Talk:Poland

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Discussions

Chaos

We really need to clean up this article. Anyone speaks Polish? Or does anyone have contact to polish hitchhikers? Maybe we can even start a Polish version if hitchwiki. --MrTweek 22:04, 3 July 2007 (CEST)

I'm very interested in it. I live in Poland and speak polish as well. Poland is very friendly country for hitchhikers and it's a bit sad that there is no polish version of hitchwiki. --Krzysiek 12:14, 10 July 2009 (CEST)

You are welcome to clean up a little here ;) Also, we will be happy to start a Polish language version of Hitchwiki, if you help us. I'll contact you
Btw, to sign a message, like here, just type ~~~~. That will be replaced with your name and time+date. --MrTweek 10:56, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

General

General: Polish roads are not in a poor quality. Beside of that, hitchhikers should not mention the quality of roads, they should have other worries. The Polish road network has improved gigantically over the last 1.5 decade. The roads are fully up to doing what is demanded of them. If you say the roads are bad, it means you need better roads. But why do you need them? I do not understand that. Do you feel better with top end roads? Would you like over 10,000 km of fast motorways, as Polands western neighbour has? If so, why? Aren't you a simple hitchhiker. Take care and take your time.

Langauge: An insult to Poles! "are unable to speak". Hm. What to think of that. And still apart from that - I guess that about 1/4th of the Poles speaks English, 1/4th of the Poles speaks German (if just enough to travel - which is your goal - not to insult people be careful with what you say), all speak Polish and half of them speak Russian (if just a bit). Ten percent speak Lithuanian. Ten percent speak Czech or Slovakian. Five percent speaks French or Italian. Czy ty mowic pan po polsku?

Pozdrowienia Frank Verhart

  • I know hardly anyone who would speak any Russian in Poland, apart from my friends studying either Russian studies or Eastern politics or guys doing business in Russia or Ukraine. I tried to use Russian in the street several times and was always asked if I could speak English instead. It may be different in the east of Poland but in Poznan you would probably make with Russian no better than with Czech or Slovak. 85.221.209.245 13:39, 11 March 2007 (CET)
  • Yes, that's fair. In the east of Poland many more people speak and understand Russian. However, situation is already quite different to my impression compared with my first visit to the country in 2001. Then I did not meet that many people who would easily speak English fluently without hesitation. Partially that also had to do with my way of travelling, which was camping on basic campsites and on bivouac fields (usually a field in the forest with a wooden toilet, sometimes also running water). Six years ago in my first visit to Poland, and first visit to a former "East block country" I described Poland as a country in a great transformation. The changes are going on all the time. Certainly, Poznan is more known as a city orientated on western Europe with many relations with Germany especially. There is a differnce between the west and the east of Poland in general. "Everything" east of Warsaw has been more under influence of Russian culture, Russian-Orthodox religion and historically wealth was always lower there, still is and as I suppose will also be. In the east of Poland I frequently got such answer like "No, but do you speak Russian?" when I asked if people spoke English or German. Five years ago I lived for three months in the village of Bialowieza, situated three kilometers from the Belarusian border. I rarely met local people speaking English there and even then there were people in the village who could only speak Russian (or Belarusian?), so I was told. Frank Verhart.

Hiking in Poland

Frankly speaking throughout my life I've never been to a country where hitchhiking was so easy. I know that such experiences differ from person to person, but in fact very seldom did I have to wait longer than 1,5 hour. In fact, when leaving most major towns the waiting time usually does not exceed 30 minutes. Especially if you find the customary hitchhiking place. Most drivers in Poland know such hot spots and stop there even if they don't see you waving. Halibutt 09:11, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

  • My story would sound different. I just crossed poland from one end to the other and not one single driver stopped while I was standing (with or without sign or whatever). But nearly everybody took me if I managed to speak to a driver. Traffic lights were also great but no one even thought about stopping. 92.195.223.108 16:59, 24 August 2008 (CEST) [felix]

Hmmm...

I find some of this info at the front page hilarious. I think it all might be more confusing than facilitating.

