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Hitchhiker's Guide to the Universe

By Tom Thumb, Posted Dec 03, 2006

Hitchhiking dreams

One can only assume that Douglas Adams was a hitchhiker. How else could he have come by the bitter-sweet cynicism that rolls off of every page of the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy?

In fact, in the first book, there’s very little hitchhiking apart from the initial lift on the Vogon space ship. Ford Prefect sticks out his electronic thumb and they avoid the destruction of the earth by moments. Worse, they fall out with their drivers, get thrown out and are saved from certain death by hitching a ride with the Heart of Gold’ Improbability Drive.

After that Douglas Adams only comes back to hitchhiking later in the ‘increasingly inacuurately named trilogy’. A series of rides gets him back to an alternate Earth and the descriptions of all the funny hand signals the drivers make confirm that Adams was a hitchhiker.

Douglas Adams died before he could see the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy made into a movie. Which is just as well as, despite a talented cast, Hollywood chewed up the classic hitchhiking story and made it into mass media fodder for the average tv drone.

If nothing else, the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy left it’s legacy to a new generation of hitchhikers by virtue of the fact that Ford Prefect was stuck waiting for a ride on Earth for decades (that’s a cheering thought when you’re next by the roadside). And that he always carried his towel with him.


Tom has been traveling non-stop since the age of 18 and co-founded Road Junky in 2004. Follow him @tomglaister

He’s the author of Hand to Mouth to India, an account of hitchhiking from England to India with no money and which will soon be rereleased by Road Junky Books.

Tales of a Road Junky featuring tales of breaking people out of jail in Delhi, selling fake Rolexes in Japan and other adventures in Israel and Brazil will be out later this year.

He also writes fiction for anyone who never really grew up and his latest novel is Bozo and the Storytellerdownload the audio book for free or even buy a copy…

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