Budapest

Budapest is the capital of Hungary.

Hitching out

M1, M7 West towards Bratislava, Vienna, Zagreb

<map lat='47.506534' lng='19.125824' zoom='10' view='0' float='right' height='270' width='350' /> When heading to west (M7 to Balaton or M1 to Austria and Slovakia), you should take a bus or something to Budaörs. There is a gas station with a lot of traffic to both motorways.

However I tried starting from inside the city a few times (between Moskva ter and Kelenföld), but I never got a lift, although there was a lot of traffic (really much) in my direction, and the place was good for stopping. So I have no clue, why don't want to pick up someone inside the city.

There's a good point inside Budapest also. It's in the above metioned neighborhood Kelenföld, on the Budaörsi út (road). You can check the schedule on the homepage [1] of the local transport company, but the bus number 40, 41, 53, 139, 153 are ok. You should try on the ÖMW petrol station.

An other option to get to this petrol station is to take the tram 19 or 49, go to the last stop (it's in the front of small train station), then walk along the train station until the walking tunnel, go to the right inside the tunnel, on the exit walk straight until you see the highway, then go to right and cross the road by the walking bridge, go to left and walk in direction of the mcdonald (where the petrol station is).

The best is to use a sign "M1" or "M7", according if you want go to west or to south.

There is also another petrol station just ~5km further directly before the fork of the highway to M1 or M7. But it seems that you'll find less cars here than at the ÖMV petrol station.

M5 South towards Belgrade, Arad

First you have to get to Határ út. That's a station of the 3rd/blue metro. Take the bus red#94 (route) and go untill you see a citroen carmarket on the other side of the road. Here you can start to hitch. I recommend with a sign "Szeged", that's a bigger city near to the border. One possibility is also to take Bus Numer 84 from Hatar Ut. This one goes straight to the highway passing by a petrol station, where you can start hitchhiking. It was working really well last time.

E60 East towards Oradea, Cluj-Napoca

Take metro line 3 to the end of the line where you will find a bus station. Take the airport bus, it will stop at terminal 1, stay on the bus until the second to last stop before the airport. You will notice that the city ends quite abruptly, prior to this you will see a petrol station, this is the last petrol station for at least 10-15 km. From the second to last bus stop you will have to walk back to this station. There is no good place to hitch after this point for around 10-15km as the road is motorway. Later on there are more hitching opportunities and its easy to get dropped off somewhere useful. Alternatively outside terminal 1 of the airport is as good as most roadside locations however its probable that a only a proportion of traffic is travelling right out of the city.

M2 North towards Kraków

There is one strait road (no E77 / M2) from Budapest to Warsaw. In Budapest you should take a metro (blue line) and get out on second last stop (in north part of city). It is called Ujpest-Varoskapu. There is a river and road next to it. You can hitchhike there (there many bus stops and few gas stations) to Sahy (it's Hungarian-Slovakian border). Or you can then take a bus (96 or 104), go down at Foti ut (one stop before the last one I think). Here you'll be on the intersection of Vaci ut and Foti ut, you have a bus stop and then behind that you have an old abandoned bus stop with a huge space for anything to stop. That's where you hitch and usually wait just a couple of minutes.

In Sahy you will easy stop a truck to Poland (don't go to Slovakia, just hitchhike there to directly to Poland). Than you can go out in Chyzne (it's Slovakian-Polish border). Almost every truck there go to Krakow but you can hitchhike to Warsaw also. If you decide to go to Krakow, try to get to city center (railway station) and there you can ask people where is Aleja 29 listopada (in English it means 29. November Avenue) or you can take bus no 105 (there is bus stop next to railway station) and go there. You can hitchhike there but better is 2-3 km on north (it's road to Warsaw).

Public Transport

Public transport in Budapest is really good and cheap. A single ticket is only about 0,80€ and it seems like conductors don't check the stamps (there seems to be no date/time information), so it might be possible to use them for a few days without getting caught.
If you get caught without a valid ticket, you only have to pay about 10€.