Exact hitchhiking spots

Here is a list of the exact spots I stood when hitchhiking.
Many of them have streetview enabled, so if you click the link you'll be able to see exactly what I saw when I stood there with my thumb in the air :)
The times in brackets behind the links indicate how long I approximately had to wait at that spot .

Day 1

1. Antwerpsesteenweg [2 min]
2. Up-ramp E19 [15 min]
3. Gas station E311 (street view) [0 min]
4. Gas station E232 (street view) [10-15 min]

Day 2

1. Out of Zwolle (streetview) [1 hour]
2. East of Meppel (streetview) [15 min]
3. South of Hoogeveen (streetview) [1 hour]
4. Direction of Germany (streetview) [3 hours]
5. North of Meppen [25 min]
6. Gas station direction Cloppenburg [30 min]
7. In Cloppenburg, direction Oldenburg [15 min]

Day 3

1. Central station Oldenburg, shared group ticket to Hamburg [3+ hours]

Day 4

1. Getting out of Hamburg (streetview) [1 hour 20 min]
2. South of Flensburg [20-30 min]
3. Bus 1 to Kruså, DK [20 min]
4. At the German-Danish border (streetview)  [15 min]
   You can see a bunch of flag poles in the distance, that's the border

Day 5

1. Out of Haderslev (streetview) [0 min (excluding walking to the spot)]
2. At a reststop north of Kolding (streetview) [40 min]
   this place changed a lot since the pictures were taken, no gas pumps anymore IIRC
3. Another reststop, west of Aarhus (streetview) [40 min]

Day 6

1. Out of Aalborg (streetview) [45 min]
2. South of Fredrikshaven (streetview) [20 min]
3. West of Fredrikshaven, going to Hirtshals (streetview) [1 hour 30 min]
   Even though the waiting time was only 1h30m I probably was there way longer than that since I had to walk away from Fredrikshaven center.
4. Road to Hirtshals (streetview) [30 min]

Day 7

1. Where I took the ferry (Hirtshals - Kristiansand)

Day 8

1. Highway out of Kristiansand (streetview) [40 min]
2. Lyngdal to Stavanger (streetview) [1 hour]
3. Bus to Hommersåk (streetview)

Day 8: Kristiansand - Stavanger (Hommersåk)

The next morning dropped me off at a good place to start hitchhiking.
Apparently most of the highways in Norway have a speed limit of 80 kph, which is quite understandable if you see the highways, they make a lot of turns around mountains and hills.
Another somewhat weird difference compared to other west European highways is that Norwegian highways have bus stops next to them.
A bus stop is a good place to hitchhike because cars have a lot of space to stop behind you, so that's where I started.

Norwegian highway with a bus stop

I had to wait for about 30-40 minutes before a truck stopped on the dashed line between the bus stop and the right most driving lane.
The first trucker to stop in the entire trip!
He told me about the time that he picked up a family of Polish people and let them stay at his place for a while since they didn't have a place to go to. Apparently they ate a lot :)
 He was running low on gas so he tanked up (for 350 EUR O_o). If you tank for more than a certain amount you get a free bag of pastries, which he got.
I got one of them, they tasted quite good :)
He dropped me off in Lyngdal, a little after a truck stop that Fredrik told me about as well.

Lyngdal

Unfortunately it was raining on and off so it was hard to use the sign I made, When I stepped out of the truck it had fallen in a puddle of water and that together with the rain made it very floppy.
After about an hour or so I got picked up by a couple. The girl was from France and the Guy from Germany.
She worked in the HR department of a company and he was a doctorate student writing his thesis.
They were on their way to Stavanger which was awesome for me because that meant that this was my last ride of the day.
Along the way they shared some food with me (apparently they bought way too much in Sweden) and I gave them my last Danish Krones (they would return to Denmark in a few days).

