Hitchhiking stories

I don't have any really wild stories. Biggest achievement to date is hitching to Mauritania, but everyone seems to be doing that these days, and the trip was pretty boring.
Other trips of note:
>hitched from Scotland to Luxembourg in 48 hours
>got in nasty car accident while hitching Milford Highway in NZ
>hitchhiked fishing boats around the Persian Gulf

>>1232587

>Best trips, furthest travelled, nearest misses etc?

That's funny, because I had one trip consisting of those three points.

>a good friend of mine makes some friends gaming online
>they are from Britain, they invite him to Amsterdam, as they are going there anyway
>we are polish btw
>he tells me to go along and a girl overhears us and wants to join, cause drugs and party
>ok, let it be.
>she has no experience in hitchiking
>he has very little, but he can very well take care of himself and able to cope with any shit coming for him
>we go
>we only have one map
>everything is going smooth until the last bigger city before the border
>after 3 hours a car stops and tells us they can only take one
>decide they'll be better off without me, throw friends the map and get in the car
>they ought to drop me before the fork, they forget and get me to the border instead
>I wanted to be on the way to Berlin
>I'm now on the way to Dresden
>It's about 11PM, night. stand in the darkness thinking what to do
>voice from the darkness want's something
>"where are you going?"

>five minutes later I'm in a car going almost to Karlsruhe
Not what I really wanted, but still not bad for a night trip, This is when the guy tells me the best story I have ever heard (sorry for a longer backstory, it's important):

>>1232598
KEEP GOING

>>1232598

>be him now
>~50 year old, dentist, native polish and german speaker
>live in Germany and like it

>be him then
>about the end of highschool
>also about the end of peace in Poland
>literally a couple of days before shit hits the fan he gets the information from a family friend, who's a police chef:
>they'll proclaim war
>he gets on a train
>leaves gf
>leaves basically any material possesion, because were he to take it on a train they'd expect he would stay in Germany and not allow him to enter
>sleeps on the streets for some days
>goes to a job agency
>gets physical job
>gets also privilledge of going to some special language school for immigrants
>shit's the hardest thing
>every day 60 new words
>every month another book in German to read (mostly classics)
>tests and exams every semester
>(in the meantime his jobs change, but it's always some physical shit)
>after each about half of the group gets rejected
>people cry in their sleep
>after two or three years of this they start getting dreams
>in those dreams they speak german
>they wake up bilingual
>those few who make it through are basically native speakers and also get a good job
>he made it
>the job he gets is in the Berlin's department of justice
>he's the press boy: has to read all the morning newspapers and present the relevant articles to someone important
>does it for some months

But guess what? Time has passed, Poland is no longer in a state of war. Now Poland needs a new constitution.

>he works in the main department of justice
>he is the only person there to speak both german and polish
>poland copies most of it's constitution from the german one

Yes

>he fucking translates the Polish constitution

There was a lot more to his life's story, but mostly pretty boring shit. In the end he became a dentist, as you already know. It was funny to hear how this man was later telling me about the most mundane shit possible

>>1232600
wow dude, if that's true that's amazing. Its a good story either way though. funny how life works

>>1232602
yeah, hitchhiking gives you some special insights. But wait, there's more!
Not this epic, but I promise a good laugh in the end

>>1232600
>>1232600
I wanted to be dropped after some 50 kilometers, but in the end I rode with him all the way to around Frankfurt at Men (every place I stop in this story is a gas station, btw)(you may like to check the map, it will give you some idea of what was going on)

>It's about 2-4AM
>I still don't have a map
this is where I make the mistake
>I keep going on instead of going to sleep
>there are maps on every gas station, posted on the walls
>I catch a ride to another station
>and another
here's where my fuel finishes and I go to sleep. I'm already fucked though: there are two paralell highways in that place:
one going south-north (the one I want to take)
one going south-east(the one I'm on)
>after 10 hours a truck takes me to Kassel (400km back east)
>there miraculously I catch another one to the station *south* of Hanover
>listen to advice os another truck driver and go with him to a station *east* of Hanover (the rationale being that I'll be on a way bigger road and an enormous gas station)
only one problem
>he drops me in some little city
>I need to walk to the station
>I know only a general direction
If only I had the internet...
>call my gf

>>1232612

>"I'm leaving for a party in ten minutes, ask somebody on the street"
that line was worse than her breaking up with me some months later, but whatever
>come across some youth (14-15yo) on bicycles
>authobahnn tankstelle! (I gesticulate)
>one of them starts talking to me in fluent english, explaining me a very complicated route
>wew
>once I go past some building I hear them shouting
>two of them come
>"you won't get there. Sit on my bike"
This is how I hitchhiked a bicycle
>we go through a street, a square, another street, blah, blah, blah, field of beetroots, forest path
>maybe 2-3km
>there is a station, alll right. A big one.

Sometimes the worstplaces turn out to be the best. Sometimes, sadly, the places which seem to be the best, suck enormously.
I spent on that station 10 hours- with the friends calling me all the time- or so, then I went to sleep

>in the morning I found a polish guy
>he had to fix his broken car
>then he had to ride to his firm for 3 hours
>then he rode me to the border
But to another one, not going straight to Amsterdam
>after some time I managed to get a ride to a place 100km south of Amsterdam
>after two hours there the friends called me
They told me the party's over and they are coming back home.

Fucking coming back home.


