in the morning i started thinking about going to switzerland and i was still dumb enough not to go with one woman who was going all the way to bern. i met two hitchhikers who told me to go with one guy and i still didn't listen. i only then decided to go thru switzerland for whatever it takes. go with the flow. i was picked up by one elderly man with two sad stories behind …

i took out my cardboard saying "salzburg" and Maurice took me to austria, just before salzburg, to my "youth hostel" =)

aaaaaand the very last ride, finally, was that trucker who wasonly going to vilež, right after the italian border.

got picked up fairly quickly by one guy and his son who wee going to woodstock. what i feared the most was that i wouldn't be able to communicat, however they knew english and it was nice =)

four girls in x6 picked me up on the way to berlin in order to celebrate one despedida de soltera. they were all very young and happily married, which was a big surprise to me, since i didn't expect young people to marry anymore. i thought the best idea would be to stop on the polish side of the border and so it was.

i wanted to move forward and did the first big mistake of that trip. instead of staying in poland till i got a lift to michendorf rest area, i decided to continue and whatever happens. so half-italian-half armenian from venezuela, Varouj, was oging to hamburg, and so bypassing berlin on the north side, which i did'nt find a particularly big problem back then. i thought i'd… (read on in Trip)

by the time i saw a potential savior, a portuguese trucker, i knew i was really fucked. so when i saw that truck i almost ran after and i remember the surprised face of Chico when i talked to him in portuguese. i probably didn't have a nice face when he tld me that he was done for that day and only only the next day in the morning he'd take off for direction köln. we made a… (read on in Trip)

i was picked up by Steve with his super duper car, where i was scared to touch anything. he said he was going all the way from berlin to heidelberg to be one weekend with his girlfriend and was kind enough to take me slightly further to the hardtwald gas station. there i still hoped i'd eventually get a ride at least to heilbronn, so i could continue to nürnberg. i was stupid… (read on in Trip)

i was quickly picked up by a young family, where they guy was an ex hitchhiker and happy to pick me. it was nice to talk and i did my second big mistake right then, when it started to go well. i stopped too close to frankfurt, already on the way down, leaving the highway to nürnberg behind me. it took me hours to realize what was the problem, i was running out of food, so i… (read on in Trip)

i ended up on mahlberg rest area just before freibourg. i said to myself that i go home either via munich or milano, so i wrote on my cardboard "zurich/luzern" and waited which direction i'd get first.. i was picked up by one couple, going to zürich, whose son was, together with his friends, traveling africa wih a jeep (Y). this made my way home almost defined, there was still… (read on in Trip)

with that elderly man and with the couple things started to go well again. i replenished my water supply in that hot summer day and started hitching on that busy rest area. i got picked up instantly by 3 kosovarji guys on their was to st gallen.

i took a break and then got quickly picked up by Mark and his mom. he was a lutheran pastor from bern, going to hengersberg, i believe. it was the case that he decided to drop me before münchen and pay me coffee,which was pretty needed =). it was good idea to stop there anyways because i had both directions opened and i could try my luck.

there some truckers were going to the coast, mostly people didn't respond to my cardboard, only one young guy said he was going close but not there. so when he said he was ging to ajdovščina i started speaking slovenian and he was shocked, haha. that's how i got a lift to the highway h4, to vipava, from where i knew it was going to be easy to continue.

there i was walking up and down, trying to get a slovenian truck to slovenia because it was sunday night and they were about to start. since the rest are was very big, i lost some, so i decided to just stand at the entrance and wait, hoping for the best. i thought to myself that maybe some slovenian car would pass by. it eventually did and the guy didn't want to pick me up…. (read on in Trip)

on jesenice rest area i did another big mistake, which tourned out not to be that big after all. two guys with either radovljica or kranj plates said they weren't going to ljubljana or further west and i didn't think of asking them to take me at least to radovljica rest area, the next one down the road, where there would have been way more slovenians. so then fortunately a… (read on in Trip)

when we were already desperate we got a long lift, straight to leipzig by a guy who had his own company and was less than 30 =) =)

that was the stereotypical polish hitchhiking experience, when one is picked up in a matter of minutes. we could have taken bus but decided to try our luck and we got a ride straight to poznan main station, poznan gŁowny :P

we got picked up by one macedonian who has spent most of his life in jesenice and he was ready to take us to the rest area, the last one in slovenia. he was a pleasant, all the time telling jokes and having balkan music on high volume, haha.

