Independent travel to Europe: financial costs of the trip and useful tips. Hitchhiking in Europe - My Safety Tips and Basic Rules for Hitchhiking in Europe

In the first years after university, I had the opportunity to hitchhike around most of the Schengen countries. Detailed materials about the routes and features of the countries will appear on our website in the near future, but I will begin this long and fascinating story, perhaps, with general material. After all, any journey begins with an idea and with an understanding of what generally awaits on the path to realizing the idea.

1. Start hitchhiking around Europe at a young age

Teenagers exploring the world evoke affection and a desire to help, tell about themselves and show off their favorite city. When you are under thirty, mercantile Europeans don’t really understand why they should work for taxes and social security, and you should ride with the wind on their paid taxes. From my own experience, I noticed that leaving at 20 was much easier than leaving at 27. Also in recent years, I have heard a lot about how there are almost no students left on the route. This is due to the emergence of low-cost airlines or bus carriers, as well as services like. Getting there or flying with ease for 10-20 euros across half of Europe is a reality today if you plan the route in advance. Even for our Venezuelans this is tangible money, for them it’s just pennies. A trip to the outskirts of the city to get to the highway will cost about the same. So, when hitchhiking, saving for the sake of it no longer makes sense, but it still makes sense to do it in order to better immerse yourself in the world on the other side of the border.

2. Talk, ask, show interest

Hitchhiking today is not about saving money. This is the best way to immerse yourself in another culture if you don't have the opportunity to live somewhere long enough to meet and make friends with the locals. Communicate with different segments of the population. With representatives of different cultures. Especially if you are young and not afraid of difficulties. You can enjoy the silence and comfort later; adults are reluctant to pick up adults on the highway. But it’s easier for young people. Listen, ask, tell about your country. Better you than the Russia Today TV channel.

3. Be tolerant

Respectable Europeans on the roads are more often replaced by immigrants from former colonies or from Muslim countries. For some, religion, for others, sympathy, for others, interest makes them stop and pick you up. If on my first trip in 2008 I had the opportunity to ride only with Europeans, then in 2012 more than half of the kind people on the road were immigrants from Arab countries and Morocco.

4. Learn European languages, but don’t become isolated if you think that your knowledge is weak and you make mistakes; choose people who know other languages ​​as travel companions

This way there will be a greater chance that you will find a common language with a driver from an exotic country. Yes, yes, Arabic and Persian language groups will be especially useful. Immigrants in Europe also drive cars between cities. People from Muslim countries are very willing to pick up travel companions - the Koran tells them to. But I would advise girls traveling without the company of boys to avoid such cars. Especially if the driver is a Turk, they are more likely than Europeans to try to cross the boundaries of what is permitted. If you are traveling with a guy, then this problem should not arise.

It would never occur to a normal European to gather fellow travelers at night

If your English or French is weak, try to express your thoughts in any way possible. Don't be tight. It's enough. In a week or two you will learn to understand a foreign language. If it is close to the language groups known to you. In Western Europe, French and English will be useful, in Central Europe - German and English. Germany and Austria have a large Russian-speaking population, but young people speak English. In Eastern Europe and the Baltics, the adult generation understands Russian. But English will also not be superfluous. The benefits of knowing the Ukrainian language will be felt in Ukraine, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, and southern countries where the language of the Slavic group is used. But in Poland Russian is better.

5. Plan your trip only during daylight hours

Don't rely on the night. In Russia or Ukraine, you can stand under a pub for an hour or two late at night and stop a truck driver. It would never occur to a normal European to gather fellow travelers at night. Only sympathetic compatriots who may be here on business can pick you up. Or some Hungarians or Slovaks. They haven't become so European yet, apparently.

6. Better choose places where you can legally stay. Although if they want to let you down, they will stop anywhere, there will simply be fewer people willing

Don't force European motorists to break the law. There are few permitted places to stop on the autobahn: these are rest areas, gas stations, a toll zone (and in Germany there is no such thing), turns to parking lots. But it's better to stand on them. In Europe, surveillance cameras are already installed almost everywhere, don’t force people to violate them. Who would want to pay a fine for you if you decide to stop cars in an emergency pocket? No, there are, of course, citizens of the European Union with the life position of fuck the system. But they are really a minority. In the best case, the traffic police will come for you - they will scold you, check your documents, issue a warning and take you to where it is safe to stand. At worst, you will spend many hours in an undesirable place.

