Hi everyone,

 not at all three weeks until it finally starts. And here is the first Newsletter for all participating teams, finally.. Whoop, whoop!

Here you find the important points:

1. Registrations/Teams/ official stuff
2. Infos about the Start
3. Infos about the final destination
4. Collect donations: Now it´s really going on!
5. Film project

 

First: Great to have you on this years tramprennen! We cannot say how much we are looking forward to meet all of you. Also this year are much more than 100 people who wants to spend two awesome weeks with us on the roads of South-Western Europe and even to collect casually or especially some donations for the immensely important work of Viva Con Agua and Pro Asyl. It´s time that it finally starts: being on the streets in the morning and have no idea what to expect, before we could sit together with a drink in our hands and tell each other the best stories of the day…

1. Registrations

The registration period is actually completed. Because we want to meet each other in Kiel next week to tackle the Hitchpackages (Shirts and bags printing, etc.). We have already submitted the orders for it, that´s the reason for registration stop. But there are still some free places on different routes, so on top of that it´s possible to registrate a team for the race.

For those, we cannot guarantee, that they get complete hitchpackages. But we try our best.
Important for you: Please, don´t change your team name! Otherwise we´ll get confuse with the packages.

If anyone wants to help us in Kiel: That would be wonderful! Just let us know by sending a message to gro.nennerpmartnull@ofni.

 

2. Starting Points

You can still select or change your starting point. From Sunday it will be no longer possible.

There are four starting places and we will start with nine to ten teams per route. Should the actual number of participating teams not grow we just have one route from Freising and one route from Leutkirch. These two routes would probably meet each other once. It means: we´ll limit these two routes first of all. We can increase the limit if there are more teams at the end. Or if more teams prefer to start from Leutkirch or Freising instead of Innsbruck, we cn change, let us know with a mail. If you haven’t choose your starting point so far, please do it soon.

There is host for you at each starting location. These are:
Halle: Roman and Luki (Contact: gro.nennerpmartnull@namor)

Freising: Gero (gro.nennerpmartnull@oreg)

Leutkirch: Jakob (gro.nennerpmartnull@bokaj)

Innsbruck: Franzi (gro.nennerpmartnull@iznarf)

 

They organize the Premeetings and will ensure that all of you have a place to sleep in the first night and possibly a bit of drinks and food will be available for a donation or something like that. Big applause for that!

The Premeetings at every start location are at Friday!! night, August 19^th!! Hitchhiking itself starts on Saturday morning August 20^th with the first stage. During the Premeetings the routes will be drawn. You´ll get informations about your stages and get your Hitchpackages.

Important: Have recourse to the coordinators at the starting points only in emergencies. For general questions please write us a mail at gro.nennerpmartnull@ofni!

Specific informations (meeting point, schedule, etc.) will follow with the next newsletters!

 

3. Final Destination in Tsigov Chark

 

All of you certainly know our goal this year. Anyway, from the name ;)
We´ll drive into the Bulgarian Mountains to the beautiful Lake Batak to the village Tsigov Chark.

For the first time in the long Hitchhiking Race history and after struggling for a while, we booked a campsite for all. Why, if there is actually nothing has to be planned?

Over the last years we became to an increasingly group. Now we have reached a size that for example we need fixed toilets to stay sustainably. That works somehow on routes with 20-25 people, but at the final destination we are more than 100 people and that is a bit more difficult. The last few years we have always found a cool place for all of us spontaneously. But we had more luck than anything else. This year we don’t want to get this risk, mainly because there is only one campsite in Tsigov Chark. So we have registered a large group. The locals are cool and they look forward to us. So a part of the costs we will collect at the final destination (the other part we have already paid out of the hitchpackages.) So please keep just 5 Euros for our payment hat.

