Hitchgathering/2012

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General

Latest News

  • Final location has been decided. The 2012 European Hitch Gathering will be in Ambraziškiai, near Molėtai, Lithuania. The location is set amongst an abandoned vodka factory which sits beside a lake, small village and some nature like fields/forest/hills etc. The date is still Saturday 4 August 2012.
  • A new quite solid proposal has been made: Soveja, in Romania
  • In Kara Dere the date for Hitchgathering 2012 main event was decided: Saturday 4 August 2012
  • Submit your suggestions for the main event NOW!
    • We want to decide the location as early as possible to leave time for actual organizing of the event.
    • Please, formulate as solid proposal as possible: venue, team, partners, program suggestions etc.

Organisation & Discussion

Key points to consider

  • Team of people on the ground (and online helpers) is maybe even more critical for the success of the event than the actual location.
  • It was suggested that the main event would be a culmination point for a series of mini-meetings around Europe that could be well-prepared and organized during June and July prior to the main event. This would allow a bigger participation, more promotion, longer travels together and, of course, a wider reach.

Questions to answer:

  • Is the point of hitchgathering still to popularize hitchhiking?
    • Of course it is... but it's not the main goal. The main goal's still to have a Hitchhiker's Gathering, I believe :-)--Zenit 00:10, 22 September 2011 (CEST)
    • (place your answer here)
  • If so, should we aim to make a (much) larger, accessible (easy-to-reach) event?
    • (place your answer here)
  • If so, should we change the concept somehow?
    • I think, one basic question will arise about money, because if we want to make a "big thing" out of it, then it will be more likely that some costs are involved. But actually, I would prefer to do it as much without money as possible. I definitivly would like to keep that part of the concept and see what else we can do to have a big gathering.--Lisa und Clemens 23:54, 22 September 2011 (CEST)
    • (place your answer here)
  • (place your question here)

Suggestions:

  • Have one main event (4-8-12)
    • (place your comment here)
  • Have a series of smaller events leading to that (May, June, July)
    • Some would be nice - but I'd vote for not having too many. Both for fear of splitting the one big main gathering where everybody is going to be into several smaller ones, and also because people might end up running after the events, trying to catch more than they can, always missing them by a bit due to the incalculability (what an awesome word) of hitchhiking or other unfortunate stuff like that. I say keep the pre-meetings, but promote and especially organise them better (for example by deciding them well before the gathering and putting them on the offical flyer), which should mainly comprise some kind of gathering grounds, I believe. Food sucks, after all. So... find enthusiastic local organisers (Germany would be plentiful of those, I think), kick their butts a little bit (a.k.a. help them to self-organise) and fire up the promotion. :-)--Zenit 00:19, 22 September 2011 (CEST)
    • (place your comment here)
  • Have a "Kara Dere -like" event right after the main event
    • What is a Kara Dere-like event?...--Zenit 00:11, 22 September 2011 (CEST)
    • A rather small one, in a romantic and remote place with few people that all come to know each other during the event.--Lisa und Clemens 23:54, 22 September 2011 (CEST)
    • (place your comment here)
  • Taking previous comments into account, what if we would 1) have a few well-organized pre-meetings in June/July, then 2) meet in free Woodstock festival 2-4 August in Poland, and then 3) decide together where to go for the after meeting.
    • (place your comment here)
  • (place your suggestion here)
    • (place your comment here)

Location suggestions for 4-8-12

Soveja, Romania

A little village called Soveja (here), in a mountain area. There is a small river there also and there are nice trails to hike in the forest around. We can buy some stuff from the neighbours like fresh milk, cheese, eggs, vegetables and so on.

Organizers

Team of people ready to take responsibility on the ground:

  • Name | contact details | special contribution/interests

Willing online helpers:

  • Jona / n0id --N0id 17:08, 7 June 2012 (CEST)

Pros

  • Sma nows the place/the area
  • Some people (who? exactly?) are willing to organize it
  • cheap food
  • quiet area
  • would be the first gathering in the mountains

Cons

  • it is close to Bulgaria where the last gathering took place

Thessaloniki, Greece

I wanted to propose Thessaloniki because it could be a opportunity to merge the european hitchhiking gathering with the Euroadtrip project (http://www.euroadtrip2012.org/)and we could all meet in Thessaloniki the 4th and then decide upon a beach destination where we all could hitchhike and spend some nice days at the sea together.

Willing online helpers:

  • Isa

Pros

  • City, Street art and then the beach
  • Greek wine
  • Would bring together the Hitchhiking Gathering and the Euroadtrip project


Engure, Latvia

Close to Engure is a beautiful, white sandy beach with a needle tree forest. The beach streches for some kilometers between Engure and the next, even smaller village. n0id has been there several times (though a few years ago). It is really quiet and usually there are almost no people. Since the road runs parallel to the coast line, one could do shopping and hitch along the road to minimise walking to a couple of hundred meters.

Somewhere near Berlin, Germany

  • After four years of challenging destinations, it'd be nice to try a central, easy and popular place in Europe.

