I see a lot of foreigners on travel forums and hear a lot of foreigners talk about possibility of and results of hitchhiking around Taiwan.
I’ve thought it’s very odd as a tourist except in certain circumstances and never seen anyone hitchhiking anywhere in Taiwan.
And then… I’m driving along tiny mountain roads seeing bus stops in the most remote places and thinking how odd it is for foreigners to come here and hitchhike especially when you can take a cheap bus anywhere and everywhere even to the most remote mountains. Unexpectedly, in the middle of this thought, an 86 year old Taiwanese man in a straw hat standing in front of a traditional home waves me down and asks me for a ride to the next town. He can’t speak English so we talk a little in Chinese and Taiwanese but he can’t hear well either. It was only about 5 minutes but would of been a long walk for him. Dropped him off with a smile from both of us.
And now we both have a story to tell about unexpectedly meeting a foreigner on a small mountain road in Taiwan.
When we went to Taichung for a 4 days visit, we noticed a western couple (the hippy style) hitchhiking in the town, my wife said to me that no one will bother to stop, wondering if they managed to get a lift, probably not.
One time, my friend and I went out into the mountains somewhere and miscalculated the distance back to the bus stop into town. We knew walking back would take hours and we’d probably miss the last bus, so we tried hitchhiking. Plenty of cars passed, but it took hours before anybody stopped for us. The person who finally gave us a lift was an off-duty taxi driver. Interestingly, when I got lost out in the middle of nowhere in Taiwan years ago before I could speak a word of Chinese, an off-duty taxi driver took pity on me and drove me back to civilisation. So I get the impression that, aside from some off-duty taxi drivers, Taiwanese people aren’t very keen on giving lifts to strange foreigners out and about in the middle of nowhere. Can’t say I blame them.
Ive hitchiked at the end of hikes before. Its not unknown and Taiwanese recommended doing it. Ive done a few times actually. Only in the rural places though.
Unlike the US Taiwan likes to invest in public transportation. Unless it’s 12am and the buses have stopped, why hitchhike (with all the risk it entails) when you could just get on a bus?
I did manage to hitchhike around fishermen’s wharf back to Danshui years ago… he even donated to us (since my friend is a missionary)