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→North-West to Skopje (North Macedonia)
{{Infobox Italian Location
|country = Greece
|state =
|map = <map lat='40.65355504328839' lng='22.928466796875' zoom='10' view='0' float='right' />
|pop = 801,000
|plate = NA - NZ
|motorways = E75, E90
}}
'''Thessaloniki''' is a city in [[Greece]].
== Hitchhiking out ==
=== East towards Kavala and [[Istanbul]] ([[Turkey|TR]]) {{E|90}} ===
This route is widely perceived to be difficult. If you are lucky it can be easy if you get to a Turkish truck. Take bus #27 from the centre (e.g. Kamara) until the very end of the line. [UPDATE: bus #83 no longer starts where bus #27 finishes. Instead ask your #27 bus driver where to get off for bus #83] Switch to bus #83 and go a few stops until you see the motorway . Get off at Filothei (Φιλοθέη) when you see a BP Oil in green colour rest area on the other side of the motorway. Just follow the bus and go under the motorway to reach the other side. Once you are there, rally the petrol station personnel to help you . Show them your Istanbul (or Kavala or whatever) sign and ask them to tell you if they notice someone going to Turkey. Be prepared to convince the paranoid drivers that you are not wanted by the police and show them your passport. Getting a ride can take anything between one minute and five hours. If it just does not work at the petrol station see the options below (thumbing up on the road etc). Also, there should be a toll station (peage) about [http://hitchwiki.org/maps/?place=6374 15 km east of Lagynas], near Analipsi (where bus #83a is supposed to go). When you get to the border you might want to switch to a passenger car because the truck could be stuck in customs for a while.
Bus #83 goes all the way to Lagkadas (Λαγκαδάς). If you stay on the bus until it reaches this small town, you can try hitching out in the direction of Kavala, Istanbul, etc.
Update (July 2022): the options listed above are extremely outdated and not very helpful. This route is still difficult, but there are better options.
1) with bus number 83 you can get to Laguna from where there's about 20 minutes walk to the knot that ties local road 2 and highway 2. Here you can get directly to the entrance of the highway for Kavala where you filter out any cars not going your way. The traffic is very slow but the cars can stop and they get a good look at you. There's a gas station about 30km down before Evangelios
2) The highway entrance after BP near Megalohare kantina is still very local, but there's enough traffic so it's possible to hitch longer rides. Since Greeks don't stop often we opted to go for the first ride which brought us to the 3rd option
3) 40,7214723, 22,9740939 or the spot right after the exit for Laguna is risky. The cars drive fast so be careful and there's a high probability the highway patrol tells you to get off. However we hitched a ride within 5 minutes with a Kavala sign as there are a lot of Turkish truck drivers going from Athens to Istanbul.
None of these options are perfect, but they seem way more likely than the BP station since 4-5 hours of hitchhiking there yielded only 2 rides going to Kilkis. Since we changed strategy we only needed about an hour and a half in total. Good luck!
=== North-West to [[Skopje]] ([[North Macedonia]]) ===
Option 1:
Don't bother to hitch hike to the border! There are free busses from the city centre which belong to the casinos across the border just before Gevgelija. You can find these buses on Tsimiski street. They are easy to recognize (the name of the casino is printed on the bus, and it is written "free shuttle"). The buses leave at 17:00 and 21:00 so only useful for arriving in Skopje at night.
As of May 2024, it appears that the free shuttle no longer exists.
Option 2:
Take a Bus to Agios Athanasios. From "KTEL Macedonia Bus station" lines 81A, 89B, 89K go there. You can hitch on the nearby junction to Highway A1/E75 to Skopje.
Option 3:
Actually hitch hike. Highway EO2 effectively runs down the center of Thessaloniki to Edessas. It's a normal road (called "Monastiriou", "Egnagia" and others) up until the junction with the ring road (A2/E90). You can walk down it (going north-west) while hitch hiking. There are gas stations along it where you can hitch hike. Just past the ring road there is a stop light before the ramp where you can hitch hike. Just beyond that there is a very big shoulder where you can hitch hike. Continue following EO2 from there for 10km (in a car by now ideally) and you are at Agios Athanasios as in option 2 above. Take the exit to A1/E75 to Skopje.
