This camping trip was supposed to be an Eastern Europe-only road trip, but plans turned out a little differently. A friend asked me to join a festival in Berlin. So I decided to add Berlin to my itinerary towards Eastern Europe, which is obviously not really on the way. But anyway, it was totally worth it, although a lot of driving. Let’s get started in Switzerland after a month in my home country.
Scuol, Switzerland
As for my birthday in Switzerland, a Vietnamese friend visited me, and I wanted to show her some more mountain areas and invited her to join me for a couple of nights of camping. She happily agreed, and we planned to head East into the Swiss mountains, where we could stop by some nice lakes in a higher valley. There’s quite a strong wind going through it, and therefore it’s famous for windsurfing and kiting. We observed some of that and continued on to a famous mountain sports town called St. Moritz, where we took a walk around the lake and the town centre. There, the weather started to shift. It started to rain, and since the valley is quite high, it was already quite cold. So we grabbed our warm clothes and a rain jacket. For the night, we moved farther north in the valley to a campsite. We went for a walk into town, crossed a spectacular bridge, and got some local food.
Kufstein, Austria
The next day, we crossed the border into Austria. It was quite some driving, and we missed joining a museum we wanted to visit because we couldn’t progress as fast as we wanted through the mountains. We decided to continue driving and stopped at a town I’ve been to a couple of times to grab dinner. I knew a very nice restaurant with amazing local dishes. I love West Austrian cuisine (Tirol) and was excited to get that food and also show my friend some more local dishes after we already tried a couple of Swiss dishes.
While travelling, I was working, which was quite a challenge in addition to being a tourist guide. Luckily, I was super flexible with the current project and had an amazing project manager who was flexible and let me work my flexible hours as long as the work got done according to the set timeline. I had a scheduled check-in meeting the next morning. We had already crossed the border into Germany the evening before in search of a place to stay for the night. While we found a good place to park, I realised in the evening, when doing some work before sleep, that the mobile data is horrible. Annoying to do my usual work and definitely not enough for a call. I remember and totally forgot how bad Germany’s mobile data network is. So I decided to head a couple of kilometres back over the border to Austria again. And look at that. Just crossing towards a different country made my internet speed increase from a couple of kilobytes to up to 200 MBit/s. That’s not really promotion for Germany, but a fact. Trains and mobile data are definitely not a strength of Germany as a country.
Munich, Germany
After the online meeting with my project manager, we headed straight to Munich. My Vietnamese friend has to catch a train to Frankfurt, where she had a flight the other day. So I dropped her there and parked in the city to do some focused work since I was alone again. But alone time didn’t last for long. I have a really good friend in Munich, who will join me for the next leg of the journey towards Berlin and further. Since it was during the week and we both had work, I left the van parked in the street and could crash at my friend’s house in the city. She has a great workspace with an external screen and a standing desk. So I used that opportunity to get some very focused work done.
Bamberg, Germany
Later in the week, we continued north towards Berlin, where we will attend a festival. But that’s quite a drive, and I don’t like to drive for too many hours straight. So we did two stops on the way North. The first stop was in Bamberg, a city I’ve visited by train before. We stopped and had a walk around the historical centre. Quite nice buildings and built between and around the river. It gives me a lot of Strasbourg vibes. After we randomly explored the town, we went to a pizza place recommended by a friend who sadly couldn’t join us. We went there anyway and enjoyed the delicious stone oven pizza.
Potsdam, Germany
There’s a city just a little South of Berlin, I never had the chance to stop by. So this was the chance. After a great night and productive morning, a bit outside of Bamberg on the highway, we made our way north. We stopped a bit outside the city, parked and headed into the centre of Potsdam. My friend is very into the gym and has a membership at a studio that operates across Germany. She was even able to bring me along as a guest so we could do some workouts and use the sauna there. I almost never got into the gym, and it was amazing to have someone to push me to go and do things together. We, for example, did a group workout which broke me completely.
Berlin, Germany
The weekend was coming up again. Time flies on the road. While it’s very exhausting to drive and work at the same time, it makes me aware of my capabilities. It’s for sure not something you can do for longer, but for a week or two, it’s totally doable. We made it to Berlin on Friday, which is always a day off for me. We parked the camper at a Park & Ride location a bit outside of the city. It’s a parking space outside the city, with easy access to public transportation. Usually quite affordable to park and not crazy expensive, as if you need to park somewhere in an underground parking in the city centre. It’s a concept many European cities apply to keep cars out of the centre and give people incentives to park in the suburbs and come to the city centre by train/metro. We did exactly that, parked the van for 2 nights for free in the suburbs and moved to a hotel in the centre.
We had 3 goals in Berlin: attend the Lollapalooza festival, eat a Doner Kebab, and explore the nightlife. After we arrive at the hotel, we unpack our things and head out into the city. The weather was still not great. The full week was mostly grey and rainy. Nevertheless, we walked around the centre and grabbed a döner. It was really delicious, and we had a happy tummy. Afterwards, we went to another place to grab a bubble tea, since we both love that. To our surprise, prices in Berlin are extraordinary nowadays. Last time I visited, it was one of the cheaper German cities, but that no longer applied. Crazy how things change within just a couple of years.
