29 Jan 25
The thing I love most about traveling is how someone on the other side of the world is living a completely different way and how they get around their world and town.
I grew up in the USA and believe how cars and trucks were the pinnacle of freedom. I could do anything and go anywhere with a car…I could be free. No one ever told me about the exorbitant costs of a vehicle and maintenance and things breaking and the thousands of dollars I’d spend over the lifetime of that “freedom device”!
While nation wide infrastructure is such a complex topic, traveling showed me how there are people who just don’t ever think about cars! There are people in NYC never having a car and using the subway, Germans who are commuting between cities on the regional or ICE trains every day for only €50 a month, the super sleeper buses in Vietnam that take you between cities over night for a few dollars! None of this was something I ever thought of or even knew of when I was growing up in rural Indiana.
That’s one of the main reasons I love going new places because someone’s idea of travel can be completely opposite of mine and they’re doing just fine!
11 Jan 25
Biking! I stumbled upon a few online about how some Americans view biking. It made me think about when I finally got my first bike here in Germany. The only thing I can say about my biking here in Germany is – Freedom!
I was always under the assumption in the USA about how a car or truck was freedom. Little did I learn that in fact a car is a chain around your neck…even an anchor dragging you down. I even saw some crazy people saying banning cars is actually a plan to track and surveil you even more! I think that’s crazy considering you tell the government you have a car and they put a tracking number on the front and back and have infrastructure like plate readers. Bikes are, in fact, harder to surveil.
But back to reality…cars are expensive, they are expensive to fix, they are expensive to maintain, and they are expensive to operating. Bikes can just be a few dozen dollars to maintain and only a few hundred dollars new to buy. It really is nice in the summer to dump the car for weeks on end and save tons of money!
I wish America would learn this lesson because not only has it been about cost savings but it really has changed my attitude and emotions on those beautiful days biking to and from work and just enjoying nature. I can’t encourage biking enough!
1 Jan 2025
New Years in Germany is pretty wild! First, there’s lots of fireworks! Second, it goes for hours! There’s always a good show even if you stay home in almost all the villages and cities. Here’s to a great 2025 of camping and trekking!
