice, innocent time, the hitch hiking years [although I did have to escape from a few cars, the nice people more than made up for it]. I wonder if Chinese students are a bit naive. We have a lot of them at the Uni in Nottingham and they're terrible at not looking before they cross the road. [I'm not being Chinese'ist here, it's just an observation].

He's going to go whether or not I suspect. Short of tying him to a chair, which I think is an arrestable offence, and might give him the wrong idea anyway, there's not much you can do or say to stop him. Perhaps offer to go with him?

If he really has no money, what is he planning to live on when he gets there? Or on the journey - could take a while hitching. How's he going to deal with the watery bit?