How to fly without a plane

This story was published on September 23rd 2019. It was written by Kathrin (2018–2020 Cohort)

Malta — Sicily — Italy — Germany — England — Germany — Slovenia — Germany — Estonia.

Visiting six countries over the course of six weeks without flying? Yes you can! Dive into some of the valuable impressions and thoughts this way of traveling gave me this summer, and find out how you can fly without flying:

Malta — Sicily

The ferry room is a bit like a hotel. It has a desk, a wardrobe with drawers and hangers, its own little bathroom with a toilet, a sink, a shower, and even some shampoo and soap. How environmentally friendly is this though, I wonder. Shouldn’t everything be as light as possible?

It’s 3:50 am when I let myself fall onto the surprisingly comfortable bunk bed. Even though it’s late and I’m tired, I feel good. The guy who helped me to check in and took me to my room spoke only very little English, but he was so lovely, it immediately brightened my mood. He was smiling all the time (at 3:30 in the morning. Impressive!). In a mix of Italian and English he said that I am the colour of sand. Or did he mean colore sano, which means healthy? I don’t know. As I wash my hands in the tiny bathroom and look at my reflection in the mirror, I can see what he means: My hair, my skin, my eyes, all of it is currently light brown or beige-ish. The colour of Malta, I guess…

Later a Canadian woman joins me in the room. We should probably both sleep, but we start talking and she is a quite interesting person. The picture she paints of Canada with her words is beautiful…

Later we arrive at the port in Sicily. It’s a beautiful day.

Sicily — Italy

A train. Warmth. Time. Time for myself.

A kind woman across from me. Smiles. Little English. Little Italian.

Technical issues with my ticket. The ticket inspector is lenient. He believes me. Niente stress.

Train splitting. A train on a ferry! Peeks through the windows of the other waggons.

The view. The most stunning view! For hours! Coastlines and mountains. Wide sandy beaches. Rocks in the blue blue sea. My jaw drops. Bella Italia, I say. The Italian woman smiles.

We arrive in Napoli. Grazie per tutti, I say to the woman. She smiles warmly.

Pizza and wine. Quite a bit of lovely Italian wine… I get on the night train. A small bunk bed. A lot of time to read. A snack on my pillow. The train’s movement calms me down. I feel free.

I get off the tram in Milano. Confusion. Where is the bus stop?! A pair of friendly eyes. Italian words I don’t understand. Bus station? Si, I say. She points around the corner. Mille grazie!

Italy — Germany

At the Swiss border

“Your documents. Passport. ID card.”

“Get out of the bus. Take your luggage.”

“Stand in a line. Hands out of your pockets. No, do not move. Don’t talk.”

They come with a dog. He seems excited, he is actually very cute. One policeman, who seems a bit embarrassed by the dog’s excitement, leads the dog up and down the line of our luggage while we are all waiting. I feel like a suspect, even though I do not have anything to hide. This might be what people of colour who are inspected at airports and borders, without any further reason except for their outer appearance or origin, feel like. This and much worse. It’s so unfair.

The dog finds nothing. Not in our luggage, not on the bus. We are maybe around 20, 25 people on the bus. We have a 1.5 hour delay now. The bus drivers are frustrated, but they have to be friendly to the police, I can see how much energy it costs them.

Was this really necessary?

Germany — England

Ladies and Gentlemen, you want to travel from a tiny village in South Western Germany all the way up to Northern England? And all of that without a plane? No problem!

It is as easy as this — take a train from your village to the next bigger city. Take a shared ride from there to Cologne. In Cologne, you’ll get two hours until your next connection — plenty of time for a falafel kebab on the stairs of the Kölner Dom!

Then, take an Intercity train to Brussels. Experience funny accents of train conductors as they speak in four languages every time they have to announce something!

From Brussels, take a Eurostar to London. It is a smooth ride and gets you there in 2 hours! A plane won’t be much faster, and on the Eurostar, you can actually stretch your legs!

In London, spend a day with a friend if you have the time! We highly recommend to hang out on a beautiful wildflower meadow in the middle of the city and then have great Ethiopian food.

Then, catch a shared ride from London to Lancaster, your final destination. We don’t know what you will do there. Maybe you will play one of the best sports of all time with a bunch of wonderful people over the weekend? Whatever you are planning to do, we guarantee you that you will meet lovely people on the drive there that you can play games and solve riddles with all along the way.

