Hitchhiking in Yosemite National Park – How to do it

If you’re curious about hitchhiking in Yosemite National Park, you have come to the right place. I hitchhiked in Yosemite in June 2019. I had never hitchhiked and had never needed to google hitchhiking before because it was never something I needed to do. However, some of the trails in Yosemite almost make hitchhiking necessary unless you have 2 cars. I’ll get into all the details in this post.

Is hitchhiking legal in Yosemite National Park?

Yes.

Hitchhiking is legal in California and legal in Yosemite National Park.

If you don’t believe me, there’s this long Compendium about rules in Yosemite, and page 26 talks about hitchhiking. It is legal.

Rules for Hitchhiking in Yosemite National Park

Per the Compendium:

You can hitch a ride from anywhere as long as you are not on a roadway and you are not disrupting public safety or traffic flow. This is relative easy in Yosemite; there are plenty of trailhead parking areas that allow you to safely hitch a ride.

A car that picks you up must be able to pull onto a shoulder or off the main traffic lane to pick you up.

You can’t be under the influence of alcohol or other drugs.

Don’t be a nuisance about it, and obviously be safe.

You can’t hitchhike in residential areas.

Why you might need to hitchhike

Some of the best trails in Yosemite are one way trails that you can’t turn into a loop to take you back to your car.

If you decide to do one of these one way trails, you have a few options.

You can park a car at one end, drive another car to the start, hike the trail, then drive back to pick up the other car. Obviously, this one requires your group to have 2 cars, so this option isn’t available to everyone.
You can use the Yosemite park shuttles. These are great to use, and I highly recommend using them when you’re in the park. Unfortunately, these don’t go to every trail.
Take a guided bus tour and hop off at the start of your trail. This also poses some difficulties because the tour may not pick up exactly where you want, and the timing is not always exactly the same. Also, they cancelled our tour, so we were really out of luck.

If none of these work for you, hitchhiking is also an option.

How to Hitchhike in Yosemite National Park

I had never hitchhiked before, but I’d imagine that Yosemite is one of the easiest places to do it. There are TONS of people around, plenty of trailheads/stop offs, and I don’t imagine a lot of criminals coming to Yosemite hoping to harm hitchhikers. Also, if anyone has knowledge of the park, they know that some people might need rides to the trailheads.

Once you know which trail you are going to hike or backpack, figure out where your car needs to be when you finish your hike. Ideally, pick a spot that will have a lot of people and cars nearby.

Park your car. (If it’s an overnight trek, you need to park your car somewhere where overnight parking is allowed.)

Grab your hiking stuff, find a spot that a car can safely pick you up, and stick out that thumb.

Be safe about it. Try to avoid hitching a ride at night, it would be safer if you’re not hitchhiking alone, and maybe keep some pepper spray too. Honestly, I’m not a professional hitchhiker, so here is an article about how to hitchhike safely.

My experience with hitchhiking in Yosemite

I had always dreamed of visiting Yosemite and finally made it there in June 2019 for a long weekend. Of course, all the campgrounds were full, so my husband and I decided to do an overnight backpacking trip; this gave us access to the secret backpackers’ campground. We were set.

Except for the important fact that the trail I got us permits for was a 13 mile one way trail. We hiked the Pohono Trail, which starts at Glacier Point, weaves its way along with beautiful overlooks, and ends at Tunnel View. It is an incredible trail that I HIGHLY recommend.

I did an unbelievable amount of research on how we were going to pull this trail off with only one car. We planned to use the guided bus tour that I mentioned previously, but they cancelled our tour 2 hours before we were supposed to catch the bus.

With no other options, we decided to hitchhike.

Waiting for a ride

We parked our car at Tunnel View (overnight parking allowed), made sure there were no visible items in our car to be stolen, put our backpacking permit in the window, hoisted our packs on, and waited for a ride.

We positioned ourselves where someone who was leaving the parking area or driving along the road in the direction that we needed to go could easily pick us up. After sticking our thumbs out, we caught a ride in maybe 6 minutes.

A young couple from Colorado picked us up and offered to drive us in the direction we needed to go. They weren’t planning to go as far as Glacier Point, but we figured we could get another ride from the drop off point. We chatted for a bit, and they changed their course to drive us almost all the way to Glacier Point. It was incredibly kind of them.

We started our hike at Glacier Point, camped overnight along the trail, and made it to our car the following day at Tunnel View. All thanks to hitchhiking.

Good luck!

Have you ever tried hitchhiking in Yosemite? Share your story below.

Yosemite is one of the most incredible places I have ever seen, so I hope you enjoy your trip. I hope it is enhanced by a lovely hitchhiking experience.