The mission: Virginia Beach.

Virginia Tech freshman Amanda Thompson needed to get home for fall break this weekend. But before her journey started, she faced one hefty roadblock: finding a ride.

So Thompson, a communications major without a car on campus, did what all savvy college students do: She scoured Facebook for a ride. The social-networking site is filled with people looking to share fuel costs, which average about $2.68 per gallon this week, according to AAA.

The days of hitchhiking to find a good Samaritan who will drop you home for the weekend or tearing off strips of paper on a ride-share bulletin board are antiquated.

Whether it's a social-networking site, classifieds or an eco-friendly company, reserving a ride online is the way millennials looking for a life prefer to travel. And some schools, such as Virginia Tech, have put their own ride boards online.

"Students are really ripe, because, a) they never have much money, and b) half have cars and half don't," said Robin Chase, co-founder of GoLoco, a ride-share Web site with its own Facebook application. The program allows users to access the Web site and service without leaving the Facebook site by clicking on a logo.

People who register for the service can search for planned destinations, find a driver, offer to drive and share the cost of gas. As users schedule more trips, GoLoco lets them know how much carbon dioxide they save and charges them a transaction fee.

Two months ago, Chase partnered with the popular Facebook site to tap the college-aged demographic and test her plan to help limit carbon dioxide emissions from vehicles. She thinks the more people car pool, the more carbon dioxide will be saved. That way, the benefits of car pooling are two-fold, she said.

Chase, who said she never car pooled in college, estimates she has "thousands" of users. She was unable to provide an exact number of users.

By using a social-networking site, would-be drivers can instantly talk with potential passengers and vice versa. Chase said that can alleviate "stranger anxiety."

That's what Thompson, who tried hitching a ride via GoLoco, does.

"It's never like strangers. It's either someone you know or you have class with," she said.

If she doesn't know them, she'll try to arrange a lunch meeting as a feeling out process.

"Once you add people on Facebook, you just meet people, it's just a matter of narrowing my rides home to see which way is best," she said.

Why not just take the bus?

Ride sharing is more convenient and cheaper, Thompson said. Plus, having someone to talk with makes the time go faster.

That theory might not bode well for Blacksburg businessman Steve Schade. In 2004, Schade took over Home Ride of Virginia, a chartered bus line that provides weekend service to and from Tech, Radford University, James Madison University and the University of Virginia.

Schade said he isn't worried and hasn't felt the pinch of competition yet. Often, parents call him wary of the online car pooling services.

Last year, he scheduled about 16,000 rides across the state and said he suffers more from skyrocketing gasoline prices than competition online.

And online hunting doesn't always work, some users say.

To get home this weekend, Thompson settled with a friend of a friend. None of the online feelers she put out fit with her schedule.

In the future, she said she might rely on the schoolwide general listserve, which is always filled with people seeking rides. Or, she added, maybe online classified site Craigslist, which has its own category for people searching for rides. "I need [to use] it until I get a car."