i was asking slovenians, those few that passed by, if they were going either towards maribor or kranj, since it didn't matter in which direction we'd go at that point. so i talked to one woman who wasn't really convinced whether to take us or not and let her wait and think. right when we stopped i saw a car with kranj plates and went there to talk with the passengers who then… (read on in Trip)

the next ride was a young german couple who had their car packed to the top and still they picked us up <3 got to say i don't remember their names anymore, however he was a hitchhiker; and his brother even used to participate in hitchhiking races and won one of them B-)

Aga was active here since it was already her territory due to almost exclusively polish clients on that gas station. she found a cute young family, going back from the netherlands by two cars. i continued with the guy because he spoke english =)

we instantly got picked by two young moldovans who were going to visit some friends in berlin, so that was the ride we were looking for, as they were able to drop us on michendorf. i wish i spoke russian, so we could talk, however they understood there was no language we had in comon and so they didn't insist at talking.

on the polish side of the border we got picked up by Thomas, a german from potsdam, married to a polish, on his way to konin. he actually spoke fluent polish because of his wife and served me as an example that it's my fate to learn that language :P he was so nice he entered komorniki only to drop us there =)

in magic 5 minutes we got picked up, as said before, and this was a pretty nice ride.

when we came to slovenia we immediately bought two big coffees for a fraction of a price of austrian one. what a pleasure =) =) those few slovenians who appeared there i had to ask them if we were about to continue and so i quickly got a ride to dobrenje, the next reast area, just before maribor.

it took us way too much to leave brno, perhaps because it's such a nice place =) we decided to take bus straight to mikulov, on the border, instead of trying out luck on the edge of brno, where the same bus passes, which took us to our destination. we walked to the first gas station we found on the main road and quickly moved on the shoulder where we instantly got picked up…. (read on in Trip)

we slept in that place, i'm not sure where it was, in the restaurant. it was pretty comfortable and we were lucky that we met nice gas station workers. especially that woman who brought us some cakes before they were about to throw them away, as the rules require. in the morning we headed towards the exit of the rest area and we were picked up by a pathologist named Thomas,… (read on in Trip)

we were picked up by a polish businessman who lives actually in italy and back then just bought a nice house close to the sea =) he was going to italy and badly wanted to help us, he was ready to go out of his way to take us closer to slovenia, but at the end we convinced him to just drop us somewhere before graz, so he'd continue over klagenfurt to italia. again Aga was handy… (read on in Trip)

we got picked up by the boss of a construction company. unfortunately he was entering the city in such a place that we had to stop before.

it took quite a while and i was lucky i convinced this man to go a bit further and drop us on barje rest area, from where i knew we'd have it relatively easy to continue in our direction.

we met one hitchhiking couple and were all enthusiastic about finally reaching home after what was supposed to be a fast and easy hitch. we got picked up by Sanja, a daughter of ex-yu immigrants, who said she'd never pick up anybody. and yet she did, so i hope that knowing hitchhikers aren't monsters she will continue picking up people =) we got a lift straight to the border… (read on in Trip)

on that rest area we took quite a long break, also because we met a german hitchhiker named Leo on the same spot, so it took us some time till we told each other our stories and exchanged our worldviews a bit =). we took that time also for eating and at some point he went to sleep in forests behind the gas station, while we went to the entrance and started looking for a ride…. (read on in Trip)

no idea where we were hitchhiking. we were picked up by an ex hitchhiker in his old škoda felicia who was of mixed slovak-czech origin. he was ready to drop us inside the city of brno, however we didn't want him to make too much of a detour and so we just hopped off on some rest area before the city.

prior to even going to teruel i checked potential hitchhiking spots in the city and i found a repsol gas station on the main way out and already towards the edge, so i thought it might be a good idea to try our luck there. we did have lots of luck with amazingly friendly manager of the company, who even wanted to give me water for hitchhiking on the spanish summer sun, while… (read on in Trip)

so we made it there and put ourselves inside the traffic circle, with a nice shoulder, right on the entrance to the autovía, which we deemed the best possible thing to do in the given circumstance. people were waving this and that, the sun was burning, we were optimistic and hoping for the best. eventually we were so tired that we decided to go under the highway bridge and… (read on in Trip)

it was still pretty early when we started, less than 9 pm, however we had no luck whatsoever, which was for me a big shocker. i expected to make it to france, frankly, the same day, once we were on the mediterranean highway. the gas station worker, who was about to finish her shift, gave us some food before she left. we had conversations on how nice it was of us that we were… (read on in Trip)