7. Don't rely on trucks

About five years ago you could ride with a European truck driver. Provided that one person rides in one cabin next to the driver. Now the laws of the European Union have changed. In the event of an accident, if it turns out that the driver was with someone who is not an employee of the company, the driver does not receive insurance. This is a large sum that no one wants to risk for the sake of nice guys.

8. Choose countries with a high or rising standard of living for hitchhiking.

The calculation is simple - the higher the standard of living, the more open people are. The safer a country is, the more willing someone is to help a stranger. In countries where changes for the better are currently taking place (for example, Poland, the Czech Republic), people are also more disposed towards strangers. Germany, Holland, Belgium, Austria, Luxembourg are rich in helpful people on the road. They often travel with families. But if there is space in the car, they will probably offer it to you. In Italy, hitchhiking is sad (at least in the north, it hasn’t been in the south), in Northern Italy, in the foothills, there are places where it is completely prohibited. It's better in France, but not much. About the same as in Crimea. That is, you either get lucky and get carried, or you stand there all day.

9. If you have time, it’s worth riding on secondary routes

At least part of the trip. All the beauties of nature, all the small well-groomed European villages are there, and not on fast-moving highways. Mountains, villages, lakes, castles... And it’s easier for the driver to find a place to pick you up, too. Plus, such roads are more often traveled by locals, who can tell a lot about their region. So, in France, better than any guidebook, villagers will tell you about local wine and show you an unknown waterfall or fortress. Unfortunately, on a secondary highway you are more likely to meet someone who does not speak English.

10. In Europe, as in countries like Georgia or Armenia, you can also be picked up by hospitable locals who will certainly want to show you their city - agree if you are not in a hurry and only if they promise to take you back to the track later

Visiting a couple more cities along the way is a great bonus; people enjoy sharing their favorite places. No one is better able to discover the charms of their city than locals. But if you then have to get out of these beauties onto the autobahn on your own, think twice. Why? More on this in the next paragraph.

11. Don't plan to visit many cities

Every trip out of the city, especially if the city is large, like Paris or Lyon, for example, takes a monstrously long time and effort. Autobahns were built for cars, not for hitchhikers; everything was done there so that cars could rush from city to city without being distracted. If you have 4 days in France and money only for a free trip, you should devote them to Paris rather than driving around Lyons and other smaller cities.

12. When standing on the highway, give the driver signs that cannot be interpreted ambiguously

Let it be immediately clear to you which direction you are going if you happen to stop before a fork. And this happens. Sooner or later, someone will pick you up anyway, but it’s better to be early.

13. Keep your clothes clean. Maintain good hygiene. Don't spread odors. In any situation. In any weather

In fact, this is mandatory rule No. 1 on any trip, but some characters who are especially carried away sometimes forget about it. So the first thing we have to remind you of is this.

Imagine yourself in the place of a car owner: would you be pleased to take such a person to your place? You will be forgiven if you are illiterate or taciturn; this is all a human factor that is forgotten. But based on such a strong impression of one person's hygiene, a car owner can form his own idea of ​​hitchhikers in general. Especially if he stopped on the road for the first time. If you stink a car, the next time its owner is unlikely to risk picking up kittens on the road, unless he himself has the same many years of experience in hitchhiking around the world. Also, try to look neutral and universal, if this does not contradict your principles. People are more inclined to choose someone understandable rather than exotic as their travel companion. Sometimes, of course, even such people “catch”. But most often, conservative Europeans are drawn to their own kind, and even those from whom it seems clear what to expect.

My name is Zhenya, I am an 18-year-old student from Moscow. This summer I hitchhiked across Europe, and now I’ll tell you about it. Palanga (Lithuania) - Amsterdam - Paris - Moscow in 20 days with one backpack alone, 7 and a half thousand kilometers (Like from Moscow to New York) of impressions, problems that arise every now and then and communication. But first things first.

