Introduction
If you are hitchhiking through tough Spain, Gibraltar is the right place to restore your spoilt hitchhikers soul. Gib is a British enclave which is seperated from Spain. You need an ID to enter this area. The view is marked by a big rock – “The Rock”. Hitchhiking evaluation: Very good.
My Route
After my second day in Gib i almost everytime used hitchhiking for my movement (cause i had some problems with my shoes and couldn´t walk so far. legit). Especially short distances of 500m-3km i hitchhiked. To the supermarket, the beach, on top of the rock, down the rock….everywhere.
Roads
Gibraltar consists of small roads in a mostly urbanized area. The island is pretty small, to go once around you have to go for 11 km. Ways are short. Within the island you have alot of roundabouts, which give good possibilites for positioning. At the supermarket between the border and the airport is a good spot to hitchhike into the city.
If you want to go up the rock, be warned. The road system in the upper city is very confusing and the typical roadmap (at tourist information) of Gib is useless for navigation. It is in “3D” and handdrawn.
People
There is a mixture von English, Gibraltarian, Spanish (mostly for working) and a bunch of other nationalities, that try their luck on the little peninsula. Almost everyone speaks english, which is quite comftable for hitchhiking. The people are laid-back.
Tactics
Basically you can hitchhike at every place in Gibraltar. As fastest and reliable i used positions, where cars would have to stop anyway (junctions, slip roads), so that i would stand directly beside the car. Most of the time the drivers opened their window automaticaly, to ask me whats goin on. You can position yourself without paying attention to the available keep area. Also gas stations work quite well. In general the people like to take hitchhikers and they also do 2-3 min. extra way, to bring you to your destination. Easy going.
Specifics
Unique for the island is, that you have to cross an airfield to get into the city. It is the only airstrip in the world which is used by cars and pedestrians.
Above the rock there i sometimes a big cloud, even if around this is bright sunshine and blue sky. Courious natural phenomen has the name Levante. I thought this might be the reason for the british occupation, cause the cloud gives them a sense of home. The locals have another theory. They used to say, that the british people came with the apes and will only disappear, if the apes do.
Through the rock leads an 50km tunnel system, which was established in the 18th century and used as defensive fortification during World War II. Some of the tunnels are still in use by the royal navi. Unfortunately i couldn t make it to visit those constructions. But i heard it might be a worthy sightseeing trip.