we had the honor that Marcelo Cairo himself picked us up and we obviously had no idea who he was till he told us he was in the spanish national sailing team in the laser category. i have to say this chap is a very humble and nice person, doing his best in both sports and studying. glad to meet you, Marcelo =)

and we were again on porta de barcelona, hadn't been there since january this year. we started hitching and got picked up by a french couple who also met on the internet :P. he was a coldier in the french army and she a receptionist, which is what i do at the present moment =) they were about to pick up somebody on blablacar in la junquera, thus we stopped on area de servicio… (read on in Trip)

i didn't even see he wasn't either spanish or french, so i talked to him in french, for unknown reason. he actually knew good french, so when he started talking where he was going, we quickly found another way of communicating. unfortunately i don't remember the name of this swedish phenomenon anymore, but i remember well how much of a great guy he was =). with i believe 22… (read on in Trip)

we stopped on tavel sur, where we hoped we'd be able to continue, which wasn't the case, and we were dissappointed because it was still pretty early when we made it there. we took some nap and a shower, which we needed badly. i thought the woman gave it for free because it was dirty and only later on, talking to the portuguese trucker a few travels later i learned that… (read on in Trip)

while we thought we were fucked as we got dropped just before lyon, we actually were on the one and only highway towards north, which goes thru the center of the city, so no big deal. there was another hitchhiking girl, in a shadow with no vest, so i wonder how was hitchhiking for her, since at some point i lost her out of sight, that's we didn't see her when we were picked… (read on in Trip)

we took some break, i was very tired, and we moved from the gas station to the exit but people were still able to stop safely. we were about to go to metz and then to germany, however Carina offered us a ride to besançon and basically it was exactly where we were heading to, that's the shortest way to czech republic. i sat behind, agin, and the ladies were left on their own to… (read on in Trip)

we met some polish who were about to take us to the border with germany, however we were reluctant, since we knew what it looks like and actually being by besançon we were already close and thus it couldn't have been a long ride anyways, so we hoped we'd find somebody who'd bring us deeper inside germany. right when she was talking to those polish, i was approached by an… (read on in Trip)

we managed to cross, it was pretty easy, just some walking, so we ended up on a seemingly good spot (highway d1, km 5), and we hoped we'd now get a ride quickly. at the end of the day, our reasoning was, brno lied straight down and it was the second biggest city in the country. we were on the link between the two capitals, so to say, and there were no turns in between, so we… (read on in Trip)

i walked round a bit and i saw that a bus driver of an empty bus was just about to leave after he refilled, so i quickly asked "direction nürnberg, two people, please"?, he waved us to jump onboard and off we went :D. we didn't talk and he just dropped us before the city, but it was that we advanced from the place we thought we'd spend the night on, so we were more than happy… (read on in Trip)

as soon as we started we got a ride when one young guy approached us and said we could go with him. Aga fortunately sat, again, on the front seat, bc they soon found out that they both were polish, so they spent the time talking and i was resting calmly behind =). as we waited for nothing more than 5 minutes, we thought that soon we'd be in brno, haha, what a good joke that… (read on in Trip)

my first time hitchhiking in czech republic. it was nice to get a big coffee for fraction of the cost of that one in germany and the gas station workers were nice, so i thought it would be smooth. after all we had relatively short distance to do since the country is fairly small. so we got picked up by a smiling and very nice attitude man called Martin, who barely spoke… (read on in Trip)

we were so tired that we took a nap on the tables that were behind the gas station and only after two hours really started seeking rides. we were optimistic but when time was passing we were slowly losing hope, when one polish trucker offered us help. he was going to poland but knew of a gas station with bridge on the prague ring, so since we were desperate we said we could… (read on in Trip)

we were further picked up by Peter, who spoke great english and was a hitchhiker and did travel the world, so it was a great person to talk to. i have to admit tho that i was so tired that a few times i fell asleep and i only hope he failed to notice it, since it happened due to exhaustion only. i always feel sorry this is the case. we also learned by then that we should… (read on in Trip)

we thought that he was a gas station worker, so we asked basically for an advice on how to get inside. he offered us to take us there, then we only realized he was just a random person in a working suit, haha, so we finally were about to reach the so much wanted destination of ours. Nežka dealt that we'd be dropped in some mall. it was good because we had to buy czk anyways… (read on in Trip)

it was just a quick ride one gas station further, just the last one before the highways split to the one leading to sagunto and teruel

Mariane picked us up and knowing it was getting dark and we had still some way to teruel, she kindly invited us home. we felt embarrassed and fortunately she didn't insist too much when we told her we'd try find blablacar.

