Lost in a Foreign Country? Try Hitchwiki.org
Most people nowadays tend to travel in a very specific manner - everything is planned out and prebooked. The vast majority of people basically pay for the certainty that they will get to where they want to go, at the time and date of their choosing. And there is nothing wrong with that, but more and more people I meet seem to choose a different style of travelling - low budget, flexible and with a huge amount of adventure to their journey.
If you love to hitchhike but have ever been lost on your travels you can surely relate to the situation: Something didn't work out, plans changed, your ride didn't show or you got dropped off at a questionable location. Now what? You don't speak the language, you don't know how to navigate the area and most of all: Anxiety may be creeping up the longer you stay in the same place in despair.
Apart from offline maps on your phone, there is one great service that has saved many lost hitchhikers on their journey and it's freakin' awesome!
Hitchwiki.org - exactly what you would expect!
Yes! hitchwiki is precisely that - a wiki for basically all countries on Earth, including roads, towns, highways, gas stations and... valuable hitchhiker information.
The website can greatly help you get from place A to B because it is a community of hitchhikers finding the best routes to successfully travel via thumb. There are great sections telling you about the most successful lift spots for any major area or city, and there are recommendations to avoid other lift spots that have turned out to be unsuccessful for many hitchhikers before.
In essence, hitchwiki.org is the culmination of diligent trial and error of an evergrowing worldwide community of DIY travellers and the merit of such information inside of a country that is foreign to you cannot be overstated.
The site also features a myriad of essential tips and tricks for doing your first successful hitchhike, what to avoid, where to learn more and how to meet other people of the digital nomad mindset trying to find ways to further improve the ability of travelling from place to place for little to no expenditure.
The website will also greatly help you out getting to the best hitchhiking locations in the first place, like detailing public transport options you can take to where your chances for being picked up are the highest.
There are also many great other resources to follow up on, a friendly and open-minded community to help you out and an overall positive sense of achievability in this most underrated and cosmic form of travel on Earth.
Hitchhiking is coming back in a big way, at least in Europe. I have done many hitchhiking tours through Europe in the last decade and there is a lot to be said about the learning effects and breakthroughs one can experience in this rather unconventional means of travel.
So whether your car broke down, or your budget went out the window... with this site you will very likely ALWAYS get where you need to go, and as a beginning hitchhiker the resources in this community will greatly cut down on your learning curve and painful lessons along the way for a more relaxed and streamlined hitchhiking experience in far-off places. Or near ones.
If you have never done it but it tickles you: I can highly recommend trying it out. If you are fearful of hitchhiking it may be best to avoid it until you feel you are ready. In my experience, the people who seek out dangers and problems by default often do get into odd situations along the road. On the other hand, people who throw themselves into the experience with an open mind and a good heart, in trusting the universe, they will achieve things most consider impossible.
Will probably write more about my hitchhiking trips of the past years, but for now I just want to share this amazing pool of resources with you. If it's not for you, maybe you know someone who loves to travel for free and is still looking for a good database to get better at it.
Hitchwiki.org would definitely be the place! And naturally: It's completely free to use and open to anyone without registration.
A great interactive streetmap with clear road designations can be found at www.openstreetmap.org - a fantastic google maps alternative.
hitchwiki.org
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Sometimes you think: on which planet have I lived in recent years that I don't know this. It seems like a fantastic tool to me. Will certainly use it in the future. Although, hitchhiking with a 2-year-old child is no longer that obvious. I prefer not to change diapers in the back of a 4x4 :).
Ahahaha <3
Well let's put it like this: Whoever picks you up with a little diaper baby really has the heart in the right place. I foresee moms stopping who get reminded of their own kid and want to help out. Either way this site will still be in operation when your kid is old enough to be on his own.
Thanks for stopping by <3
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Upvoted.
Very nice information my friend! Is this more useful than google map service?
It's different in that it tells you the roads to take for the best chances in whatever country, often with a large screenshot of the country and its most prominent highways and cities.
It does not have an interactive roadmap built-in though there are related map services that do the same thing as google maps only without the google-part ;)
https://www.openstreetmap.org
Thanks for the question my friend, I may edit this openstreetmap link into the article, cheers!
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