Frequently asked questions

You need at least one hitchmate and one of you has to be a guy. After you registered your team on the website, you’ll receive an email with all the necessary information (waiver, bank account data to pay the hitchpackage, etc…)

Latest on Friday 26 July

«Just» for safety reasons, sorry girls! We made good experiences with this rule in the past and wanna keep it like this. And even if each of us is responsible for its own safety, doesn’t mean we don’t care at all! We won’t check if the balls are hanging low though ;)

Every participant is responsible for himself, also during the race. By sending us the waiver back, you confirm you’re aware of that and you take part at your own risk. We can’t and do not want to be responsible for any harm or damage during the race.

Online signatures are not valid yet and believe us, it’ll soon be very cool to be old school rather than to show off the latest communication technology.

When your homework is done! You can choose your route when your team is complete and we received the payment for the hitchpackages and the waiver for all of its members. Log in anytime on the website to check the current progress on your team dashboard.

When it was introduced, we noticed in the end everybody wanted their hitchpackage. To make it easier for everyone, we decided it became part of the race and improved it with plenty of fun and useful stuff. Each racer gets its hitchpackage for 25 euros. Believe us, it’s worth it!

You can unsubscribe from the race until 2 August – or search for a new hitchmate! Check the hitchmate Xchange page or contact us and we’ll try to find a solution! :)

The day before the first stage, at the pre-opening meeting, or latest when the race starts.

Friday 16 to Friday 30 August 2013. Pre-opening meetings will be held in the evening of the 15 in the start city of each route.

There are 6 routes. Each route consists of a maximum of 12 teams. So in the end we hope to start with 72 teams in total. You have a wide choice of cities to start from. This year they will start from Flensburg, Mainz, Eisenach, Luzern, Hamburg and Breda.

The 6 different routes of the race all share the same final destination in the Masurian lake district in northeastern Poland. If you get lost, try to look around one of the 2000 lakes of the region, at one point you’ll find us again (eventually you can use any other communication mean, but it’s less challenging).

The race is split into 6 successive stages, each of them taking us closer to the final destination and planned to last more or less one day. But we’re not in a rush. At the stopover cities, we spend at least one day off of the race, just to relax, enjoy time between the teams or just wait for unlucky hitchhikers who got stuck on the road (even if we all know it has absolutely nothing to do with luck!).

After each stage, there’s a day off to relax, share time with other teams of your route, explore the surroundings or envetually wait for hitchhikers stuck on the way. Additionally there are two buffer days your route can decide to use anytime before reaching the final destination. They allow you to have a longer rest and enjoy a bit more a place you find really special. In the end, everyone reaches the final destination on the same day (28 August)

See also the rules of the race

The rules of the race are published on our website.

Tramprennen uses a point system to rank the teams like in many sports competitions : teams are awarded points for each stage upon the rank in finishing the stage. From first team to last one, distributed points are : 20, 17, 14, 12, 10, 8, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. If a team doesn’t reach the spot according to the race rules, they don’t get any point for this stage. When a team helps another one with hitchhiking (for example ask their driver to stop to pick up another team standing on the road), the route decides to give them an extra fairplay point. In the end, the team with the highest score in his route, wins the route and the overall highest score wins the race. Easy, isnt’it ?

See also the rules of the race

The Liveticker is a handy cool feature to easily inform your friends, family and team sponsors about ongoing stuff from the race. Every team can send text messages (SMS) or images (MMS) at a normal cost directly to the Tramprennen website. All messages are instantly published on the liveticker page.
We provide you in the hitchpackage with some phone credit so you can share even more about the race.

It’s up to you and your route! In the previous years we slept on playgrounds, beaches, public parks, underground garages, hostels, farms… Some even managed to get invited to a starred hotel ! Usually we do not plan in advance and rely mostly on spontaneity and teamwork, just as hitchhiking is working the best ! ;)
Act responsible, be grateful !

Everyone has to take care of their way back home by themself. If you’re not sure yet how, don’t worry and be happy ; there will be a bunch of people with the same question around you and most probably you’ll team up with others to hitchhike home.
As the race also promotes non conventional ways of traveling, we highly discourage using the plane. To help you that way, we try to choose a final destination close enough to the start cities (and faaar faaar away from any big airport!).

Just a group of furious hitchhikers who believe in Hippiekacke (something like hippy shit, no?). Check the about us page. And by the way, curiosity killed the cat !

In 2006. And in 2008 the first time for Viva con Agua

All the organizers have a lot of fun organizing Tramprennen and are freely volunteering. Further we try to give money as little role as possible for the race, but can’t totally do without it. In 2012 some organizers put a lot of efforts in the development of the website and received a contribution for it. Check the about us section for further details. Last year’s financial statement is at the bottom of the page.

Viva con Agua is a funny and unconventional group of young people with crazy and great ideas, a lot of positive energy with the goal to make a change to the good. The possibility to realize one’s own ideas and projects without huge barriers is impressive and inspiring. Addiotionally, the water crisis is one of the most important topics which the humanity needs to solve as soon as possible.

Your donation will be handled by Viva con Agua. The necessary personal data will be transferred with a safe SSL-Connection. The donation is transfered straight to the donations account of Viva con Agua. For donations of more than 250 €, you can ask for a contribution receipt.

Yeah! You’re doing it right! Have a look at www.vivaconagua.org

WASH means Water Sanitation and Hygiene. Check out detailed infos about WASH on the website of Welthungerhilfe

Here are some infos about the WASH-Project of Viva con Agua and the Welthungerhilfe in India and Nepal