I have been planning this trip since the beginning of 2012. All the planning consisted of me looking at the cards and asking all the questions that interested me from my brother, who had such experience. He talked about the mysterious autobahns in Germany, about the punctuality of the Germans, about the charm of Warsaw, about the beauty of the Alps, and about a bunch of other things that seemed so distant and unreal then. In the end, he said that it was better to see once than to hear about all this, and it would be better for me to learn all the delights of hitchhiking in Europe myself. The main goal for me was not just to travel this route, but to get to know the countries and people as much as possible, and all that. In fact, I didn’t think much about the meaning of this trip, I just did what I wanted and what was interesting to me.

The summer passed quickly: a session in June, a great two-week trip to the Kyrgyz part of the Tien Shan with the Moscow State University tourist club and a standard, but cool, pot-bellied holiday with relatives with bikes, the Baltic Sea and the beach in sunny Palanga (Lithuania). Previously, from the EU countries, I was only in Lithuania according to the same scheme. I didn’t have a specific plan for cities and roads, it was only in my head and very conditional.

1 day. Palanga-Warsaw
In the morning, pizza was waiting for me from the restaurant, where we had a big dinner with the whole company the day before departure. At 7 o’clock in the morning, food doesn’t really go down your throat, but the thought of the upcoming trip makes you eat everything without a trace. A tearful farewell to loved ones, a radiohead with his "I"m on the road", buying a map, Snickers and water at the nearest gas station. It seems that everything, you can go to the highway. No excitement, even strange. The first driver did not immediately understand that I was not I joke about his plans to get to Paris. He drives every day, always on the same route in the morning. He delivers mail from Klaipeda to Palanga, and then he always goes swimming, that’s why he chose this job.

I disembark at the overpass on A1, the main route to Vilnius. I'm stuck there for an hour and a half. No, really, you need to stand for an hour and a half with a sign or an outstretched arm, looking at where the driver of passing cars is sitting. Every little detail matters: the chances increase if you are not wearing sunglasses, if you are without a hat, if you look like a hitchhiker, if you are alone, if you are standing in a place convenient for stopping. It is there, it is done, everything is correct. So why the hell have I been stuck here for an hour already?

Finally! First truck of the trip, awesome! It’s hard to immediately believe that such a colossus stops for you, that you were able to stop it with just your right hand. Regular conversations about the country, about the union, about people. The driver turned out to be a former climber, he tells how he went to the mountains and how he participated in hitchhiking races on the track where we are driving. By the way, in Lithuania almost everyone over 30 speaks Russian fluently; at school they learned it at a very advanced level, and in general the attitude towards Russia and even the union is very good.

Eternally sunny Kaunas, where I spent an hour and a half, a milk tanker with a guy who looks like Bruce Willis, the border with Poland. It started to rain at the border. This is normal rain, my umbrella almost collapsed a couple of times. Oh-ok, I’ve been told more than once that when a driver sees a hitchhiker in the rain, he immediately picks him up - it’s a pity for him, he gets wet. The first 30 trucks that passed, I still believe in it. A car stops next to me, but it’s a border guard’s car:
- Good afternoon, where is your car?
- Hello, she’s not there!
-Where is the bike?
- And he’s not there
- So what the hell are you doing here?
- I'm hitchhiking to Paris
- Well, well, good luck getting there.

McDuck in the border town of Suwalki was awesome. It was 7 pm and I had driven halfway to Warsaw. At this rate, I would get to the place by 6 am, I’m not yet used to wandering around the night-morning city in search of a hostel, so I stand on the side of the road behind the crossing, where the speed of cars is low and write “Wawa” on an A4 piece of paper, as the local advised, and I'm catching a car with a cool Polish couple straight to Warsaw. We speak only English, well, now I feel like a full-fledged hitchhiker. Turns out they love Radiohead too. I call the clerk and sleep in the back seat. 5 hours of travel, and we enter the capital, Warsaw at night looks like a real metropolis, very extended and full of life. The 10th is Friday, so the street is full of drunken young people, in this regard the city resembles the center of Moscow at last call. The couple needs a car just to the metro station where registration is waiting for me, awesome!

