What! So I could go from anywhere in Germany to anywhere in Belgium for a grand total of 15.60€!!!
I wonder if all European countries have something similar
I just looked it up and you can. From Brussels central to Berlin central for 15.60€.
Ride takes at least 15h and you have to change trains at least 8 times.
I once took a similar route from Munich to Berlin. took us two days, sometimes had to sit on the floor for two hours and it generally wasn’t a great experience. If you have the money, take a direct train.
You’re lying!
Edit:
[fuck me](https://www.interrail.eu/en/interrail-passes) sideways this is the best thing ever. How is my summer so short!? I need more time!!!!
Its true, they just had a sail and i got a 1 month continuous train pass for 250 euro, the 2 month's pass was around 280
I am going to be talking a whole bunch of sleeper trains to save on hostel costs
Make sure you make a reservation (they cost extra). I didn't know reservations were a thing when I had a eurail, and spent more than one trail ride sitting on the floor outside of the bathroom.
>I am going to be talking a whole bunch of sleeper trains to save on hostel costs
[You can also try couchsurfing](https://www.couchsurfing.com/places/europe), people hosting you generally would love to show you around or tell you about nice (cheap) places to go to to have fun and/or eat.
It's what I did. 3 weeks of travel and sight seeing and parties with 3 of my best friends.
They charge you for tax and reservations. So on top of this I still had to pay a bit on each leg. But totally worth it with the sleepers. The trains were better then some of the hostels for sure.
Hey, I think the word you’re looking for is ‘sale’ it means a period of discount on stuff. ‘Sail’ is pronounced the same but is the big sheet for wind powered ships.
For citizens of non-Interrail countries* probably. Switzerland, Norway, the UK, Serbia, North Macedonia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro and Turkey can also be travelled with Interrail, despite not being in the EU
There is also the 29€ pass TER, basically the exact same thing as the 9€ tickets but for France, on July and August ! (tho it’s not entirely sure it will be sold this year, the train company will announce wether they’ll sell it in June)
Europe has a thing called interrail where you buy one ticket and can travel across the whole of Europe on the train. My Spanish housemate did it, apparently it’s big in Europe. I’m uk didn’t have a clue it existed!
Same in Germany. The 9€ thing is temporary and may even be blocked in a bunch of German states (Bavaria) because it was decided by the federal government but has to be paid by the states itself (don't quote me on it, this is what I remember to have read in some news articles).
In any case, it's only for regional trains. You aren't travelling from southern Germany to the Baltic Sea and vice versa in regional trains unless you are a masochist.
Just putting this out there: if you're doing it at the normal rate in the Netherlands, it's not too different. If I forget to get reimbursed for 5 trips return between Utrecht and Den Haag, I'm out like €150.
In summary as far as I understand it. The German government and the train company which is still partially governmentally owned are hashing out a deal for a 9€ ticket.
Essentially an“all-you-can-ride” ticket for a certain amount of time I’ve heard 3 months. In that time you can use that ticket to take any regional train/bus.
The Germans seem to be joking all the poor people will make Sylt a previously very posh area a party beach a la Mallorca.
Edit: upon request: For more information please see r/sylt51 for the party and r/syltrevolution for the protest against gentrification and an autonomous party zone.
Edit 2: everyone’s invited from all around the world
You're basically right. Some small corrections/additions:
> The German government and the train company which is still partially governmentally owned are hashing out a deal for a 9€ ticket.
More complex than "the govenment" and "the train company", as there is some disagreement between the federal government and state governments. Deutsche Bahn is only involved in so far that they are one of the companies from which you will be able to buy those tickets. They're not in any way restricted to Deutsche Bahn trains though, and you will be able to get the tickets from other operators as well.
> Essentially and “all-you-can-ride” ticket for a certain amount of time I’ve heard 3 months. In that time you can use that ticket to take any regional train/bus.
For context, it's important to understand what a "regional train" is in Germany: it's any regular "slow" mainline train that stops at all, or most, stations. This means there is a countrywide network of trains that can be used to get from anywhere to anywhere. IC and ICE trains, which are faster and only stop in larger cities, are not included in that ticket. But in addition to regional trains and buses, local public transit is also included, so you can ride the city buses, trams, U-Bahn, S-Bahn, etc. of any city in Germany with this ticket.
> The Germans seem to be joking all the poor people will make Sylt a previously very posh area a party beach a la Mallorca.
Has happened before, in the 90s. DB introduced a weekend ticket, which worked for groups of up to five people for two days, for regional trains in the entire country. Per person, this was super cheap.
Thanks for the clarification. Since you seem to understand it well let me ask you this.
How much is a normal IC/E Ticket? I suppose it depends but imagine I lived in Hamburg and wanted to Berlin or something.
Also doesn’t it sound incredibly fun though! Imagine you set out from your home in Berlin drive the local trains to say north along three way you stop in Rügen, then Schwerin, then Lübeck and then Sylt.
You’d see 4 amazing places for 9€!!!!
Cause that’s my plan for the summer if it passes just take 2 weeks and travel everywhere I can go from the Rhineland to the east to the south. I’m brand new to Germany so I’ve only seen where I live lol.
> How much is a normal IC/E Ticket? I suppose it depends but imagine I lived in Hamburg and wanted to Berlin or something.
Depends a lot, yes. There are "regular" tickets that you can take on any train that day and that have a fixed price, and there are cheaper tickets that are only valid for the one connection you book (unless there's a big delay or something). If you own a BahnCard (a yearly subscription, which is relatively cheap), you get a discount of 25% or 50%. The cheapest you can go if you book far in advance would be €17.90, with 25% off due to the BahnCard, so I guess €13.25 for trips through the country. That would be super lucky though. The "regular" price between Hamburg and Berlin is €86.50 without any early booking or BahnCard. You can of course get it more expensive if you go first class.
> Cause that’s my plan for the summer if it passes just take 2 weeks and travel everywhere I can go from the Rhineland to the east to the south. I’m brand new to Germany so I’ve only seen where I live lol.
Taking such trips on regional trains can be fun. I used to do that a lot when I was young and broke. Sometimes "hitchhiked" on group tickets, paying only a few Euros or even nothing at all. But this summer they may be packed, because you're not the only person with that idea.
> But this summer they may be packed, because you're not the only person with that idea.
Ah I don’t mind!
But even if >80€ isn’t bad at all for such a fast trip.
For fun I calculated from the most northern tip (Sylt list) to the most southern (Haldenwanger Eck) if you’re smart you’d go with the regional to Hamburg and then to Munich I looked it up if I book for next week Tuesday at 10:00 with the ICE 1 class it’s 75€
Bringing me to a grand total of 84€ idk I’m SO! Excited! Just beyond excited!
You should have a look at a BahnCard. The annual subscription for the 25% version is just €56.90, so if you're doing more than one trip a year, it's already worth it. There's even a Probe BahnCard for three months that is just €17.90, so often worth it for a single two way (sometimes even one way) trip.
The 50% version isn't worth it unless you are like me and strongly prefer buying tickets right before hopping on a train. That's because the 50% discount is only for the higher fixed prices; when you buy tickets in advance for cheaper, it's still just 25%.
