Europe: Hitchhiking from the Netherlands to South-Italy, Greece, Bulgaria and back.

[RiemerK]

Me and a good friend of mine are planning on doing a hitchhiking trip this summer.
We want to visit some friends along the way and eventually end up in Athens. To get back, we want to hitch to Sofia, Bulgary and then take a cheap plane ticket back to the Netherlands. We are planning on taking a lightweight 2 seconds tent with us to camp along the way wherever we can't couchsurf.

We are planning on hitching to the Southern part of Italy and then taking a ferry to Greece. Any experiences with hitchhiking on these ferries?
Do you guys have any experience with hitching/camping around these regions in general? Any must-see places?

Cheers!

 

[fernfern]

Hey, can you tell me what happened with your trip? I'm heading to Athens in April and hitching up through Bulgaria Romania and up to Estonia and Scandinavia. Would love to hear from someone who has been in Eastern Europe.

 

[etpyh]

I heard that greece people are less likely to offer a ride to hitchhikers, because they made bad experiences with all the hippies in the 60s or 70s.
That being said, I still think that greece isn't a bad country to hitchhike and it felt just like other european countries for me.
But I would think twice about taking long walks to get to toll stations in greece. Some people I met claimed it to be the best way to get rides, but I got kicked off the toll stations within seconds.
So walking to some remote toll station might be risky.
If you can't get out of Athens by hitchhiking, there is also a train for about 30€ that takes you to Thessaloniki.
It's a pretty scenic ride and not that expensive for 500km.

I can only refer to hitchwiki.org for the other countries you listed. You will find general infos on the countries as well as specific hitch out spots (http://hitchwiki.org/maps/) there.