=== South to [[Athens]] ===
Take Buses #31, #12, #8 or #78 to the bus station called KTEL. From there take bus #80 or #80A to the village called ''Malgara'' (some of these buses don't go all the way to Malgar). You can go out on the stop "''25 Martiou''" which is the closest to the tolls but on the bus, it's announced differently (in Greek ''Ikostis Pmptis Martiou'' ask the driver). There you can ask and find the Malgara Toll Station toll station (in Greek ''diodia'') on E75 easily. You'll have to walk about 2 km to find it, but then there is a possibility to get a ride even straight to Athens. Before you enter the motorway where the toll station is, you will have to go through some fields. If it's night be careful, just before the motorway there is a small ridge that is a bit steep and there is water flowing down, you need to find your way around it. If it's day, from the fields you can see a small canteen on the motorway, head to that direction, you can bypass the ridge there very easily and also you don't need to jump the fence (easy to jump though) because there is an entrance/exit for the canteen. From the canteen you will see the tolls, they are less than 50 m away.
For those not wanting to take a bus or want to hitch closer to the city (and aren't scared to walk), go to the the A1 motorway going towards Athens. It runs right beside the city centre. Starting from near the train station after walking 2 km you will arrive at the international bus station. From there it's a 6km walk along the motorway to where the E90 highway joins on to the A1 road to Athens. This is a good spot due to the high amount of Turkish trucks coming straight from the border and bypassing the city as well as any traffic coming from the north. Stand at the end of the onramp where there is a shoulder for traffic to pull over and you can get a ride to Larissa or even Athens.
=== West to [[Igoumenitsa]] {{E|90}} ===
Go to the train station, which is also the inner-city bus station. From here, take bus 8 KTEL (the KTEL are the blue and white buses) to Makedonia bus station. From there, you can catch the bus #80 to the end of the line, then follow motorway signs walking (approx. 2km) to the [[toll station]]. Or rather than taking bus #80, just walk across the road (roundabout) till you come to an [[on-ramp]]
In [[Igoumenitsa]] you can get a ride with trucks over the sea to [[Italy]].
=== North-East to [[Sofia]] ([[Bulgaria|BG]]) ===
Take bus 83 (any of them will get you there, even the express) from Aristotellous Square stop (on Egnatia Street). You want to get off at the Kombo Gerokomeiou exit (Google maps doesnt show the bus stops this far north, but on the opposite side of the highway is a gas station called Derveni Gas S.A.). MAKE SURE you explain to the bus driver you want to get off at this exit. Otherwise, he might not get off the highway here and the next stop is too far to walk back from. Stand on the shoulder of the ramp. There is not a lot of traffic here, so it might take you up to an hour to get a ride, but I think its worth it because most of the cars going as far as Bulgaria will get on the highway here. Good luck!
Update (August '22)
Don't take bus 83! You have to take bus 83B to get to the right place! Taking bus 83 will make you walk for a long time until teaching the ramp.
Also, I wasn't so lucky there. I waited a total of 4 hours before I gave up.
I think it's better to go to the Shell gas station at 40°41′01.72″N 22°56′28.28″E and ask people. Thumbing on ramps is pretty difficult in Greece.
You can take bus 53 until Strophe
Oraiokastrou to get to the gas station.
=== North to [[Kilkis]] ([[Greece]]) ===
Basically you need to take 2 buses. Very similar to the above direction to Sofia. But this time it is bus #27 / #27a and bus #84 / # 84a. You can change buses in two different places.
This way is faster as you don't need to stay on bus #27 so long. Take bus #27 or #27a and get off at Minerva stop in Oreokastrou suburb. If you walk some hundreds of meters from the bus stop where you get off, in the direction the bus was going, you will reach a crossroads and on your left you will see another bus stop. From there you can take bus #84.
This way is easier because you don't need to change bus stops, it is the way mentioned in the Northeast to Sofia section. Take the bus #27 or #27a from the centre the the final s top ''Platia Stavroupolis'' (Stavroupolis square). Then at the same place take bus #84 / #84a and you're already on your way.
Stay on bus #84 whilst it passes through 2 villages, Liti and Melissochiori. When it is out of Melissochiori, at one point the bus will cross the road going to Kilkis and you will see signs for Kilkis. When you are at the cross roads you can press the stop button on the bus and it will stop just after the cross. There is a bus stop there. Then you are at a great spot for hitching a ride to Kilkis, Gallikos or even North Macedonia (but not the most common way to Skopje. it is a different border).
== Sleep ==