Hitchhiking in the Netherlands is quite possible, and legal in most places, though not on motorways. The basic idea is that when you're allowed to walk somewhere you can stand there for hitching too. Roads where it is not allowed to walk are indicated by:
- Round white sign with red edge depicting a pedestrian in the middle.
- Rectangular blue sign depicting a motorway. Cars are also not allowed to stop here.
- Square blue sign depicting a car. Cars are also not allowed to stop here.
However: standing on a motorway entrance just in front of the sign is allowd as well as standing on a petrolstation along the motorway.
Since the 80s Dutch students have a card providing them with free public transport (either in weekends or during the week), so hitchhiking is not as popular as it used to be. There are still official liftershaltes in some university towns. Check Wikipedia for an overview. Other good places are petrolstations along the motorways and the entrance to the motorway from a larger city (when it has an emergency lane). On such a place the average waiting time is 15–45 minutes (same as Germany). Major difference with Germany is that many lifts are not longer than 25 to 50 km.
Useful tip: Free use of Internet PC's in every city library.
To get to Germany is quite tricky because some people are afraid they could get in trouble because you could have Marihuana with you. (Marihuana is semi-legal in the Netherlands while it still isn't in Germany...)
Cities[]
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External links[]
- Hitchhiking in the Netherlands, by Frank Verhart.