Difference between revisions of "Texas"

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'''Texas''' is a state of the [[United States of America]].  
 
'''Texas''' is a state of the [[United States of America]].  
  
Texas is a horrible place to be without a car. Texans are extremely capitalist individualists, especially the ranchers. This means they never need any help and never help anybody. The attitude towards your carless plight in Texas is a curt "fuck you, buddy, you fucked up". Your rides will be mostly with people who are not from Texas, and from Mexicans. Additionally, violent insanity is highly common in Texas, and Texans are obsessed with violent murders and gristly death penalty justice. They have serial killers on the brain and so even more than in the rest of the U.S., they assume you will kill them. However, Texas is often "too cold to go over, too wet to go under" and so you are hitch-hiking through Texas. Hooray!
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Texas can be a little more difficult than the national average for hitchhiking. Texans can often be individualists, meaning they will often see your lack of a vehicle as a personal failure. However, in addition to having an individualist culture, Texans also tend to be notoriously friendly and laid-back. "Southern Hospitality" lives, if you're willing to engage your rides regardless of their accents, their political ideologies, or whatever nonsense may be pasted on their bumpers.<p> Texas is a massive state, with many of its residents having migrated from other states.  Thus it is impossible to state anything "typical" of it. Additionally, there are many immigrants from Mexico, from whom you will receive many rides. The casual kindness of Mexicans can often be your salvation, and they'll just throw you in the back of the pickup without a second thought- I think this is because hitchhiking is common in Mexico.
  
Waits can be long in rural areas, and in some parts of the state (such as West Texas), the distance between towns and the high speed limit can mean very long waits. However, in more populous rural areas, short hop rides are fairly available, and lifts from old ladies and volunteer fire chiefs are not uncommon. The casual kindness of Mexicans is your salvation, they'll just throw you in the back of the pickup without a second thought- I think this is because hitchhiking is common in Mexico.
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Waits can be long in rural areas, and in some parts of the state (such as West Texas), the distance between towns and the high speed limit can mean very long waits. However, in more populous rural areas, short hop rides are fairly available, and lifts from old ladies and volunteer fire chiefs are not uncommon.
  
East Texas is highly bourgie, the West Texas is totally desolate, but the Panhandle is the worst.
 
 
If are or merely look like you could possibly be Hispanic stay away from the border! Once you get down there, it's quite a nasty deliverance to climb back up far enough for folks to trust you. As if immigration paranoia weren't enough of a problem, for all people know you might be transporting drugs and unwanted intelligences. There are often border check-points some dozen miles up from the actual crossings that bother folks' consciences who often consider hitchhiking a sort of moral transgression.
 
 
A note: You can disguise your true colours without falling into blatant complicity with the rampant racism of Texas drivers. Nonetheless, it may be wise, as always, to test the conversational waters gingerly here. There are, of course, raging exceptions.
 
 
In [[El Paso (Texas)|El Paso]] municipality hitching is prohibited.(heh heh, whups) I mean don't worry about it, the cops will just drive on by.
 
  
 
== Experiences ==
 
== Experiences ==

Revision as of 04:55, 14 December 2010

<map lat='31.541089879585808' lng='-99.2724609375' zoom='5' view='0' float='right'/> Texas is a state of the United States of America.

Texas can be a little more difficult than the national average for hitchhiking. Texans can often be individualists, meaning they will often see your lack of a vehicle as a personal failure. However, in addition to having an individualist culture, Texans also tend to be notoriously friendly and laid-back. "Southern Hospitality" lives, if you're willing to engage your rides regardless of their accents, their political ideologies, or whatever nonsense may be pasted on their bumpers.

Texas is a massive state, with many of its residents having migrated from other states. Thus it is impossible to state anything "typical" of it. Additionally, there are many immigrants from Mexico, from whom you will receive many rides. The casual kindness of Mexicans can often be your salvation, and they'll just throw you in the back of the pickup without a second thought- I think this is because hitchhiking is common in Mexico. Waits can be long in rural areas, and in some parts of the state (such as West Texas), the distance between towns and the high speed limit can mean very long waits. However, in more populous rural areas, short hop rides are fairly available, and lifts from old ladies and volunteer fire chiefs are not uncommon.

Experiences

El Paso -> L.A. in a 53' beautiful RV with a phenomenal guy who left asleep in his vehicle with the keys in the ignition overnight in San Diego, after crossing the whole of Texas with unlicensed drivers (who tend, in my experience, to be either excellent or terrible drivers) and a near-three day wait in Laredo. What an awful place.-k

Experiences

This whole article was writen with a huge liberal bias. I have had nothing but good luck from east Texas to Arlington. So far, I've had someone give me $100 (who was an obvious 'redneck' [probably a republican too!]) and someone else buy me dinner and give me $40. I've had tons of hop rides and everyone has been very nice (yes conservative, but very nice!)


I got a ride from Texas City (near Galveston) to Houston by a used-car salesman. He let me off near I-10 and gave me $75. It took all night to get to San Antonio, mostly due to reluctant truck-drivers, but Texas isn't too bad of a place to hitch!

Cities