How can I find Turkish truck stops in Greece?

Question

I'm trying to hitchhike from Thessaloniki, Greece to Turkey.

Greece is a very very hard country to hitchhike in, Greek drivers seldom stop, and petrol stations which are useful in many other countries don't seem to work here.

Now experience has shown that Turkish truck drivers are awesome for hitchhiking. They are very friendly and like hitchhikers and can drive very far.

Not just in Turkey but in other nearby countries such as Bulgaria and Romania there seem to be quite a few truckstops run by Turkish expats and catering specifically to Turkish truckdrivers. These places have cheap food and surprisingly good atmosphere and sooner or later a truck driver will be going in your direction and offer you a ride.

Now I've been in Greece a week and a half and the locals assure me there are plenty of trucks going to Turkey but so far I haven't seen any Turkish truck stops here.

So, are there Turkish truck stops in Greece? How can I find them? And does anybody know of one in the direction heading from Thessaloniki to Turkey?

Answer 1

Hitchhiking in Greece is rare nowadays, but not so uncommon in islands and mountains (between small villages). As another commenter said, there's a popular belief amongst Greeks that it is illegal, but as far as I know this isn't true (but might had been true for a period in the past, hence the myth).

Turkish truck drivers are mostly found in Northern Greece, as RoflcoptrException said, usually traveling in Egnatia Odo (official website, map available), the highway that connects the customs of Kipoi (Κήποι)/Ipsala to Igoumenitsa (Ηγουμενίτσα). It is easy to identify them from their different car license plates.

Between Igoumenitsa and Alexandroupoli there are very few truckstops and gas stations, around 8-10 as far as I remember, and I would say half of them between Thessaloniki and Alexandroupoli. Most of them have been available during the years 2011-2013 (Egnatia is a fairly new highway and most of the truckstops are not yet depicted in Google Earth's imagery) and some of them are not yet open to the public. I've been to most of them, and I'm pretty confident that none is owned or at least predominated by Turkish drivers. But that doesn't mean that you might not find some Turkish trucks in any of those truckstops. It is probable that you will.

I'm not sure if this is useful, but a place where you will ALWAYS find Turkish trucks resting, is the area between Kipoi and Ipsala customs (between the borders). Please note that you cannot pass the borders as a hitchhiker, you will have to pass by walking, and then enter to the truck.

Answer 2

There isn't much of information available, but I could find one sentence that may help you:

Hundreds of trucks go daily from the port town of Igoumenitsa, in the north-west of Greece (coming with ferry from Italy), Istanbul and other Turkish destinations. 99% of these trucks will be driven by Turks and sometimes Iranians too, and the remaining 1% can be of any European nationality.

So you're best chance would be to stand somewhere on the road between Igoumenitsa and Ipsala, the Turkish border town right at the border to Greece.

As you can see on Google Maps, this is one highway to connects this two cities, and the highway really leads directly through Thessalonikis. So I would suggest to try it everywhere on the E90.