Before coming to Iran I always thought hitchhiking as a solo female traveller was a ridiculously foolish thing to do. It maybe still is, but the more I was travelling through Iran the more I thought if there is a safe country to try it, it’s here. Talking to Iranians about hitchhiking on your own in Iran also didn’t make them go utterly crazy about it (and I have never experienced people being more concerned about your safety than Iranians), so in Yazd I took the decision to hitchhike to my next destinations. This was also convenient because it makes you less dependent on Savaris and Buses, and I was tired of taxi drivers chasing me every time I arrived in a new city.
The only problem was that I only hitchhiked in the south together with an Iranian guy and wanted to get my first experience in a safe environment with lots of cars around and buses to use if it was a bad idea.
I found a nice little town outside Yazd with some Zoroastrian religious sights on the way and decided to go there.
Standing on the road alone felt a bit awkward at first, but I got used to it quite fast and I only needed to wait about five minutes before an older married couple stopped to take me to my destination. They didn’t speak English, so we tried to manage with my baby level of Farsi“, my name Stella”, “this beautiful”, “Where are you from”, “I’m German”, etc.) and often enough he just talked and I nodded or shrugged my shoulders, depending on what I felt like. In Fermanshah he stopped and pointed me to three different directions with a “ziba, ziba, ziba” (beautiful) before he took off. I was quite happy about the first ride and started to discover the city, a nice little old town in the mountains.
Before I started hitchhiking I told myself to only get into cars with at least one woman inside, or maximum one man and he needs to speak English. But the guy in the first car on my way back greeted me with that innocent happiness only Iranians can welcome you with and I thought if I waited for an English-speaking person I would stay there until tomorrow, so I hopped in his car. He was a juice seller on his way to Yazd and told me a lot about Zoroastrian culture and religion. I was surprised how much fun you can have with someone you can barely talk to. He left me in Cham where I wanted to see some old Zoroastrian cultural sights and I walked along the city until I reached the main road again and waited for my next car. The closer to Yazd the more difficult it was to get a ride and I needed to skip a lot of cars. Some were taxi drivers who I would have needed to pay, others were just too weird to hop into. But then a nice woman stopped and gave me a ride back to the city centre very close to my hotel.
After getting safe and secure to all the spots I wanted to visit that day I felt safe enough to do a longer trip. My next destination was Tabas, northeast of and 360 km away from Yazd. On the way I wanted to stop at Kharanagh and lucky me could hop in a private taxi hired by a nice German woman who wanted to go to the city that day anyways.
After visiting the old ruins of this caravanserai city, I went back to the main road with my thumbs ready to hit the road again. A couple of minutes later a truck driver with his wife and six months old baby stopped and took me all the way to Tabas. They didn’t speak English very well, but we managed with pantomime and Google Translate, and most of the time I was busy with entertaining the baby anyways. Much earlier than expected I arrived in Tabas where my host picked me up and drove me to his home.
I would have never expected me to hitchhike on my own, let alone to hitchhike alone through Iran, but I cannot be happier to have tried it in Iran. I would have missed a lot of fun and I met people I would have never met otherwise.
