Hello and welcome to today's independent travel podcast with me, Simon Calder. It's Monday the 8th of

December. Nobody, I don't think, likes hitchiking as much as I do, with the possible exception of

Lonely Planet co-founder Tony Wheeler and also Hilary Brad, founder of Brad Guides. There's something going on here.

I've been hitchhiking for many decades, but it's very much a minority pursuit.

All the advantages to me of hitchhiking are absolutely clear. It's the greenest form of motorised transport you can get because basically

you add a little bit of weight to the vehicle and that will burn a tiny amount of fuel, but the

vehicle's going there anyway. You get to meet really interesting people and it does restore

your faith in humanity. But still, there's a huge

amount of reluctance about hitchhiking and I'm desperate for some kind of technological solution

which is going to make hitching more mainstream. I have, fortunately, two people who are doing just that. They are Adam Renack and Dan

Smith. They are the founders of Hitcher. That's Hitch with an R at the end. And, well, tell us,

Dan, tell us, Adam, what Hitcher is all about. I think you've nailed it already, Simon. It's about taking probably one of the most effective and greenest forms of transport there is

that has somehow been relegated to a bit of a taboo subject,

particularly over the last 20 or 30 years,

and actually bringing it back into a place that people can find the thrill of hitchhiking and the real benefit of hitchhiking all over again.

We're seeing a whole new generation of people, including ourselves, that are rediscovering hitchhiking.

I recently made a trip down to the south of France quicker than I would have driven it otherwise by hitchhiking

because you can just keep going

without taking the brakes. So there's a lot of benefits to it. You meet people along the way

in a far more authentic way and we just want to show the world that you can do it that with.

Dan and I are two engineers that met at university and we we wanted to put our engineering talent

into actually bringing

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