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|hitch = <rating country='cn' />
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'''China''' is the most populated country in the world and tourism is booming with its rapidly expanding economy, but hitchhiking is only practiced practised sporadically. If you follow the advice in this page you will most likely have a wonderful time hitchhiking in China.
Although it's not really common, more and more people understand the concept of hitchhiking (if you use the word da-bian-che).
Because of it's size, among other factors, it's hard so talk about China with general info. hitchhiking in the west of the country, as in Tibet, is different than in the east. hitchhiking in rural areas is different than on highways. the difficulty also varies. Generally speaking it's possible to categorize it like this: the more developed the road is, the less chance people will ask you for money, the faster you will get and more likely you should stop drivers by sign or by talking with them while they are stationary. the more rural the roads are the more hand waving you will have to do and more explaining beforehand that you do not pay for the trip. also, on rural roads it's easier to find camping spots.
Safety is an issue as traffic regulation is practiced practised half-heartedly. Expect people to honk rather than brake, to drive while holding a phone, drive on the hard shoulder, overtake in unsafe places, and more. Buckle up if you can. Some travelers travellers report that the driving in China is way safer than in Russia and neighboring neighbouring countries. Chinese usually don't exceed the speed limit much (130km/hr on expressways).
== How-to ==
The first character of a vehicle's number plate is in Chinese and indicates the home province and then there is a roman letter indicating the city in the province (A is always the capital). If you are in Anhui and see a 川 (chuan, standing for Sichuan) with an A and some numbers, that's from Chengdu. If one is heading in the direction of home you can use it as a criteria to select a car to stop.
If you want to sleep while on the road, you will have no problem pitching a tent. People will usually not bother you. However do make sure your belongings are not on show and therefor therefore do not pitch a tent directly on the road (which is also a bit dangerous). You will find there is plenty of traffic at night also. You can try to pick a slow and comfortable truck, you might only make 400 km in 8 hours but if that's at night and avoids an accommodation cost, who cares? The lack of malice (at an individual level at least!) of the Chinese makes most of China easy to hitchhike day and night without fear. There is little fear of being attacked or robbed though of course such activities exist everywhere, and as always girls should take extra care.
== Public Transport ==
You will most likely need public transport to get to the express ways. Fortunately in every city there are express ways running close to the city centre, and often toll areas also, which are excellent for hitching from. If you are lost, try to find a younger Chinese person, and ask them which bus number goes to somewhere near the ''gao su gong lu''. Make sure not to point at the road itself, they will inform you that you cannot take a bus there. Then you can take a bus and walk to the road.
Referring back to the occasionally overly generous Chinese folk, you may encounter an awkward situation in which your driver will take you to a train station and inflict upon you a train ticket to where you are going. This is very counter productive in almost all situations. You will waste many hours waiting for the train. You will then arrive at a city you may not have wanted to visit, perhaps at night when there are no buses, sleep deprived, hungry and lost. Above all this if it's not a fast train, it is likely much slower than by car, so you will be many hundreds of kilometers kilometres behind where you would have been on the road.
So, if your driver leaves the motorway, you have to insist, sometimes very strongly to leave the car. Some people might not want to let you out because they are totally sure that you will get lost there, but if you really insist they will not force you to stay in the car.
