Using ethno-historical, literary and visual materials, this essay presents an experiment in autobiographical anthropology. The idea is to engage in a hermeneutic and phenomenological rewriting of cultures of mobility through the example of hitchhiking in Europe. To do this, I describe the relevance of intercultural, historical and contemporary interpretations of such an impromptu and interrupted form of spontaneous travel. I do so on both a poetic and political level, whether today, in the age of carpooling, or in the era of hippies travelling the world, when there was no term to describe the Anthropocene.