From Germany to Northern England without flying — no plane, much gain! Try now!

Germany — Slovenia

First fast. And then slow. And many words you don’t know.

Trees and mountains. Snow on the top! The train spits out people at every stop.

Rivers, so precious, so blue and so clean. Meadows with flowers you might never have seen.

The alps. Emperors. Majestetic and strong. Suddenly 6 hours do not seem that long.

Slow-venia. sLOVEnia. slOVENia in July.

People are friendly, you should really stop by. (… and take the train! So worth it!)

Germany — Estonia

Dear journey journal,

I am in Estona now. This journey was one of the longest, and a bit less exciting, because it was mostly overnight. A train to Warsaw that got me there at around 11 pm, a bus to Vilnius, another bus to Riga, and then one last bus up to Pärnu, where I arrived at around 5 pm the next day. Nevertheless, just seeing how the countryside, the language, and the people change the further I went east and then north was interesting. My favourite part was the last one or two hours from Riga to Pärnu. The streets became a bit smaller and suddenly, for many kilometers, I had a beautiful, fairytale-like forest on one side, and the sea peeking through here and there on the other side. Meadows full of white, yellow and purple flowers… Forests full of birches and pine trees, with moss on the ground, and blueberries… I was honestly expecting to see Red Riding Hood walk along one of the paths. And then, when I got to Pärnu, I found this magical tiny football pitch hidden behind the trees… What a wonderful country!

These are impressions of my travel experiences from this summer. The goal was: Go where you want to go to play Ultimate Frisbee or visit friends without flying.

Yes, not taking the plane took a lot longer. And even though I know now that I like night trains, but not night buses, I would always do it again for four reasons:

First, this way I avoid going through airport security, which always stresses me out, especially since I had surgery on my shoulder — I have a tiny piece of metal in my shoulder now, so I will beep every time I go through the scanner now. Ugh.

Second, going by bus or train allows you to be way more flexible in your packing! I took my big suitcase and my big backpack all the way up to Estonia, and none of the buses or trains charged me extra (even though that can depend on how many people take the bus).

Thirdly (maybe the most important reason): It just gives me the chance to have my body and my mind arrive there simultaneously. When I get off a plane, I — BOOM! — get hit by suddenly being in an entirely different context. If I travel on the land, I can see and feel how everything changes. The language. The people. The view. The colours. The air. Even though travelling by bus and train takes a lot longer, I feel a lot less tired when I arrive. Because I had the time to let my thoughts arrive, too. In general, I had some of the most influential and colourful thoughts during my travels this summer. Because they had the time and the space to develop.

And the fourth reason might be a controversial one. But I also avoid flying because of environmental reasons. Yes, I know that the carbon footprint of ferries is sometimes worse than that of planes. Same goes for buses that are mostly empty. But it’s about more than carbon footprints.

If I don’t comfortably fly anywhere I want to go, I will probably travel more consciously and probably not as much. No one will do the, sorry, very wasteful trip to have breakfast in Paris and then fly back on the same day if travelling there takes six hours instead of one.

If I don’t fly, I show that it is possible to travel without flying, and this way, I support public transport rather than airlines which, in my opinion, offer flights to such cheap prices that travelling becomes way too cheap for us. Which then makes it quite expensive for this planet.

Our lives are too easy nowadays. We want everything to be comfortable and fast and simple. But, as you might have seen in this post, sometimes things are more fun and often more interesting when they are less comfortable (because then you broaden your horizons), less fast (because then you have more time for yourself) and less simple (because the more complex things are way more fascinating to explore).

I would never tell anyone to stop flying entirely. Some people do not have the time, or just don’t have a choice (like many of my course mates who are from far away, or if you’re flying to for example a family event that is very important to you, but you don’t have the time to get there without flying). But at least be conscious of your travels and the costs they have for other, and please consider not flying if you can avoid it. Because, I promise, you will have a great time in a different way!

You will see — you can fly even when you stay on the ground.

You will see how your thoughts fly. Because when you travel n the ground, they will have the time that we lack so much in our everyday lives, and the chance to do so!

No plane, much gain ;)

P.S.: If you do fly somewhere and are worried about your carbon footprint or in general the impact this has on the environment — have you ever thought about compensation/carbon offsetting? See websites that help you with this like offset.climateneutralnow.org or atmosfair.de/en/