The Catastrophically Inefficient Trip

There are many possibilities to get stuck while hitchhiking. No question you will arrive somehow someday, but meanwhile it can become really uncomfortable. So be aware of typical mistakes and try not to do as we did. Enjoy reading!

If you did a catastrophal inefficient trip as bad, please share your experiances here top help others too.

Braunschweig-Amsterdam in 29 hours

You know there are about 360 km between them and the highway is quite direct. We did some extra trip touching the Ruhrpot and nearly the North Sea as well. You want to know the distance? It was about 888 kilometers. :)

our mistakes in chronological order

1. We left the house at 3 pm. Thats definitively too late for that distance. Best time to leave is noon or even morning.
2. We didn't agree about the starting point. On the one hand we wanted to try the highway entrance next to the house, on the other hand it was to late for experiments. The Zweidorfer Holz would have been the right choice.
3. We had a nice talk to the driver. When he asked,'do you want to leave here?' while passing Auetal we didnt manage to say 'yes', which would have been so easy! So whenever you are in doubt of leaving or not, leave! Don't get distracted!
4. In Tecklenburger Land we tried to change to A30 (Germany) which was very hard as the next station is about 100 km away. One possibility could have been to go east to Groenegau or even Auetal (which would have not been that good either) and change direction there. But it was late already. So we spent the night there at the toilet foyer which was not that comfortable at all.
5. In the morning we decided to go to north to at least get away from there. Unfortunately there was a misunderstanding, so when we already passed Dammer Berge (where we should have gone out) he told us about going to Bremen not changing to A29 (Germany). Finally we stood on the lane between A1 (Germany) and A29 (Germany) with a sign saying '20 km'. Talk to drivers very clearly, ask them for their exact way and if they don't know arrange a way that fits all.
6. Huntetal was quite dead and took us 2 hours till we realized we should go back south again to change to A30. Most of the people just went north to Wilhemshaven, so changing to A28 (Germany) was a bad idea. Put a big black cross there on your map to avoid going there accidently!
7. From there it was not problem to go to holland. But we did another little mistake which took us another hour. When we were about 40 kilometers before Amsterdam having dumpster meal sitting with a sign at the station exit a nice man stopped to pick us up. We had nice talk but he just went to cyrcle around Amsterdam to Leiden. At the end we just made 10 km towards our aim. Always be sure to have a benefit of the way you go and talk clearly to drivers to avoid bad surprises.

trip as list

• Braunschweig, Hamburger Strasse
• Braunschweig, Hansestrasse
• A2, Kater
• A2, Nymern
• A1, Im Mersch
• A1, Tecklenburger Land
• lane between A1 and A28
• A1, Huntetal, East
• A1, Huntetal, West
• A1, Dammer Berge, East
• [Dutch stations to add later]