The best hitching in Romania

Romania is a great country for hitch-hikers! But first things first...

We started our trip 12th of June in Jelenia Gora and soon hitched to opposite part of Poland, some 30 km from Ukrainian border. Our basic plan for first destinatin came out of nowhere in just minutes. (Saying 'we' I mean 'me and my travel mate Joanna'. 'We' met about one month ago and decided to travel together.) After spending first night in a tent we left Shengen zone in Medyka, where we got by thumbing super fast, tuned Porshe Cayenne. None to sixty in about 5 seconds - G-forces like on roller-coaster. I had smile on my face everytime the driver pushed the pedal to the metal.

Entering Ukraine was like new experience to me. The differences are still easy to see. Roads are wider and wilder than in western Europe. Central parts of villages look very nice and roads are in good condition there. People have veggies and flowers in their gardens, and fences are painted. They just care about how their property looks. Going back to road: cars are generally much older, but there are new ones as well, drivers seem to disobey every single road law, and roads are over twice as wide as in England.

LADAs approaching

Very eco-friendly and soon very fashionable way of commuting

Less ecological, but still very economical

What they got and what we (in Poland) don't:

Traffic lights with countdown

Lots of unemployed, homeless dogs

So places we went trough were in short:
Bielany Wroclawskie, Silesia, Krakow Balice, Jaroslaw, Przemysl, Medyka, Mostyska, Sambir, Drohobych, Stryi, Dolyna, Ivano-Frankivsk, Cherniv, Kolomyia, Snyatyn, Chernivtsi

It's worth to mention we met really nice lady in Dolyna. She invited us for a cup of tea and showed her jewlery workshop.

We got stuck in Chernivtsi so we had to spend night in beds as well as some money. Funny thing is that we paid less for cheap hotel next to train station than we would need to pay for bunk beds in a dorm room in the cheapest hostel in town.

That was like time travelling

Romania welcomed us with nice ride and really beautiful place to camp. We pitched our tent close to the river with truly clean water which gave me opportunity to refresh myself. I forgot to mention, but the weather was sunny and warm since beginning of the trip.

And now for something completely different. Few things about Romania.

What they got and what we don't:

What they got and we got too:

You can buy many Polish products in Romania, but they are usually more expensive. Food isn't cheap here. Diary products are much more expensive, but bread is really worth it's price. How about decent, full grain bread for less than €0.50?

Back to the point. Hitching in Romania. It's the way of commuting here. Local people are thumbing instead of taking buses. Local public transport doesn't exist here so people are paying drivers some commonly known fee by the km. Happily tourists are somehow above this system. Romanian drivers really want to show their hospitality so they agree to give us rides for free. And one of those drivers gave us really special ride. There were few things that made this ride special. It was the my first time in cabrio. It was in the evening when the weather wasn't too hot anymore. We were going trough beautiful mountain countryside between Piatra Neamt and Lacu Rosu. We also made a small detour to see the dam on the Lake Izvoru Muntelui. Another very important thing was that our ride ended in beautiful place in the mountains, perfect for wild camping. The last but not least, even the most important thing was our driver - Daniela. She was very kind and friendly person. I almost instantly felt like we knew each other for long. (Thanks Daniela!)

In the next morning we had a pleasure to wash ourselves in the mountain spring. Very cold, but refreshing too. The other night I slept under the stars which wasn't that bad. There were potentially just three things that could disturb my dreams: mosquitoes in the evening, rain during night and ants in the morning. Happily my dreams weren't disturbed at all that night...