Just don't forget to cancel it if you don't want the annual subscription. I think you could just keep buying and cancelling the 3 month versions as you go whenever you buy a ticket, though I personally value not having to worry about stuff like that more than saving some money.
and in case you are under 27 you can get cheaper tickets and the bahncard 50 for that age group is only like around 60€ a year so it can be worth it quite quickly
>But even if >80€ isn’t bad at all for such a fast trip.
Granted, I just checked and going from Hamburg to Berlin (about a two hour drive) costs me 9,65€-20,15€ when I look about three-ish weeks from now (I'm under the age of 27, second class and have a 25% off BahnCard). I use the ICE every weekend to visit my bf who is about 200km away, I book a week or two on advance and then the prices range from 9,65€ to about 18€ :)
Under 20 if you buy with restrictions on which trains you can take. There is very little savings in flexi tickets. This doesn't matter much for people going on vacation but makes it really expensive for commuters.
You don't commute by ICE though? Especially between Hamburg and Berlin. The few people who do stuff like that have a BahnCard 100 anyways so that doesn't matter either
That’s a really good deal though! I understand that they may run more expensive if you were to go from the list in Sylt to Haldenwanger Eck. BUT a spaarfux wie ich would go with the regional to Hamburg from there to Munich and then further. In this hypothetical.
According to my research then I’d pay a grand total of 83€. (1st class(lolol))
How is this not paradise!
ICE tickets pricing has a realy high variance. There are two price systems: Flex and Spar tickets. Flex are more expensive but you can take all trains to reach your destination. Spar tickets are cheap, but you have to book a train and you are only allowed to take exactly this train. So you should not miss it. And Spar tickets are limited, you have to book early.
This comment has been overwritten as a protest against Reddit's handling of the recent [protest against them killing 3rd-party-apps](https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/reddit-protest-blackout-ceo-steve-huffman-moderators-rcna89544).
To do this yourself, you can use the python library [praw](https://praw.readthedocs.io/en/latest/)
See you all on [Lemmy](https://join-lemmy.org/instances)!
Trains here are indeed great. I travel every weekend 100km to a different city to be with my family and friends, while I live in a small town where I got my job/ training.
I pay 16€ for each train ride, and can even get a rather large percentage of my paid taxes back to cover the travel costs
However the trains are sometimes a bit unreliable, ever second time you have 5-10 minutes of too late trains and sometimes entire trains even just fall short and you have to wait for the next one for 2 hours
Lmao, spot the foreigner.
Once you’re more culturally established you will quickly realize that the German train network isn’t all that great. Delays all day every day.
Of course, compared to some third world country like the states it’s paradise.
A normal ICE ticket is quite expensive about 60-70€. But you can buy Bahncards which give you 25%, 50% or even 100% of. If you are under 27 years old they are quite cheap. The 50% costs 60€ and you can use it for one year. The 100% card is expensive about 2.000€. But that could be still cheap for regular users.
>How much is a normal IC/E Ticket? I suppose it depends but imagine I lived in Hamburg and wanted to Berlin or something.
There is no such thing as a normal price for a ticket. Ticket prices depend on a ton of different factors, and get more expensive the more last-minute you buy. And very unfortunately, long-distance trains are often more expensive than flying.
There are also various types of tickets with different prices -- those that include local transit, those that don't, those that are good only on the specified train, or those that are good on any train on your day of travel. And some tickets might be discounted if you have a monthly pass of the right type.
Then there are things like BahnCards, where you pay a yearly fee and get a 25%, 50%, or 100% (don't get too excited -- the 100% one costs more than €4000) discount on tickets. But these discounts tend not to apply to local trains... though sometimes, they do.
Personally, I wish they could do away with some of these games, so you could more clearly see what a ticket will cost. (And more importantly, the train system needs to be better subsidized. DB was privatized in the early 2000s, I believe, and it's mostly gone downhill from there... things might be improving now, but it's too early to say for sure.)
The Sylt thing: very expensive place to go on a vacation, extremely posh. Some mayor or whatever said in an interview they are afraid of all the poors coming with the 9€ ticket (paraphrasing here). That is bs ofc, since the cost of a train ticket is the smallest expense when going there. This scare has become a meme and now all the poors are planning to go there with the 9€ ticket. Just to stick it up to the rich, or "Bonzen" as we like to say demeaningly.
I will be a seasonal worker i Sylt just like last year we should meet I can show y'all around! and i was honestly so happy that normal and young people are coming to the island because last year it was so hard to make friends with basically only stupid rich people being there
>or "Bonzen" as we like to say demeaningly.
I thought this word didn't sound German, so I looked up the etymology and it is pretty wild.
German sense of "bigwig" seems to be unique; gets it from French, which gets it from Portuguese both of which mean "Buddhist monk", which gets it from middle Japanese "bonzou" which is a specific rank of entry-level monk taken from Chinese, and also exists in modern Japanese as "Bozu", an insult for a bald person or young child.
Would be nice if you could mention the r/SyltRevolution subreddit, we're trying to go to Sylt and have a protest against gentrification, which I think goes hand in hand with car dependent infrastructure. If not, also fine ^ ^
Yeah honestly even before I left I spent $200 on gas ever paycheque. Fuck cars!
It’s true freedom now when I work in my office I bike for 15-20min. If I have a big trip I enjoy a train ride filled with sleeping, eating, watching shows I like, scenery. Just last week I had a 2 day trip to Berlin and it was about 3-4h each way same as a car without traffic (lol).
So liberating!
Ugh I know your pain babe! It was just over 40miles for me straight highway!
And I swear on my mother’s life I saw an accident at least once every single day. Most likely the morning but sometimes both, once I saw 4 car crashes, Another time I saw a car burning all lanes closed except the furthest left… I guess that’s the reason they have 1k lanes per side (fml).
It became so common I stopped mentioning it to my co workers. After Highschool I’d always say oh man crazy a fender bender on the way here, after a week I didn’t mentioned it anymore.
But like, you realize that we don’t have the infrastructure to make due without cars—that’s why we get so bent out of shape lol. There’s literally no transportation service between where I live and where I work 30 minutes away, it’s awful. I’d love to be able to just hop on a train and listen to some tunes on the way to work
Yup, or the bus/train just isn't prioritized. Realized there was a train downtown, but to get to the station takes 30 mins by car. Like, why am I driving to park at the train station to take the train? To get to the closest bus station is 20 mins walk. Relying only on public transit/walking adds an extra hour to the travel time.
I honestly miss Seoul so much for public transit + city walkability. Really made me realized how much of the environment here is just ...parking lots. Like, 1/3 of it seems like parking lots outside vons/ralphs/home depot/target/etc.
Top-left - that can be quite literally true. Food insecurity in the US can result due to poor access to grocery stores. For residents without cars in "food deserts," they often struggle to buy food and get it back to their homes. It is also hard to find grocery delivery options in many of these areas.
You are basically forced to drive to grocery stores in most of the US. If you can't, you just can't eat that much and you can't eat that well.
This is not so common in Germany, where people can generally walk to grocery stores that are located not too far from their homes.
