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You can also catch long rides [[File:Tope-mexico.jpg|200px|thumb|left|Hitching at the exits of the cities when you travel on the highways. Many cities have speed bumps a tope (''tope''speedbump) where the highway begins at the edge of town. On smaller highways in more rural areas, there are often speed bumps at every little town, making it easy to move quickly with a number of shorter rides.]]
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Mexico also has many border control and military and police checkpoints (''retén'') in the middle of the highways throughout the country. These can be great for hitchhiking. It's usually good practice to ask the personnel for permission beforehand, and oftentimes they'll be asking all the drivers where they're going, so they can even let you know if someone's going to your destination.
You can also catch long rides at the exits of the cities when you travel on the highways. Many cities have speed bumps (''tope'') where the highway begins at the edge of town. Where there are police posts at the entrance or exits to towns, there are usually topes too. On smaller highways in more rural areas, there are often speed bumps at every little town, making it easy to move quickly with a number of shorter rides. Many of the larger, faster highways operate on a toll system. It's common for there to be a free road (''libre'') parallel to the paid one (''cuota''), the former being slower and easier to catch rides, but the latter much more likely for getting longer rides. The tollbooths (''caseta'') can be good placestoo, tooand the ones near to the cities can usually be reached by local transport. However, sometimes you have to stand about 100m past the tollboothitself (ask the attendants where you can stand), so traffic has often already picked up speed by the time they get to you, and it can be difficult for cars to pull over. Fortunately, there are often restrooms, gas stations, and stores just past the ''caseta'', so you can talk to drivers that stop there. Signs can come in really handy at tollbooths.
== Signs ==
:''In 10 months and tens of thousands of km covered by thumb, my only "bad" experience was between Pto. Angel and [[Oaxaca (City)|Oaxaca City]] (a notorious drug route, as I later learned). The driver asked me to drive and once I was behind the wheel informed me that the van was full of Colombia's finest. I nearly shat myself, but the experience turned out to be quite interesting, as we were forced to make several detours to avoid police checkpoints, taking me through beautiful and remote parts of the [[Oaxaca|Oaxacan]] mountains I otherwise never would have discovered. Be careful not to get set up. A very, very, rare occurance, but one that can happen.''
:''I traveled for 8 months in Mexico, all by thumb. I came down Baja California, hitched a sailboat from La Paz to Mazatlán, steamed over to [[Veracruz (City)|Veracruz]] for the carnival, went up and around the Yucatán, then down into [[Chiapas]], Guatemala, and then back to Veracruz, across to all the big central cities, and down the Pacific coast to Oaxaca and Guatemala once more. I got picked up by plenty of self-proclaimed drug dealers. Whatever. Lovely country. --[[User:Chael777|Chael777]]''
:''The small less trafficky roads, in the mountains and in Chiapas for instance, can test your patience. If you are coming from south (Guatemala) people might be afraid to pick you up because there are so many checkpoints. Even the ones who do stop ask if you have problems with authorities, if you are smuggling drugs or if you have a passport."--[[User:Astikain|Astikain]] ([[User talk:Astikain|talk]]) 15:59, 4 June 2013 (CEST)
"I hitchhiked for two months through the mainland and had a great experience. People are very friendly and willing to help. The biggest thing is getting outside the city. The good thing about the big highways is you are more likely to get a long ride, the bad thing it can be rough to have someone pull over. The small villages are easier to get rides but tend to be short."-Jason
== Cities ==
* [[Mexico City]] (capital)
* [[Oaxaca (City)|Oaxaca]]
* [[Palenque]]
* [[Poza Rica]]
* [[Puebla (city)|Puebla]]
* [[San Luis Potosí (city)| San Luis Potosí]]
* [[Tehuantepec]]
* [[Toluca]]
* [[Tuxtla]]
* [[Xalapa (City)|Xalapa]]
== Gallery ==
[[es:México]]
[[fr:Mexique]]
[[ru:Мексика]]
[[trash:Mexico]]
[[nomad:Mexico]]