I meet Joseph at the metro and go with him to the registration office, where there are already a bunch of his friends. I throw things in the kitchen and go to the balcony to meet everyone. Among these people are a professional concert photographer, Josef's girlfriend and someone else. I see Josef holding out an open bottle of Heineken:
- Welcome to Poland!

Hitchhiking is a journey on a passing vehicle, when the driver can, if desired, pick up a fellow traveler and give him a free ride to the agreed upon location. “Payment” is considered to be live communication, for the sake of which most drivers agree to take strangers on board.

Hitchhiking is chosen by especially desperate and adventurous people. But is it really dangerous? Hitchhiking is developed to varying degrees around the world, in some places it is commonplace, in other places it is risky, and in others it is not accepted at all.

My experience as a “hitchhiker” spans several countries, but I have been closely involved in this issue and will tell you about the features of hitchhiking in Europe. But first, I’ll tell you about the unwritten laws of the hitchhiker, which are relevant all over the world.

• be sociable, sincere and polite;
• don't be too intrusive;
• do not forget to discuss all the conditions before the start of the trip: where they can take you, and whether the driver expects anything in return for his services;
• Before leaving, prepare well, take a map, find out about the culture of the country where you are going to travel. It is not enough to know the language, it is important to know the subtleties of mentality. Even body language can be radically different;
• if the weather is bad, take an umbrella or shelter from the rain. Nobody wants marks from your wet raincoat on the seat;
• if the road leads in several directions, prepare a card with the place where you want to go or the route number;
• Think in advance where you will spend the night. In a tent, in the nearest city, in a hostel or using couchsurfing, or perhaps you will be able to spend the night in the car of a local “truck driver”. Although, of course, you can accurately predict where the night will find you.

The photo shows our tent at one of the “non-working” bus stops in Amsterdam.

Europe is like a small planet, and every corner has its own customs, and hitchhiking is also different in different countries. So, the countries most “prone” to hitchhiking are: Germany, Holland, Belgium, Italy, Switzerland, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Slovakia.

It will be difficult to find a driver in France, Spain, Sweden, Greece, and Portugal. Although, of course, this does not mean: “don’t hitchhike in France!” I myself, at one time, got from Paris to Lille without any problems, albeit with some time, but by hitchhiking. Cars rarely stop, so you will have to wait longer. For example, in the photo there is a French grandfather with whom I still communicate. He drove me an extra 50 kilometers, which was not on his way, took my phone number and now periodically inquires about the state of my health.

So, it all depends on you and a little luck. Surely, someone has experience of successful and fast hitchhiking in “difficult” countries.

Hitchhiking in Germany seemed to me, and to many people I knew, the easiest.

The only thing important to know is voting, and being on the autobahn is prohibited .

You need to ask the driver to drop you off at a gas station or in a parking lot, where you can ask the people stopped if they can take you. Not knowing this nuance, I stood on the highway for about an hour, desperate and afraid of being hit by every passing car.

In Belgium I met kind, reliable drivers. One of them gave me this reflective vest. By the way, a very necessary item in a hitchhiker’s wardrobe.

But, of course, during my travels, there were some sticky situations. One driver who “saved” me, on the way out of Paris, insistently offered to go to his house for a “cup of tea.” But I managed to convince him that it wouldn’t work out now, maybe another time. Fortunately, the driver didn’t try to persuade me any more, and I began to take a more careful approach to the “choice” of the driver.

Also pay attention to the exit from the city to the highway. Look on the Internet, ask the locals, you may have to walk for some time. In the city itself it is better to use public transport.

Wonderful site, which I can recommend to travelers with knowledge of English - http://hitchwiki.org/. There are several articles in Russian, tips, maps and a lot of interesting things.

Safety

Having “stopped” one, I can say that there is still a risk of danger.

