Hitch Hiking in Northern Kazakhstan

Hitch hiking Astana to Borovoe National Park and back.

We’ve done some hitch hiking before… Ok, Reggie has done a lot of hitch hiking before, and before I met him I had never hitch hiked. Not I feel a lot more comfortable standing by the side of the road, thumb out, hoping a friendly stranger will pick us up.

We planned to hitch hike as much as possible in Kazakhstan, but you never know if this plan will work until you try, so here is our experience.

On day one of hitch hiking we didn’t get out of the city until 7pm due to other commitments - making videos for you guys! We got a bus out of Astana as far as it would go (which wasn’t far) and walked for a few KM before setting up our tent behind some bushes by the side of the road for the night as the sun set over the very flat countryside. The next morning we got up with sunrise, had a quick breakfast and got walking. Within minutes our first car stopped.

We didn’t work for this car, we were walking to a place we thought would be better to get a car - the intersection of 2 big roads - but these guys stopped for us and explained that they believed a good deed done for another person would bring good things to them.

We travelled around 50km before they let us out at a convenient place for us both. We had a little lunch by the side of the road and carried on walking to a big cross junction. Within 20 minutes a very nice car with a business man returning to his home city stopped for us and took us 150km. We both fell asleep in the back of the car and woke up just in time to see the mountains of Borovoe National Park raising above the flat countryside all around. He let us out at a cross junction.

We waited another 15 minutes before squeezing in with 3 more business men who took us 15km into the National Park

Our experience on the way back to Astana from Borovoe was just as simple as easy, never waiting longer than 30 minutes and the drivers were all very friendly and interested in why we were in Kazahkstan. Our drivers included a young couple in a very nice Mercedes 4x4 who took us 20km, and a very friendly and talkative Russian teacher who took us the other 200km back to Astana.