Hitchhiker Girls - #20HT

After one week traveling in Germany, it was the time to finish this chapter. I had a positive balance from there, for places that I've been, people that I met, experiences that I had and how it would change my trip in this point.

In Belgium I spent just two nights and my trip by hitchhiking was just 50km. In my 7 days in Germany I traveled about 650km and just about 100km was made by public transportation. But look, we still have about 200km until arriving in Český Krumlov, our first destination in Czech Republic. My original plan was going to Plzeň. It was not really in the right direction if I wanted keep going to the Balkans, but the trip would be shorter. Anyway our team made by me and two girls were going to start the trip.

I have to mention something about my travel partners. In fact we didn't have a common language for 3 of us. Cris just speaks Portuguese and German, my host English and German and me just English and Portuguese. It means that we couldn't have a conversation together the three of us using a common language. It actually was interesting the three of us could communicate over time without language, once we got know each other better.

Traveling by hitchhiking as a girl share a lot different opinions about safeness. We normally hear a lot about how dangerous it can be for a girl traveling in using this modality of transportation. Stories that guys just picked up a backpacker because she was a girl and they have other intentions with her. She on his car and he's probably going to start to flirt with her and trying to invite her to his place or try to kiss her inside the car and in the worse cause rape her.

I'm not saying that it can’t happen, there are true stories about it, but I heard a lot of more positive experiences than bad ones from the girls travelers that I met. Like traveling from Central America to South America most of the times hitchhiking and none bad experience happened, in a continent not safe as Europe.

The fear can be really big once we hear bad experiences about girls hitchhiking, but I don't believe that it's as dangerous as people think. Of course the fact that I was born a man, it's so much safer for me. Unfortunately we live in a sexist society, where so many times women are seen as a sexual object and a girl by herself with a backpack asking ride in the highway for few people, she's going to be seen as a sexual object. But this shouldn't avoid you to try to do it. I can't give you the best tips how to start it, once I'm not a woman and who really lived this experience can share it with you with more property. I recommend you checking this article. I personally love it. Unfortunately if you Google the words: Girls + Hitchhiking, the first 10 results are going to be porn websites. This is seriously bad. 

I felt really happy seeing these two girls facing all of pessimist news and going to travel with me. They are not solo travelers and maybe you'll think that the fact that they were traveling with a guy it would make everything safer for them, it can be true, but I want to share with you the good feeling that I was having to see people traveling in a non conventional way for a girl that the society doesn't see with a good eyes. It's not just for a hitchhiking trip; it also can be applied for a girl that's traveling to a poor continent by herself or if she's hosting a guy or sleeping in his place by Couchsurfing. 

Evidently the dangerous exists, but I don't believe that it's bad as people say. I encourage you to try to break this paradigm, take your backpack and travel losing your fear overtime. I'm not talking about statistics, but most of the girls that I met traveling, they had so many good things to say about their trips and even some dangerous situations that happened over time, they started to learn how to try to avoid it. 

Things can be started with small steps. Like hitchhiking as a girl but with a man partner in the first trips or choosing your man hosts or guest in Couchsurfing with good reputation by references. Once you had good first experiences, over time you'll lose your fear and do a hitchhiking trip by yourself or don't really think about before choosing your Couchsurfing host or guest by gender.