  • I have never seen any of this old-village hitchhikers. This info looks like taken from some communistic guide book ;) Now they usually cycle or their neighbors or kids give them a ride. I have never seen ANYONE expecting any kind of payment for hitchhiking. And I was hitching a lot in the countryside, also without backpack. I postulate removing this info from front page.
  • I would say hand hitchhing and sign hitchhing are at least 50/50. It is nothing rare to hitch with sign. If some foreigner reads this page, can drop down idea of sign hitching, which, I think would be best for him.
  • In my opinion and from my experience, Poland is one of best countries in EU to hitch. And, important to notice, I have never had any nasty behaviour on the road, as for example driver showing middle finger or so. But it is so maybe cos Im polish ;)

Guys, what are your experiences?? Mirto 15:30, 30 August 2008 (CEST)

Basically, if you are very sure about your opinion, you can always change everything. I once hitched there with a sign and it worked quite well. I find a sign always good if I don't speak the countries language, because it's much harder to explain where I want to go. --MrTweek 20:32, 30 August 2008 (CEST)
Yep, then signs are the way to go, although the article is right that not all Polish use signs or use them rarely.--Fverhart 12:06, 1 September 2008 (CEST)
I can be very sure of all my opinions, it doesnt change that they might be wrong. Experience of one shouldn't be generalized, even if it is MY experience and even if I am 100percent sure of it :P That is why I am asking. If you have similar opinion as mine, just change text :) Mirto 22:32, 30 August 2008 (CEST)
Czesc Lena. I think that the whole article about Poland is quite in order. On my travels in Poland I frequently see the local people who stand for lifts to the next village for shopping or visiting people for example. I see many people hitching with their thumb. It is important to describe hitchhiking in Poland accurately. Personally I can't fully understand the ways to hitchhike in Poland without knowing about the situation in the past, the Polish society. Hm, yep of course it's well possible to hitch in Poland without a sign. The reason, because drivers as Polish people are more inclined in their way of being to help other travellers, Poles feel more related to others with whom they live, and translated into autostop-habits they are more curious where the other one on the road wants to go to. More than Germans and obviously extremely much more than Dutch. Well, the article about Poland seems to be rather in order. Feel free to change. About leaving a small tip in the car; in that case I'm also very curious to the situation in the past, and if such habit used to exist, when it has faded out. But it's always Polish and other Slavic drivers that make me feel like leaving a little tip just on the seat, also sometimes when I would be staying there with local people. But anyway, doesn't matter ;) --Fverhart 11:59, 1 September 2008 (CEST)

Reorganising

I started to reorganise Polish pages, as I also noted some mess here. First of all I edited a bit general info about Poland. I've been hitching through out Poland for more than 15 years and for example never been asked for a tip and I heard of only one story like that. Maybe it was like that in the past in some regions, but I think not anymore. So I changed that info to not make people think they have to prepare some tip.

I'm skeptic about information about languages spoken in Poland. "42% of Poles speak at least one foreign language fluently" sounds incredible for me. But there is source shown, so I'm not sure if it needs to be changed.

I try to rewrite all the city pages using the same pattern: first Hitching Out, then directions written in that manner: e.g. West towards xxx; under direction additional information about road number as for many people it's important, and there will be more and more places connected by old national road and new motorway or expressway. I think it's good to use italics for places names in Polish and bold italics for the most important names as name of the bus/tram stop you should get off. After that Hitching In information when needed. Some cities have bypasses and motorways in their suburbs. You need info of how to get to town from such remote places. After hitching info there may be some info about Public Transport and after that additional information on Eating and Sleeping. This pattern is based on some Western European cities. If you're going to edit Polish city pages check out Poznań for example to see how it looks.

License Plate

Exactly how conduct a reverse license plate owner check up? I have to know if there is whichever way you can type in a license plate number via the internet and see the name of the individual if it belongs to or the address of that individual. Can someone assist me? It's an Illinois plate with S in the end of it. Please email me if you can perform a search or post if you know the best way to do a totally free one. Thanks a lot.

I am pretty sure that this would be illegal everywhere in the world. --MrTweek 20:19, 27 January 2011 (CET)