Niš

From Hitchwiki
Revision as of 00:29, 22 September 2021 by Nixylive (talk | contribs) (East towards Sofia (Bulgaria) {{European Route Number|80}})

Earth > Europe > Southern Europe > Serbia > Niš
Jump to navigation Jump to search

<map lat='43.35865692013493' lng='21.93244384765625' zoom='11' view='0' float='right' height='300' width='400'/> Niš is a city in southern Serbia with a population of 250,000. It is located on the motorway (autoput) between Belgrade and Skopje, as well as the highway between Belgrade and Sofia.

Hitching in and around

There is a toll station Niš - Nais, just before Niš, if you're coming down south from direction of Belgrade using the motorway. There you can get rides straight to Sofia, or rides south towards Skopje and further on towards Greece, without entering into the city.

Hitchhiking out

East towards Sofia (Bulgaria) E 80

Bus

Option 1 (highway): You need to get to the toll gate called "Naplatna stanica - Niš istok" and it's located here https://goo.gl/maps/4WTEMmG5PphHWGjc8

To get there, take a city bus number 4 from the city center. Ticket costs 60 dinars or 0.5 euros and the ride will take around 15-20 minutes. Follow GPS on your phone and when the bus crosses intersection of "Knjazevacka street" and "Matejevacki put", get off the bus. Keep walking in the same direction for 1.5 km. If you feel like not walking so much, you can try to hitchhike after you cross intersection of "Matejevacki put" and "Somborska street" (when 6 lanes boulevard becomes 2 lane street). Most of the cars go to the villages and some to the highway (same direction). You may get lucky and save your legs of 1 km walking. If not, just keep walking to the toll gate. Make sure with the driver that he goes to the direction of Bulgaria or Pirot at least. Car should go over the bridge to join the highway. Don't make a mistake and take a road to the right side before crossing the overpass. You will get lost in the highway intersections and it will be difficult to come back.

You can also take bus number 5 from the city center. Same price for the bus ticket, but it could be slightly faster ride because the route is shorter. Get off at the last stop at "Somborska street". Note this: Somborska street has changed name recently, but on Google maps it's still the old name. If the new name ever gets updated on Google maps, don't get confused if you don't find Somborska street but you find "Bulevar svetog Pantelejmona". From the last stop walk 2 km to the hitchhiking spot explained above.

Taxi

Another option is to take a taxi. Taxi in Niš is really not expensive. According to Google maps it's 5.5 km from the city center to the hitchhiking spot. Start costs 110 dinars and every km is 40 dinars. That's around 330 dinars total which is less than 3 euros. If you take taxi from different location which is closer to the hitchhiking spot it can be even cheaper. You can also take a bus (explained in previous steps) and from there take a taxi to hitchhiking spot. For 2 km it would cost no more than 200 dinars or 1.6 euros. We don't really have those taxis that rip of tourists because we don't have many tourists so they are not used to it. There are few scammers around main bus station, but not at the outskirts of the city. Legal taxi in Serbia always have TX as last two letters on car plates. To order a taxi you have to make a call. Waiting time is usually 3-4 minutes. If you don't have local sim card, ask someone to call taxi for you and to explain where taxi should pick you up from. Most popular taxi companies are: Prvi, City, Cool, Eko, Bros, TDI,...

Option 2 (local road): This option used to be the best one before the highway was completed in 2019. Now mostly local traffic goes there and international traffic uses highway, trucks especially because they are not allowed to use local road anymore. Personally I wouldn't take this route, but if you are into more picturescue road through Sićevo gorge, you can use this option.

Take a city bus number 1 from the central square to Niška Banja. One-way ticket costs 80 RSD, which is about 0.70€. Conductors will charge it once you get on the bus. No need to buy ticket in advance. After about a 15 minutes journey, get off the bus on the second-to-last stop, just before roundabout (before bus crosses over the railroad tracks). There is a roundabout and you can thumb after the roundabout. Here, you may catch some traffic driving out of the city to your direction. After highway was completed, most of the people take highway and this road is mostly used for local traffic nowadays. Still, you can find a ride to Pirot or even the border as the road is free and in good condition, so some people choose this road instead of paying for highway.

North towards Belgrade E 75

Bus

Take a bus number 3 from the city center. The bus ticket is 60 dinars or 0.5 euros. Bus ride will take around 10 minutes or less. Get off at the last stop. You will see a small roundabout after the bus stop. Keep walking further for 900 meters until you reach toll gate called "Niš North" https://goo.gl/maps/22qEprCexNWg9KHp8 Just for your orientation I will write that you have to pass under the highway overpass on your way to the toll gate. From there you can easily hitchhike to Belgrade. You may even catch some traffic going to Bulgaria or south to Macedonia. Probably not direct rides to those countries, but for sure some cars go to nearby cities. All traffic on this toll gate will be from the city.

Taxi

Taxi in Niš is not expensive. According to Google maps it's 4.5 km from the city center to the hitchhiking spot. Start costs 110 dinars and every km is 40 dinars. That's around 300 dinars in total which is around 2.5 euros. We don't really have those taxis that rip of tourists (because we don't have many tourists so they are not used to it). There are few scammers around main bus station. Legal taxi in Serbia always have TX as last two letters on car plates. It's very difficult to get a taxi by waving with a hand like in movies. Most of taxis are not moving unless they have a ride. To order a taxi you have to call them by phone. If you don't have local sim card, ask someone to call taxi for you and to explain where taxi should pick you up from. Waiting time is usually 3-4 minutes. Most popular taxi companies are: Prvi, City, Cool, Eko, Bros, TDI,...

