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=== Westwards towards [[Greece]] (via [[Tekirdag]]) ===
Take the suburban train (''banliyö treni'') from the very city center (Sirkeci) towards Halkali. It's only 1,50 lira. Get off at ''Küçükçekmece''. If the train station is 6 o'clock, walk in the direction of 12 o'clock in order to find the on ramp towards [[Tekirdag]]. This is the same road that will take you directly to Greece, although you will still be well within the congested highways of suburban Istanbul. Be aware that you cannot cross this border walking! You have to find somebody to take you across. Knowing [[German]] will help you a lot to explain that you need help to cross the border due to many drivers with a Turkish-German background. And once u are in a car, which takes u through the border its suggested to try to stay in that car also after the border for at least 20-30 km, because the road after the border is one of the shittest place to hitchhike in europe, as people are afraid of stories about immigrants from Iran and Afghanistan etc. so its especially hard to get a ride. (Two times it took me one day to get out of this area --lapulevel)
Another way to get to city's western outskirts is to take the metro from Aksaray close to Sultanahmet in the old city centre, and ride it till ''Yenibosna'' station (1.50 TL pp, roughly €0.75). Then, take the public bus #448 (''Yenibosna Metro-Mimarsinan''; an extra 1.50 TL pp), which departs from the stops right next to metro station. You will ride this bus for a ''long'' time, roughly an hour, until where it quits the highway west and turns to right in a cloverleaf interchange near the village of [[Mimarsinan]], where the bus eventually heads. Get off at the stop right at the very location bus turns right, this is where as much west as you can get on Istanbul's public transportation. Then walk a bit further from the junction, and start thumbing. Hitchhiker [[User:Vidimian|Vidimian]] tried this route in 2002 or 2003, when he wasn't very experienced at hitchhiking. The first lift offer arrived so late (after about 2 hours of thumbing) and the following lifts were so short (and, again, late) that he could make it to [[Tekirdağ]], a mere 120 km away from this hitching spot, after the night falls, despite starting early in the morning.
For those who rather not try hitchhiking through the overgrown western suburbs of the city, a slightly more expensive but a lot easier way to follow this westbound route to Greece may be to take the morning train to [[Muratlı]] from Sirkeci station in central Istanbul, and then hitch your way forward to Greece via [[Tekirdağ]] from there. See [[Muratlı]] article for full details.
Once you have passed the border, try to stay in the car which took you through, as the first 20-30 km on the Greek side is one of the worst places to hitchhike in Europe. Local people there are are afraid of stories about immigrants from Iran and Afghanistan etc. so its especially hard to get a ride. It took hitchhiker [[User:Lapulevel|Lapulevel]] a full day to get out of this area—and that wasn't simply a shortage of luck as that happened twice!
=== Eastwards towards [[Ankara]] ===