After arriving in Sandnes (South of Stavanger and Hommersåk) I bought a bus ticket and took the bus towards Hommersåk where I met up with a friend of mine, Monica.

Day 7: Hirtshals – Kristiansand

The next morning I left for the ferry check in. After 2 hours of waiting I could board the boat. Nothing very Interesting happened, I mainly used the time to write in my journal and to type it over on the pc.
I noticed 2 Belgian families on the ferry.

Arriving at the ferry

After getting off in Kristiansand I met with Fredrik, an internet buddy who I’ve known for 6 years but never met in real life before.
After dropping off my stuff at his place we went to the supermarket to buy some food.
People in Denmark were saying stuff was expensive in their shops, but that’s nothing compared to Norway.
A 0.5L bottle of cola costs 2.5€, a liter of gasoline 20NOK, also about 2.5€
After getting back home I started putting the blog posts online.

I didn't find a CouchSurfing host for Stavanger so next week I'll be sleeping solely in my tent. This also means I'll have trouble recharging my laptop and cellphone and won't be able to post blog posts.
I still need to find a solution for the electricity problem...
All of the photos up till now can be found here.

Day 6 bis: Hirtshals

I walked around in the town and spent some time on the beach.

Fiskefest in Hirtshals

A view of the beach from where I sat

Alcohol for the Norwegians in a local Aldi

In the evening I ate something at a local diner thing and went looking for a place to put up my tent. There was a camping place nearby so I went and checked out what it would cost to camp legally.
It costs 20€ for one person for one night for an itty bity tent… What a fucking rip off.

I went looking for alternatives. One thing I thought of was putting up my tent in a nearby forest, but first I asked around a bit to see if it was possible to put it up in someone’s garden.
Luckily, third time was the charm and I found a Danish woman who could speak Dutch because she does a lot of her business with Belgians (selling Fish)
There were a few children playing in the yard and I could try out some of my Norwegian on them.
The family was very generous, giving me a few soda cans and offering dinner (but I already ate, as said before)

Day 6: Aalborg–Hirtshals

I was recommended by every Dane I encountered to go see Skagen, at the nothernmost tip of Denmark.
The first ride I found in Aalborg went somewhere a little south of Fredrikshaven.

It was a couple on their way to pick up their camper.
Not much was said.

Where they dropped me off

I was dropped of at a road going to Fredrikshaven and was picked up there by an older man on his way to his son who had just bought a house.

I went to the trainstation in Fredrikshaven to check out the prices of tickets to Skagen. They were quite expensive, a retour ticket would cost over 15 eur and then I still needed to get to Hirsthals in time.
So I decided to continue to Hirsthals instead and seeing Skagen the next time I’m in Denmark.

Fredrikshaven

I walked to the west, to a large road going to Hjorring.It was a commercial street with lots of shops to the side.
None of the cars stopped, I guess most of them were just there to shop.
This is also where I met the first genuine douchebag on the road. Of course it was a muscle head with his bimbo girlfriend next to him. He drove past me very fast and when the car near me he swerved it out to my direction, acting like he was going to drive me over. Must be nice to know that I came almost 1000 KM having hundreds of cars drive past me where the worst I got was a look of indifference and then there you are, the shit of society.

I walked down the street where the shops ended and I was soon picked up by an older lady who spoke only Danish.
I was happy to be able to use the little Norwegian I know to explain where I was headed and she dropped me off at a road going straight to Hirsthals.

Road to Hirtshals

There a man picked me up who also barely spoke any English.
He drove me straight to the Fjordline ferry check in.

Day 5 bis: Aalborg

Because of the weather Hjalte’s plans changed and we could meet earlier. He had to do some shopping so I joined im in that. After that we went back to his apartment where I met his girlfriend Kira.
Hjalte is  a student of medicine and Kira of communication.
After meeting I had some time again to write in my journal.

Hjalte gave me a big tour of Aalborg  while we talked about various things.
When we arrived back Kira had prepared a delicious dinner with potato salad, regular salad, ham and olives.