we were waiting on a gas station in alicante, separated so we could cover also the exit, when one guy tells me "hey, you and your girl are separated". i say like yes, so we can cover wider area. he asks where we were going, then since we both were going towards valencia they pick us up :) two friendly Armenians

a cuban dissident went out of his way to drop us on the highway bypassing valencia, namely on the area de servicio de torrent. there i wanted to say hi to the cleaner, whom we kinda made friends with years ago when i was hitchhiking there for hours, however he wasn't working that day :(

the gas station workers received a call from somebody, telling us that we should move away from the window, so we hard to write teruel in Aga’s notebook and hope for the best. we were with the sign when one cute family pass by, we smile at each other, and remain quiet. they come out of the toilet and BAM SURPRISE, they say they will try make space for us in their car and at… (read on in Trip)

this ride was quick and he took us exactly where we needed to be takes, that's hotel torreon on a-92, km 239, just before granada. there was nobody anywhere aymore so we decided to take a nap inside the restaurant.

we were waiting and waiting, talking and talking, for as much as we could, since the gas station worker was charging people, thus preventing us from asking each and every person who passed by. the boss pittied us and printed out signs for us. at some point one guy said that he'd be back at some point and that if still here, he picks us up and takes us to the highway. and so it was :D

we finally managed to advance slightly further, just to the next cepsa gas station on carretera sevilla-málaga, km 11. there we thought we'd stay forever.

we thought it was a good idea to go where Juan Ramón, a retired guardia civil captain and war veteran from bosnia wanted to take us. we did, it was a great chat with him, however i think we ended up badly. altho it's also fair to say that where we were it was hard to just jump over sevilla, we knew it, thus when somebody offered precisely that, we accepted the ride. we… (read on in Trip)

we were desperate, it was already dark, when two guys said they were going to málaga and that they could eventually take us. as said, we were desperate enough to take risk for us and them and ended up in between boxes of wine in the cargo part of the van. we didn't go to málaga so that we'd avoid ending up in estepa, which is the last big gas station before antequera triangle… (read on in Trip)

once we left sevilla things got good again and this ride was just the cherry on top of the cake as he took us from granada straight to exche bux station, which was almost home =)

a drug dealer named Fernando picked us up and took us to the center of huelva despite not originally going there =)

we were happy that we saw a spanish car, i believe it was the second-third car that passed by in those 15 minutes of waiting there. portuguese highways are generally pretty empty, however people may go pretty long distances. this was the case here. he said he was going to estepona, which was great no matter which way he'd go. so since he didn't have a clue and we didn't care,… (read on in Trip)

Aga saw a portuguese car and i quickly jumped in action. i was lucky that she was with me as without her john and neite wouldn't have given us that ride. it was a perfect ride because i was able to practice portuguese and we were dropped right on the spanish portuguese border :)

it was funny looking at an odd phenomenon when a gas station almost ran out of gas tanks because the portuguese simply bought everything. it was like 3 tanks left. we got a ride to somewhere and ended up by loulé as Antonio de Jaén took us a bit further than his exit was =)

waiting time here was probably my record of active looking for ride. we insisted and insisted in the night but eventually gave up and took a nap in the restaurant. in the morning we happily started and everybody was going just to portumao or lagos at best, those few people going to lisboa or at least towards north refused to pick us up. when we were already looking for… (read on in Trip)

two nice moroccans stopped at the entrance where Aga was and joked i was smart because i left the girl as a lure :D they were going to almería and dropped us on the ccrucial gas station in puerto lumbreras :)

we were there chatting with gas station workers, it was nice, except that we had to make it to málaga that very same day :D. at some point one guy said he'd pick us up and drove away, haha. so at the end, i ask some guys if they were going towards guadix, they say no, that they were going towards málaga. to their big surprise i say we were also going to málaga and that i'd… (read on in Trip)

a nice romanian picked us up altho we didn't share any language in common =)

we were picked up by one young moldovan in a pretty dirty car, which raised police's suspicion on the way. we somehow made him understand it was actually us whom they were stopping and that he had to follow them. we expected trouble since we all had different passports, however they let us go, fortunately. then on the way he explained he was robbed by one blablacar passanger… (read on in Trip)

we started talking when Darek told me he was going to belguim, which meant over hannover, however when we found out he was polish, then Aga got in action. they were chatting for a while and he changed his mind, going over leipzig instead, so we finally caught the right direction. on the way he even "missed" an exit and went further, probably just so he could talk to her more :D.

