For the thousands of UCF students who don’t own a car, hitching a ride home for the holidays is about to get a whole lot easier.
A new ride-sharing service called Hitch — think Uber, but for long hauls — just launched in Florida, and it promises to fill the ride sharing gap between Orlando and many other cities that UCF students call home, including: Miami, Tampa, West Palm Beach, Jacksonville and Port St. Lucie.
The service also will deliver items, like forgotten laptop cords, books, musical instruments — or even homecooked meals. In fact, the need to have a taste of home at college is a big part of how Hitch became a reality.
Hitch was created by a driven college student, Kush Singh, who launched the company at the age of 19 after his mother wanted to send him a homemade meal from her Dallas kitchen — about three hours away to where Singh was studying at the University of Texas at Austin.
Shipping the food with a same day service would have cost hundreds of dollars. That got Singh thinking that he should create a company to connect people across cities in an affordable way.
SAVE: UCF students can get their first ride free with code UCFNEWS1 (up to $50)
But a problem stood in his way: Singh didn’t have money to hire drivers to test the concept. So the CEO himself got behind the wheel, driving over 25,000 miles, carrying people and packages, across the state of Texas to prove to investors that his idea was worth a shot.
Singh’s determination paid off. He secured funding from investors. And after a successful launch in Texas, Singh is able to expand into the Sunshine state.
The service is aimed at college students, like those at UCF who might otherwise be stuck having to Uber all the way across town to the Greyhound bus station to catch a ride to South Florida.
With RideHitch.com, Knights living near UCF’s main campus could instead get picked up at the Starbucks on University Blvd., just down the street for campus. Hitching a morning ride to a Starbucks across the state, like one near the West Palm Beach airport, could cost as little as $25. Door-to-door premium service is available for a higher price.
And when you catch a ride from UCF to another city in Florida, there’s a good chance a UCF student could be behind the wheel. Singh is betting that UCF students with cars, hoping to make some extra money on their drive back home, will sign up to drive others who need to hitch a ride on their way.
But there will also be professionals behind the wheel, who will drive more consistently, to keep up with demand.
Along with getting a free ride, up to $50, with promo code UCFNEWS1, UCF students can save even more money throughout the semester by verifying their student email – to receive up to 20% off each ride.
For more information on the service, or to download the app, visit RideHitch.com.
