How to get around in Germany. 

When traveling in Germany, you have many options. You can drive, fly, take the bus or ride a train. If you are lucky enough to get a ride share (like a BlaBlaCar), that is always an option to consider just from a price point.

If you’re unlucky, but you still want to save money, you have two, maybe three options.

One would be to take the bus. The biggest company would be Flixbus, but there are also some smaller companies.

Buses are generally affordable. But they’re usually quite filled up and not very comfortable. I’m not a fan of buses in general. And I’m an expert Greyhound rider. 3 days at once were my longest trip. Of course, you won’t get a 3 day trip in Germany, but trips can amount to over 10-14 hours easily, with the bus stopping everywhere.

Options two and three would be the train. I haven’t had any bad delays in a while, but I had some. You could either get a Saver Ticket (only online, get yours @ Bahn.de), and sometimes it’s even cheaper, or just a tad more expensive than it. You could get an ICE ticket for as low as 29€. The pros of this easily outweigh those of bus travels, if you ask me. Firstly, it’s usually faster, and secondly, it’s way more comfortable.

The other train option would be a so-called ‘Länderticket’. Get yours at every train station or online. It’s around 23€ for 1, but you can travel in groups up to 5, and the price increase is only 5€ per person. 5 people would pay around 43€ in total or 8.60€ per person. That’s quite cheap, isn’t it?

The downsides are, that you need to write your names on the ticket to make it valid, and it’s only valid for one day. You’d also be restricted to regional traffic. It takes about one to two hours longer than with intercity services, but the price is pretty much unbeatable. Sometimes you can even use your Länderticket for public transportation at your destination.

But off course I’d always take the bus if it would be considerably cheaper. Like that time I paid CA$175 to get from Kitchener, ON to Vancouver, BC. That was also the time I spent 3 days in a Greyhound.

So how would you get around in when you travel? Especially when you don’t hire a car? Do you share rides? Do you use public transportation or the bus? Tell me in the comments down below.