Some time after dinner the three of us went to grab a beer at a local bar where we talked some more. Hjalte was going to make a 22KM longboard trip with Kira as a supporter next to him on a bike.

The next day we had breakfast together (first time I ate unprepared oatmeal and milk) and I continued my journey.

Day 5: Haderslev – Aalborg

The next morning Ida prepared some leftover pasta as breakfast.
I then left for the hitchhiking sport Malthe described the day before.

On my way out of Haderslev

When I was about 50 meters from the spot (walking backwards to the spot with my thumb in the air) and even before I arrived at the spot someone already stopped who was on route to somewhere near Kolding.

He was on his way to an apartment he had just bought and was going to inspect the carpenter’s work.
He had picked up hitchhikers before he said and I asked if he had any remarkable stories.
This one time he picked up a girl and after 5 minutes in the car she started touching him and tried to give him a BJ. He promptly kicked her out of the car.
So there you have it, another reason for me to get my driver’s license.
He dropped me off at a rest stop at the north of Kolding.

After not too long a couple picked me up.
They lived in Germany for a long time already but were both Danish. The husband had a lot of experience with hitchhiking. When he was younger he had once hitchhiked for 6 months straight. Along the way he told some interesting things about the Danish landscape. Most of the Danish forests, especially near the highway, are not very thick (400-800 meters) but are quite long (tens of kilometers).
When crossing the German-Danish border the change in scenery is noticeable immediately. There are a lot more open spaces, farmland I think .
We also saw the highest “Mountain” of Denmark, it’s a hill approximately 190 meters high.
They drove me to a rest stop north of Aarhus.

At that  rest stop I found a couple willing to drive me all the way to Aalborg.
There they showed me where I could store my bag in a locker, which came in very handy because my host would only be available after 17:00.

I walked around in Aalborg and checked out a local Supermarket to see what the differences are in products with a Belgian supermarket.
I found some funky colored drinks which I wanted to try out.
What I didn’t notice but was explained by my hosts later was that the content of the bottles needed to be mixed with water before drinking.

Day 4 bis: Haderslev

Arriving at the center of Haderslev I went looking for Malthe’s place. He was waiting for someone to arrive to buy a bicycle from him.
Afterwards I had some time to write in my Hitchhiking diary.

After that we went out and made a walk through Haderslev. It’s not that big a town but it’s one of the more bigger ones in Danmark at least. (top 15 I thought Malthe said)

After we got back home I had some more time to write until Ida, Malthe’s girlfriend came home.
 We had a (TV-)dinner while watching the show “The Amazing Race”. As dessert Malthe made waffles, they were quite tough but very tasty.

Touristic tour that came by next to the apartment

Day 4: Hamburg – Hirtshals

My Hamburg CS host Marcus had shown me a good place to hitchhike towards the north. (It was a very busy road and many cars were driving by but none were willing to stop apparently.


After about an hour I encountered another hitchhiker wanting to hitch at the same spot and going to the same direction.
 I wrote a sign with a closer direction (Kiel), thinking I would find a ride faster that way but she had made one for all the way to Flensburg, near the Danish border.
We ended up using her sign and had a ride after 20 minutes.

It was a man on his way to his daughter who was on school holiday. Of the rest of the conversation I didn’t understand much because they were talking among themselves in German.
He drove us to a road which was going to the direction of Flensburg.
There both she and I hitchhiked further into the center of the city. We had to wait for about 20 and 30 minutes.

It was a man ad his young son. The little guy wanted to practice his English so we spoke a bit about my trip.
After arriving Connie, the other hitchhiker, showed me the way to a bus which was going to a place right over the Danish border.

Arriving there I found a ride quite fast. It was a Polish guy who lived in Germany who was on his way to his job in Denmark. He told me that he picked up hitchhikers any chance he got so he could repay the price of hitchhiking himself when he was younger.
He drove me all the way to Haderslev.

