Memorial University student hitching a ride to her master's degree

A folklore student at Memorial University of Newfoundland has collected the stories of people who thumbed a ride in Canada and Europe and used them to write a thesis for her graduate degree.

Andrea McGuire said she found that hitchhiking, for the most part, hadbeen a positive experience, although she did hear some horrific experiences.

"One woman was violently attacked. That was in Europe, and one person she was kidnapped and other uncomfortable situations," she told theSt. John's Morning Show.

"But best situations I mean, people are often just incredibly kind to hitchhikers just go above and beyond."

Learning from Europe

McGuire has hitchhiked in eastern Canada and through the Balticcountries of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, where there is a "strong tradition" of hitchhiking.

"I know in Poland for sure If you hitchhiked, if you got a ride, you could give a ticket to your driver and drivers could collect the tickets and then trade them in for something like a refrigerator."

The idea for her master's thesis came during conversations with friends about their experiences on the road.

"I just thought they were pretty good stories and I thought it might have potential as a topic and I just got more and more into it."

Mostly positive experiences

Interest really took off in the summer of 2015, when McGuire was interviewed by CBC News.

• Ever hitchhike in N.L.? MUN student wants your story

"It got tons of attention and there were so many people contacting me," she said."I couldn't possibly interview them all, so there were all kinds of people who were willing to be interviewed about their hitchhiking experiences."

Much of what McGuire heardwere reminiscences, but some people continue to hitchhike, she said, at home or as "an adventure" when they travel.

"I always hitchhiked with one other person. That's kind of the limit of my trust," she said. "But I interviewed a few women who hitchhike on their own and they definitely put up with a lot."

Overall, McGuire said most of the people she interviewed felt hitchhiking was a positive experience.

"They might have one scary story, or maybe a couple. But they always wanted to frame it in such as way as an exception to the norm," she said. "They love hitchhiking. They don't think people shouldbe afraid."

One of her favourite stories was from two women who were hitchhiking on Vancouver Island and were picked up by a flower farmer.

"The flower farmer brought them to her farm and it was like this paradise garden, there were these rosebuds climbing, archways with flowers, fields and fields of flowers They stayed in thepotpourri-drying rafters."

For now, the stories are in an academic paper, but McGuire is being encouraged to turn it into a book.

"I would like to share it with a wider audience. I'm not exactly sure how that would happen."