In this essay, we propose hitchhacking as a way of problematizing contemporary mobility and as a practice of what we call ‘passenger ethnography’. To this end, we review some of the literature on hitchhiking and offer empirical examples from Estonia, Russia and Finland. We also reflect on how autostop can be experienced as a means of knowledge production. Accordingly, we discuss how travelling together by car provides a particular type of socialisation, one in which side observation, liminality and risk condition the possibility of field research. Finally, we refer to hitchhiking as a form of gift-giving in which no reciprocation is required. The key contributions are thus threefold: i) to rethink the transgressive and heuristic potential of hitchhiking in the present; ii) to reflect on the methodological implications of doing ethnographic research on/in vehicles; and iii) to problematize commuting in a context of extensive digital technology usage and market-type notions of productivity.