Hitchhiking from Germany to Romania - to make it more popular

More than 60 competitors are setting off from Germany on a hitchhiking race to Romania on Saturday.

"We're travelling in teams; getting into a car on your own leads to disqualification," said organizer Tessa Brancalion, who is setting off from the northern city of Lüneburg with 36 fellow competitors, heading to the small village of Pui in western Romania. 

Another group is starting from the southern German city of Weiden in der Oberpfalz, close to the Czech border.

"We're a group aged between 19 and 56, and our aim is to make hitchhiking more popular," explained the 33-year-old Brancalion.

"Germany is an easy country for hitchhiking," she said. "I'm much faster than Deutsche Bahn."

The annual group adventure has been taking place since 2018.

Philipp Weckesser is travelling with his girlfriend. He has been hitchhiking for eleven years and, by his own account, waits no longer than an hour for a lift when travelling within Germany.

"It's a hobby; we enjoy doing it because you always get to meet people who know their way around the area," the 35-year-old explained.

The social work student wrote his bachelor's thesis on safety whilst hitchhiking and believes "it's roughly as safe as going to a disco."

Hitchhiking has been declining among young people, says Hamburg-based futurologist Horst Opaschowski, who has been gauging public sentiment through representative surveys for many decades.

"The longing for safety is becoming greater than the thirst for freedom," he says, adding that "we are living in uncertain times, with no end in sight."

The younger generation is growing up with this reality and has to come to terms with it. "The wild trips to Sri Lanka are becoming less common," he said. "The longing remains, but for many, something like that is too unsafe."