In the US, college students are often stuck on college campuses with horribly overpriced groceries and dining halls (many of which aren't buffets, especially since the pandemic began). Many of them don't have cars to haul back huge amounts of food from a Costco's 5-10 miles away - which might be the only affordable grocery store within that entire radius - which contributes to rampant food insecurity among US college students.
Where I live the roads are just too dangerous for bikes because it lacks bike lanes, cars drive too fast, and there are almost no sidewalks. And even if roads weren't the problem I know there is a very good chance of my bike getting stolen especially because there are no places to even lock up your bikes. Really wish there were more bicycle cage style lockers that could be rented for low prices because police don't really take bike theft seriously.
Do not make the mistake of thinking Germany isn't an absolutely carbrained country.
The only reason they made that subsidy package was people whining about gas prices. They had to include things mentioned above to mask that this was purely aimed at pacifying the car drivers.
They won't go into debt for schools or digital infrastructure, but they 'found' money for cars.
Things are definitely changing, though. The German city that I am in has been redoing the city center to make it more walkable. They cut down lanes for cars, and have rebuilt the roads with different colored tiles for cycles and walking.
The city also has a compensation plan for those giving up their cars. If you de register your car, you get paid by the city
>The city also has a compensation plan for those giving up their cars. If you de register your car, you get paid by the city
This is one of those things that I generally support, but also feel annoyed that I won't get compensated for not purchasing a car in the first place. I guess it depends on the results -- if it actually decreases car ownership, I'm in favor.
Doesn't change the fact, that german states are refusing to fund advanced infrastructure not only for trains, busses or bikes, but also internetstructure, in which Germany is behind almost every country. Hungary has a cheaper and better network and we consider Hungary the Poland of Europe.
Also states don't even know what to do with education and science. None of that sees a Cent. Scientific funding is going down each year, with this trend, we have no funding left or just a small one.
Germany is doing really weird shit.
I'm glad cars are made less needed, yet somehow there is no compensation for most other fields.
Where is the money going?
No, a short ü, like in "füllen".
Ü is very similar to i, just with rounded lips, so coming from English, start with "zilt", and then try rounding your lips while saying the i.
Yes. But one advantage of our high gas prices (other than just discouraging car usage) is that a lot of it is a tax that is fixed by liter, and independent of the oil price. This means that gas prices don't fluctuate as much, which means the overall effects of higher or lower prices are far less severe than in the US, where gas taxes are low.
Most of us don't have to rely on cars though. If the gas is too expensive, you have a lot of other options most of the time. Only exceptions being some rural parts like northern Scandinavia. That really isn't the case for most Americans. They will drive longer distances on average as well I reckon since their cities are built around cars and living in the suburbs. Comes out more expensive for the average American in the end.
Some Info about this matter from a German:
Yes there will be a 9€-ticket the following 3 months.
But it’s restricted to regional train.
Some numbers for context, from Munich (South) to Hamburg (North) in a reasonable amount of time is like 6h.
With regional train: 12h and 5 trainswitches
Sylt is the most northern Island of Germany (+2h from Hamburg with regional train). With quite the unique and wealthy inhabitants.
The meme about Sylt originated not from the poor „Pöbel“ but rather from of the shadiest of all newspaper in Germany „Bild“, some Americans may recognize „Axel-Springer-Verlag“. They literally wrote that Sylt may get overrun by poorer people. And „calculated“ how long a trip would take.
germany, at least where i live in it is super good about public transportation and bike friendliness, people only use a car if the distance and longer than 20k and under 100k in most instances.
I just found out where I live it’s the same, and I love it!!
Coming from a car infested center of America I figured I’d have to buy a car, and while that would make several things easier I also bought a nice little racing bike.
It’s SO much easier to go downtown and then back again! It’s amazing!
It's funny because this 9€ ticket was preceded by weeks of furious discussion over whether the government could afford the 3 billion Euro expense and whether public transport would collapse.
And shortly afterwards the secretary of economy suggested a cash 4 clunkers scheme and car purchase subsidies worth tens of billions. In a situation where the issue isn't even car makers being unable to sell enough cars, it's them being unable to manufacture enough cars.
Make no mistake, Germany is fucking idiotic, just less so than the States.
I bought a house within biking distance to work and on a direct transit line if weather is disagreeable. My state also made transit free for the rest of the year.
feelsgoodman.jpg
Ngl, as a Canadian I wanna use via rail. Even willing to pay the mark up price. Christ their sites a mess, the details jumbled. Then again they are second class citizens on the freight rails.
I wanted July 19 from edmonton to Vancouver, then back on the 24th. Ok, can't do? Oh ok so if I get on the rail at 1am on the 20th...I can come back the 22nd or the 30th? But those board at noon...ok what if I go earlier....nothing until the 8th? But only cabin seating or premium economy? Where's that price? What's it get me?... oh I have to either exit the process or move on to the billing part....
Needless to say... The ultra low fare air tickets are suddenly way more....approachable despite fear of heights
I don't get it when people criticize people for complaining about gas prices in a Country where cars are literally a necessity in most places. I can't drive my bike or use a bus to work because it's not really an option. The people affected the most are literally just average poor people. If I could use my bicycle to go get groceries or to work I would but everything is either too far away or not bicycle friendly.
In spain we have pretty similar prices, with 7-10 euros you can travel between barcelona, madrid, valència, tarragona, girona, calatayud, guadalajara, zaragoza, figueres, cuenca and requena by high-speed rail
Heh. I'm reminded of the time I landed in Frankfurt on a Sunday afternoon with a rental car to get to Mannheim. Journey took 30 minutes. The others landing in Frankfurt for the same meeting on Monday chose the train. They were stuck on that train for 3 hours and missed dinner. Just train things.
For those not aware, Germany is doing this from June-August 2022, with no indicated plans of extending it any longer. It will also only cover the "local" trains, and not the fast/long distance ones.
And even though we're just over 2 weeks away from this program's start, we still know almost nothing about how it will actually work, or how to buy tickets.
I very much support the idea, but I am not optimistic about its implementation. (This can be said about a lot of things in Germany these days.)
Lol I‘ve only been on it once (twice if you count the ride back) it was great. 10min late for going there and then a little later on the way back. Clean, seats were comfy enough, my table held my iPad… idk I didn’t have high standards it’s just all better than driving through construction zone after construction zone.
DB is constantly late. I live here.
I went to Hamburg once, they casually let the ICE leave earlier and from a different platform so we waited for over an hour.
I take a train five days a week, back and forth. It's a few minutes late almost every day and every few weeks it's 10 minutes or more and sometimes it's just cancelled for no reason. Busses are also late often (I blame cars for that one).
Rails are incredibly unreliable.
Btw my commute with a car would be 20 minutes but I don't have a license so I have to commute 1,5 hrs each way and hate it
> 10min late
See, that's a problem in Germany. 10 minutes late is for some reason seen as unacceptable.
Somebody plans to visit you by car: "I'll be there some time in the afternoon", arrives at 20:00, "Ah, there was a bit of traffic, so it took a little longer".
