Is hitchhiking in hawaii legal?How about safe for women hitching alone? What islands are hitchhiker friendly? Is is unheard of or widely practiced by backpackers?

Hitchhiking is legal, in part to the efforts of Senator Kalani English who spearheaded the movement to pass it as an energy conservation issue.

Many people get around the island this way and while I would never pick up a hitcher on the mainland, I often pickthem up here (Maui). I have picked up young girls, men with briefcases, a tutu with her groceries--I even picked up a priest once going from Makawao to Kahului. My husband calls it "Maui Public Transit."

Here is a fun story on hitching on Maui that was in the MauiTime a little while ago:

http://www.mauitime.com/v08/v08_6/feat.html

It is a foolish idea to hitchhike or to pick up a hitchhiker anywhere including Hawaii. Just plain crazy. I work in the legal system, and there is violent crime in Hawaii as well as any other state. Do not do it.

I would never hitchhike or pick up a hitchhiker. On Oahu I have probably seen 2 hitchhikers in the 27 years I've lived here.
And I hitchhiked all over Europe and Southern California in my younger days, so it is not because I have objections to the lifestyle. I just don't think it is safe.

Visitors arrive here with visions of "paradise" dancing in their heads...but the reality is, all of our islands have crime.

Please be _just_ as alert and aware here, as you would be in any town/city on the mainland.

I have seen hitchhikers more on the neighbor islands than on Oahu - but I have never picked one up and would never consider stopping to pick one up.

As previously stated, there is crime on all the islands - I don't think it would be very safe.

I tried to hitch hike from Oahu to Kauai one time.

AuntieM-We stopped seeing a lot of hitch hikers on Kauai the 5-6 yrs after Iniki...but the past 2-3 years they seem to be back.

A solo female hitch hiker on Kauai was found murdered on the westside about 4 years ago.

When I lived on Kauai I always picked up hitch hiking kids with boogie boards who were headed up or down the hill from our house to/from the beach.

I never picked up the scads of haole hippie hitch hikers (we called them hair farmers due to their filthy, matted hair) who were continuously bumming rides to/from the north shore, acting like getting a free ride was a God-given right. LOL. I guess I sound crabby but once was enough ( the only time I picked up a hitcher in Hanalei I had to endure a dazed and confused monologue about cosmic karma and the joys of high colonics for about 20 miles.)

yeah be as cautious on the islands as you would be at home. I hitched in Europe and on the east coast a lot in my youth. Not a hippy, just seizure prone at the time so I could not get a license.

It was stupid then and its stupid now. Its not rocket science especially if you have people who see "haole" before they see a person, as demonstrated in the above post. You never know what you will bump into anywhere and the tensions could be more hostile.

Haven't heard of that 4H club.

Sarah, I just spent 6 years living on Kauai where I put over 100K miles on my car. I would say 90% of the hitch hikers on the east and north are haoles of the hippie variety; after picking one kook when I first moved there I chose not to pick them up any more. I also did not pick up locals unless they were kids or I knew them.

I just don't understand why its important for us to know that these are white hippies? Viv. I lived on Oahu for 3 years, I go back every year just about since. I know the community you are talking about just don't know why we need to identify them ethnically? I also think the term Haole is increasingly a hostile one. Originally it meant foreigner it has only come to mean white in recent times. I have a friend who has been on the island (her family) for 5-6 generations. She has had Haole screamed at her and is rarely put in the local category. It is her stories that make me react to this word. Just a thought not something I have not been guilty of, identifying someone ethnically when I did not need to.

totally off topic here.... (sorry) but Kal..do you live on Kauai ???
I may just be getting it! (why you bash Kauai to keep tourists off!!!

Well we called our own selves haoles when we lived on Kauai, LOL. The principal of the high school used to always ask me, "So , how your haole kids doing?" I was never offended. Ethnicity is very openly discussed on Kauai, nobody there takes great pains to be politically correct. Really, you are reading way too much into my post. I am just saying that the hippie hitch hikers can be tiresome and I chose not to give them rides.

kind of refreshing to hear that Hawaii doent get all politically correct about ethnicity/race. I have had it up to my ear lobes with all this "Politically correct stuff" and the fact that everyone in the world has sudddenly become so easy to offend.... the world needs to watch re-runs of TV shows from the 70's & 80's and see that it used to be okay to say certain things! with a laugh even!

It's a risk anywhere.You're gambling with your life.

After posting on this thread earlier, I had a chance to talk to a friend who is a policeman about this subject. He was citing crime statistics in Hawaii for me, relative to other states, and said that it could be a tragically stupid thing to do there (picking up hitchhikers), just as in any other state, and that he couldn't imagine any sensible person doing it. That is straight from the horse's mouth. I would never do it.

NONONONONO- NO!!!! That's what I want to scream when I see it. What are people thinking. On Kauai I used to throw the young boys in the back of my truck just so some perv wouldn't pick them up.

Anyone who thinks it is safe should read the paper each day. Like today's- Big Brother employee kidnapping and rape.

Off the sbuject a bit, but does anyone remember "Love Taxi" on Oahu in the early 70's? During the short time my friends and I lived in the Waikiki area we hitchhiked or took Love taxi - run by hippies, you paid what you could afford. I would hope my children would never think of hitchhiking now!