Why I love hitch-hiking

There is something about hitch-hiking that made me absolutely love it.

After I came back from Romania I didn’t hitch-hike for weeks. I was pawing like a bored foal, hungry for my new little hobby, so I decided to hitch-hike up from the north of Italy to the north of Germany.

Theoretically, Germany is the most uncomplicated country for long distance hitch-hiking: highways are free and there are no speed limits; for an italian this sounds like a dream! But germans are not used to give rides. You could wait for hours feeling dumb and pathetic, losing sensitivity in your arm, while a lot of lonely drivers are passing you by careless and posh.

Now I know that the most intelligent way to hitch-hike in Germany is by being really intrusive, going from person to person in the Service Areas, which personally means throwing myself light years out of my “comfort zone”.

That day I left my hometown in Italy with a famous carpooling service, just to reach a very comfortable spot to start hitch-hiking. The driver thought I wanted to hitch-hike because of lack of money and generously started suggesting me a list of other options: there is train, and bus, and blabla… Let me dismantle this prejudice, because I am definitely not a sponger: the overall experience is often so worthy that I gladly offer some money to the drivers. Usually they don’t accept it, because they also feel already rewarded by the experience itself. So, one of the reasons why I’m deeply in love with this way of travelling is that it makes you recognize the supremacy of relations over money.

Now please ask me why I prefer hitch-hiking to carpooling, which should be the hitchiking 3.0.

With carpooling you can select day and time and have a little chat with your driver/passenger before accepting the deal; it’s actually a lot of timewasting online, you’ll ask for details and then you have to wait for the confirmation and what’s worst, goddamn you blablacar users, often they don’t even bother to give you an answer. You also cannot be sure that the person is reliable just basing on random feedbacks from who knows who, it’s actually better to see them in the face and exchange some words when they stop the car: you can always say “Sorry but I have this rule, I accept rides only with another female presence in the car, I hope you understand since I am a solo female traveller” — this will probably work even if you’re a guy.

It’s very nice also to travel by bus, train or plane, as I enjoy the general feeling of being on the way, but hitch-hiking is pure magic: you jump right into the private sphere of a complete stranger and trust is a must for both actors. It can be hard-core exploration of humankind. For me — being socially awkward and therefore shy — it’s like a medicine, because I can forget all my masks, and get to hear fascinating stories from people that I probably wouldn’t meet otherwise.

So the carpooling guy dropped me and I started with my fancy colourful sign, until a kurdish trackdriver stopped. Trucks are definitely my favourites. As every truckdriver, he was super happy to have some company and he showed me billions of pics of relatives and friends. Truckdrivers are constantly missing their people and they’re super sweet. Sometimes he’s still sending me the most hilarious google-translated messages that really make my day.

So I spent the night in Munich, the morning after I found two germans who took me to a Service Area on the highway, then finally I got into Nori’s van. Nori was a russian on pension, still doing transport for his firma, and had a cute little dog travelling with him. I got the dog’s eyes inquisitively staring at me for all the time, because I was sitting on his spot — the passenger’s seat.

Nori dropped me in a Service Area before Würzburg where I got stucked for something like three hours: appearently everyone was heading to the west, towards Frankfurt, and no one was going up to Hannover. The sun was starting to set and I had 400 km to cover. I started considering the idea of going to Frankfurt for the night, making my trip longer, when suddenly a middle-aged couple shyly approached me, saying “Hannover?” — Miracle! I took a seat on the back, happy like a little girl on a family trip. The couple didn’t speak any english or german, but somehow they explained me that their GPS was out of order and they kindly needed my phone. So I was also a miracle for them.

This hungerian couple got smoothly to their son’s address in Hannover, thanks to the italian istructions of my phone. They learned very fast destra-sinistra. The son came down and looked at me quite puzzled, but I didn’t want to interfere with their reunion. I thanked everyone, offered money that they didn’t accept, and walked away with a full load of hungerian biscuits in my belly.

Hitch-hiking makes you feel special.