It’s been a while and we know we’re a bit late since we announced the relaunch and starting the booster phase for team registrations for early June. Sorry for the circumstances, sometimes things take a little longer as expected…anyways, after months of preparations and all kind of thoughts we’re more than happy today to be back on the road and officially start the Project Tramprennen 2012 – with you! For us it’s always a special moment – and believe us, every single team registration that reaches our mailbox will put the biggest smile you can imagine on our faces! :)

It’s the 5th Tramprennen this year for Viva con Agua and back in 2008 when we started the first race with 11 people to Spain, we never thought about such things like team registration and donate systems, we did not even think about a website to be honest. This year we prepared a race that suits for 150 potential participants! Isn’t that crazy shit?!??! =) We have 6 routes, starting in Germany, Danmark and Belgium. It’s the first time that Tramprennen really becomes an European hichhike race with hitchhikers from all over the continent!

And now: fire from all holes!!!

We want you to be part of Tramprennen 2012 and share two great weeks on the road with you! Register a team and race with many many other hitchhikers to Romania for Viva con Agua and a water project in India! It doesn’t matter whether you’ve hitchhiked 100000km or never before, doesn’t matter where you come from and how old you are (well, you should be older than 18 or hitch with your parents! ;)…)! Find a hitchmate and join us! We’re looking for you, looking forward for dumb-ass teamnames and profile pictures, looking forward for every single cent that goes into the water projects of Viva con Agua and last but not least to kick your ass on the roads to Romania! :)

What you need to know now

Check out the FAQ for further information and skim through the beautiful new redesign! You can register a team from now on! We’ll then provide you with everything necessary via mail.

These are the basic steps:
1. Find a hitchmate and register a team (one person needs to be male at least)
2. Do your homework: fill your team profile, send the liability waiver form, transfer the money for the hitchpackage
3. Choose your route
4. Find TeamSponsors and Owners for the WASH-Project of Viva con Agua in India :)

Behind the Website, into the Code and the future of this project

You probably wonder why it has taken so long for us to relaunch the website and everything you see is another design. The majority of the new stuff are backend functions that help us to organize the race sustainable and beyond Tramprennen 2012. Still, the website is now smartphone compatible and staffed with many more cool and helpful features.

Two years ago we implemented every team profile and sponsor manually, in 2011 they were already automatically. Same with mails. This year we can easily set up a new route with as many stages and possible teams as we want to. That means further, that anyone with a good reason can organize or request a hitchhiking race via our platform – the Hitchhiking Hub. Wouldn’t that be amazing, a hitchhike race in Canada or in Australia? The new plugin is able to realize this idea and can provide the technical background. A milestone in the evolution of the whole project for us. For the first reason, because we want to spread the word about hitchhiking – and there is no better way to do so with a hitchhiking race. Secondly, because we always wanna integrate new and interested people into the project Tramprennen and make it independet from a certain group of people (well,us :P).

In the future we’ll add more features on the hitchhikinghub.org. New ways of demonstrating the art of hitchhiking, blog systems for hitchhikers and probably even an app for smartphones where you’ll be able to track your hitchhiking trips without big effort.

It’s a big dream and we strongly believe in it: hitchhiking makes the world a better place. It builts friendship and trust among people all over the world. We think this is a good reason to keep working on such a project. And we’re happy to have you on board on this wonderful journey! :)

That’s it for the moment! Are you ready?!

Cheeeers, Tramprennen 2012 Crew!

After Kermit and Cookie Monster we’re happy to announce the 3rd and 4th route for Tramprennen 2012: Welcome Ernie & Bert!
Starting in Leipzig and Dresden, these two routes will lead us mostly through Poland and Ucraine. crossing the Carpathian Mountains, whoop whoop!

Route No.III: Ernie

Dresden (D) – Krakow (PL) – Zamosc (PL) – Lviv (UA) – Lyuta (UA) – Carei (RO) – Lake Surduc (RO)

The Route on Google Maps

Start: Dresden (Germany)
Size: large!
Water: the river Elbe passes the city withendless grassland
Important: football, watch this:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_BJ7BDtE8yI

1st stage: Krakow (Poland)
Size: large
Water: Vistula river passes through the city
Important: the second highest building of Krakow has never been finished and is now named „Skeletor“

2nd stage: Zamosc (Poland)
Size: small
Water: there is a lake (at least seen on Google Street view :P )
Important: the city is listed as UNESCO world heritage since 1992

3rd stage: Lviv (Ucraine)
Size: large
Water: 296m above sea level
Important: was capital of chocolate in Europa and is still famous for sweets :)

4th stage: Lyuta (Ucraine)
Size: small
Water: three rivers (Water, Sanitation and Hygiene! :D)
Important: The European Rainbow Gathering took place close to Lyuta in 2009

5h stage: Carei (Romania)
Size: small
Water: not sure about that
Important: a Romanian football player was born in Carei

6th stage: Lake Surduc (Romania)
Size: Lake!
Water: Lake!
Important: Lake!

Route No.IV: Bert

Leipzig (D) – Opole (PL) – Gródek nad Dunajcem (PL) – Lviv (UA) – Dolyna (UA) – Dej (RO) – Lake Surduc (RO)

The Route on Google Maps

Start: Leipzig (Former German Democratic Republic)
Size: large
Water: many new lakes surrounding the city
Important: played the significant role in instigating the fall of communism in Eastern Europe

1st stage: Opole (Poland)
Size: medium
Water: the Oder River changed its direction after a flood to the West in the 16th century. 400 years later, the people followed ;)
Important: the Penny Bridge

2nd stage: Gródek nad Dunajcem (Poland)
Size: small
Water: situated directly at a huge lake (says google Maps, we’ll see!)
Important: funny name

3rd stage: Lviv (Ucraine)
Size: large
Water: 296m above sea level
Important: was capital of chocolate in Europa and is still famous for sweets :)

4th stage: Dolyna (Ucraine)
Size: small
Water: nature
Important: By the end of the 19th century to big city fires destroyed the town completely

5th stage: Dej (Romania)
Size:
Water: wherethe Someşul Mic River meets the river Someşul Mare River
Important: Dej means Deus (God in Latin)

6th stage: Lake Surduc (Romania)
Size: Lake!
Water: Lake!
Important: Lake!