User:4Lus

Hey there, I'm Michael!

Currently I am an Information Technology student in Munich, Bavaria. If I'm not currently at work or in university, you will probably find me at one of the many lakes nearby with my friends (probably playing football or volleyball), volunteering in my community as a firefighter and elected municipal council member, playing guitar.

The top item on my bucket list is to visit at least 100 different countries during my lifetime.

“Travel, which is like a greater and a graver science, brings us back to ourselves.” — Albert Camus

August/September 2021 - Western Balkans (Kosovo, Macedonia, Albania, Montenegro, Croatia, Bosnia and Hercegovina)

> Work in progress

So this here is a small diary about my first hitchhiking trip in which I explored six of the western balkan countries. In total I hitchhiked more than 1000km in 26 different vehicles. I focus here more on the hitchhiking aspect of my journey, I also did a lot of other stuff during those two and a half weeks. Maybe I will write a complete travel log about this journey when I am bored at some time in the future.

28/08/2021 Prishtina -> Prizren (Kosovo) | 2 rides | 86 km

Prishtina was the first destination of my journey, but I wanted to visit Prizren for a day. At this point I was still alone but I was curious to hitchhike for my first time. I found a neat spot right outside a military base in the west of Prishtina were I started trying with a sign only saying "Prizren". Soon I recognized that most people were not heading directly for Prizren, that's where I added some smaller city names on the way to Prizren to a sign. In the 20 minutes I totally spent waiting, I had two cars stopping that would offer me to drive me to Prizren for ridiculous amounts of money as some form of informal taxi. Not long after, a friendly elderly Kosovar stopped and offered me to take me to Komoran, which is roughly one third of the distance. As one of many people who took me in this time, he spoke good German as he worked there for two decades. He dropped me off still on the highway but directly at a junction where cars would enter and exit, so I stood next to the place where cars would enter for ten minutes, because cars were rather slow. Unfortunately, there was not much place to stop but a few minutes later one guy told me it would be better to stand on the highway right after the entrance, where is much more space. As I went there, a sprinter driver was having a break there and directly asked me where I wanted to go. He was heading for Prizren as well and offered me a ride which I gladely accepted.

Prishtina -> Prizren: 2 rides Prishtina -> Skopje: 3 rides Skopje -> Ohrid: 2 rides Sv. Naum -> Tirana: 1 ride Tirana -> Podgorica: 3 rides Podgorica -> Budva: 2 rides Sv. Stefan -> Nomade beach: 4 rides Tivat -> Dubrovnik: 3 rides Dubrovnik -> Mostar: 5 rides Mostar -> Sarajevo: 1 ride