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Hitching elsewhere in Hitchhiking in Japan
Hitching elsewhere in Hitchhiking in Japan
Outside the expressway system on ordinary toll-free national highways (国道 kokudō), there are also occasional service areas of a sort, known as Michi-no-Eki (道の駅), lit. "Road stations" . With about 900 scattered all around Japan, these are excellent places to get dropped off, fuel up, consult maps and grab rides.
Other traditional favorites include the offramps of roadside gas stations and convenience stores. The keys are visibility and accessibility: drivers have to be able to spot you in advance, and they have to be able to stop and pick you up without endangering themselves or others.
Note that it is illegal to hitchhike near road crossings or from bus stops, although in rural areas where buses drop by just 2-3 times a day the latter is often tolerated. The very end of a merging lane after a crossing is also OK, as long as you are more than 5 meters away from the crossing itself. In general, hitchhiking is legal and Japanese police don't hassle hitchhikers, but they do have fairly wide-ranging powers to act on anything that disturbs or distracts traffic, so use common sense.
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Hitchhiking in Japan Travel Guide from Wikitravel. Many thanks to all Wikitravel contributors. Text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0, images are available under various licenses, see each image for details.