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The [[Hitchwiki]] is a collaborative website for gathering information about [[hitchhiking]] and [[train hopping in the United States|other]] [[boats|ways]] of extremely cheap ways of transport. It was inspired by [http://en.wikipedia.org Wikipedia] and by [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hitchhiker's_Guide_to_the_Galaxy Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy]. At some point it was left abandoned by its founder, and found and adopted by [[User:Guaka|Guaka]]. As a hitchhiker you're encouraged to read ''and'' write this guide, by adding your knowledge, improving existing articles and starting new ones! Anyone is allowed to edit - you don't even need to log in.
The Hitchwiki is gathering all sorts of relevant information about good hitchhiking spots, knowledge about hitchhiking possibilities in different countries, general know-how about [[what to pack]] and [[when to go]], [[what to eat]], and [[how to stay safe]].
Just click <tt>edit</tt> at the top of an article, make your changes and click <tt>Save page</tt>. A good article to start editing or writing is probably your home town. To create new articles you can add <code>[[</code> and <code>]]</code> around the title of the new article, in some other article, on your user page or even here on the main page. Save the page, click on the red link and start writing a new page. Be '''bold''' about editing, just do it!
If it feels a bit awkward, you can practice in the [[Sandbox]].
There are also some [[Help:Contents|help]] pages for people who are editing a wiki the first time.
The project started 14th of April 2005. However, the person who started didn't respond when the wiki was constantly being spammed. Consequently, on December 17th [[User:Guaka|Guaka]] moved the wiki to wikicities (now [http://www.wikia.com/ Wikia]), a migration that was completed on the 19th of December 2005.
[[User:Guaka|Guaka]] organized the relaunch with a first English version of the wiki. A second and final relaunch found place at ''hitchwiki.org'' in November 2006 by Guaka and [[User:MrTweek|MrTweek]]. In 2007 a Spanish, French and German version were added. And , in 2008 a Russian and Finnish version and 2009 brought a Bulgarian language version.
[[User:MrTweek|MrTweek]] has been handling most of the technical work ever since the second relaunch - and he's doing an excellent job thinks Guaka.
The idea in the hitchhiking wiki is not to compete with other already existing [[Hitchhiking websites|marvelous hitchhiking sites]], but to provide a way to reorganize a lot of the existing knowhow into one, easily searchable guide. Hopefully the hitchwiki can help all the other sites to flourish. It links to all known sites.
:''See also [[project:why we work on Hitchwiki|why we work on Hitchwiki]].''
The [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_Free_Documentation_License GNU Free Documentation License], the license under which ''The Hitchhiking Wiki's'' articles are available, is one of many "[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/copyleft copyleft]" [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/copyright copyright] licenses which permit the redistribution, creation of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/derivative_work derivative work]s, and commercial use of content provided its authors are attributed and this content remains available under the GFDL. When authors contribute original material to the project, the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/copyright copyright] over it is retained with them, but they agree to make the work available under the GFDL. Material on ''The Hitchhiking Wiki'' may thus be shared with, or incorporated from, resources which also use this license.
This means that the content of the ''Hitchhiking Wiki'' is available to use on other sites and media that agree to share it alike. Because of this, the Hitchhiking Wiki is not just for itself. It's for all hitchhikers, and for all hitchhikers' communities.
; So I can use the content on my own website?
: Yes, as long as you give the same permissions to the text there and remember to give the credit to ''Hitchwiki''. Linking back to the original article will suit us fine for this purpose. It is basically possible for anybody to produce a book or other similar publication from the contents of the site, as long as the derivative work is in the framework determined by the GNU Free Documentation License.