Early Retirement Extreme Forums

I currently traverse some of the most densely populated parts of the eastern seaboard to visit DGF at least once a month. It’s an 8 hour drive each way predominately along a major interstate that crosses through multiple large metro areas. I’d love to setup a rideshare/carpool/hitchhike situation for legs of the trip, but I can’t seem to find sites that cater to that sort of thing. The closest I’ve found is Craigslist, which seems to be not widely used for rides and also filled with scammers/shady shit.

It would be cool if there was an Uber/Lyft equivalent for long intercity routes with similar account verification and a review system. I’m guessing there’s not much profit and a ton of legal liability with such a thing, or else someone would have already created it. Basically something that makes hitchhiking slightly safer and convenient by incorporating 2022 technology.

Does anyone know of resources or have any experience with this sort of thing?

Greyhound?

If you're creating a long distance out of short-distance legs, it makes sense that the total price ~ sum of many uber rides. OTOH, if you're looking for fewer longer legs, it makes sense that opportunities are rare and coordination is hard. Hence, greyhound ...

https://www.flixbus.com/ I used BoltBus a number of times between Westcoast cities when it existed. Flixbus is similar between metro areas and apparently has taken some of the ridership of boltbus after it was killed during the pandemic. BoltBus had screaming deals. I once traveled round trip from Seattle to Portland for ~$12.

What I’m trying to say is, I am driving my car at least twice a month over that distance. How do I find people that are looking for rides? My car is too old to drive for Uber/Lift. At least according to Reddit there are still people who do hitchhiking and rideshare over long distances, so I’m wondering if anyone here has ever done that sort of thing.

I have to keep my car for work purposes and use it at the destination anyway, so bus/train is more expensive and slower than driving because my depreciation/wear costs are so cheap on my old car that I do DIY maintenance on.

Poparide and blablacar are the main contenders I know of in the carpooling app space (both of which I highly recommend if you are in Europe or Canada) -- neither of which are available in the US at this moment. I've heard internet squeaks of poparide expanding to the US back in 2021, but for whatever reasons I don't think it's actually happened.

Is there a university near either end of the trip? Many schools have ridesharing boards you may be able to glom onto. Mine had a giant map of the US back in the day with pegs on each state for posting notes. This may have moved online by now.

If there are universities in either of the areas it may be worth seeing if there is a bulletin board or something similar in the library (university and/or municipal) or local coffee shops. Students are always looking to share rides. Some of this may have moved to social media but I have seen these types of flyers in my area which is a lot less dense population wise.

Edit: Sorry, I didn't see the most recent posts. I left the page open from earlier and in the meantime there were more replies. I basically said the exact same thing as unemployable.

Is there a way you can post at work to see if anyone is interested in getting a ride with you? It would give you some protection from misbehavior.

I also would be comfortable posting on our local NextDoor app but I assume different neighborhoods have different degrees of safety.

This is a long shot, but if part of the trip is a destination for something you could try to connect with that community of people. For example, if you were going from San Francisco to Yosemite you could post on a rock climbing forum to find riders.

Another longshot is less than truckload (ltl) deliveries. Packages wont change the radio on you. Just be aware of drug dealers.