Thumbs up: why hitchhiking is the best way to travel

When I first saw Vitaly I thought he was drunk. I was standing outside a petrol station near Fulda, in central Germany, when he pulled up in a battered Saab. Mud covered the entire left side of his car and the rear bumper hung like a drooping bottom lip. His hair was greasy. He looked as if he hadn’t slept in weeks. Only later did I discover that he had just fled besieged Kyiv. He was now driving to Bern in Switzerland, where he hoped to find work. I was heading to Morzine for a family skiing holiday. Vitaly offered me a lift.

My decision to hitchhike the 428-mile journey from Fulda to Morzine had been in part to test whether it was possible. I hitchhiked across the Balkans and then the Caucasus when I was at university. Now I wondered if the fear of Covid would put drivers off picking up strangers.