It’s two weeks today until a friend and I hitch hike the 170 or so miles from Newcastle to Liverpool! We’re hopefully going to do a test run from our starting point to somewhere closer, most likely Durham, this weekend if I can get the time off work.

We’ve sorted where we’re staying once we arrive, and my friend is looking at what she wants to do when we’re there - I’ve been to Liverpool before but she hasn’t so she’s in charge of where we’re going to go and what we’re going to do. Luckily we’re staying in the centre of the city, which will be really handy for seeing everything.

Our test run will be her first ever hitch hiking experience, and my first time hitch hiking with someone else - I’ve only ever gone solo before, so it should be interesting for both of us! I really hope we get to do it this weekend, because I’m the one who picked our starting point (a slip road onto the A1) and I want to make sure it’s a good spot before we head off on the real thing. At least if we find out it’s crap, I can find a different spot and then we can try that out before we go.

I’m pretty confident the spot I’ve chosen will be fine though, I’m familiar with the area and it gets quite a lot of traffic - but it’s just after a roundabout so traffic should be going slow enough to see us and  - here’s the linchpin - stop! It’s also a long, straight slip road directly onto the A1 with good visibility and a lay by that usually has trucks parked in it, so even if no-one pulls over for us we can go and ask a trucker for a lift while he’s parked.