Only you, fish of my dreams.
Though I haven't seen much crocodiles. Waiting endlessly for a proper thought.

UPDATE

Download page is now here. This webpage is left for information purposes

Offline Hitchwiki on your android phone

There are multiple ways to download wikis made with MediaWiki (the Wikipedia engine) and read them on a smartphone, the probably most popular one is Kiwix, funded by Wikimedia Switzerland. While Kiwix is a good project with plenty of content, I have a bad experience with it, being slow on my phone and often crashing completely. I believe an app like this one should be plenty reliable in case SHTF you're stranded somewhere.

Another solution, is Aard 2, a simple app for which you can download .slob files, dictionaries in its own data storage format that is just as efficient as ZIM (the file format used by Kiwix, from which it was forked). Aard 2 is fast, you can search on multiple dictionaries at the same time, and it doesn't crash. You can store .slob files everywhere, so it's easy to copy on a computer.

Downloading

While this article is about Hitchwiki, loads of other projects are available from the collaborative Aard 2 dictionnaries page, be it French-Russian vocabulary or the whole english Wikipedia.

For the sake of the Hitchhiking community and (secondly?) my personal use, I scraped and converted the latest Hitchwiki into a Slob file for Aard 2 since the last one was way too old. I will update it every semester or so.

I might add Nomadwiki and Trashwiki when I have the time. I'm also planning on writing detailed instructions since the process is a bit tedious and undocumented.

Download: Hitchwiki (+ Nomadwiki and Trashwiki) Slob dictionary (latest update 30.01.2021)

Update: I added Nomadwiki and Trashwiki, they're all in the same folder.

How to use it

  1. Download Aard 2 from Google Play F-Droid or Github.
  2. Download the .slob file directly on your phone, or copy it from your computer. You can put it on a SD card for space.
  3. Press the refresh button in Aard 2. It can take a little bit of time.
  4. You can then search for terms (like a town or a highway), and, while you're there, you can add Hitchwiki's "Main Page" to your favorites so you know where it is (homepages are a function Aard 2 lacks).
  5. You're good to go, have a nice time hitchhiking with (kinda) up to date directions. Join the mailing list to participate in the Hitchwiki community!