“Turn up the lights— I don’t want to go home in the dark.” -O. Henry (William Sydney Porter), American Short Story Writer
When I first learned about the Deutsche Bahn 100 Bahn Card, I immediately wanted it at all cost. It is a card that allows you to ride all public transport and Deutsche Bahn operated trains in Germany for free. Unfortunately, it costs about 6000 Euro a year and while that would be awesome…. I would need to ride a cross-country train about 60 times, deciding to go that day to make it worth the value, but also, I just don’t have that money to spend. Honestly though, if I had the money, I’d go for it.
Anyway, I digress, I knew this existed for a while but I never saw how it worked. I thought you maybe had to buy a ticket and swipe your card and it would be free or something but finally I saw it in the wild today. I was on a train and the ticket inspectors came around like they sometimes do to check for tickets and I showed mine on my phone and the guy next to me pulled out his wallet and flashed his BC100 and they just said okay and walked away. It was awesome, I asked him about it and I got into one of the most interesting conversations that I have had with a stranger here in Germany.
He told me that he was a “Globetrotter” and he works for a company in Munich, but he normally is able to work remotely and he chose that job for that reason. He doesn’t want a home and doesn’t rent an apartment. He keeps a suitcase with him all the time, has a small storage unit in Munich for a few personal items and he uses his BahnCard to get on a long distance train to/from Munich to sleep. He likes to go to certain train stations because they have showers available at the station. Sometimes he travels to Football and Handball matches but he sleeps in trains. That is his home and his domain. He says he relatively routinely goes from Munich to Hamburg, Berlin, Leipzig, and Koln, sleeps on the train, showers or does whatever, then hops back on the next train to Munich then shows up at work the next day or does work from the train.
I asked him if he ever stays somewhere with a bed, he said he does if he feels sick. He says if he is sick and not feeling well he will rent a cheap hostel, relax, sleep early then when he is feeling better, get back on the trains. I found it fascinating and he said he just doesn’t”t like being tied down somewhere. I asked about the storage locker and he said that it’s only there because he can”t keep his extra suit pieces and a bit of personal items with him in his suitcase all the time so he has them there to store them and so he can change out his clothes whenever he needs to. I asked about if he plans to do this forever, he says not forever but at least for another year. He says the 6000 Euro a year is cheaper than an apartment closer to his work but I think having to pay to do your laundry and not really ever being able to cook your own food and always having to eat out probably isn’t really saving any money on that front but we never talked about that. He has done it for a little less than a year and a half and swears that it is a great adventure and he gets to see so many things and places that many don’t get to enjoy in their life but I think there is something in your life that you miss out from living this way.
I really believe that I need a home, I need to be somewhere that I can use to escape from people, to read a book in peace or play video games with my friends and while I would love to try to live the way he does, I would easily wash out from this in less than 2 weeks, I guarantee it. There is no way. I would sleep okay but surely that can’t be good for your body, I would not be able to move as much, exercise and all my energy would build up in me until I would explode. There are times where I feel like I don’t move enough and all I do near the end of the day is get really jittery, jump on my bed, roll around, put my arms to both sides and bounce around over and over until I tired out. I wrap myself in blankets and just wrap myself up and try to fight out of the blanket just to stop my body from being so restless and I can’t imagine trying to handle these fits of energy when I had nothing to sit in except a seat in a train going 250+ km/h…. also, you can’t strip down into boxers and dance around half naked singing a random pop song that got stuck in your head on the train…. at least I don’t think that would be so widely accepted if you did.
The adventure would be worth the BC100 alone. I have a BahnCard 50 and that gets me 50% off all my tickets but it isn’t the same. I want the BC100 because then I can go anywhere, at any time, for any reason and there are no more excuses to not go and see everything that my new home country of Germany has to offer, but for now, that is just a future goal. Something to work towards.