VagrantEntity

Longest time I've ever had to wait for a ride out of ~200 rides. Tried hitching at 5PM on Thursday for an hour but had to give up and set up my tent. Continued trying to hitch at 10AM on Friday and it took 3 hours until I finally got picked up by a Macedonian trucker going to Thessaloniki. Other than that, I had two truckers stop who were only going 10km, which I said yes to... But they apparently changed their mind and didn't want me to get in. One of them just didn't have space for my bag, but I don't know what the reason is for the other one unless he just didn't like the look of me.

Waited over an hour in the rain with sign saying "MKD", not a single car stopped. Gave up and took one of the passing buses to Pernik for €2, 11AM on a Tuesday. Maybe better luck with a sign saying "Pernik", but seems like there's a lot of traffic and not a lot of time for traffic to pull over so maybe better to go to the spot further down the road.

Better to wait for a ride going all the way to Devin/Nastan (if going north) or Krichim (if going south.) There's very few settlements inbetween these two towns, lots of curvy roads, and not really good places for cars to pull over. I got picked up by a local going all the way to Plovdiv after 30 minutes though.

Very little traffic going north, pretty much only people coming from the cave or Yagodina. Only one or two cars every 5 minutes, but I guess there would be more in peak tourist season. After walking up the road for about 50 minutes I got picked up by a guy who took me to the end of the road. But considering the very low traffic I think the waiting time isn't too bad.

Main intersection with a gas station. If you're going west then go to exactly where my pin is and there's a rest stop area where it's suitable for cars to stop. There was about one car per minute around mid-day.

Easy to get a ride to Devin/Nastan. Hitchhiking in the Rhodopes is very easy even if there isn't much traffic.

Police car stopped me from hitchhiking heresaying it's illegal. I was considering just carrying on anyway, but another cop car came soon after. Had to go into town to take a bus to Haskovo - There's no buses to Plovdiv.

I got a ride 5m down the road from the third car that came, but I don't recommend taking such short distance rides. A police car stopped me from hitchhiking on the highway, saying it's illegal. And there wasn't much traffic either (2PM on Friday)