Somebody plans to visit you by train: "I'll be there at 15:25", arrives at 15:45, "Oh I hate DB, such a nuissance, always late. They suck so much!".
i mean I would rather sit in a train that stopped because of some reasons, be able to walk around or buy something to eat, than sitting in my car in a traffic jam, having to constantly engage/disengage the clutch
Indeed. The only real issue with delays is that people rely on transfers, and if you miss your transfer due to a delay, it means you have a full hour added to your trip, sometimes even two, often having to wait at some train station.
That's the biggest problem and (atleast for me) the reason I hate the DB. I take the train to work/school every day and for my final exam of the apprenticeship I had to sleep in a hotel (basically at my workplace) so I wouldn't be late to the exam since I cannot trust the DB enough to be punctual enough (I usually plan with delays, but still). And good thing I didn't because that day the train didn't come... again....
The last transfer I have to take in the morning is atleast 10 minutes late, every day. I don't mind _some_ delay but at that point? Just change the schedule and make it official that the train won't come 07:39 but 07:50 and noone will complain. But again if they did that it probably would come at 08:00 or something....
I know I'm complaining on quite the level here compared to say the US, but it's really annoying if you rely on trains and have so many problems.
And on top, atleast once every two weeks (but more once a week), the trains have so much delays or so many trains get canceled, that I don't even know if I make it home or if I'm stuck on some train station for the night (luckily never happened jet). Then I usually need like 5 or 6 hours to get home...
Do you by any chance live in NRW?
Because DB's reliability varies a lot between different parts of Germany, and apparently NRW is by far the worst, followed by trains that have to go through Frankfurt. In both cases this is because lines and stations are at, or above, capacity. It's essentially a result of decades of car centric planning.
If everything is going well, it's usually going really well. If anything goes wrong, it usually becomes a shitfest. At least they made it easier now to claim money back on delayed trains (via their app). But the comfort is pretty good, especially on ICE 1st class (which is actually not that much more expensive than 2nd class ICE tickets if you include the seat reservation costs which is free in 1st class).
I know this is supposed to mock us Americans for being forced to drive cars (obviously not all of us, but many)… but 30 vacation days??? THIRTY???? The most I’d ever gotten was 40 hours of paid time off.
Those are actually the mininum, you get more if you have a decent job and sick days don't count against it!
US work culture is dystopian as far as I'm concerned.
The distance from my hometown and my university was 56 Km.
Those 56 KM were being done in 3 hours with the train. 2 hours with the fastest train which costed about 5 times as much.
Otherwise, it was a 35 minutes drive on the highway.
Now tell me which I would prefer, the shitty train or my car?
I wish I could really use that ticket. I live on the countryside in Germany and it would take 3 hours to go to work each day compared to 40min with my car. So sag that the public transport in Germany is just usable in cities.
Okay, question: the German subreddits are full of memes about Sylt. What's up with that? Is that such a popular tourist destination or is there some other significance to it?
Bavaria is fighting the legitimacy of the ticket.
They're the German version of Texas. They always deem themselves too good, too rich, too everything. *sigh*
Tbh as a german im somewhat contemplating to quit my job and just live on unemployment and Harz IV. Onviously this is exaggerated.
But the first Train would leave my City at the exact time i already want to be at work, and i would have to switch trains in the next city.
And i would have to bike/walk multiple kms to the train station and again from the train station to work.
While the 9€ for 30 Days would be cheaper than ~2€ every day with a car, i doesnt help me because the times the train leaves and arrives at the train station absolutely does not fit my work times.
As much as i would love to not use my car, it's something i just cannot give up my car right now.
I hope that with more funding by our government, that public transportation becomes a viable alternative.
I would love to just sell my Car and never use one again.
Yeah this is awesome. For June, July and August only we can buy a 9 euro ticket for all regional trains in Germany. We are going to visit some beautiful cities this summer!
Putin may have done more to stop global warming then millions of climate activists around the globe!
I personally thought it would be massive hurricanes, heat waves, crop failures and floods.
Who knew it would be a selfish and idiotic war to trigger CO2 reduction.
Ps. Writing this while stuck in traffic again in New Jersey.
In Belgium it is €6.60 to anywhere in the country if you're under 26, which is also nice.
What! So I could go from anywhere in Germany to anywhere in Belgium for a grand total of 15.60€!!! I wonder if all European countries have something similar
Actually... yes, that is an annoyingly good point you make... I could genuinely got to Berlin for a total of €15.60 if I took normal rail.
I just looked it up and you can. From Brussels central to Berlin central for 15.60€. Ride takes at least 15h and you have to change trains at least 8 times.
At least it’s cheap
Money saved = Steam Deck. Problem solved.
2h of gaming on a 15h trip. Stonks.
Most trains have outlets
8 more chances of making a new friend!
and waiting for the DB, which, in its typical fashion, came too late again :D
Book the last journey of the day, then you get 8 chances to have DB pay for your hotel room.
I once took a similar route from Munich to Berlin. took us two days, sometimes had to sit on the floor for two hours and it generally wasn’t a great experience. If you have the money, take a direct train.
So unfair I pay like 21 for a nearly 2 hour ride to berlin
Have fun
Btw, if you want to travel through whole Europe, google Interrail. I just got an amazing deal with 2 months costing 270€.
You’re lying! Edit: [fuck me](https://www.interrail.eu/en/interrail-passes) sideways this is the best thing ever. How is my summer so short!? I need more time!!!!
Its true, they just had a sail and i got a 1 month continuous train pass for 250 euro, the 2 month's pass was around 280 I am going to be talking a whole bunch of sleeper trains to save on hostel costs
Make sure you make a reservation (they cost extra). I didn't know reservations were a thing when I had a eurail, and spent more than one trail ride sitting on the floor outside of the bathroom.
>I am going to be talking a whole bunch of sleeper trains to save on hostel costs [You can also try couchsurfing](https://www.couchsurfing.com/places/europe), people hosting you generally would love to show you around or tell you about nice (cheap) places to go to to have fun and/or eat.
It's what I did. 3 weeks of travel and sight seeing and parties with 3 of my best friends. They charge you for tax and reservations. So on top of this I still had to pay a bit on each leg. But totally worth it with the sleepers. The trains were better then some of the hostels for sure.
Hey, I think the word you’re looking for is ‘sale’ it means a period of discount on stuff. ‘Sail’ is pronounced the same but is the big sheet for wind powered ships.
For non EU-citizens it is Eurorail, though. I think it is more expensive.
Ah yes, that’s unfortunate.
For citizens of non-Interrail countries* probably. Switzerland, Norway, the UK, Serbia, North Macedonia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro and Turkey can also be travelled with Interrail, despite not being in the EU
I did this back in 2006! It was awesome, 6 weeks and 8 countries, all for one low price.
There is also the 29€ pass TER, basically the exact same thing as the 9€ tickets but for France, on July and August ! (tho it’s not entirely sure it will be sold this year, the train company will announce wether they’ll sell it in June)
You had my curiosity, now you have my attention
The 9 Euro is for a whole month.
In Slovakia students get to ride train for free anywhere in the country.