Busy street in Haderslev, morning I left

Day 3 bis: Hamburg

After arriving in Hamburg I went straight to Marcus’ place using the Metro. Luckily the group ticket wasn’t only for the train but for all the Niedersachsen public transportation.
I put my bag away and Marcus offered me something to eat and we talked for a while.

He explained to me that there were touristic tours of the Hamburg harbor. for about 15 euro, but since I had that public transportation ticket I could just take one of the public transport ferries which went roughly the same path as the touristic ones.

After the ferry ride I walked around in the old city of Hamburg.
There is this huge city hall which was used to impress kings. This is because Hamburg was the only place in Germany which didn’t have a king itself. It was a trade center lead by rich merchants. The city hall was used as a sign meaning “We don’t need a king, we are powerful enough on our own”.
I hope I told this somewhat correctly, this is one of the many things I learned of Marcus about Hamburg.

Hamburg city hall

After discovering the center of Hamburg I went back to Marcus’ place where we talked some more and watched some YouTube videos, after which I went to bed.

Day 3: Oldenburg – Hamburg

During dinner the previous day Sarah and her flat mates told me that there was a special kind of group ticket for the train.
So one person would buy a group ticket and 4 other persons could join travel with the same ticket.
So what I could do was look for a group of people smaller than 5 and ask if I could join in on the ticket.
Unfortunately the system was changed a few months/weeks back and now you had to enter the amount of people while buying the ticket.
So instead I stood at the entrance of the station with a sign indicating that I wasnted to buy a group ticket together.
So… kind of like hitchhiking
After quite a long time (3~ hours) finally someone was willing to buy one together.
She lived in Berlin but was in a relationship with someone from Oldenburg.

Hamburg station

Day 2 bis: Oldenburg

After arriving at Sarah’s place I was greeted by Benjamin, her flat mate. Sarah was on her way home from the university library where she was writing her thesis.
After she arrived she invited to go swim in a nearby lake. unfortunately I had to decline and chose to catch up on some sleep because I was still tired from sleeping so little the day before and from the very heavy day.
A real bummer, I really wanted to go….

After they cam back we ate dinner. It was all really cozy because all the flat mates sat together and talked about all sorts of stuff. I also liked the way the apartment was decorated, especially the kitchen.
Not long after that I went to bed.

Both Sarah and her flat mates are very friendly and generous people.

Day 2: Zwolle - Oldenburg

This day was a lot harder than the first one.
In Zwolle my CS host Yvonne had led me out of the city to a good spot to hitchhike. It was quite hard to get a ride, not many cars went on the highway.
A few cars stopped, a full one with  a group of people around my age interested in where I was going to and another one with people who say I had a map and needed one.

Highway on-ramp behind me

After about an hour of waiting a guy stopped who could bring me closer to Meppel.
He was on his way to a coach who would help him get his life back on track after a few missteps.
He dropped me off at quite a good spot right in front of some traffic lights.

traffic lights behind me, loads of space for cars to pull over

After about 15 minutes a woman stopped.
She had experience with hitchhiking herself and quite often picked up hitchhikers. A few days earlier she had picked up 2 students from Ghent, BE.
She dropped me off at a ramp with which you could switch highways. I was a bit confused about where I should stand. After a while I noticed my drink bottle was running low (I only had one bottle left, I lost the other bottle in a car the day before)
Luckily there were some farms nearby where I could refill my bottle.

up th hill of previous 2 photo's, should I cross this bridge? :o

While walking back to my spot a car stopped for me.
I think it was a man and his mother.
They were on their way to Emmen. They dropped me off at the ramp that went straight in to Germany.
SSo in one way this was the perfect spot since most traffic was driving in to Germany but unfortunately not many cars came by.
In total I stood there for about 3 hours in full sun without any trees or any other form of shade.
I put on my sweater just to cover my arms, which were already a bit burned, from the sun.