If you are a girl, you will be picked up faster on the highway, but it is better to travel in the company of a girlfriend or boyfriend. It’s easier for a couple of women or men to leave, but two men will have to wait a long time for someone who wants a ride.

If you are traveling alone, send the car number and location to your friends, just in case. If you are really afraid, you can take a gas canister with you to be sure. But be careful here too: in some countries (for example, Belgium) they are prohibited.

And most importantly, as in any business, don't be afraid to say no. You didn’t like the appearance, the look or the way you spoke confused you, it’s better not to take risks. Apologize and look for another car.

Conclusion

Of course, this type of travel has many advantages. This is also an opportunity to save money, talk about yourself, your country and city, find out the opinion of foreigners about the situation in the world and their state, communicate with indigenous people, feel the difference in accents and dialects in different parts of the world...

The disadvantages include the danger present in hitchhiking, the human factor, the likelihood of meeting a bad person is small, but it still exists. In addition, you get tired from hitchhiking for a long time: constant conversations, answers to the same questions, when you just want to sit and look out the window, sleep and relax, but you need to be alert.

Despite these disadvantages, I still advise you to try hitchhiking for yourself at least once. This is not just traveling in a group, this is a whole exciting adventure, where at any moment you can change your destination, you don’t know what will happen tomorrow, you live here and now and enjoy the road and its “intermediate stations”.

Updated: 2019-8-5

Oleg Lazhechnikov

Following on from the previous post about cheerful and relaxed. Inspired, so to speak.

I had a chance to travel and hitchhike, to look at the roads of France from the perspective of hitchhikers. And what can I say - hitchhiking exists here, although it is slowly being replaced by covoiturage.

Covoiturage- this is a type of transportation when the driver and passengers save money on gasoline and tolls. There are special sites for this, where you can find each other, like. Moreover, this is so popular that drivers’ offers are being snapped up like hot cakes. I couldn't leave Grenoble this way, everything was already taken. Some drivers even make money this way, set the price higher than the cost of travel, and drive back and forth.

Now in Russia it already exists, the website is the same - . The service came to us from Europe and has exactly the same name.

Hitchhiking in French

The first time I went out onto the track, I stood up as usual with my hand raised, waiting for the car. And he stood there for 1.5 hours. It’s strange, because hitchhiking in Europe should be much more developed than in Russia, and I even thought about getting upset, because there was another 800 km ahead of me.

However, at the next stop I met a French hitchhiker, and he taught me how to stop correctly, in French. And this consisted in a small theatricalization of their actions. You need to wave your arms, smile, laugh, make fun of the drivers, wave a sign at them, and dance a little. A little unusual, but much more fun and warmer. After all, November is already a little cold for hitchhiking.

In France, there are signs where you need to write the name of the city where you are going. Or even better than those settlements that you meet along the road. This gives you a greater chance of getting the right driver.

In fact, there are completely opposite situations that prove that hitchhiking is still alive in France. I was picked up by a car in which there were already 3 people, and even a dog. At the same time, they called their friends to find out if they would go to the city of Lyon and take me.

Hitchhiking on the autobahn or a regular road?

Since France has toll and free roads, the style of travel on them is different.

Toll roads are highways on which pedestrians are prohibited, which means that standing on the side of the road is also prohibited. And special cars are constantly driving around, checking whether everything is in order on the road, including the presence of pedestrians. The only acceptable locations are gas stations, parking lots, and toll booths (Peage). But in fact, it’s only possible to stand on the latter ones, since parking lots and gas stations are rare.

Restrictions are related to the safety of people. There is even a joke: a pedestrian on the autobahn does not live longer than 15 minutes. It was told to us by a man who once worked in the road service and who picked us up right on the autobahn.

Piages are located at the entrances and exits to the Autobahn. Accordingly, only entrances are needed. Here lies the main disadvantage of traveling on autobahns. All traffic passes you by. Since you are only standing at the entrance to the highway from some populated area, and not right on the road. And if this point is complete crap, and there are 1.5 cars per hour, then there is every chance of being stuck there for a long time. So learn to dance! A good hitchhiker is a dancing hitchhiker!