 

4. Collecting donations – Now it´s really going on!

 

Two weeks hitchhiking though the world, become acquainted with boundless hospitality and helpfulness, Hippiekacke etc. is one thing, but there is another very important thing: donations! We are collecting them for the projects of Viva con Agua and the work of Pro Asyl. “Water for all” and “No borders” are two goals or even utopias that we share. We want to collect the largest possible sum to support our partner organizations, to not accept, that there are so much people around the world who have no access to clean water and don´t have the free opportunity to travel to almost any country of the world. We don´t accept that they must take superman´s greatest danger to themselves to overcome limits that we don´t have.

It´s not about getting the biggest fishes. Every amount is important and can help. With suppot of our donation-partner Betterplace one can even donate just 1 Euro. For larger amounts there is of course a donation receipt.

Where do we get the sponsors? This is where you come into the game. Everyone can spend donations for your team. Or even became the team owner by sponsor a sum over 100 Euros. Then they can leave a message for you on your team profile. The past has shown, that these are mainly friends or acquaintances and relatives who were willing to support. How you can convince them? There are a lot of variety ways. Go on a bet, offer little “thankyou’s” , make crazy actions, just tell about the project and the partner organizations. To give a few suggestions we interviewed Matze from Team “Solidarische Trampwirtschaft” who already gathered some donations very successful. Check tramprennen.org/blog.

However, we also considered something:
To support every team, there are some postcards in every hitchpackage. You are very welcome to send them as a little thanks for the donations! In addition this year´s race will be “gamificated”. Sounds funny, but we think it can be super cool: Each team will receive a game card for every 50€s of donations they collect. With them you can condemn other teams to wait or do other funny things. Let yourself surprise!

So, enough prated! We keep our thumbs crossed for a successful donation search. Let us bring the donations counter to spin around!

5. Film project

 

Roman is planning a small film project for this year´s race. If you want to be a part of it, no matter in which way, get in touch with him: gro.nennerpmartnull@namor

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So that´s it for a start, more information are coming soon!

The dearest regards from your Tramprennen-2016-Crew!

 

More than a month ago first information about this year´s Tramprennen found their way to the waiting hitchhikers. Just look outside your window and you will see a lot of things happened in the meantime! Spring has already done a pretty good job and brought nature back to live again. But not only plants and animals sneak out of their hole. The Tramprennen Crew is not sleeping but constantly working on the (already!!!) 9th version of our beloved Race. Last weekend some of us met in Berlin to work on the routes for this summer. And we are happy to present some more hot news to the hitchhiking world out there!

Final destination

You know that Tramprennen 2016 is going to beautiful Bulgaria and the internet users among you might already have checked the whole country to dream of some nice places to go. We found a super nice one: The small village Tsigov Chark at the banks of the beautiful Lake Batak, situated in the Rila mountains. Sounds like the world´s ass? Yes, it is! But trust us, it´s a fucking gorgeous ass!

Routes

The first Tramprennen in 2008 started with only one route and through the years they become more and more. For the first time last year we had 6 routes but even that was almost little for all the hitchhikers wanting to join the race. That´s why we will do a next step this year and we are proud to announce that we now have eight routes in the pipeline! To keep the whole thing even more interesting we will only announce the detailed routes at the evening before the race right at the starting points. Buuut… anyway it will be worth it to check the homepage from time to time because some more informations will maybe drop out earlier!

Starting Points

One important information about the routes is ready to be spread right now: the four different starting locations. This year Franzi will invite you to Innsbruck, Jakob to Leutkirch im Allgäu, Gero will start something in Freising and Luki is looking forward to kick off the shit in Halle (Saale). Like last year there will always be two routes starting from one point and meet each other again half way before everybody will meet in Tsigov Chark after two weeks. At the starting points each team will be (fairly! :-)) drawn to one of the two routes starting from there.

Dates

Last but not least some dates you should keep in mind. Most important of course: Tramprennen 2016 will take place from the 19th of August until the 3rd of September! But it´s maybe also interesting for that registration will start the 1st of June and (even more important) will close again the 31st of July. As soon as the first teams will be online there will also be the possibility to donate.

While writing this we´re getting more and more inpatient to rock the roads to the East this summer and we are pretty sure it´s the same for you while reading! Whoop Whoop