Hitchhike spot of motherfucking hell

These don't look poisonous at all!

In the time I was standing there the Dutch police came by and stopped. They said, as expected, that I wasn't allowed to hitchhike there. But I was allowed to continue as long as I didn't again.

Finally 2 guys stopped who were on their way to Meppen, a place just across the border where they would go swimming. A big lake full of blue water they described it. They dropped me off at quite a good spot. It was a busy road, autobahn I think, with lights to let pedestrians cross.

After a not too long time a man stopped who unfortunately only spoke German. I tried to explain that I needed to go to Oldenburg but didn't succeed 100% so I let the man drive on.
Apparently a 100% explanation wasn't needed because 2 minutes later he passed by again signaling that I could get in the car.
He would drive me to a trucker spot about 20ish KM futher. The conversation didn't go very smoothly of course, but we managed to get by with some German-English-Dutch mix.

At the trucker stop I had to wait for about 20 to 30 minutes until a Turkish guy with his wife and daughter arrived. He was a crazy enthousiastic guy. This was also the first time thet I was a bit scared about a driver's driving behavior.
He would pass by cars any chance he got on a 2-lane 2-direction road (so driving on the wrong lane to gain on people)
He would often pass by people with only seconds left before the opposing traffic would storm by.
But I arrived safely. And for the rest it was a very fun ride, again he was a very enthusiastic man :D
He drove me all the way to Kloppenburg, about 40 KM from Oldenburg.

There, after quite some time walking to the north of town I quite quickly found a ride all the way to Oldenburg.
This man was on his way home from work. He worked in the R&D department of a bicycle company. Mainly working on E-bikes.
He dropped me off at the central station of Oldenburg, only a few streets from where I needed to be.

Day 1 - Zwolle: bis

I'm really slow with posting because I have little time to get on the internet. I try to be busy with the CouchSurfing hosts as much as possible.

After Yvonne arrived we went straight to her apartment so I could put my bag there. Afterwards we went to a small nearby park and relaxed a bit.
There she called up some friends for a BBQ later that evening.
After returning to her place I accidentally let her cat Muis escape into the neighbors house/shop.
She waived it off with "it was bound to happen sooner or later" and didn't make a problem out of it what so ever. Incredibly friendly.

We went shopping for food and coals for the BBQ and not much later her friends started to arrive.
I didn't talk much the entire evening but it was very cozy and fun. A little too fun ecause I went to bed at midnight. I couldn't sleep much because of the nerves and because I was feeling a bit nauseous.
Probably from the sandwiches I made for lunch.

 

Next morning Yvonne led me to a good spot to begin hitchhiking. She also gave me some sun cream which came in very handy. Especially for those 3 hours I was stuck in the middle of a 30+ degrees sun on day 2.

All in all, I felt like I was treated as one of her friends.

Day 1 - Kapellen - Zwolle

Kapellen - Highway up ramp Breda:
After barely 2 minutes with my thumb in the air there was already a car who stopped.
I can't exactly remember what the driver did as job but he was on his way to Nijlen to help his daughter renovate a house she had just bought.
Apparently there was a lot of work still to be done.

Up ramp Breda - South of Utrecht
Here I had to wait a bit longer, about 10 to 15 minutes.
It was a little difficult to choose where exactly to stand, a little further from the up ramp was a car parked and so I was quite out of view of the approaching cars. But closer to the ramp was too difficult for the cars to stop.

Eventually someone stopped who was changing directions behind me.
The driver was someone from The Netherlands who lived in Brasschaat, BE and he was on his way to Amsterdam for work.
He's in the telecommunication business and also has a small IT company which writes software for ISPs and telecom companies.

Before cellphones etc he had also hitchhiked, To school if he missed his bus and in the USA with a friend.

