Newcastle

Newcastle Upon Tyne is a city in the North East of England. The main access roads to the city are the A69 and the A1(M).

Heading West (Carlisle, M6, A74(M))
Take the 39 or 40 bus to Leamington Road Ends (Exit junction from A69 near the start. Walk down to the other side of the junction and onto the A69. The filter lane is very long and is never busy. The traffic on the A69 is usually not going too fast; this is an excellent spot for cars to pull over. Consider waiting for a ride all the way to Carlisle, as it can occasionally be complicated hitching on the A69 Itself.

Bus stop Denton Burn, West Road-The Ramparts works as well. Take bus 10 or 11 from the Central Station. One of these buses stops right there, the other one turns right two crossings earlier (West Rd/Slatyford Ln, there is a pedestrian brigde over the street). From there, you have to get back on West Road and continue walking west. You'll find the bus stop about 800ft/250m behind the big intersection.

South toward Leeds, Manchester, London... A1(M)
Catch the bus 21 or 22 (heading Gateshead) until the stop Durham road - Harlow Green Infants which is just in front of a petrol station. You can as well catch the 1 or the 2 and get off at Allerdene (ask maybe to be the closer than Durham road) and then get up the bridge which is Durham road, and where you will see the petrol station. It could seem like there are not a lot of people, but just ask for the next services 5 miles down the road toward the A1, there are a lot of cars who go down to the south, and so it's easy to get a long lift. Good luck guys!

If you are going very far South (London etc.) you should consider going to Carlisle and hitching down the M6. The M6 is usually busier than the A1/A1(M), and you are more likely to be left at Service stations, rather than roundabouts and junctions.

North toward Edinburgh... A1
The only major road north from Newcastle is the A1, which will take you up to Edinburgh via Alnwick and Berwick-upon-Tweed. Author has hitched it a few times, and always been successful though sometimes it can feel a bit like getting there by the skin of your teeth as there aren't loads of great hitching spots up the A1. Friendly locals often take you a short stretch though and you can hop from town to town. To get out of Newcastle, you can take the Metro towards the Airport and get off at Kingston Park. Walk away from the metro stop past tesco for about ten minutes, you get to a small roundabout and then straight away a bigger one leading onto the A1. You can stand on the corner of the roundabout exit- it's a good spot from the point of view of traffic (everyone coming up the A1 and joining it out of Newcastle or Hexham), though not totally ideal in terms of stopping space as people just have to pull over on a sliproad as per usual. trash:Newcastle