Few advices

  • If you are going straight to Belgrade accept only direct rides, since many cars are going there.
  • I don't advice this, but if in some almost to impossible situation you don't find a direct ride to Belgrade, you may accept a ride to "Pojate toll gate" or "Batocina toll gate". Those two are on the intersection with the road coming from western and central part of Serbia and you have higher chances to get a ride than if you go to any other city on the way. I know people want to help hitchhikers, but please don't accept rides which will make you stuck on some small toll gate without any traffic.
  • You may only accept rides to "Požarevac toll gate" because from there it's super easy to find a ride to Belgrade. Note that Požarevac city is another 17 km further from the toll gate. You don't want to go to the city, only to the toll gate which is located 100 meters from the highway. Traffic using this toll gate is not only from that city itself, but also from some bigger portion of eastern part of Serbia.
  • Don't ever accept a ride to Smederevo because it's a dead end since most drivers will use the south toll gate "Kolari" to enter the city, but people going to Belgrade will never use it because they use southwest toll gate called "Vodanj". I stuck in Kolari once and had to hitchhike back to "Požarevac toll gate" to get a ride to Belgrade form there. If your driver is going to Smederevo, you can kindly ask him if he is willing to take you to "Vodanj" toll gate. It will be 7 km more for him, but will save you from being stuck in a wrong toll gate.

South/Southwest towards Prishtina (Kosovo), Skopje (North Macedonia) E 75 E 80

Take bus no.10 ("9. maj") from the central square (the bus stop is next to McDonalds). Get off at the last stop, in a suburban area called Novo Selo (also referenced as "Naselje 9. maj"). The bus ride should cost around 50 RSD. Walk straight on in the same direction and cross a bridge over the motorway. You will come to a roundabout, and the left path leads to the motorway, heading south. You can hitch from here. The E80 and E75 split shortly afterwards, so make sure you're going in the right direction. For Skopje, Leskovac is on the way, so you can accept a ride to that vicinity. (I did not find a roundabout, but highway was easy to approach from the bridge and parking spot is like 50 metres far. - Solop, Dec 2016)

  • The bridge mentioned may actually be the bridge over the railroad tracks. If you get off the bus at the stop after going over the bridge and walk back you can find a roundabout whose left path does indeed leads to a second roundabout whose left path leads to the motorway. However, if you are headed towards Kosovo it might be easier to ride to the last stop and then hitch/walk about 6 kilometers further as this road merges with the actual road leading to Kosovo and said road to Kosovo is fairly easy to hitch on because it isn't officially a motorway.

Another possibility is to take the train towards Doljevac from the main railway station. Get out at Doljevac station (10 -15 minutes ride, ticket price 64 RSD, about 30 RSD if you manage to bribe the conductor), and take a 10 minutes walk to the motorway toll station (accros the fields).

My friend from Nis told me that I can also catch bus 28 in the direction to Vrtosniki and ask driver to take me "blizu pruge, blizu autopute". I did not try this option. (Solop, Dec 2016)

For Kosovo: After passing town of Prokuplje, number of vehicles is getting somewhat lower. You're better taking a lift from vehicles registered to a foreign plates, as not many Serbian registered vehicles cross into Kosovo at all. A considerable number of trucks going into Kosovo also pass here.

What is important to notice here is the traffic structure on this particular road. Serbian vehicles are in most cases heading not further than town of Kuršumlija and nearby villages. These that pass Kuršumlija in most cases head to Prolom Banja (mineral springs health resort site) or Đavolja Varoš/Devil's Town, natural rock formations site that is a tourist hot-spot nowdays. Both of these are pretty much off the main road. These vehicles going to the border with Kosovo (Merdare village) and further, are very low in numbers.

Therefore, have in mind that if you catch a ride that heads to some of these previously mentioned sites, you may easily get stuck on the road at these last 10 or 15 kilometers before Merdare/Kosovo checkpoint, without much traffic at all.

Northeast towards Zajechar, Vidin, Romania

Depending where your location is, you need to catch bus no.2 (also labeled as "Bubanj - Donja Vrežina"), towards Donja Vrežina neighborhood. The bus ride should cost about 50 RSD. Hop off at the last stop. You will easily recognize it by suburban atmosphere. Once you're there, you can start hitchhiking, as visibility is very good at that point. Have in mind that international and transit traffic, and good percent of locals use motorway rather than this road. However, some general experiences are that about 50% of the locals going into your way are passing here. For the other half of a local traffic, you would have to hitch on the motorway, and it's not too easy to get on the city/motorway intersection for this route by public transport.

Once you hitch a ride, if the driver doesn't go all the way you need, it is recommendable to get out of the car some 8 km away at the motorway intersection near the village of Malcha. Vehicles must pass there, and there's no other intersection road, so you can't miss the place. Once you get there, thumb. There is a good hitchhiking spot right at the crossroads. You are catching almost 100% of traffic going toward Zajechar and further, and visibility is good.

Route to Istanbul

Niš could be on your route to Istanbul. Check the Istanbul Category Page for more information and tips.

Sleeping

There is a lot of space, trees and empty little buildings in the area of Nis Fortress.