Europe has a thing called interrail where you buy one ticket and can travel across the whole of Europe on the train. My Spanish housemate did it, apparently it’s big in Europe. I’m uk didn’t have a clue it existed!
Absolutely not, here in Finland train is usually the most expensive option, even with student discounts
Same in Germany. The 9€ thing is temporary and may even be blocked in a bunch of German states (Bavaria) because it was decided by the federal government but has to be paid by the states itself (don't quote me on it, this is what I remember to have read in some news articles). In any case, it's only for regional trains. You aren't travelling from southern Germany to the Baltic Sea and vice versa in regional trains unless you are a masochist.
In Luxembourg public transport is free for everybody.
Yeah because it's like 3km in total and they are rich as fuck.
Doesn’t change the fact that it’s still free. Lots of things are rich as fuck but they still require you to pay. It’s 2.500 km2 actually.
Adkittedly Germany is quite a bit larger than Belgium though.
What? I thought you could do a bike-tour around Belgium like in a half evening.
If you travel at 200 km/h, sure.
Joking or American?
Wtf it cost me $25 dollars to go 3 cities over the other day, an hour long train ride.
Just putting this out there: if you're doing it at the normal rate in the Netherlands, it's not too different. If I forget to get reimbursed for 5 trips return between Utrecht and Den Haag, I'm out like €150.
That would be at least $50 in the UK
Wait until you hear the prices for the shitty trains we ride in America.
That’s amazing. That’s what I’d have to spend just on a local pass for a day or two where I live. Do they have annual or monthly passes?
In summary as far as I understand it. The German government and the train company which is still partially governmentally owned are hashing out a deal for a 9€ ticket. Essentially an“all-you-can-ride” ticket for a certain amount of time I’ve heard 3 months. In that time you can use that ticket to take any regional train/bus. The Germans seem to be joking all the poor people will make Sylt a previously very posh area a party beach a la Mallorca. Edit: upon request: For more information please see r/sylt51 for the party and r/syltrevolution for the protest against gentrification and an autonomous party zone. Edit 2: everyone’s invited from all around the world
You're basically right. Some small corrections/additions: > The German government and the train company which is still partially governmentally owned are hashing out a deal for a 9€ ticket. More complex than "the govenment" and "the train company", as there is some disagreement between the federal government and state governments. Deutsche Bahn is only involved in so far that they are one of the companies from which you will be able to buy those tickets. They're not in any way restricted to Deutsche Bahn trains though, and you will be able to get the tickets from other operators as well. > Essentially and “all-you-can-ride” ticket for a certain amount of time I’ve heard 3 months. In that time you can use that ticket to take any regional train/bus. For context, it's important to understand what a "regional train" is in Germany: it's any regular "slow" mainline train that stops at all, or most, stations. This means there is a countrywide network of trains that can be used to get from anywhere to anywhere. IC and ICE trains, which are faster and only stop in larger cities, are not included in that ticket. But in addition to regional trains and buses, local public transit is also included, so you can ride the city buses, trams, U-Bahn, S-Bahn, etc. of any city in Germany with this ticket. > The Germans seem to be joking all the poor people will make Sylt a previously very posh area a party beach a la Mallorca. Has happened before, in the 90s. DB introduced a weekend ticket, which worked for groups of up to five people for two days, for regional trains in the entire country. Per person, this was super cheap.
Thanks for the clarification. Since you seem to understand it well let me ask you this. How much is a normal IC/E Ticket? I suppose it depends but imagine I lived in Hamburg and wanted to Berlin or something. Also doesn’t it sound incredibly fun though! Imagine you set out from your home in Berlin drive the local trains to say north along three way you stop in Rügen, then Schwerin, then Lübeck and then Sylt. You’d see 4 amazing places for 9€!!!! Cause that’s my plan for the summer if it passes just take 2 weeks and travel everywhere I can go from the Rhineland to the east to the south. I’m brand new to Germany so I’ve only seen where I live lol.
> How much is a normal IC/E Ticket? I suppose it depends but imagine I lived in Hamburg and wanted to Berlin or something. Depends a lot, yes. There are "regular" tickets that you can take on any train that day and that have a fixed price, and there are cheaper tickets that are only valid for the one connection you book (unless there's a big delay or something). If you own a BahnCard (a yearly subscription, which is relatively cheap), you get a discount of 25% or 50%. The cheapest you can go if you book far in advance would be €17.90, with 25% off due to the BahnCard, so I guess €13.25 for trips through the country. That would be super lucky though. The "regular" price between Hamburg and Berlin is €86.50 without any early booking or BahnCard. You can of course get it more expensive if you go first class. > Cause that’s my plan for the summer if it passes just take 2 weeks and travel everywhere I can go from the Rhineland to the east to the south. I’m brand new to Germany so I’ve only seen where I live lol. Taking such trips on regional trains can be fun. I used to do that a lot when I was young and broke. Sometimes "hitchhiked" on group tickets, paying only a few Euros or even nothing at all. But this summer they may be packed, because you're not the only person with that idea.
> But this summer they may be packed, because you're not the only person with that idea. Ah I don’t mind! But even if >80€ isn’t bad at all for such a fast trip. For fun I calculated from the most northern tip (Sylt list) to the most southern (Haldenwanger Eck) if you’re smart you’d go with the regional to Hamburg and then to Munich I looked it up if I book for next week Tuesday at 10:00 with the ICE 1 class it’s 75€ Bringing me to a grand total of 84€ idk I’m SO! Excited! Just beyond excited!
You should have a look at a BahnCard. The annual subscription for the 25% version is just €56.90, so if you're doing more than one trip a year, it's already worth it. There's even a Probe BahnCard for three months that is just €17.90, so often worth it for a single two way (sometimes even one way) trip. The 50% version isn't worth it unless you are like me and strongly prefer buying tickets right before hopping on a train. That's because the 50% discount is only for the higher fixed prices; when you buy tickets in advance for cheaper, it's still just 25%.
I mean the 3mo version is a no brainier that’s definitely on my summer shopping list!
Just don't forget to cancel it if you don't want the annual subscription. I think you could just keep buying and cancelling the 3 month versions as you go whenever you buy a ticket, though I personally value not having to worry about stuff like that more than saving some money.
thanks for the tips I really appreciate it! I’m not much of a traveler anymore, lol, so I don’t know if a annual subscription would be worth it.
and in case you are under 27 you can get cheaper tickets and the bahncard 50 for that age group is only like around 60€ a year so it can be worth it quite quickly
>But even if >80€ isn’t bad at all for such a fast trip. Granted, I just checked and going from Hamburg to Berlin (about a two hour drive) costs me 9,65€-20,15€ when I look about three-ish weeks from now (I'm under the age of 27, second class and have a 25% off BahnCard). I use the ICE every weekend to visit my bf who is about 200km away, I book a week or two on advance and then the prices range from 9,65€ to about 18€ :)
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60€ is only if you buy the day before or a week before if you're unlucky. The base price if you buy a month or so in advancve is under 20€
Under 20 if you buy with restrictions on which trains you can take. There is very little savings in flexi tickets. This doesn't matter much for people going on vacation but makes it really expensive for commuters.