Traveling on free roads is very similar to the situation in Russia. Stand on the side of the road as long as you like and wait for the car. But for long distances, the French, as a rule, drive on the autobahn, and therefore here you will most likely have to be content with short dashes, or rely on a driver who wants to save money. There is one more small disadvantage of this option - the road network is very extensive, without a good and detailed map you can go to hell. And also a lot of small and not very small settlements along the road. In this regard, the autobahn wins - a straight road with normal speed limits, no cities, no traffic lights, and with drivers traveling far away.

Language barrier in France

It so happened that none of the drivers who gave me a lift spoke English. More precisely, one spoke, but very poorly. There is an opinion that the French, on principle, do not like to speak English, even if they know it. I haven’t encountered this yet, but it is a fact that not everyone knows English, despite the fact that this is Europe.

Therefore, English alone is not enough; you also need to speak sign language and have Google Translate on your smartphone. It wouldn't hurt to learn at least a few phrases in French.

I hope this information regarding hitchhiking in Europe, and in particular France, is useful to someone. And although I was stuck on the road for a couple of hours a couple of times, I was very pleased with the trip and the experience.

Life hack 1 - how to buy good insurance

It’s incredibly difficult to choose insurance now, so I’m compiling a rating to help all travelers. To do this, I constantly monitor forums, study insurance contracts and use insurance myself.

Life hack 2 - how to find a hotel 20% cheaper

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On December 18, we left our native St. Petersburg, got our feet wet, were frozen, and after two hours of the St. Petersburg Ring Road, sunset Vyborg, hitchhiking at the Finnish border, Russia let us go, Hurray! This is how #europe_trip started, which lasted 52 days, stretched across 11 countries, improved my English and left very sincere feelings in certain corners thanks to my native Couchsurfing.

Some numbers:

• Traveled 5000 km in 52 days.
• The money spent was 300 € for two, that’s 170 rubles per day per person, and we didn’t feel any particular need for anything, we had everything.
• We spent 28 € on travel for two people, this was a ferry across the Gulf of Finland from Helsinki to Tallinn, public transport in cities without control, we traveled without tickets, not counting isolated cases.
• We visited 11 countries, with stops at least in the capital in the north of Europe, and with measured, unhurried movements in the south, the weather still decides a lot.
• 12 times the site helped us find free housing in the homes of local residents.
• 3 times we stayed with friends, or through friends of friends.
• 2 nights spent at two different airports (they were just along the highway)
• 2 nights spent in a tent in the Polish expanses and a lot of camping in Spain and Portugal.
• Once we stayed in a hostel for 11€ for the sake of experiment.
• Five kilos of impressions, three hundred smiles and seven kilotons of happiness were received.

The three most vibrant countries:

• Finland
• Germany
• Spain (Andalusia region only).

Three highlights:

• How we woke up in a tent on December 31st.
• Berlin on New Year's Eve, madness and courage.
• The speedometer shows 231 km/h, we are rushing along the Polish autobahns.

Best Hitchhiking Reality Stories:

• Christmas evening on the autobahn without streetlights and two monks stopped, who spent the entire two hours before Vilnius talking about our Lord.
• First day of hitchhiking in Spain: after futile attempts to stop the car, we walked 19 kilometers to Gibraltar, initiated into Spanish hitchhiking. ;)
• Having learned that our host had no plans, we initiated him into the reality of hitchhiking and took him with us to a neighboring country.
• We couldn’t leave the Berlin airport for two hours, went to the autobahn, found a box of tangerines, rejoiced, went to the airport building twice, got stuck on the Internet, tried our luck for another hour, froze, returned to the airport, bought tickets to Morocco, and warmed up. A few weeks later, two hours before this very plane, we stood on an empty winding highway, far from the main busy ones, stopped imaginary cars and thought how it happened that the plane was soon, and we were in some forest...
• On a cold day, on the way out of a German city, a woman approached us and asked about our plans. After explaining that we were trying to catch a car to leave, she left and returned with hot coffee and donuts, asking us to take care of ourselves.