that one was one of the top 10 anime plot twists. i see "fr" plates and just talk to the people "excuse me, do you speak english, are you going to freibourg"? he says yes but that they are coppers, so they can't take us, so i thank him and wish him good way. when he comes out of the gas station he invites us with them, haha, so we crossed half germany with them and we were… (read on in Trip)

that's where the story got complicated. they were only going to mulhouse, so off we went and ended up somewhere over the border in some place. we didn't quite understand each other because the guys barely spoke englihs, so we risked and it didn't end up well. it was good after all that we left highway for a while because we were able to buy some food, which later on came… (read on in Trip)

asking round in that place on the french side of the border one guy offered to take us to the highway and he dropped us right by the parking on the border, ie abandoned border checkpoint. there we quickly understood we would have trouble continuing because barely anybody was parked and it was about to get dark, so we started thumbing on the shoulder. the ride was useful but we… (read on in Trip)

here things got even funnier. one young guy was snowboarding in the alps and going home, and he said he'd make it to the first rest area, some 30 kms away. at some point he leaves the highway and says the rest area is like 3 km away :D :D so we walked there right on the highway shoulder, hoping we'd make it without any police hassle. and we made it =)

so we came walking to the rest area porte d'alsace and we were both destroyed, so we decided to rest a bit and eat. when we were about to walk to the entrance i heard some guy speaking portuguese, so we decided to stop and wait till he finishes. i started chatting to him, he was very surprised, but then he made his pal accept us, and off we went =) we were lucky that pippo,… (read on in Trip)

we already thought we'd get stuck but then two guys appeared and took us almost to lyon =)

things went wrong again. after some confusion we find out the guy was about to leave the highway, so in order not to have even more trouble we stopped on the exit and switched sides, in a bid to get on the highway quickly. which we did faster than we expected =)

a nice couple offered to take us to the rest area by the girona airport =)

at first they said no, i nicely wished them safe journey, and then plot twish when she waves me to come back and invites us in =) they took us all the way down to rest area of sagunto

we tried for as long as we could, but then after a while it was simply too cold and we were too tired to go on. it was a self service gas station with a toilet and some vending machines, nothing more, so we were lucky a bridge lead us to the other side, where we could spend the night in a warm place. the next day a super friendly flemish woman with her dogga picked us up and… (read on in Trip)

it took forever to advance to torrent, pretty much bypassing valencia. but eventually we made it with help of a lovely romanian named Bogdan =)

another plot twist. we were happily waiting on that big rest area after eating our breakfast, when we saw two cool-looking spanish guys, whom were slightly to fast for me to talk to them when they passed by. when they came out, i approached them and asked them if they were going to spain. they, on my big surprise, told me they were already thinking if montpeiller, which was on… (read on in Trip)

there were some guys selling some crap, so we only got a ride when they were gone and people weren't confusing us with them anymore, altho we clearly looked like travelers. anyways, we got a lift to porta de barcelona eventually =)

while waiting the previous night it was damp and thus pretty cold outside, we were simply too tired, so we decided to sleep in the hotel on the rest area. we were surprised the receptionist, an ex hitchhiker from lithuania, gave us a discount, so we got a room for a nice discount and the price was pretty accessible :). we started late because we badly needed that longer rest,… (read on in Trip)

as soon as we made it there i see one cool-looking guy, i ask him if he's going to alicante and if he'd take us and we're on the way :D. he was going to playa de san juan but took us to in front of our appartment block =)

i managed to convince one italian trucker to pick me up =) =)

got picked up by a georgian couple living in paris. she was born in a military family in potsdam, lived in greece and knew also greek. very nice people <3

got picked up by a businessman who lived in a truck for 6 years so he could save enough to start a company (Y)

a couple picked me up =)

it was good to practice some spanish with a romanian trucker =)

a lovely slovenian family took me to my dorm in portorož <3

i was picked up by a guy who otherwise had full van of passangers who paid for the ride :D

although she had an autistic boy she picked us up and i have to emphasize how much i respect her for that =)

once again we got a lift because the driver stopped to buy some sweets :D

such a nice day with a cool travel buddy whom i was giving tips for hitchhiking :) we were picked up by a man from varaždin who was really happy to give us a lift. he said he was upset when there was no more hitchhikers :/

listening to brazilian rap on top sound with a linguistics professor on the faculty of education ul :D

i was checking a bit the plates when i saw a french car and an elderly woman refueling and going to pay. she then asked me in slovenian where were i going and that was indeed a huge surprise. so it just happened she was a slovenian and that day she was going to ankaran :D