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→Hitchability: Added bold subtitles, added my experience of hitchhiking in 2019. Added some info about a paved road near Olgii.
'''Hitchhiking in the far west: ''' [[Bayan-Ölgii]], is very hard to hitch. It took [[User:Worldhitch|Worldhitch]] 2 weeks from the Russian border in [[Bayan-Ölgii]] to Ulaanbaatar. Getting a Chinese visa is easy in Ulaanbaatar, Russian is not so easy – like in any other place.
In september 2019 [[User:Worldhitchhiker|Worldhitchhiker]] hitchhiked from the border in the West (near Ölgii) to Ulaanbaatar. But with a big detour to the Gobi desert. It took me 9 days (2400km). My experience: basically I took this route: over the main road from Russia > Ölgii > Bayankhongor > leaving the main road southwards to Sevrei (you can hike up the Gobi desert sand dunes around here) and from Dalanzadgad via a main road northwards to Ulaanbataar. My experience: if you stay on the main roads it's pretty doable (I did 1000km in 2 days). Main roads are often unpaved, but there is some traffic, not much. People are friendly and interested, they often didn't understand me and/or the idea of hitchhiking, but eventually they were often happy to take me (for a short ride). Once you leave the main road it gets super quiet. After the first car that brought me to a small village, I waited for 9 hours divided over two days, to get a car. I had to pay a bit to bring me to the next small village instead of the middle of nowhere (230km in 2 days). There I waited 7 hours again. Then I got lucky because two tourists took me in their rented car for a few days. The best impression from this trip you might get from my [https://youtu.be/dV8AXWylmHs Mongolia hitchhike video].
'''Hitchhiking in the east:''' Similarly, the further you are from the capital, the harder things get. It is very very difficult to hitch after Khentii, where the paved road ends and random parallel dirt roads begin. It took a few days for [[User:Canaydemir]] to reach Choibalsan and it was impossible to go to the Russian border at Erentsav by means of hitchhiking.
'''Hitching up north to the Russian border:''' A great place to hitch from UB was the Dragon Center bus station. It took me a while but eventually I got a ride with on a bus to Darkhan. I also tried hitching on the street for nearly two hours before that but didn't find anyone who was going that far north, most of the street traffic is still local.
'''Hitching trains:''' I was able to hitch a train from Darkhan to Sukhbaatar (about 20km from the Russian border) in November 2015.
'''Ask people'''
Talking to people trying to fill up their cars works but Mongolians will have trouble understanding that you want to go for free. However, they usually accept you in the end. Not as common as in Iran but even the taxis may take you without charging. In some cases though, your success might depend on whether somebody is willing to pay for your ride. This is likely to succeed in villages for short distances (<200 km).
'''Money'''
In the countryside, money is very strongly expected whereas in more "densely" populated areas it is not. When hitching in the countryside, you should prepare yourself for a discussion and a series of explanations that you really don't have money, no tugriks, no dollars, no whatever. They might ask you an insane amount of times. It can get tiring but even though some people will look like they will only take you for money, do not give up until they actually ride away. Mongolians are kind and helpful people, if you do not have money, they will take you for free.
An aimless hitchhiker wrote about her experiences of hitching in Mongolia [https://anaimlesshitchhiker.com/2014/09/16/brighton-to-beijing-overland-part-4-the-green-grass-of-smiley-mongolia/#more-1593 here]. Worldhitchhiker wrote tips and his hitchhiking experience in Mongolia [https://worldhitchhiker.com/hitchhiking-in-mongolia/ here]
=== Transport ===
=== Roads ===
There are many paved roads in Mongolia. When there are no paved roads, there are also very good dirt roads. You should not be worried about road quality if you are going from UB to Teserleg (North-West), Bayankhongor (South-West) and Zamiin-Uud (South). Further west, the quality of road varies from "OK" to "just disastrous or inexistant". Sometimes you just drive through snow tracks. However vehicles do not get stuck in snow that often. Expect a flat tire every 400 kilometers, even on paved roads. From Ölgii (in the West) to the direction South-East there was a pretty new paved road in 2019 for the first bit.
There are just a couple hundred km of paved road from [[Ulan Bator|Ulaanbaatar]] in every geographical directions (exactly one per direction) and that's it. No roads, no signs. The trunk roads out of Ulaanbaatar are paved and reasonably trafficked. Be careful if you walk out of the cities, along the ''roads'' so you don't get lost, and take water with you. Confusingly, names of cities equal names of states, so make sure city and state match.