Hitchhiking is fun. Hitchhiking is about cheap, adventurous travelling. According to hitchwiki, “hitchhiking is a form of transport, in which the traveller tries to get a lift (ride) from another traveller, usually a car or truck driver.” It’s whatever the observer wants to be it, call it a funny game playing with karma, an extreme sport or just hanging around at the roadside begging for rides.

Is this all? Of course, first it started as this. An adventurous trip through southern Germany, we imagined in May 2006, which immediately became a little Europe trip, including Italy, Switzerland, Liechtenstein and the Czech Republic. Later it became an instrument of travelling much cheaper from University towards home, then for exploring Eastern Europe. During that trip, the bug got me totally, wanting to explore the whole world.

Night hitchhiking out of Berlin

In 2009, Russia was explored, and first signs of good time management and skills while hitchhiking became a way for excellent and stress-free thumbing. Once you hitchhike huge distances over there, Europe looks like a little children’s playground.

The next step, next to night-hitchhiking, which works well in summer due to short nights, is winter hitchhiking.  But this time, it’s not about ‘just having fun’, or getting for free from A to B. It’s becoming a sport this time, an extreme sport so to say. The aim is to hitchhike from Hörstel, quite in the west of Germany, to Moscow, quite in the west of the Russian Federation. When? In December, just a week before winter solstice, the shortest day of the year over here.

Preparating? Mh. Lots of warm clothes, good boots and a good map of the Baltics and Russia.

With this article, I try to write down some theoretical aspects before the trip, asking for tipps and suggestions to make it as fast as possible. Why? Because we can! Last weekend I heard some rumors about hitchhiking records of St. Petersburg – Berlin, which can be done in 36 hours. So what?

I try to divide the trip in 3 parts, though the idea is to do the whole way with maximum 1 night stop somewhere.

Part 1, Germany, 2: Poland; 3: Baltics & Russia

Monday

7:00h Sunset, starting at Hörstel on-ramp. Average waiting time 10-15 Minutes, on a morning, though, maybe local traffic towards Osnabrück. Need a ride to OS-Nahne at least, or further. Second option; short ride till Ibbenbüren, there very easy to get rides for OS (waiting <10 min.)

~7.45h OS-Nahne, lots of traffic, pick-up-rate pretty low, many assholes, also traffic down A31. Ride at least to Melle-Ost (60%), preferable service station Grönegau (35%) (which is being rebuilt at the moment — less traffic?) or Bad Oeynhausen/further (5%). Most possibly a ride to the gas station, maybe can catch one of the late starting trucks there east.

~9.15h Service station Grönegau. Not much traffic, roadworks. Maybe 20-40min waiting time, ride to Hannover/Garbsen? At least! Last times had rides to Berlin (2x), Poland (1x) and Hannover (1x). Always a pain in the ass, Bad Oeynhausen. Possible traffic jam.

~10.40h Hannover-Garbsen, traffic different, but chances for rides to Poland and Berlin. Waiting maybe 40min or longer for a direct ride? Or faster; getting shorter rides to Lehrter See, Helmstedt, Magdeburger-Börde service station? Rides to Berlin most possible option.

~14.30h Approaching Berlin. Now decision to be made; <2 hours of daylight to go. Further east into Poland or night stop in Berlin?
Distance so far: 434 km

Option Poland, which means fluently getting from part 1 to 2, without any stop. From now on it’s pretty theoretical, as I have not enough experience on this route (hitched only once, but via Szczecin / Bydgoszcz / Warszawa.

Get I out in Michendorf (if driver goes to Berlin) or maybe already have a ride to Poland? There is usually not much traffic, longer waiting time probably. If driver goes south, get out at “Am Fichtenplan”. Last stop in Germany, here there must be lots of Polish trucks! Maybe 50% goes south to Wroclaw, rest east to Poznan?

Let’s hope for a ride to Poznan, if we’re lucky; Lodz. This part of the road gives me the most sorrows, somehow.

Being in Lodz at maybe 21.00h. Now it’s damn dark and I made only ~887 km (according to google maps). Hope for a gas station or something with traffic NOT for Warszawa, but Lithuania. Also, to miss Warszawa, I have to take the ring south around the city or go through smaller roads west (Lowicz, Plonsk, Ostroleka, Lomza). If anybody has a better route, please tell me! This can be pain in the ass, unknown area, possible small roads, no light, few gas stations.Means I might be stuck here for the night until at least 7 am.

Tuesday

From Lodz till Vilnius, its only 549 km. To Daugavpils 719, to the Russian border maybe ~800 km. Visa is available from Wednesday night to Thursday, 12 o’clock, midnight. So what to do? Hitch straight to the border and wait one day? So, let’s stop in Vilnius Tuesday night. Might be easy and possible to arrive there in the evening. Keep timezone +1 in mind.

Wednesday

Vilnius – Daugavpils – Zilupe (border town). Must be possible to get there in 8 hours, difficulties might be the cities of Moletai, Utena and especially Daugavpils to cross. Daugavpils costed me nearly 2 hours in summer, which can be crucial now in wintertime. From Daugavpils up to Malta and Rezekne should be not a huge problem, same with a ride the 35 km there to the border. Have time until 23.00h anyway, that’s the moment I can cross over to Russia (timezone +1).

Thursday

So, let the border controls take me 1 hour, I can be over the border at 1.00h on Thursday. Distance to cross is now 620 km to Moscow, with only one city inbetween (V. Luki), but a crossing to Smolensk. Let’s just hope to catch a ride behind the border controls fast & directly towards Moscow, so that I can be there (keeping in mind Russian roads) at 12.30h something. This way worked fine last time near Ostrov on the way to Pedrozavodsk.

Conclusion?

Sounds pretty easy, except for the little part around Warszawa. I could even start on Tuesday morning, otherwise the wednesday could include really long waiting time at the border. A chance to already find rides to Moscow before crossing it? But hey, our grandfathers also underestimated the Russian winter 68 years ago, so better keep some buffer/emergency plan in case of.
Any suggestions? Tipps for crossing Poland faster would be cool! Also, how do YOU convince your driver to drop you off at the end of town, and not at it’s beginning (argh! costs time) or at a bus station?

Tags: Germany, hitchhiking, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Russia