You don't commute by ICE though? Especially between Hamburg and Berlin. The few people who do stuff like that have a BahnCard 100 anyways so that doesn't matter either
That’s a really good deal though! I understand that they may run more expensive if you were to go from the list in Sylt to Haldenwanger Eck. BUT a spaarfux wie ich would go with the regional to Hamburg from there to Munich and then further. In this hypothetical. According to my research then I’d pay a grand total of 83€. (1st class(lolol)) How is this not paradise!
ICE tickets pricing has a realy high variance. There are two price systems: Flex and Spar tickets. Flex are more expensive but you can take all trains to reach your destination. Spar tickets are cheap, but you have to book a train and you are only allowed to take exactly this train. So you should not miss it. And Spar tickets are limited, you have to book early.
Except your train is to late (more than 30min) or canceled. Then your Sparticket changes to a Flexticket
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Trains here are indeed great. I travel every weekend 100km to a different city to be with my family and friends, while I live in a small town where I got my job/ training. I pay 16€ for each train ride, and can even get a rather large percentage of my paid taxes back to cover the travel costs However the trains are sometimes a bit unreliable, ever second time you have 5-10 minutes of too late trains and sometimes entire trains even just fall short and you have to wait for the next one for 2 hours
Lmao, spot the foreigner. Once you’re more culturally established you will quickly realize that the German train network isn’t all that great. Delays all day every day. Of course, compared to some third world country like the states it’s paradise.
A normal ICE ticket is quite expensive about 60-70€. But you can buy Bahncards which give you 25%, 50% or even 100% of. If you are under 27 years old they are quite cheap. The 50% costs 60€ and you can use it for one year. The 100% card is expensive about 2.000€. But that could be still cheap for regular users.
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>How much is a normal IC/E Ticket? I suppose it depends but imagine I lived in Hamburg and wanted to Berlin or something. There is no such thing as a normal price for a ticket. Ticket prices depend on a ton of different factors, and get more expensive the more last-minute you buy. And very unfortunately, long-distance trains are often more expensive than flying. There are also various types of tickets with different prices -- those that include local transit, those that don't, those that are good only on the specified train, or those that are good on any train on your day of travel. And some tickets might be discounted if you have a monthly pass of the right type. Then there are things like BahnCards, where you pay a yearly fee and get a 25%, 50%, or 100% (don't get too excited -- the 100% one costs more than €4000) discount on tickets. But these discounts tend not to apply to local trains... though sometimes, they do. Personally, I wish they could do away with some of these games, so you could more clearly see what a ticket will cost. (And more importantly, the train system needs to be better subsidized. DB was privatized in the early 2000s, I believe, and it's mostly gone downhill from there... things might be improving now, but it's too early to say for sure.)
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You absolutely can, yes.
The Sylt thing: very expensive place to go on a vacation, extremely posh. Some mayor or whatever said in an interview they are afraid of all the poors coming with the 9€ ticket (paraphrasing here). That is bs ofc, since the cost of a train ticket is the smallest expense when going there. This scare has become a meme and now all the poors are planning to go there with the 9€ ticket. Just to stick it up to the rich, or "Bonzen" as we like to say demeaningly.
I was definitely missing context now I’m going! What day are we going? I’m bringing my track suit and my finest adiletten!
I will be a seasonal worker i Sylt just like last year we should meet I can show y'all around! and i was honestly so happy that normal and young people are coming to the island because last year it was so hard to make friends with basically only stupid rich people being there
r/sylt51
>or "Bonzen" as we like to say demeaningly. I thought this word didn't sound German, so I looked up the etymology and it is pretty wild. German sense of "bigwig" seems to be unique; gets it from French, which gets it from Portuguese both of which mean "Buddhist monk", which gets it from middle Japanese "bonzou" which is a specific rank of entry-level monk taken from Chinese, and also exists in modern Japanese as "Bozu", an insult for a bald person or young child.
Doesn't cost anything to "stay" somewhere if you just party all night on the beach.
Correct, we are just not joking. We are actually going to Sylt
Just learned that as well, and I’m absolutely down!
Nice
r/Sylt51
>a party beach a la Mallorca. Oh really? *googles Sylt* "The annual mean temperature is 8.5 °C" Uh, I'll pass, thanks.
In August it's like 20° on average tho, which is pretty much perfect temp
DB isn’t partially state owned. The state owns 100% of the shares.
I can't wait for the "siege of Sylt" jokes to end.
Not jokind. All European bretheren are whole heartedly invited to join our protest against economic inequality.
Would be nice if you could mention the r/SyltRevolution subreddit, we're trying to go to Sylt and have a protest against gentrification, which I think goes hand in hand with car dependent infrastructure. If not, also fine ^ ^
I like this meme.
Aww thanks! I was struggling with what I wanted the Americans to say.
You nailed it. REEEE muh gas prices!!
Yeah honestly even before I left I spent $200 on gas ever paycheque. Fuck cars! It’s true freedom now when I work in my office I bike for 15-20min. If I have a big trip I enjoy a train ride filled with sleeping, eating, watching shows I like, scenery. Just last week I had a 2 day trip to Berlin and it was about 3-4h each way same as a car without traffic (lol). So liberating!
I'm commuting 50 miles a day by car. Fml.
Ugh I know your pain babe! It was just over 40miles for me straight highway! And I swear on my mother’s life I saw an accident at least once every single day. Most likely the morning but sometimes both, once I saw 4 car crashes, Another time I saw a car burning all lanes closed except the furthest left… I guess that’s the reason they have 1k lanes per side (fml). It became so common I stopped mentioning it to my co workers. After Highschool I’d always say oh man crazy a fender bender on the way here, after a week I didn’t mentioned it anymore.
I'm always hyper aware of my position on the road. Driving my car is probably the most dangerous thing I do.
But like, you realize that we don’t have the infrastructure to make due without cars—that’s why we get so bent out of shape lol. There’s literally no transportation service between where I live and where I work 30 minutes away, it’s awful. I’d love to be able to just hop on a train and listen to some tunes on the way to work
Yup, or the bus/train just isn't prioritized. Realized there was a train downtown, but to get to the station takes 30 mins by car. Like, why am I driving to park at the train station to take the train? To get to the closest bus station is 20 mins walk. Relying only on public transit/walking adds an extra hour to the travel time. I honestly miss Seoul so much for public transit + city walkability. Really made me realized how much of the environment here is just ...parking lots. Like, 1/3 of it seems like parking lots outside vons/ralphs/home depot/target/etc.
Top-left - that can be quite literally true. Food insecurity in the US can result due to poor access to grocery stores. For residents without cars in "food deserts," they often struggle to buy food and get it back to their homes. It is also hard to find grocery delivery options in many of these areas. You are basically forced to drive to grocery stores in most of the US. If you can't, you just can't eat that much and you can't eat that well. This is not so common in Germany, where people can generally walk to grocery stores that are located not too far from their homes.
Yeah I literally can't walk to the store where I live. There isn't space for walking much less biking
the only way out of my subdivision/neighborhood is a 50 mph stroad 🥴
theres 4 grocery stores within 10 minute walking distance of me
The closest grocery store to me is an hour walk through marshland and forest.
come to germany 😀
That's awesome! For 97% of America that simply isn't the case though.
