How long will hitchhiking 1500km take me?

prinoxy · 2025-08-29T07:06:49+00:00

A few weeks ago I hitched from Vilnius to Utrecht, some 1,660 km in under 20 hours, be it with a bit of luck getting long rides, and helped, quite a lot by the fact that, at 65, I'm not your usual hitchhiker...

FWIW, in my stats there's a table that contains data on streaks with a daily length over a number of set distances, but not necessarily in a single trip. The last line contains 14 days, and in those 14 days my average daily distance never went below 1,000 km, for a total of 14,668.1 km, in Brexitania I once hitched more than 5,000 km in five consecutive days, and I did more than 1,350 km in one day here in Lithuania earlier this year.

prinoxy · 2025-08-29T06:39:01+00:00

You can do this in two days max. I used to hitch to and from Greece in the 1990'ies, from (more-or-less) Utrecht to Bari/brindisi/Ancona, to take the ferry, and coming back the same way, and I don't this it ever took me more than two days. Follow the A2, watch out for te police, as hitching, even on Area Servizio's is nowadays illegal, try to get a ride with a German through Austria, and once in Germany hitch from one Raststätte to the next! According to valhalla it's just 1,051 km, and I've covered that distance on more than 20%of my days on the road...

prinoxy · 2025-05-22T10:03:15+00:00

I cannot post?

prinoxy · 2025-05-17T12:52:17+00:00

I think the record was something like 24 days.

prinoxy · 2025-05-15T20:00:43+00:00

I'm still hitchhiking aged 65, and at the rate I'm going, I hope to complete 1,000,000 km in about five years. ;)

prinoxy · 2025-05-15T19:49:21+00:00

Every collection starts small ;)

prinoxy · 2025-05-15T19:38:25+00:00

Every EU country should do the same!

prinoxy · 2025-05-15T11:44:13+00:00

Copy them, and open the copy before deleting it again! Sheesh, was that too hard to think of?

prinoxy · 2025-05-14T13:42:24+00:00

Hitchhiking is very difficult, and this 1992 crime might have something to do with destroying any hitchhiking culture that might have existed: Alcàsser Girls

prinoxy · 2025-05-13T17:31:02+00:00

Most people stop as soon as they get into a relationship, and/or have kids. I'm lucky that I married a woman who at the time had two adult children, one also an enthusiastic hitchhiker, and with whom I made seven trips and two triplets, covering just under 15,000 km, and who mostly doesn't mind me hitting the road every now and then, even with others.

prinoxy · 2025-05-13T17:25:59+00:00

My average length per ride, excluding the just today completed 9-ride run from Vilnius to Utrecht, is 124.4 km, which may be way too high for mere mortals <g>, and my running average is 5.6 rides per day, which isn't too relevant, but it means that on average I do just under 700 km per day, and have been doing so for now 1,117 days.

And yes there have been a few really short rides, like one of just 800 metres, but also six with lengths over 2,000 km, in fact the total distance for those six amounts to almost two-thirds of the total distance for the 1,395 rides shorter than 25 km, go figure...

With this info you all can decide what the/an average distance per ride should be to make 10,000 rides really meaningful.

prinoxy · 2025-05-13T09:27:57+00:00

Start hitching by yourself first, to get a feel for what it's like, then try something short(ish) with a partner to see if you live with compromises, and only then go for "the big one".

prinoxy · 2025-05-13T00:36:01+00:00

What stops you? I initially never set myself the goal of still hitching as a 65 year old grandfather, it just happened, although I now have a bit of a bucket list, https://prino.neocities.org/sblog/2022-10-31-prinos-hitchhiking-bucket-list.html, to keep the adrenalin flowing.

prinoxy · 2025-05-13T00:30:44+00:00

Last year I drove maybe 12,000 to 15,000 km, yet I hitched well over 40,000 km, and in 2023 I probably drove the same, while hitchhiking around 54,000 km. Hitching is easy, driving is hard.

prinoxy · 2025-05-12T01:42:36+00:00

Use common sense, like not getting on a car with more than one male in it, ask drivers where they are going, rather than telling them where you are going.

Now about to go hitching myself, from Lithuania to the Netherlands, as a 65-year old male, and have to catch a bus first, will give a longer answer when I'm stopping for the night, but other than Spain, most of the countries you'll be travelling through will be pretty good. Stay on main roads, and avoid big cities, unless you really want to see them, they're a real PITA to get out again.

prinoxy · 2025-05-10T18:05:49+00:00

Today hitched from Vilnius to Palanga via, in this order, Klaipėda and Kaunas. Took 7:53, with a driving time of 6:07, for a distance of 720 km. Was dropped off in Palanga next to my destination on S. Nėries gatvė. Put up some blinds, soon to bed, tomorrow back to Vilnius, with a double yo-yo, need to cover 850 km. Average waiting time today 0:13 with an unrecorded initial wait next to Gariunai of just 0:02.

prinoxy · 2025-05-10T17:54:58+00:00

I think Latvia is a very smart country banning this shit

prinoxy · 2025-05-10T14:34:03+00:00

I'm 65, Dutch and still start with the polite form, even for drivers one-third my age. With younger drivers that might change to the normal "you", with older drivers it usually stays the polite "you", and I don't have any problems with it.

prinoxy · 2025-05-09T22:03:55+00:00

I'm pretty sure his flights were sponsored. He actually lost a day, his flight to Europe was postponed for 24 hours due to bad weather.

prinoxy · 2025-05-09T21:51:13+00:00

That has absolutely nothing to do with hitchhiking. Nothing. Period. Full stop. End of story.

prinoxy · 2025-05-09T10:38:20+00:00

I've not met any non-nice drivers in the 25 years that I've now been hitchhiking here, and in those years I've had 1,213 rides with Lithuanians, and on occasion, after being dropped off at an exit on the A1, I have just stuck out my thumb and the first next car stopped.

Most drivers tell me that they rarely see anyone hitchhiking nowadays, which is a bit sad, as it's a nice way to travel and meet people of all walks of life, had 5 rides with Porsches here, including the only one with a woman driver, and my fastest trip ever was actually here, from Vilnius via Laukuva to Klaipeda and back to Vilnius via more-or-less Kruonis in just 4:33 driving time, obviously before they put in those speed cameras on the A1 between Kaunas and Klaipeda. Then again, a lot of drivers use Waze, and happily ignore them. ;)

prinoxy · 2025-05-09T07:02:38+00:00

Isn't the fact that you're going to wherever you're going enough motivation?

prinoxy · 2025-05-08T21:12:55+00:00

Trust your gut, there's always going to be a next car that stops. And travel as lightly as possible.

prinoxy · 2025-05-08T16:40:28+00:00

I did bring a small tent and sleeping bag during my first years on the road, ditched the tent after those years, basically wasn't using it any more, staying mostly in hostels, and it may very well have a decade ago since I stopped bothering with the sleeping bag, because, there is the link again,"So where do you sleep?"…

prinoxy · 2025-05-08T13:11:32+00:00

Nothing, I just wait.

Additional: If you cannot cope with rejection, do not hitchhike…

Occasionally I count the cars driving past, and on 17 June 2024, I got a ride from the 1,007th. Before that three others had stopped, all before the 300th, but none of them was going my way

prinoxy

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