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// this information seems to be quite ineffective in terms of multimedia use. I even can hardly imagine how these sign look like. Alternative: Make a picture and put in in here ;) Any other ideas? // -->
Since 1991 Dutch students have a card providing them with free public transport (either in on weekends or during the week), so hitchhiking is not as popular as it used to be. In some university towns, there are still official [[liftershalte]]s, '''official hitchhiking spots'''.
Other good places are petrol stations along the motorways and the entrances to the motorway from larger cities (when there is a stopping space such as an emergency lane). On such a place the average waiting time is 5–45 minutes (same as Germany). A major difference with [[Germany]] is that many lifts are not longer than 50 km. At petrol stations you can try to talk to people, which will probably work out fine if you don't dress up like a hippie. Try to speak in Dutch or English. French and German often work too, but not as effectively.
=== Useful tips ===
* Use of Internet PC's PCs in every city library, for a small price, Also you can find lots of public wifi wi-fi networks that you can connect your laptop with for using the internet.* When hitching in the Netherlands for a longer period (or when you're living there), it's advisable to buy yourself a ''15-strippenkaart'' for EUR 6,80, or a ''45-strippenkaart'' for EUR 20,40 in advance in a shop. This is a lot cheaper than buying a 2-, 3- or 8-strippenkaart on the bus or tram. (In the Netherlands any tram/bus route is divided into zones/stripes - ‒ for example, if you go from the centre of [[The Hague]] to the beach in [[Scheveningen]], it costs you 3 stripes, [[Delft]] to [[The Hague]] is about 8 stripes. So even if you are hitching all around the Netherlands, you can get yourself a strippenkaart(valid for around one year) for getting into/out of city centres - ‒ it will be valid all over the country.)
* The banks here often do free coffee and sometimes even cookies.
* 'Lefier' (or local job-centres) do free coffee and sometimes have jars of free chocolates and mints.
== License plates ==
In the Netherlands, license plates do not contain any marking about where the car comes from, but it does indicate the age of the car (although not in a straightforward way). Often though, the name and the city of the garage where the car was bought is indicated just under the license plate on the backside of the car. On busy petrol stations this may be useful information to look out for, as it may indicate where people are driving to. A normal license plate has three blocks of black letters or numbers on a yellow background. Every block consists of two letters or two numbers (so in total six letters and numbers). Since 2007 a new series of license plates is in use for the newest verhicles vehicles existing of a combination of three letters in the middle. Taxis' license plates have a blue background. The license plate of old timers is very dark blue with white letters. The number of cars with such license plate or yet another kind is very limited.
== Food ==
[[File:HitchDelft.jpg|thumb|left|250px|[[User:Mdsmendes|Mdsmendes]] hitching in the Netherlands]]
The Netherlands are one of the rare countries where you can find a cheap pot of 'Peanut Butter' (''pindakaas''), which is a nutritious item that you can easily carry in your backpack. Also, you can find a tube of 'mayonnaise' and 'ketchup' sauce (''Zaanse saus'') for about 30 cents, which last long without needing to be refrigerated and are great supplements to sandwiches or ''friet'' (as it avoids having to pay the 50 cents sauce at the ''snackbar'' (or sometimes ''frituur'' or ''frietkot'', especially in Belgium) when ordering a snack).
See [http://trashwiki.org/en/Netherlands trashwiki] for info on dumpster diving for free food in the Netherlands.