Because he had to make an earlier turn, to Amsterdam, he dropped me off at a gas station south of Utrecht.
While we were driving up to the gas station we saw a car burning on the other side of the road. Not just a few little flames but the car was engulfed in flames.
The driver waited till I had found someone with whom I could continue my journey. He didn't need to wait long because the first person I talked to said it was okay!

Gas station south of Utrecht - Amersfoort
The next driver was also someone from The Netherlands. He was on his way towards a town near Apeldoorn so I could drive along for a while.

He worked for a company called Camelot. When people have a building with which they won't do or can't do anything for a while they can hire his firm. They will then rent out the building to people who can live there for a low price (150~ EUR) and at the same time keep an eye out so random people won't start living in it (called "Kraken" in Dutch).
A few examples of buildings were "De oude rijkswacht kazerne" in Antwerp and "De diamantbeurs".

Apparently his GPS system kept pointing in the direction of Groningen (north of Zwolle) so I was able to drive along for quite some time. Eventually he had to torn off at Amersfoort and so we stopped at a gas station.

Amersfoort - Zwolle
There was a big parking with quite some people.
This was the first time I heard a no to the question of I could drive along (hell , I couldn't even finish my question :p)
After about 10 minutes a Flemish couple parked and so I asked if I could drive along. After a bit of figuring out if we were going the same direction I could join.

They were a retired couple that was on their way to somewhere north of Zwolle.
Apparently the GPS had sent them on a different route than they had planned. (luckily for me)
There they would drive their bike and explore the heathland ("de heide").

They told me about their trip to Norway last year. They made this trip with the same car, a Mercedes van rebuilt to be a semi-mobilhome.
They took the ferry to Sweden and then crossed the border at Oslo and continued south and then north again (Kistiansand, Stavanger, ...) till Lillehammer where they crossed the border to Sweden.
The rest of the ride was quite quiet.

They had to go more north than Zwolle and the husband didn't want to take the off ramp to Zwolle. A little understandable, a little crazy :p
Because the only thing possible to do then was to park the car between the off ramp and the highway to let me out.
So then I had to walk a while on the side of the road till I found a door in a sound wall through which I could get off the highway.
Actually that was interesting to do once, You would normally never go there.

Zwolle
I arrived in Zwolle well before midday since I never had to wait more than 15 minutes between rides.
After getting off the highway I started walking towards the big church tower. Eventually I arrived on the Grote Markt which was quite deserted except for some people on terraces.
There I sat on  a bench next to the church It didn't last long before a weird (lees: marginaal uitziende kleine met zijn klak op half 12) guy came up to me and asked if I wanted to buy some "get" (?).
Afetr asking in my dialect "was da" he answered "never mind" and cycled off.

I remembered that my CS host told me that she lived near the station and so I went looking for it.
After finding it I want back towhards the city center. So I was walking in a circle a bit but at least I saw a bit of the city.
After I ate my sandwiches I went to a terrace to drink something while waiting for my CS host to arrive.
Apparently she just did her exam for her (motor) driver's license, and passed :)

All the pictures can be found here.

Packed and ready to go

Hitchiking from Belgium to Norway

On August 1st I'll begin my hitchhiking trip from Belgium to Norway.
You'll be able to keep track of where I am and what's going on with me through this blog and my Twitter.

On the top of this page is a tab named "Hitchhike path".
My current location is listed there and also a map with the planned path drawn on it.


The path I'll be taking.

Every marker on the map is a place I'll be sleeping, most likely with a  CouchSurfer and in Kristiansand at an internet buddy.

The path in red is a route I wanted to take but wasn't possible (Cuxhaven-Helgoland-Sylt-Denmark) since the ferry route between Helgoland and Sylt has been discontinued unfortunately. So instead I'll be going through Hamburg, which will also be quite interesting to see I imagine. A city with 1.7 million people living in it.

Along the path I'll be taking pictures and interviewing the people I'm hitchhiking with, I'll also post these things on here if I can.