Ever hitchhiked to somewhere? At the pre-meeting in Berlin we decided to follow the poll and choose "Somewhere in Portugal" as our destination for this year's hitchhiking gathering in Europe. We can start calling for more hitchhikers, make our plans and design promotion material!

It was very easy to admit that Portugal is an attractive option. The country is beautiful and it offers us a nice hitchhiking challenge. We all fell in love (with) Somewhere in Portugal over the weekend and the fact we didn't know "where", didn't stop us somehow.

So where is this "somewhere"? Although we have a geographical area where we want to meet up, we actually still don't have a location. How to deal with this? Easy, we are certain "someone" has a solution for "somewhere"! Invite everyone to contact people they know in Portugal and offer destination proposals in this forum-topic: http://hitchgathering.org/somewhere-portugal

Barcelona Gathering!
The biggest challenge of hitchhiking to Portugal might actually be to hitchhike through Spain. According to hitchwiki.org the hitchability rate in Spain is "average", whereas Portugal is "good". After the Summer we want both to be changed to "perfect".

Part of our strategy is to have multiple pre-gatherings in Spain, among others a larger one in Barcelona (we are sure many people will show up here also). And of course, meetings in other parts of Europe like Lyon, Nice, Milano, Tanger, from all directions really. So start preparing yours and voice your ideas here: http://hitchgathering.org/forums/6810/pre-meetings

And obviously these meetings are excellent ways to attract quite some media-attention, both in Spain and Portugal (as well as in any other country we might hitch from or through). We'll set up a new press-page soon for this.

Ah, and for those who didn't realize the hardest challenge yet: it might get freaking hot! So see ye, somewhere in Portugal!

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you can read our minutes, which will be edited this week to make it clearer for everyone. We will also release a news-letter soon.