The 3rd International Hitch-Hikers Conference
A year ago I wouldn't have believed it was possible. To see over sixty hitch-hikers from a variety of nations, together at a weekend conference, funded by a national government, lectures, work-groups, videos, the media, newspapers, radio and television on-site to cover the event ... yet this March I saw just that, was part of it, a special guest even ... here's a brief report.
I was invited late last year, to this conference in Vilnius. It was to the largest thus far (the previous two were more modest affairs) and to find place in the heart of hitch-hiking country. Indeed hitching is far more popular in Eastern Europe than in the West for a variety of reasons.
What choice was there, but to hitch up. It was a long haul, 34 hours in fact, almost non-stop, to cover the 2000+ km from Geneva to Vilnius, but the hitching is good through Germany and Poland is easy to cross on account of a stream of Lithuanian used car and appliance dealers plying their trade between Germany and Lithuania crossing Poland in a single sitting. In fact the hitching this day was so good, I made some friends on the way, had two big lunches and a picnic dinner, yet arrived in Vilnius not one cent out of pocket. A good thing, I'd forgotten to pack any -- to find a bank was my mission all the way through Switzerland and Germany before I gave up arriving in Vilnius fortunately before closing time on the Friday.
The sudden rise in visible hitchers when the old Iron Curtain is crossed is remarkable. In fact in Poland the streets seem littered with people for some reason, they're walking, riding, standing, sitting, anything you can imagine, and their presence is strong. What a harsh contrast to the unpeopled highways of Western Europe! To be sure, only a small portion of those people are soliciting rides, often at bus stops, waving a hand at passing cars, or thumbing it like any Westerner, but there are enough of them to make their presence felt, where in the West I didn't see a single hitcher all the way up, and rarely do.
So too, it is that the conference comes to find place in the East, where there are hitchers in abundance. In fact they come together in clubs, some nine of which were registered at the conference, and sent delegates, however informally (for how formal can a hitch-hiking club or even conference be?) to represent them at meetings in Vilnius.
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