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Solo Travel in Germany and Austria, 90 days from May to Aug 2024

I’m a male in the mid-50s, and I’ve recently returned from Germany and Austria after 90 days of solo travel with carry-on baggage. I also did an experiment, journaling every day with reasonably short posts each including at least 1 image.

Intranational and international travel within Europe was almost entirely by trains operated by Germany’s DB or Austria’s ÖBB, as well as local- and regional-transport. An exception was the FRS Helgoline catamaran between Hamburg and Heligoland.

Aside from accommodations and flights, I purchased in advance the Deutschland Ticket (see below), 9 long-distance rail segments on bahn DOT de, FRS Helgoline return-trip sailings between Hamburg and Heligoland, and a 31-day Vienna city-transport pass from Wiener Linien. All were accessed on the spot in Europe through mobile apps MVV-App, DB Navigator, FRS Travel, and WienMobil, respectively.

On the day before departure, I purchased from Airalo a data-only e-SIM for 90 days of mobile-access in Europe. The pre-departure installation was easy, and from the moment of activation upon arrival in Frankfurt, it was all smooth data-roaming with the e-SIM from start to finish.

A few numbers (+/- 10% estimates):

  • Total distance walked: over 885 km (550 mi).
  • Total number of steps walked: over 1.1 million.
  • Daily average walking distance: 9.8 km (6.1 mi).
  • Daily average number of walking steps: 12600.
  • Number of cities and towns: 46 in 4 nations, including 36 days in Vienna.
  • Number of newly-visited World Heritage Sites: 12 Germany, 1 Austria.

All 90-plus journal entries from my trip in Europe can be found on the primary external link on my profile.

Posted by
7690 posts

Thanks, Henry! I will check out your blog so I can see the photos. It sounds like a wonderful trip!

Posted by
14820 posts

Thanks for posting.

I admire the duration of this undertaking, solo traveling , truly an experiment, and shows that one's 90 Schengen days can be spent in only Germany and Austria. Likewise in France too, as if spending the entire summer there.

Good that you went Helgoland, very interesting. A French woman I know did that visit to Helgoland in the early 1970s.

I spent 77 nights May to Aug , solo, but included France with Austria and Germany, very crowded trains and all that, wished the weather had been more pleasant and conducive to walking and exploring.