After a anticipated internship fell through, Lasse Stolley was looking for a change of scenery. The girl started residing on European trains almost two years ago.
The spectacular journey has taken the 17- year- ancient from a small community in Germany’s windswept way northeast to the country’s southwestern borders and beyond.
Setting off in August 2022, he has travelled a staggering 650, 000 kilometres ( 400, 000 miles ), the equivalent of going around the Earth over 15 times, while sitting on trains for more than 6, 700 hours.
Being able to choose where I want to get each day is just wonderful– that’s freedom, Stolley claimed in an meeting in a shop at the Frankfurt train station.
” I like that I can really look out the window while traveling and enjoy the scenery go by quickly,” he said, adding that I enjoy being able to explore every location in Germany.
He only has a bag on hand, and he primarily relies on pie and soup, which he receives for nothing in the station lounges of German Bahn as a train pass holder.
Bumpy stop
With his broad smile, the skinny teen appears to have made the doubtful choice to leave his family’s comfort for the demands of daily life on the wires.
Growing up, he had little curiosity in carriages. He had only traveled half on Germany’s high-speed ICE trains and had never owned a model railroad before making the decision to live permanently on the network when he was 16 years old.
However, a planned system software apprenticeship was postponed after graduating from secondary school. He looked up a video about someone who had lived on carriages while looking for something to do next.
” I thought I could do that”, he said.
” At primary it was just an idea, like an impossible plan. But finally I kept getting into it… and therefore I thought,’ OK, I am going to really do this.'”
His kids decided to support him when first trying to dissuade him.
He took a night coach to Munich from his house in Fockbek in the northeastern state of Schleswig-Holstein, and after that took a train to Hamburg. He purchased a rail card that gave him infinite go on the network.
The early times were tough. Stolley usually went home to see his family and avoid falling asleep at night because his railcard forbids him from using night trains with beds.
But he quickly adapted to the daily life of the carriages.
He used an airbed to sleep in the big baggage areas of high-speed trains at night.
And after a time, he upgraded his journey cards to a earliest- group one– costing 5, 888 euros ($ 6, 400 ) a yr– allowing him access to more large carriages and Deutsche Bahn’s lounges.
Rail love
He can now sleep so perfectly in a coach seat that he can no longer use an airbed.
” In a regular bed, I miss the swaying of the coach jerking me around a little at night”, he said.
Stolley also works on the go, working as a freelancer software applications for a start-up.
He often travels to big cities, such as the money Berlin or Frankfurt, the country’s economic hub.
He has traveled to Basel in Switzerland and Salzburg in Austria, just over the German frontier, where he frequently travels through the Alps and to smaller towns. His railcard also covers the details farther north that his travels.
But living on the European train system, which critics say is in a sorry condition after decades of underdevelopment, is not without problems.
” Difficulties and other problems are truly regular affairs”, said Stolley.
Teach staff regularly organize strikes as they push for better pay and conditions, paralyzing the system and forcing Stolley to sleep in airports.
Deutsche Bahn declined to comment when asked what they thought of people choosing to live permanently aboard their railways.
However, while living on Germany’s cracking railways can sometimes be a headache, it can also include sudden upsides– Stolley found romance during his travels, meeting his girlfriend at the Cologne rail station lounge.
Stolley said he is unsure of how long he will live as a postmodern digital hobo, possibly for another year or five.
” At the moment, I am having a lot of fun and experiencing so many things every day”, he said.