With but a little time and effort I made it to Brussels, then Koln. There I caught a Romanian going home, who took me 1000km to Viena

In the end I made 3000km in 3 days and never went to that damned party


There are more stories of course if anyone's interested.

>>1232596
did you got any trauma from that accident?

also, could you tell me more about the technique of catching boats? Howfar do they go?

>>1232613
I actually laughed at that conclusion
good story OP - ever been outside the EU?

>>1232674
sure, I got bored in eu a good while ago.
Have been to Georgia, Russia, Mongolia, China, Kyrgyzstan
Thinking about coming to Kazakhstan this year, but I still have no idea how to get there

>hitching in Mozambique
>get a nice early start at 4AM
>7AM and still nobody is stopping for me, start to get frustrated
>bus pulls over that is brimming with people
>haggle for close to an hour about prices/whether I should pay given the circumstances
>guy is being an asshole the entire time about distances and how it's a special bus, etc. Anyone who's been to Africa knows this spiel.
>driver eventually just waves me on because they have a schedule
>have to sit on top of a box of Gatorade for what would've been a 16 hour trip
>we stop for gas after going 10 feet
>unsurprisingly it takes forever
>still talking to the guy about prices, he tells me to wait until he's done pumping gas
>an hour later he finally finishes
>as we start rolling out he demands I pay a ridiculous price for my comparatively short trip, something like 4x what it should've cost
>I'm extremely frustrated, but it's getting late in the day. Long hauls are best gotten early in the morning, and it was approaching 9AM
>but still that price is ridiculous
>after 2 hours of bullshit with the bus, I say fuck it and leave
>bus takes off without me
>I flag down a car immediately going exactly where I'm going for free
>a few hours later we pull up to a long line of traffic
>car parts strewn everywhere, bodies laying about
>see the bus completely totaled way off in the bush

>hitching in Mozambique
>Valentine's day weekend, want to go to the beach. First long trip in country, about 1000km
>first couple legs go exceptionally smooth, make it halfway there before noon
>have to wait a while, but eventually snag a big truck with an old driver and another dude who's hitching to the capital
>he's going right past my destination, so I'm set
>we stop for gas after going 10 feet
>driver disappears
>me and this guy just hanging out in his truck wondering what the fuck is going on
>couple hours later he comes back visibly drunk
>it's far past the point of return for me, so I stick with it. I wouldn't get to the beach that day if I got out of the truck
>driver babies his truck, rarely goes over 50km/h
>do some quick math and realize that without stopping, I'll be getting to the beach at night
>hours pass, and each hour our driver gets more drunk
>2 trucks have clipped our side mirrors
>7pm, sun starting to go down
>driver notices some shaking with the wheel
>pull over, we have a leaky front tire
>is forced to stop every 20 km to refill it with air until the next "real mechanic", which is apparently long way off
>9pm, pitch dark, no idea where we are or how far we are from the beach
>we pull off at the "real mechanic" to inspect the damage
>it's literally a bunch of kids with tools, the oldest maybe 15 years old, under a stick pavilion
>a small dance floor nearby with a group of little girls practicing their dance moves
>nothing else around
>wheel is cracked, need to find a new one and change it with a new tire
>out of the darkness, 2 kids roll a new wheel to the truck
>they run back into the dark and return with a tire
>under a single mosquito packed lamplight, with iron bars, they jack the truck up and pull the wheel off
I wish I could express in words the surreality of the whole tire changing process, watching these kids sweat their asses off bouncing up and down on this tire with iron rods. It was wild.

cont.

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>11pm, the tire is changed and we're moving again
>I've been up since 3AM, starting to doze off
>can barely sit still the road is so filled with potholes
>fall asleep despite it
>wake up to a shoulder nudge, my friend next to me tells me this is my destination
>look out the window and see a single sign illuminated by our headlights
>everything else is totally black
>alright
>we all shake hands, exchange numbers, and I get out
>truck drives away and I'm left in the dark, would've lost my bag had it not been on my back
>get my shitty phone out and look around
>see some signs with beachy names pointing down a side road
>"Baobab Beach, 8 km"
>start walking
>starts to rain
>thankfully flag down a lone van carrying stolen stereo equipment to take me to the beach
>arrive to a dead town (it's past midnight)
>walk around until I find some transport- a tuktuk
>we drive around for an hour trying to find a place for me to sleep, eventually knocking on doors of friends of his asking for a bed
>find a place
>tuktuk driver rips me off, but I'm so beat that I don't care anymore, just want to sleep
>sleep for 3 hours until sun rises, head to the beach
>had to hitch home the next morning, so in total the trip down took more time than I spent at the beach
Totally worth it, beach was beautiful

>>1232814
Anon, that's based
please, bless us with more stories

>>1232614
No technique, since every scenario was different. But the conversation typically went something like
"Do you speak English?"
"[No]"
"Can I come with you on your boat?"
"[Sure]"
Some demanded money, some refused money even when I begged them to take it.
This was all around Musandam, though I've read you can hitch boats to the islands around Muscat as well.

>trauma for the accident
Yeah, I've got post-Chinese driver stress disorder. Never getting in a car with a yellow person again.

>my only time hitchhiking
>going from florida to north carolina asheville
>in georgia at this point
>guy flies past us in sports car, slams on breaks
>we get in, this car is like a super car
>there's even a nitro switch inside a plastic case
>guy is very quiet the whole time
>he just got out an 8 year tour in the middle east a few days ago
>first thing he did was buy this car and start speeding across the country
>he gets us there in a day