A young man carrying a closely guarded guitar case meets a free-spirited young woman while hitchhiking across the Mojave Desert, she befriends him, then he hauls both of their luggage, they play an olive pit spitting game, she shares a cannabis joint, they become lovers, and they accept various rides, en route to a Pacific coast beach.

At the beach the man runs, fully clothed, into the surf, and splashes about, while the woman with daisies in her hair, hesitatingly opens his guitar case and lays out its contents: a tie, wingtip shoes, Thrifty Drugs mouthwash, a paperback of Arthur C. Clarke's The City and the Stars, a white shirt, Right Guard spray deodorant, a suit, a roll of toilet paper, white crew socks, Phillips' Milk of Magnesia, and toothpaste.

Spielberg found his lead actor Richard Levin working as a librarian in the Beverly Hills Public Library.

For the mysterious redhead in the film, Spielberg discovered Pamela McMyler from the Academy Players directory.

On rough terrain and under a punishing 105-degree sun, many of Spielberg's unpaid crew left before the shoot was completed.

Opening on December 18, 1968, at Loews Crest Theater in Los Angeles, Amblin' shared a double bill with Otto Preminger's Skidoo.