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added a personal experience
The OMV gas station near a McDonald's on Maria-Gailer-Straße has traffic to Vienna, Germany and Italy. It took a while but eventually we caught a ride to Venice from there and it seems like there could be some good spots to spend the nigh in the area as well.
Other option is to go to bus station Federaun Brücke and in direction to Villach you can stop cars heading to A2 highway. We used sign A2 with Italy flag and after 45 minutes we caught a car to Udine.
=== Personal experiences ===
If you are hitching south, from Salzburg to Slovenia for example, and get a ride to Villach, you can try your luck at the blackhole called Rasthof Feistritz and wait something like the usual 3+ hours for a ride, or you could go an extra 5kms to the new Parkplatz/toilet just down the road which recently opened (2018). There is obviously less traffic there, but in one hitchhikers experience/opinion there is way more of a chance to get a ride!
''In August 2016, on the way to Italy we caught a ride directly to Venice in Villach. It took us 2-3 hours but admittedly we didn't spend the whole time asking around so it's possible it could've been quicker if we had tried harder. Then on our way back we got rescued after maybe half an hour from a dark, closed gas station and brought to a better spot and then in the early morning we only waited a few minutes before getting a ride to Graz.''
''In July of 2022 on our way from Munich to Ljubljana, we waited 5+ hours at the Maria Gailer bus station before finally getting a direct ride to Ljubljana.''
''In August 2016, on the way to Italy we caught a ride directly to Venice in Villach. It took us 2-3 hours but admittedly we didn't spend the whole time asking around so it's possible it could've been quicker if we had tried harder. Then on our way back we got rescued after maybe half an hour september 2019 I hitchhiked from a dark, closed gas station this town with 0 experience and brought to a better spot and then in the early morning we only waited a few minutes before getting got a ride pick to GrazSalzburg easily.''
During the [[Abgefahren hitchhiking race 2010]] some teams had major problems getting away from Villach to Slovenia and from Rasthof Feistritz in particular. Also, the on-ramp Faakersee didn't work well for them. The Villach experience was so traumatizing for some of the teams that they made the new figure of speech "to have a Villach" (German "einen Villach haben") - if you had a very unlucky or bad day - and now trying to establish this phrase among the [[hitchhikers jargon]].