Happy new year and another travel recap

Hi all! I hope you had a merry Christmas with your loved ones, a happy new year, and all the best for 2024 to all of you!

I know, there was a time where I posted plenty and plenty of travel reports. I started with, well, the beginning, talking about how I – step by step – widened the corridor I can confidently roam in pretty much by myself, sharing different, both local and travel experiences every now and then.

Of course I am still traveling a lot, more Germany-wide than anywhere abroad though (in comparison to the years before).

Traveling used to be just a hobby, and mostly happening during holidays or the weekends to visit friends and family or spontaneously explore new places and go couchsurfing.

Nowadays, however, it is part of my job and has become a daily routine. So what’s the difference between the hobby-traveler and the work-traveler?

First off, the calendar used to be a rather decorative element on my phone’s home-screen, as I thought that I could keep any important information or appointment stored in my head.

That worked quite well when – back at school or during my apprenticeship – my days were not yet filled with so many appointments (both private and work-specific). But as soon as I started working in the fields, keeping track of everything by myself would make me lose my head eventually. Thus, my calendar has become indispensable.

People keep asking me questions like: “While traveling through Germany for work, you’d probably go sightseeing a lot, don’t you?”

No, not very often. I board the train, travel to the most convenient train station near to where the appointment takes place, and I am picked up by my colleagues and together we travel the rest by car.

After the appointment, I am mostly dropped off at the train station for my way back or, depending on the distance to travel, we go straight to the hotel to check in and go out for something to eat and drink before we call it a night.

There are – and were – indeed a couple of opportunities to explore the city and go sightseeing, but that really depends on how long we are staying, the free-time we have and whether or not we feel like it.

However, what I enjoy the most is sitting together after the workday and have a good time with good company; so sightseeing is a nice-to-have.

Normally when I travel, I also book assistance for both ways in beforehand most of the time. I still do that, but mostly I can only book assistance for one way, as we cannot tell in advance when the appointment is over. Obviously, we don’t assume in beforehand that the appointment is over at a certain time and just leave in the middle of the training so I can catch my train as well as my assistance.

An advantage living near Frankfurt though is that a lot of cities actually have a direct train connection to Frankfurt, a train station I am – more or less – familiar with.  Catching a connecting train to Darmstadt there isn’t that difficult anymore, and I also know the train station of Darmstadt, although it could be more accessible indeed.

However, if I know my departure time in beforehand, I would still book an assistance. Furthermore, I can sometimes ask the train station staff or the conductor on the train spontaneously for organizing assistance, which also sometimes works quite well.

In worst case, there are always other passengers I can ask for help if needed, so I never got completely lost or even stuck somewhere.

It is also convenient not to take the very latest train possible in order to arrive at my destination just in time or have less changing time at train stations in between. Therefore, I try to aim for a changing time of at least 15 to 20 minutes – just in case. You never know if trains might be running late and whether or not you can still catch your connecting train.

Also, the DB Navigator app sometimes shows you connections that are shorter, on the other hand though with more changes involved, as well as connections that are about 10 minutes longer, but with less or no changes involved. So if I have the choice between a few minutes faster connections with a couple of changes, or a more direct connection which is just a little slower, I’d rather go for the second option, as the more changes are involved, the more it is stressing me out on a daily basis.

Last but not least, although I still enjoy traveling and seeing other people, I do need some breaks in between in order to relax and meeting my friends and family I have near my home, let it be in Darmstadt, let it be up North.

In a nutshell, I am still a very passionate traveler, probably more routine than before. However, traveling and resting must be well balanced in any case in order to carry on like this.