Hitchgathering/2011
Hitchgathering 2011 is the temporary title for the fourth edition of the annual European hitchhiking festival.
Contents
General
Organisation & Discussion
- communication is done via the Hitch mailing list
- you can help by signing up for tasks on the todo list or add new tasks
Latest News
- workshops and events are under discussion, for now place your suggestions here: Hitchgathering/2011/Workshops
Timeline
- Organisation meeting in Magdeburg: 1.-3. of April
- The gathering: 5/8/11
Evaluation
- We are working on Evaluation of the 6810. Add your comments here: http://hitchwiki.org/en/Hitchgathering/2011/Evaluation
TO DO
Website work
- make organisation more visible on hitchgathering.org: atopia
- change small stuff into the new year (header)
- make new profile-info for 2011 (joining 2011)
- and copy the views of 2010 to 2011 and change them on views and block-page (first clone, then change)
- take away slogan thing under header; change on block-page.
General communication
Most of that is going to be on the internet. But offline comm is welcome if anybody can handle that.
- write a newsletter
Social media
Most festivals spread through word of mouth. We can put that on steroids with all that social media thing.
List of micro-bloggers (twitter, identi.ca...) that actually use their account:
- twitter: sitarane
The idea is to follow each other, to make communication faster.
List of travel bloggers that actually have readers: The idea is to get them to write articles on hitchgathering.
List of people to contact:
- http://www.ludovichubler.com/
- The two Swedish kids that hitched across Eurasia --Elsy
- Anick-Marie
The idea is to get them to communicate the gathering to a wider audience.
Arty stuff
- new logo's and stuff
At the gathering
- organize some nice events and workshops: Hitchgathering/2011/Workshops
Promotion: DIY!
We are planning to do flyers and/or maybe stickers like last year, but also we would like to pass on promotion to everybody. There are endless possibilities to spread the word about the hitchgathering. For example:
- Tell your friends
- Tell hitchhikers you meet on the road
- Write cardboards with hitchgathering.org, the place and date (and maybe more) and place them at popular hitchhiking spots ... be creative and use your colorful markers!
- Draw your own flyers :)
- Spread the word around hitchhiking clubs and websites in your country/your language
- Post on your hitchhiking / travel / nomad blog or website about the gathering
- Tell your favorite hitchhiking / travel / nomad blog author to write about it
- Organize a pre-meeting (can be early like May/June/July to raise attention and connect people)
- Invent a new slogan for this year! http://hitchwiki.org/en/index.php?title=Hitchgathering/2011/Slogan&action=edit
The Location
The gathering will take place in Kara Dere, Bulgaria. Below is the description for the proposal.
Quite big national hitchhiking society. Local support is a snap. Hitching is a blast. Exact location: The Black Sea, Kara Dere (near the city of Biala)
Coords.: 42.892231,27.899687
Have a look at Pictures of Bulgaria
Pros
- huge remote beach
- water supply from a spring on the beach (The issue of drinking water: There is a natural spring right on the beach. The only insignificant con is that the nice camping areas in the forest are a bit further on the beach on a 15 mins walk from the spring. But 10 liter tubes do a great job and daily "trips" are just a walk on the beach)
- perfect shade, as the beach borders with a marvelous forest, where it's cool all day long and in the night it's not windy and sandy
- people there are generally nice
- cheap!
- equally near to (between) the two biggest cities (Varna, Burgas) on the coast line.
- close to turkey
- small "bar"(caravan) for beer, fish&chips, etc. on one end of the beach
- few to none about the mosquito issue
- the trumpet festival at Guča happens the week after 5/8/11, just 850km to the west
Cons
- 40 mins walk on a dirt road to the nearest village for food supply (quite easy and pleasant though)
- There are cars passing by as well on this dirty road, so they can at least bring the bags with food.
- project for closing the area and building an "Eco Village" (decision and deadline unknown yet)
- language barrier?
- I guess there are as many hhikers who don't speak Bulgarian as hhikers who didn't speak Portuguese. And I guess there are a lot more Russian speakers in Bulgaria than English speakers in Spain.
- language barrier is absolutely no problem, everybody knows what the thumb means, also city's names on road signs are nearly always in Cyrillic and Latin.
- Many campers in summer
- Forget about dumpster-diving here
