Hitchhiking tips and tricks!

Since my current host is still asleep and I have some time to kill I figured I'd ramble a little bit about my hitchhiking experiences so far. Hitchhiking is a great way to travel through Europe on a low budget. Not only that but you meet lots of interesting people everyday. People who are more then willing to help you out, talk about the place you where you are, or where you are going and above all who offer a break from the boredom. Being bored isn't uncommon when you have been waiting at a specific spot on your own for several hours. There're a few things I've come to learn that helped me get rides relatively quickly so I thought I'd share them. - The most important thing is to always smile at each car that drives by. People are a lot more likely to pick up a happy looking traveler, than a grumpy looking guy who doesn't look like he wants to get a ride in the first place. Specially female drivers who picked me up said they don't normally take hitchhikers, let alone males, but that I was smiling an looked like I could do no harm. - Another thing is to always look decent and clean. Shower as much as possible and put some effort into looking like you haven't slept in the woods for the past month. Try to look like someone who has more money than you actually have. It could be worth it to spend a little of your money on a shower somewhere if it means you can get a longer ride or if it means you won't be stuck somewhere a long time. Just drink one beer less in the evening and you'll be fine. - Alright let's talk about signs next. As you may or may not know, I tend to use a sign with just "Away" written on it, since I don't really have a destination to go to next. People offer me a ride just because they want to know the story behind the sign, they can't really believe I'm traveling without a plan. When I want to leave a city in a specific direction I'll just make a sign with North, South, West or East on it but nothing more than that. I try to keep my signs bright and colorful so that people are able to read it from a long distance. They have to be able to read it and have time to slow down before they have passed you. If you want to hitchhike across borders it helps to write town your final destination city even if it's hundreds of kilometers away. At the border of Germany and Austria I met another Hitchhiker who had a sign with "Zagreb, Croatia" on it. He got picked up before me by someone who was going halfway through Slovenia. Push your luck a bit and you will have great results with hitchhiking! - Looking clean and not like a homeless person goes both ways. If the driver looks shady, just don't get in the car. Even if you've been waiting a long time and really want to get out of a place. That's how I ended up in the car with a Romanian guy who, instead of going to Vienna where I wanted to go, said that we are going to Budapest and didn't let me out at the place where I wanted to get out. This wasn't only a scary experience, but also meant I had 2 hours of extra traveling to do before I ended up in my destination for that day. This is about it I guess, if I think of more stuff I'll edit this post later. Chris