Hitchhiking to save money is not about Europe. Low-cost airlines have been flying here for a long time for 5-20 € and buses have been running from 5 € between major cities (promotions on the Ecolines website). The only thing you will need: learn to plan your ticket purchases in advance.

Airlines in Europe: Ryanair, Air Berlin, EasyJet, Wizz Air, Norwegian. From Russia: Pobeda. There is a life hack about buying cheap tickets

You can sail cheaply from Helsinki to Tallinn by taking the Helsinki-Tallinn-Helsinki tour (14€, quite often promotions from 5€), you don’t have to return to Finland. If you look at regular tickets, they range from 20€ to 40€, depending on how far in advance you buy.

Well, for the sake of a good experiment, immersion in a foreign world, for the sake of meeting people, communicating, practicing English, and just hitchhiking for the sake of hitchhiking - it’s all easy.

Hitchhiking in Europe: where to stop?

There is no Russian indifference, no Russian “Maybe”, there are very large fines for drivers, and in general Europeans are more civilized people than Russians, and hitchhiking here is really different from the usual Moscow-Vladivostok highway.

Autobahns. While eastern Europe is just beginning to be enveloped in a web of autobahns, the rest of Europe is experiencing a thriving and growing network of expressways that seems truly challenging for the hitchhiker's mind. Yes, there are also ordinary roads, but on them the people almost always do not speak English, which in general is not always a bad thing. Ordinary roads go through more picturesque hilly areas, but as practice shows, you still have to make friends with highways. And as a result, with the police, and with high speeds, and with indifference.

The whole experience of hitchhiking comes down to one rule: find a place where the driver will notice you, have time to figure it out, because he has a low speed and where his stop will not be contrary to the law - voila, the car is caught!

Gas stations. The best thing is a gas station on the autobahn (with a lot of traffic), everyone is going in your direction and, once you are here, half the job is done!

Entries on autobahns. But while you're not there, it's best to stop at the entrances to the autobahns. There is not always space there and in places particularly remote from the capitals there are no cars at all. Then we went out onto the autobahn and slowed down the cars there, no big deal.

Europeans, especially in more developed countries, drive very carefully, usually 120 km/h is the norm. Only in Poland, which has not yet been fully Europeanized, we were lucky enough to drive at a speed of 230 km/h, but this is rather an exception. Sooner or later they will pick you up on the autobahn too. Five times in two months the police caught us on the autobahns, they don’t know English, and they simply ask us to go back from where we came here, only once in Spain the police said that if we come out here again there will be a fine of 200 € each.

Ideal spot for hitchhiking— before the junction and entrances to the highway, after some kind of roundabout, where drivers slow down as much as possible, it is very important to make it clear which direction you are going, not many Europeans will waste a couple of minutes to find out about your plans, they simply show with their hands that they do not understand you.

Quagmire of cities

The most difficult thing about hitchhiking in Europe is leaving big cities. In general, this problem is present everywhere, but here to a huge extent. There is a large flow of cars, 90% of them are locals who only go as far as a gas station and people who are generally far from traveling. Transport to the outskirts is insanely expensive, it’s good that there are Germany, Finland... where you can not pay for travel and be great.



Hitchhiking signs

In every place where your intended route is not obvious, it is better to stand with signs, they really help! Many Europeans hitchhiked in their youth, they understand perfectly well that if they are not going to the city you wrote, but along the way, then they can also stop and give them a ride, this is not China, Europeans are advanced travelers.

Normal view

If you look ragged, informal, disheveled, of course some freaks or hipans will pick you up, but there are not so many of them here in relation to ordinary people, and you will have to wait quite a bit.

We often asked drivers why they stopped for us, hoping for some crazy story about their travels in their youth... but we were simply told that our face, our appearance were good, why not.

So be neat and happy, even if you just emerged from the depths of the forest.

Languages

Personally, I came here to practice English, I am one of those who are too lazy to read the rules and cram words, it’s easier to communicate every day, make mistakes and sometimes not understand a word from those who like to speak quickly. Well, to make it interesting, change the situation, delve into the life and characteristics of the country where I am, so that there is something to talk about. Unlike the streets of India, where my English began to emerge, here you can feel the education, erudition, and common sense in these European heads. In general, they have a lot to learn.