Organizers

Team of people ready to take responsibility on the ground:

  • Name | contact details | special contribution/interests

Willing online helpers:

  • Tomi Astikainen | tomi(at)mindyourelephant.org | writing --Astikain 13:39, 21 September 2011 (CEST)
  • Zenit | find out via my talk :-) | writing, thinking as much as I will be able to from the road --Zenit 00:25, 22 September 2011 (CEST)
  • Name | contact details | special contribution/interests

Pros

  • A lot of hitchhikers nearby e.g. in France, Netherlands, Poland and - naturally - in Germany could form the basis for a VERY big main event.
    • A central location like this would allow the national hitchhiking clubs to cooperate in creating the event.
    • Would be easy to get together a team on the ground (5-8 people in Berlin), who would take care of the preparations throughout the whole year, not just a couple of weeks before the event.
  • Affordable.
  • Possible partner organization: Kulturkosmos, organizer of the Fusion Festival
    • (Thilo will approach them once we have a solid proposal)

Cons

  • By the time it's August, some HC hitchhikers could potentially be faaar away from Germany already.

Scandinavia

  • We've had West (Portugal), Central (Paris) and East (Odessa & Kara Dere) - it might be time to move it North! :-)

Organizers

Team of people ready to take responsibility on the ground:

  • Name | contact details | special contribution/interests

Willing online helpers:

  • Zenit | find out via my talk :-) | writing, thinking as much as I will be able to from the road --Zenit 00:25, 22 September 2011 (CEST)
  • Name | contact details | special contribution/interests

Pros

  • Plentiful space, awesome camping possibilites
  • A place that would thrive with hitch-hikers once we promote it a little bit (believes Zenit).
  • Accessible - the ferries from Germany to Denmark and from Denmark to Sweden are absolutely hitcheable
  • Moose!!

Cons

  • Not cheap (but good to Dumpster Dive, better than Bulgaria) - expensive alcohol
  • Mosquitoes in the summer time & sometimes changeable weather (but all in all usually nice and predictable along the East coast in the summer).

Valle di Luna, Capo Testa - Santa Teresa Gallura, Sardegna, Italy

CapoTesta-pjt1.jpg

An amazing valley between skull rocks on a beautiful beach in Sardegna. There is a permanent, but changing hippie community living in the valley in caves and tents. Maybe we could join for some days. There is enough space. I will upload a photo soon. Links:

Organizers

Team of people ready to take responsibility on the ground:

  • Name | contact details | special contribution/interests

Willing online helpers:

Pros

  • Just a beautiful place and a free living community
  • Central Europe
  • Sardegna is hitchhiking friendly
  • food is very tasty

Cons

  • A lot tourists hiking there in summer.
  • Hitch or take the ferry, plane or a boat.
  • Don't know if the hippie community there likes it when 100 hitchhikers come.
  • Officially there is a "no camping" restriction


Pre-meetings

City, country

After-meetings

City, country

Other meetings, events

Almost everywhere, see map.

TO DO

Misc

Website work

Translation

Other

General communication

Social media

Media presence

Art

Workshops

Practicalities on the ground

Being done

Practicalities

Art

Contact

Visa info

Web-presence

Promotion: DIY!

There are endless possibilities to spread the word about the hitchgathering. For example:

  • Tell your friends
  • Tell hitchhikers you meet on the road
  • Write cardboards with hitchgathering.org, the place and date (and maybe more) and place them at popular hitchhiking spots ... be creative and use your colorful markers!
  • Draw your own flyers :)
  • Spread the word around hitchhiking clubs and websites in your country/your language
  • Post on your hitchhiking / travel / nomad blog or website about the gathering
  • Tell your favorite hitchhiking / travel / nomad blog author to write about it
  • Organize a pre-meeting (can be early like May/June/July to raise attention and connect people)
  • Invent a new slogan for this year! http://hitchwiki.org/en/index.php?title=Hitchgathering/2011/Slogan&action=edit

Done

  • Date 4-8-12 was set already in Kara Dere. Yay!

Old but still relevant discussion points

  • A lot of energy is spent discussing the destination. Having the destination set more than one year in advance allows to concentrate on other issue, given the limited volunteer-hours we dispose of.
  • In the previous installments, we only have a consensus on the destination a few month before the event, leading to many shortcomings in the organisation.
  • I think in Kara Dere everything was just perfect. Even though I left well before the "end".--Zenit 00:14, 22 September 2011 (CEST)

About the dates:

  • Last week end of April is a 5-day-weekend for most of Europe (the 1st of May is holyday in most countries and it falls on a Tuesday).
    • I think that is to early - in my opinion May is NOT the beginning of summer (as in: the free time I have during summer which I use to travel) and I guess most people still have to work in May/June before they start bumming around --N0id 15:24, 2 April 2011 (CEST)
  • The issue with the date has always been that people would love to have it earlier in order to travel more with the people they meet in the gathering. However, different countries have different times for the last exams, and to respect this it kinda has to be in August. But no worries, we were thinking in Kara Dere that we could have a series of shorter events (that we now call pre-meetings) that would lead to the main event, have them properly organized and fixed early enough for the whole summer, so that the early birds can meet each other already in May, June, July if they wish... and at the same time this caravan of love will gather more and more people to the actual main event.
    • Learning from the past years' experience, we've spent too much time debating the dates and locations. Now people wanted to have solid proposals for the locations coming in early enough, decide on the main event soon, and collect a bunch of people to start organizing it much much earlier. Also, it was discussed whether we should change the concept a little bit and try to have a much bigger event on a central location, and then this Kara Dere type of love-filled small event right after it.