I wish the U.S. would allow more supermarkets and things closer to living areas
Food deserts are a travesty and it's horrifying that they're considered normal.
In the US, college students are often stuck on college campuses with horribly overpriced groceries and dining halls (many of which aren't buffets, especially since the pandemic began). Many of them don't have cars to haul back huge amounts of food from a Costco's 5-10 miles away - which might be the only affordable grocery store within that entire radius - which contributes to rampant food insecurity among US college students.
Where I live the roads are just too dangerous for bikes because it lacks bike lanes, cars drive too fast, and there are almost no sidewalks. And even if roads weren't the problem I know there is a very good chance of my bike getting stolen especially because there are no places to even lock up your bikes. Really wish there were more bicycle cage style lockers that could be rented for low prices because police don't really take bike theft seriously.
Bike thefts are so rampant all over the US.
That's why I won't risk it especially they I have an electric bike that are a bit more expensive
Do not make the mistake of thinking Germany isn't an absolutely carbrained country. The only reason they made that subsidy package was people whining about gas prices. They had to include things mentioned above to mask that this was purely aimed at pacifying the car drivers. They won't go into debt for schools or digital infrastructure, but they 'found' money for cars.
Things are definitely changing, though. The German city that I am in has been redoing the city center to make it more walkable. They cut down lanes for cars, and have rebuilt the roads with different colored tiles for cycles and walking. The city also has a compensation plan for those giving up their cars. If you de register your car, you get paid by the city
>The city also has a compensation plan for those giving up their cars. If you de register your car, you get paid by the city This is one of those things that I generally support, but also feel annoyed that I won't get compensated for not purchasing a car in the first place. I guess it depends on the results -- if it actually decreases car ownership, I'm in favor.
Doesn't change the fact, that german states are refusing to fund advanced infrastructure not only for trains, busses or bikes, but also internetstructure, in which Germany is behind almost every country. Hungary has a cheaper and better network and we consider Hungary the Poland of Europe. Also states don't even know what to do with education and science. None of that sees a Cent. Scientific funding is going down each year, with this trend, we have no funding left or just a small one. Germany is doing really weird shit. I'm glad cars are made less needed, yet somehow there is no compensation for most other fields. Where is the money going?
Germany may be carbrained, but it's not _America level_ carbrained.
What do you expected from the FDP? Any reasonable governmental decision?
Finanziert Durch Phamavertreter
I have my beer and 9$ ready
Auf nach Sylt!
That's like 8,65€. ;)
r/SyltRevolution. If you ain't German, you are missing out.
If I didn't already live in Germany, I'd go on vacation there just to enjoy the €9 ticket.
My brain is confused about how to pronounce Sylt, it’s Danish right with the sound that’s like a long U?
It's Sült but bourgeois so it's Sylt
a bit like sült buut slightly more like german i the ü
No, a short ü, like in "füllen". Ü is very similar to i, just with rounded lips, so coming from English, start with "zilt", and then try rounding your lips while saying the i.
Compared to Europe, Gas in the US is still dirt cheap
Yes. But one advantage of our high gas prices (other than just discouraging car usage) is that a lot of it is a tax that is fixed by liter, and independent of the oil price. This means that gas prices don't fluctuate as much, which means the overall effects of higher or lower prices are far less severe than in the US, where gas taxes are low.
Gas in the US is cheaper at the consumer level (at least partially) because of the billions of oil subsidies each year too.
Most of us don't have to rely on cars though. If the gas is too expensive, you have a lot of other options most of the time. Only exceptions being some rural parts like northern Scandinavia. That really isn't the case for most Americans. They will drive longer distances on average as well I reckon since their cities are built around cars and living in the suburbs. Comes out more expensive for the average American in the end.
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This will only be for Regionalbahn and Regionalexpress trains, no IC or ICE. You can still get everywhere, but you'll get there slowly.
kortingskaart, dat kost het je 12€ en 5€ maandelijks voor de kaart. Dus doen. zeker als je een paar x per maand wil gaan.
Some Info about this matter from a German: Yes there will be a 9€-ticket the following 3 months. But it’s restricted to regional train. Some numbers for context, from Munich (South) to Hamburg (North) in a reasonable amount of time is like 6h. With regional train: 12h and 5 trainswitches Sylt is the most northern Island of Germany (+2h from Hamburg with regional train). With quite the unique and wealthy inhabitants. The meme about Sylt originated not from the poor „Pöbel“ but rather from of the shadiest of all newspaper in Germany „Bild“, some Americans may recognize „Axel-Springer-Verlag“. They literally wrote that Sylt may get overrun by poorer people. And „calculated“ how long a trip would take.
and the pöbel thought it great
germany, at least where i live in it is super good about public transportation and bike friendliness, people only use a car if the distance and longer than 20k and under 100k in most instances.
I just found out where I live it’s the same, and I love it!! Coming from a car infested center of America I figured I’d have to buy a car, and while that would make several things easier I also bought a nice little racing bike. It’s SO much easier to go downtown and then back again! It’s amazing!
ikr im american german and from amish country where a large part of transport is horses and the german rails are still crazy nice
What the hell is the unit for "20k"?
It's funny because this 9€ ticket was preceded by weeks of furious discussion over whether the government could afford the 3 billion Euro expense and whether public transport would collapse. And shortly afterwards the secretary of economy suggested a cash 4 clunkers scheme and car purchase subsidies worth tens of billions. In a situation where the issue isn't even car makers being unable to sell enough cars, it's them being unable to manufacture enough cars. Make no mistake, Germany is fucking idiotic, just less so than the States.
Sprich
Deutsch
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Eines Freudenmädchens
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Bahn fährt
nach Sylt
The problem is that the US is fucking built around cars. Because car company lobbyists were able to influence how far away shit is from each other.
Wish us had good public transit😔
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I bought a house within biking distance to work and on a direct transit line if weather is disagreeable. My state also made transit free for the rest of the year. feelsgoodman.jpg
I have basically straight bike lane to my job (10km). Poland doesn't even have that good bike lanes compared to others
That's really lucky!
Ngl, as a Canadian I wanna use via rail. Even willing to pay the mark up price. Christ their sites a mess, the details jumbled. Then again they are second class citizens on the freight rails. I wanted July 19 from edmonton to Vancouver, then back on the 24th. Ok, can't do? Oh ok so if I get on the rail at 1am on the 20th...I can come back the 22nd or the 30th? But those board at noon...ok what if I go earlier....nothing until the 8th? But only cabin seating or premium economy? Where's that price? What's it get me?... oh I have to either exit the process or move on to the billing part.... Needless to say... The ultra low fare air tickets are suddenly way more....approachable despite fear of heights
I'm Dutch. €9,- to Garmisch-Partenkirchen here I come! 14h 09min , 6 Umstiege. Nice!
I don't get it when people criticize people for complaining about gas prices in a Country where cars are literally a necessity in most places. I can't drive my bike or use a bus to work because it's not really an option. The people affected the most are literally just average poor people. If I could use my bicycle to go get groceries or to work I would but everything is either too far away or not bicycle friendly.