About politics

Of course, in countries where every thousand kilometers has its own ruler, but everyone lives as one big family without borders, there is a lot of talk about politics, and everyone considers it their duty to express their point of view about Russia, about America, about the times from Lenin to Putin.. By showing interest, you will even begin to understand the global economy! Europeans love it.

Day and night hitchhiking

Not a single reasonable European would think of collecting hitchhikers on a highway at night, they are already timid!

Perhaps at night you will be lucky in Eastern Europe - those with a little Russian spirit, and they know the Russian language, will worry about you... In the rest of Europe everyone will worry about themselves when they see you in the darkness of the night! For the sake of interest and statistics, we stood under the streetlights and tried to hail a car, once a girl from Argentina stopped, and on Christmas Day, closer to night, two priests picked us up, and for two hundred kilometers they talked about our Lord - that’s all.

About the tent and the contents of the backpack

In case you didn’t make it to the city before dark, you’ll need a tent, and everything that comes with it for a safe overnight stay.

The more you travel, the smaller your backpack becomes, the more you think about its weight and the need for each item. If earlier I took the cheapest sleeping bag, which took up half of my backpack and did not always keep me warm, now the NorthFace sleeping bag weighs less than a kilogram, is as compact as possible and is suitable for sub-zero temperatures. Instead of an army boiler, use a one-liter JetBoil, which boils water in a minute and is convenient in extreme conditions. The tent is from Russian Equipment, a very good company. In general, for the sake of being closer to ease of movement, this is all.

We always carry muesli, peanut butter, cheeses, chocolate, butter, canned noodles, etc. in our backpack; in large European supermarkets (Lidl, Aldi, Dia..) it all costs much less than in Russia.

Overnight stays: hostels, tents, Couchsurfing

In cities you can stay in hostels for 10€ or use the free hospitality website, we met some really cool guys thanks to our registrations.

If you have no money at all, you can live in a tent in a park, for example, this is not entirely legal.. But if you put up a tent in the dark in the evening and pack it up at least before eight in the morning, then there shouldn’t be any problems. You can leave your backpack at the hostel and swim there, pretending to be a resident tourist. You can ask to spend the night or take a shower from firefighters who work and live in fire departments during their shift.

Spain, countries with bad hitchhiking

There are countries where hitchhiking turns into roadside meditation, because no one stops for hours. Spain, with the exception of the southern region, parts of France, Italy. Someone will stop anyway, but the wait for this someone will be very long. When asked why the Spaniards don’t stop, the local answered us that they don’t like it, they just don’t want to. In principle, a good explanation.

Traveling and hitchhiking in Iceland

And there is the country of Iceland, where hitchhiking is probably the best in the world; waiting 5 minutes is considered a record long time. During the high season (from June to September), many tourists come here and rent cars, and when people travel, they are happy and open to the world, they easily and happily drive travelers to exactly the sights where they themselves are going.

At this time, in those parts there are white nights and warm but windy weather. There are a lot of campsites along the road, where you can find left full threaded gas cylinders, in general, everything for a comfortable stay for a tourist. And if you live in a tent and cook yourself, it’s just as cheap as on the mainland in Europe. From the Baltic countries to Iceland you can find tickets from 50 € round trip, or from Norway for 100 € round trip.

England

It’s easy to get here either by hitchhiking from France or by low-cost from anywhere, the only thing is that you need an English visa. Today, England allows one day without a visa, provided that you are traveling in transit to America, or Gibraltar - a tiny peninsula under the English flag, where a visa is not required. The only free monkeys in Europe live here, and there are very picturesque views of Africa across the strait.

No hospitality!

Unlike Asian countries, Europe is famous for its anti-hospitality, even if you start talking about Couchsurfing, even if you seem to have become friends... If we are invited to visit, this is rather an exception to the rule. But those Europeans whom I met on the streets in Asia are very happy to meet again, for them I’m kind of like a memory from a bright trip to sunny countries.