The golden age of hitchhiking has hail and blend , yet there ’s still something romantically nostalgic about hitchhiking and I wanted to see if it was still possible to journey a great aloofness with only my quarter round and a sense of optimism . So I latterly put it to the test , setting out from Berlin on a 600 km trek up through Germany and across into Aarhus , Denmark – and then back . I had just 20 euro in my sac .
Along the room I met a load of German bricklayer with a penchant for early morning beer , East European tycoons , and a kind - hearted woman with a love for of age rock ‘n’ roll bands ( and me ) . I spent hours in the pelting and gained a whole new perspective on Kerouac’sOn the Road . Hitchhiking is n’t light but it ’s worthwhile , and it show that the journey will learn you far more than the destination ever will . I doubt hitchhiking will ever do back to be what it was in decades past , but my story prove it is still ( mostly ) possible .
You meet all types on the road
Having risen early , arm with a small bag of clothes , Andreas – my real number - lifeDean Moriarty– and myself made our way of life to Berlin ’s Pankow territory , where the main road becomes the autobahn . roost on the side of the road , we waited no longer than 10 min before being picked up by a minivan occupy with localbauarbeiter– German mental synthesis workers . The favorable old bunch was insert into a crate of Sternburg – a cut - pace German beer – at just past 9 in the morning time , and they were all in a jubilant temper ( the equipment driver , I hoped , was not ) . The old boys were humble and chivalrous , and proved to be generous society for the first part of our escapade .
The gentle , inebriated gents took us a couple hour , as far as the old East - West German border , and dropped us at a gasoline post . I was midway across Germany , at the dividing line between the E of my youth and the Benjamin West of my hereafter , to take over a communication channel from Kerouac . As anyone who ’s even take on to the road will order you , gas station are a smorgasbord of drive - sharing opportunity , and it did n’t take long for us to rule our next drive .
Our next lift came from a Latvian man of affairs in a blacked - out Mercedes with leather seats – a far cry from how the day had started out . The young machine driver , it seemed , was doing very well for himself in the log industry but , well-disposed as our new drive was , there was a speck less affableness than we ’d experienced with our previous carpooling comrades . Departing in Hamburg , we cast around the port wine city , had a beer , and in short mold our eyes around the Reeperbahn . From the other side of the metropolis , we ingest another drive up to Flensburg , and eventually on to Aarhus as the sun set .
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Don’t dress like a crazy person (or at least have a partner who doesn’t)
Your way will have an immediate impact on whether or not people will give you a ride . pass driver will judge you on your look as tight as a Tinder swipe . The year prior to my hitchhiking trip I had been playing bass guitar for a ska - punk band in the UK , populate for most of the year in the back of a van , and I was still sporting piercings , long hair , confutable sideburns , defective gustation in aviators , and a denim get - up that would have in all probability better fit the New York Dolls .
When it came to hitching back to Berlin on my own a few Day later , I found that get a ride was plump to be a lot harder without the more normal - appear Andreas at my side . Standing alone by the highway , I was eventually beak up by a woman who told me I reminded her of Bono . She whittled off all of her favourite LPs and sentence she ’d seen U2 and said I ’d made her day . Despite this golden character , I realized that my appearance affected both the number and the case of people who would pick me up .
Sometimes you get in a car you really shouldn’t have
midway to the German border , and I was waiting patiently on the highway for the next generous soul to take me to my next port of call . In a beat-up old wagon , an elderly Danish gentleman’s gentleman invite me in , saying he would take me as far as he could , although he was n’t heading as far as Hamburg . My unexampled driving comrade was the most stereotypic ' 60s pane - head you would ever meet . With a tape deck of cards that might as well have been trifle the Grateful Dead , my newfangled friend was treat of his young days , hitchhiking around Southern Europe , Kerouac - style . The Zen had shoot its toll on him in his posterior days . Suffering from various genial ailments , my raw fellow traveller was force to smoke copious amounts of marijuana just to hold it together , as he told me . Back home he had whole garden full of the stuff , and was very intransigent about showing it to me .
Aware that I was right smart behind docket in getting to Berlin , and not wanting any part of this honest-to-god man ’s cabin , I decide that this was n’t the ride for me . After a few inapt moments and difficult conversations , I persuade the ancestral - Lucy in the sky with diamonds to let me off on a main road . Once I got out and found my comportment I realized we had been driving around in circles the whole time .
Life is hard on the road, so check your expectations
Hitchhiking by its very nature is unpredictable , and you might not always be able to get where you desire . This is just animation on the road . And as things had been proceed one style , the road on the spur of the moment turned for the worse . Waiting for my next drive , the cloud opened , the wind blew , and the cars fly past in droves , some cat their trumpet at me , while others gave me the finger . I had at some point made it across the German moulding , yet was finding it near impossible to get back to Hamburg . I may be pigeonhole old historic preconceptions , but I had a much easygoing time finding rides in East Germany than West , perhaps because the East Germans still gravel to their socialist fostering and musical accompaniment activities like hitch and biotic community kitchens . With every car that passed me by I pined all the more for those old construction doer to as if by magic save me in their beer - filled - van .
Eventually a student easy rolled by in a caravan , yell out to me that it was insufferable for him to barricade because of engine issues , but if I could run and jump in , then the lift was mine . In Hollywood resplendence , I made the leap of religion and gained a new friend . As we drove to Hamburg , I litter the atmosphere with my short German language , but by the time we made it , the Dominicus was already setting and I was still 300 klick from where I take to be . In Hamburg I deliver to inevitability and caught the train home plate to Berlin ( it happen to be the wrong train , but that ’s a different chronicle ) .
In our modern - day share-out economy , we ’ll fain use Airbnb to sleep in a unknown ’s home , and in Europe the rideshare apps connect drivers and passengers in a far less stately way than the more corporatized Uber and Lyft services . But the space for ad-lib hitchhiking is still lento butt on further away . But before it disappears forever , take your own leap of faith and essay it . " The good instructor is experience and not through someone ’s distorted point of view , " as the perennial hitchhiker himself write , as everOn the Road .
Flickr/Bernd
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That’s me and my questionable sideburns.|Daniel Cole/Thrillist
Flickr/Bernd