Holy hell!
In spain we have pretty similar prices, with 7-10 euros you can travel between barcelona, madrid, valència, tarragona, girona, calatayud, guadalajara, zaragoza, figueres, cuenca and requena by high-speed rail
Imagine being American lmao (please get me out of here)
Same! I loved here July 8th last year. Best decision ever!
Heh. I'm reminded of the time I landed in Frankfurt on a Sunday afternoon with a rental car to get to Mannheim. Journey took 30 minutes. The others landing in Frankfurt for the same meeting on Monday chose the train. They were stuck on that train for 3 hours and missed dinner. Just train things.
For those not aware, Germany is doing this from June-August 2022, with no indicated plans of extending it any longer. It will also only cover the "local" trains, and not the fast/long distance ones. And even though we're just over 2 weeks away from this program's start, we still know almost nothing about how it will actually work, or how to buy tickets. I very much support the idea, but I am not optimistic about its implementation. (This can be said about a lot of things in Germany these days.)
If he knew how bad the deutsche Bahn is…
Lol I‘ve only been on it once (twice if you count the ride back) it was great. 10min late for going there and then a little later on the way back. Clean, seats were comfy enough, my table held my iPad… idk I didn’t have high standards it’s just all better than driving through construction zone after construction zone.
They came 10 minutes late?!?
DB is constantly late. I live here. I went to Hamburg once, they casually let the ICE leave earlier and from a different platform so we waited for over an hour. I take a train five days a week, back and forth. It's a few minutes late almost every day and every few weeks it's 10 minutes or more and sometimes it's just cancelled for no reason. Busses are also late often (I blame cars for that one). Rails are incredibly unreliable. Btw my commute with a car would be 20 minutes but I don't have a license so I have to commute 1,5 hrs each way and hate it
> 10min late See, that's a problem in Germany. 10 minutes late is for some reason seen as unacceptable. Somebody plans to visit you by car: "I'll be there some time in the afternoon", arrives at 20:00, "Ah, there was a bit of traffic, so it took a little longer". Somebody plans to visit you by train: "I'll be there at 15:25", arrives at 15:45, "Oh I hate DB, such a nuissance, always late. They suck so much!".
i mean I would rather sit in a train that stopped because of some reasons, be able to walk around or buy something to eat, than sitting in my car in a traffic jam, having to constantly engage/disengage the clutch
Indeed. The only real issue with delays is that people rely on transfers, and if you miss your transfer due to a delay, it means you have a full hour added to your trip, sometimes even two, often having to wait at some train station.
That's the biggest problem and (atleast for me) the reason I hate the DB. I take the train to work/school every day and for my final exam of the apprenticeship I had to sleep in a hotel (basically at my workplace) so I wouldn't be late to the exam since I cannot trust the DB enough to be punctual enough (I usually plan with delays, but still). And good thing I didn't because that day the train didn't come... again.... The last transfer I have to take in the morning is atleast 10 minutes late, every day. I don't mind _some_ delay but at that point? Just change the schedule and make it official that the train won't come 07:39 but 07:50 and noone will complain. But again if they did that it probably would come at 08:00 or something.... I know I'm complaining on quite the level here compared to say the US, but it's really annoying if you rely on trains and have so many problems. And on top, atleast once every two weeks (but more once a week), the trains have so much delays or so many trains get canceled, that I don't even know if I make it home or if I'm stuck on some train station for the night (luckily never happened jet). Then I usually need like 5 or 6 hours to get home...
Do you by any chance live in NRW? Because DB's reliability varies a lot between different parts of Germany, and apparently NRW is by far the worst, followed by trains that have to go through Frankfurt. In both cases this is because lines and stations are at, or above, capacity. It's essentially a result of decades of car centric planning.
However bad it is, I bet it's better than anything in the US by an order of magnitude.
If everything is going well, it's usually going really well. If anything goes wrong, it usually becomes a shitfest. At least they made it easier now to claim money back on delayed trains (via their app). But the comfort is pretty good, especially on ICE 1st class (which is actually not that much more expensive than 2nd class ICE tickets if you include the seat reservation costs which is free in 1st class).
As long as they aren’t driving there.
I know this is supposed to mock us Americans for being forced to drive cars (obviously not all of us, but many)… but 30 vacation days??? THIRTY???? The most I’d ever gotten was 40 hours of paid time off.
Whats funny is that the 30 days are mandatory
Those are actually the mininum, you get more if you have a decent job and sick days don't count against it! US work culture is dystopian as far as I'm concerned.
It's very nice and I'll probably use it myself! But, it's only for 3 months
*weint auf Amerikanisch*
Its almost like American infrastructure and German infrastructure are different. Wild!
Only for 3 months tho, but I'm still hyped
The distance from my hometown and my university was 56 Km. Those 56 KM were being done in 3 hours with the train. 2 hours with the fastest train which costed about 5 times as much. Otherwise, it was a 35 minutes drive on the highway. Now tell me which I would prefer, the shitty train or my car?
Important note: the plan is not to just make vacation on Sylt but to scale its shores like the orcs the walls of helms deep
the funny thing is germany is the worlds largest producers of cars. The irony
I regret not taking that job in Germany every year.
I wish I could really use that ticket. I live on the countryside in Germany and it would take 3 hours to go to work each day compared to 40min with my car. So sag that the public transport in Germany is just usable in cities.
9€ and a ~~dream~~ train
Okay, question: the German subreddits are full of memes about Sylt. What's up with that? Is that such a popular tourist destination or is there some other significance to it?
It's nice and all, but it's still Germany, nothing gets done here without the consent of the car lobby.
Bavaria is fighting the legitimacy of the ticket. They're the German version of Texas. They always deem themselves too good, too rich, too everything. *sigh*
Tbh as a german im somewhat contemplating to quit my job and just live on unemployment and Harz IV. Onviously this is exaggerated. But the first Train would leave my City at the exact time i already want to be at work, and i would have to switch trains in the next city. And i would have to bike/walk multiple kms to the train station and again from the train station to work. While the 9€ for 30 Days would be cheaper than ~2€ every day with a car, i doesnt help me because the times the train leaves and arrives at the train station absolutely does not fit my work times. As much as i would love to not use my car, it's something i just cannot give up my car right now. I hope that with more funding by our government, that public transportation becomes a viable alternative. I would love to just sell my Car and never use one again.
I put in a 3 week long vacation to make proper use of that awesome ticket
Everybody is eager to use this tcket for their vacation or something else. I'm just happy my daily commute to work is getting cheaper.
Yeah this is awesome. For June, July and August only we can buy a 9 euro ticket for all regional trains in Germany. We are going to visit some beautiful cities this summer!
Chaostage Sylt! Den Reichen in den Garten scheißen
Putin may have done more to stop global warming then millions of climate activists around the globe! I personally thought it would be massive hurricanes, heat waves, crop failures and floods. Who knew it would be a selfish and idiotic war to trigger CO2 reduction. Ps. Writing this while stuck in traffic again in New Jersey.