Croatia

Croatia is a country in Southern Europe. It is a member state of the European Union and is preparing to join the Schengen Agreement by 2015. Croatia can be great for hitchhiking. It is quite easy to hitch along the coast, and waiting time rarely exceeds 20 minutes. Some routes, however, might appear to be more difficult to hitch but with some portion of patience one can get a ride almost anywhere in this Balkan country.

When hitchhiking during the summer season be aware of the fact that most of the people going to Croatia for holidays are not very rich so they have their cars full. Sometimes it's hard to get a lift, because most of the people on the road are these travelers. When going out of the country you can choose either to go out at the weekend or not. When choosing the weekend, on one hand it is absolutely one of the best ways to hitchhike. The columns sometimes are more than 10 km long and the cars barely go, the most of the time they stand. So it is easy when you have a ride to get out of the car and walk between the cars in the lines and ask maybe directly for your destination. There are at least columns before every toll and before some tunnels that go only one way and before the border.  Amines was hitchhiking at Saturday towards the coast at the A1 highway on a gas station after Zagreb but gave up after 4 hours, walked across the road where there was a column and got a ride directly to Bratislava within 5 minutes. On the other hand it takes time to get out of the country because you will wait in this columns for hours and hours.

Aside from Croatian, Italian is widely known in some areas. Croatians are also extremely open, friendly, and hospitable, although there are known accidents of nationalistic hatred being directed onto foreign travelers. It is nonetheless definitely a must-see country with beautiful landscape, islands, and warm sea.

The coastal road is beautiful, however be careful of where you are dropped off. You may find yourself with a mountain on one side and sudden drop on the other.

WARNING There are some landmines left in Croatia. Jason and Kelsey stumbled across signs in the middle of the night in central Croatia. Ask locals about this if you're sleeping out. It is advised to ask to stay in people's gardens or in the truck. However with the exception of some areas outside of- specifically just south of- Zadar, the coastline is completely clear. Please be aware of this and be careful!

Cities

 * Dubrovnik
 * Osijek
 * Pula
 * Rijeka
 * Split
 * Zadar
 * Zagreb

Border Crossings

 * Hungary
 * Goričan-Letenye
 * Montenegro
 * Montenegro-Croatian border crossing.

To Slovenia
It can be difficult to get a ride from Zagreb to Slovenia. Some hitchhikers chose to go to Zagreb train station, buy a ticket till Sutla (1.5 Euro), and stay on-board after the train passes Sutla up until the Slovene village of Dobova (these are 5 minutes of a voyage with no ticket check) - from there it's easy to hitch further towards Maribor or Ljubljana.

To Bosnia and Herzegovina
From Županja exit (off of A3 / E70) toward Tuzla. Bosnian driver offered ride at beginning of ramp, insisted on trying border crossing in car. Ca. 400m between checkpoints. Traffic is good.

More information

 * Hitchhiking in Croatia, a CouchSurfing group
 * When travelling to the islands, you can use the katamaran. It is a faster and cheaper passenger ferry than the car ferry.

isin: Balkans trash:Croatia

Kroatien Croacia Croatie nomad:Croatia