In the evening, we went out to explore a crazy part of Berlin’s nightlife. People told me about a famous kinky nightclub. My friend and I wanted to try to see how that is. Berlin is famous for its nightlife in general and for its openness. I think nowhere in the world you’ll find such places publicly, which are not just underground and invite online. I was impressed by that and also how well things were organised and handled. Definitely a good and interesting experience.
The next day was relaxed. I tried to find a Starlink to have proper internet on my onward journey, after the reminder that mobile data is not as reliable in every European country as I know it from my trip to Scandinavia last year. Sadly, none of the big electronics shops had the new, small Starlink receiver in stock, so I ordered one online for pickup in Vienna, where I’ll be passing through in the coming days.
In the evening, we joined the Lollapalooza Festival at the Olympiastadion in Berlin. This was the main reason we actually came to Berlin. Because Berlin isn’t really on the way to where I want to go when talking about going to Eastern Europe. I don’t go to festivals often and don’t really know many artists. My friend wanted to see Gracie Abrams. I didn’t know her, but I agreed to join. I saw that the festival’s headliner was Justin Timberlake, whom I knew and was interested in seeing. There were also some K-Pop artists playing, which were actually quite good. I never listened to K-Pop before, so it was quite interesting. Also, during the main act, it was raining like crazy. We were prepared with multiple raincoats, but still got wet trousers. Good luck, it was not too cold. The show was great. I’m always very interested in the technical part, since I’ve been working as a cameraman on such events. And that part excited me a lot. The special effects, graphics, sound, lights and video were top-notch. Also, Justin was performing nicely in the heavy rain.
Rhododendron Park
My Indonesian/German friend from Munich had a couple of more days off. So we planned to reach Vienna by Tuesday morning. I had an extended weekend, so Monday off as well. But to achieve that comfortably, we left Berlin on Sunday morning, not too late.
From Berlin, we headed Southeast, passed Cottbus and left the highway to check out a mark I had on my map for a while. There’s a park with some very strange sculptures and an arch bridge. We went there and had a walk in the park. The weather still wasn’t great, but we were lucky. During our walk, the sun came out a bit, and we stayed dry. In the parking lot, I continued working before we headed farther east to Poland.
Jelenia Góra, Poland
In Poland, we entered an area I’ve never been to. We crossed some hilly, quiet countryside until we arrived in a town called Jelenia Góra. There, we found a parking space close to the centre that we could use for the night. Before it got dark, we headed into the centre and, to our surprise, found some activities underway. They had some kind of street festival in the main square. We watched it for a bit until we got too hungry, then headed to a nearby restaurant to try some local Polish dishes, one of which was “Pierogi”.
After a good night in the public parking, we headed out to grab some breakfast at a cafe close by in the city. The weather was great again, sunshine and good vibes in the street. We enjoy this quick stop in Poland.
Brno, Czechia
We had a couple of more days to get towards our final destination – Vienna. We decided to stop in the Czech Republic since we had to cross it on our way from Poland. The second-largest city in the country is just a 1-2-hour drive from Vienna, where we chose to stay for another night. I was still off and had time to explore. While I was driving, my friend managed to book a place in the city centre of Brno. The problem with going around in a camper and not staying at camping sites is that we have no or very limited facilities in public spaces. So rarely a toilet and no showers. So from time to time I like to stay at a hotel to shower. That’s what we did in Brno. Parked in a public parking and walked to the apartment we booked for a night. We only took the most important things which we needed for a night, so we were super light and flexible.
Once we checked in, we showered and got ready to go out into the city for dinner. We strolled around the centre for a bit and found a nice Japanese Sushi place where we enjoyed dinner together. Then we headed back home and slept well since we were super tired from all the travel over the past few days. Country number 4 within a week and hundreds of kilometres driven.
Vienna, Austria
The final stop for my friend is Vienna. From there, she takes a train back to Munich. We made it super easy to the main train station and parked the van below. Since the train wasn’t departing yet, we had time to grab some lunch close by. That was a great round trip, very spontaneous and nothing planned between Berlin and Vienna. Just this fixed time to catch the train. That’s who I like going around with, and everything was smooth.
After my friend caught the train, I went downstairs at the train station to get some groceries to fill the camper’s fridge. This was trick Nr. 77 to not pay for the underground parking, which is quite expensive, usually in such a location. So by buying at the local supermarket (which I had to do anyway at some point), I got free parking.
After I’ve done groceries, there was another stop in Vienna planned to get my Starlink. I sent it to the electronic market for pickup. The shop was in an industrial/outlet area outside the city with huge parking. So I decided to stay there for a while to do some work, installing and trying out the Starlink. All worked well, and it was super easy to set up.
