Overview
- About 67 people started the Tramprennen from Weiden and Lüneburg on August 22, 2026, travelling in pairs or threes and using a rule that disqualifies anyone who accepts a solo ride.
- Organisers booked only a campsite at the destination in Pui, Romania, and expect teams to plan minimal routes while camping on arrival to emphasise low-cost, community travel.
- Participants describe hitchhiking as social and generally manageable but report isolated negative incidents including a reported sexual advance that some say can be managed by simple precautions.
- Futurist Horst Opaschowski framed the decline in hitchhiking as a generational shift toward prioritising safety over adventurous travel and cited post‑COVID mood, better public transport and cheaper train fares as practical reasons for the drop.
- The Tramprennen began in 2018, paused for COVID, and now serves as a rule‑bound revival that both promotes affordable travel and tests whether organised norms can counter a long-term decline in autostop culture.