 Let’s be totally honest about this: The best thing about Deutsche Bahn’s Across-the-Country 1-day rail pass (the “Quer-durchs-Land” ticket or QdL for short) is that it’s very cheap. 48 Euros for two people on any regional train in Germany: that’s an unbeatable offer. Journeys take a little longer than on the fast IC trains, that much is for certain, and their trajectories may be slightly more convoluted, but that can be a benefit, too. Side facade of the Hamburg Central Train Station Recently, on our way back from a hike in the Mecklenburger Seenplatte, for example, we took the opportunity to break up what would otherwise have been a very long train journey to make a two-hour stop in Hamburg. Two hours in Hamburg are not a lot for such a big city, Germany’s largest after Berlin, but we had been . . . → More Easy Hiking: Two Hours In Hamburg  I am delighted to announce a new revolutionary direction for this website. As of today, this Easy Hiker blog shall be known by its new name: Haiku Hiker. This change has partly been inspired by the obvious linguistic similarity between the word for someone who makes his way on foot, a “hiker”, and the delightful Japanese form of observational poetry, the “haiku”. For speakers of Japanese, indeed, they may be one and the same word. Partly, however, this step was also motivated by the prospect of making things easier for the author, i.e. myself. Why squeeze out 800 words two or three times a week when I can say all that in a mere 17 syllables no matter how carefully chosen they may need to be? The new direction will initially only affect new posts. Gradually, however, old posts will be replaced, . . . → More Easy Hiking: A New Direction For Easy Hiker  When fellow adventurer Traveling Ted asked me to share my “bucket list”, that started me thinking as to what places I would really really want to visit. If I were a decade or two younger, my bucket would be full as I would have wanted to visit at least one country in every continent. But the flush of youth has long waned, so the number of desired destinations have decreased. I’m considerably lucky because working as a journalist has allowed me to travel to many places in North America and in Europe. These travels, though, were before I discovered the exhilarating fun of easy hiking. With easy hiking in mind, my holidays are now done differently and, frankly, more interestingly. My approach to holidays, too, would be different. It will certainly not be a continent-hopping frenzy. I would choose to live in each destination for at . . . → More Easy Hiking: A Bucket (List) For Monsieur  Aphabet Soup – Photo borrowed from Loozrboy on Flickr It’s a game of Tag about the ABCs of travel making the rounds in the travel blogging community and Jeremy of Budget Travel Adventures tagged me. So, here’s my travel “alphabet soup”. A: Age of first international trip: I was 22 then and was finishing a doctoral thesis for which I flew to do some research in the Philippines. Being European, I only consider a trip to be “international” if I have to cross oceans to get there. (I was 7 when I first visited a country other than Germany and this was to Greece.) B: Best (foreign) beer: Any will do, particularly on a very hot day in any country and it’s served ice cold C: Cuisine (favourite): I must have been an Italian and (continental) Indian in my previous reincarnations. D: . . . → More Easy Hiking: ABCs of Travel  Debbie of European Travelista and Leigh of Hike Bike Travel happened to have had the same good idea: invite Easy Hiker to participate in Budget Travel Adventures‘ Best Travel of 2011 event, where we can share the best and the not so good days out we’ve had in 2011. Here goes… Best Travel Experience we had was the hike we did in Toulon. I feel a little funny listing this as our “best travel experience” of the year because that was certainly not what it felt like at the time. But, unlike with other trips that went a lot more smoothly, I can still feel – and recall at will – the intensity of it all: the heat, the exhaustion, the sense of being lost in the Grand Concrete Canyon of Southern France. And isn’t that the reason why we travel at all? Best Domestic Destination . . . → More Easy Hiking: The Best And The Not So Good Days Out We Had In The Year That Passed | |
