User:Zenit

Zenit, hitchhiker, bum and sometimes even human being. Check out my log for my "honours".

May the road rise to meet y'all.

Turkey has been getting a bad reputation for girls hitchhiking following the murder of Pippa in April 2008 and more emerging stories reaching from minor harassment (see for example Personal Experiences section) to a near repetition of Pippas fate that Zenit and the girl he was travelling with experienced in November 2011. While these things shouldn't deter anybody from travelling in Turkey, they certainly prove that there is a specific code of conduct different from any other country that needs to be respected in order to avoid unnecessary problems. Further good reading for girls and anybody travelling in Turkey is this blog. Safety is always important while hitchhiking, so check the Safety article before going out to wave your thumb!

Following is a list of general guidelines for hitchhiking in Turkey. Remember, though, that you cannot fully master the different dynamics of social interaction, especially between members of opposite sexes, until you've been exposed to the inital special attention you'll receive as a foreigner and possibly made some enlightening minor learner's mistakes.

• First of all, keep in mind that in Turkey there is widespread prejudice concerning the willingness of Western girls to engage in casual sex with random strangers.
• Having said that, the biggest part of problems arise from the different conceptions of flirting in the West and in Turkey. In Turkey, making eye conctact, smiling and accepting compliments can all easily be interpreted as outright flirtateous behaviour. Another thing to watch out for is that Turkish men will test guys travelling with girls to see how protective they are of the girls they're travelling with. This will always be in a somewhat playful manner, and hardly ever in a threatening way. One very important thing is that a guy travelling with a girl should never let her sit next to a man other than himself. This cannot be stressed enough, as drivers will read from this behaviour that a) the guy has no claims in the girl and don't really care what happens to her from this point and b) that the girl might be interested/easy.