Hitchhiking from London to Tallinn in 2011: 7 days, 8 borders, 1,120 miles

In July 2011 I hitchhiked from London to Tallinn in Estonia. It took seven days, crossed eight national borders overland and covered roughly 1,120 to 1,200 miles: my blog's title said 1,120 miles overland, and my closing post rounded it to 1,200. Earlier drafts of this page gave a much larger figure; that was wrong, and the numbers here are from my own posts at the time.

I wrote the trip up day by day on a blog called From London to Tallinn. This is the 2026 version: the route, the people who gave me lifts (without naming them), the nights in railway stations, and what hitching taught me.

The route

The blog's own categories give the shape of it: London to Cologne, then Berlin to Tallinn. The first leg went through Dover, where I tried my luck with the lorry drivers for a lift across the Channel. From Germany, the longest stretch was a shared car heading north-east through the Baltic states: into Latvia and Riga, then into Estonia via the seaside town of Pärnu, and finally to Tallinn.

In my closing post I listed what the week had involved: I "crossed the borders overland of 8 countries, travelled 1200 miles, slept in railway stations", stayed with Latvian farmers, and, inevitably, "still managed to smash my holiday budget".

Dover and the first lifts

The first post-title I wrote that week mentions "truckers in Dover". Getting out of Britain is the hardest part of hitching to the continent: you need someone to take you onto a ferry or through the tunnel. It is where the trip taught me its first lesson, which became the title of another post: make a decision. Standing at the side of a road, you can wait for the perfect lift or take the next reasonable one. Usually the second gets you further.

The car from Berlin

The heart of the trip was a long ride from Germany to the Baltics in one car with a mixed group of strangers: the driver, a very tall passenger who later shared the driving, a quiet man going to meet his partner in Riga, an older man heading home to family, and me. My post about it called us a "band of merry men" and, eventually, "an odd group". We stopped at a roadside café on the way and ate a red meat soup I had prepared myself to dislike. It was good. I wrote, slightly clumsily, that my expectations said more about how little I had travelled than about the food.

Two of the group got out in Riga. Then there were three of us, and the driver insisted on a detour to see the beach at Pärnu and get a coffee, which by then was keeping him awake at the wheel. The last 500 kilometres were driven in shifts.

Nights and budget

Hitchhiking saves money on transport and loses it everywhere else. I slept in railway stations, ate whatever was cheapest, and still went over budget. The most generous people I met were not the ones I would have predicted, including the farmers who put me up.

What hitchhiking taught me

Trust is a skill. You learn to read a situation quickly, and to say no when something feels wrong.
Patience pays. Waiting is most of hitchhiking.
Make a decision. Perfect is the enemy of moving.
Stereotypes do not survive contact. My own diary caught me out more than once.

Those same habits turned out to matter in ultrarunning: long stretches of discomfort, decisions made tired, and kindness from strangers at checkpoints. See endurance.

If you are thinking about hitchhiking now

This is my experience from 2011, not a recommendation. Laws and norms on hitchhiking vary by country and road type, and it carries real risks. If you do it: check the local rules, never stand on motorways where it is prohibited, tell someone your plans and share your location, trust your instincts about lifts, and have money for a bus or train if you need to stop.

More travel

Two years earlier I spent 92 days backpacking through South America; that chapter, from the Galápagos to Bolivia's Death Road, is on adventure travel.

Questions readers ask

How far is London to Tallinn overland?

My route was about 1,120 to 1,200 miles, by my own 2011 blog.

How long did it take to hitchhike to Tallinn?

Seven days in July 2011.

How many countries did you cross?

I crossed eight national borders overland.

Sources and notes

Fellow travellers are not named. Some jokes and descriptions from the original posts are deliberately left out.

Written in October 2026 from my own contemporaneous records.