Where can we even travel to this year? After weeks, or shall I better say months, of guessing and debating what, where, how and for how long we can even go in the summer, we ended up with this scenario – we´re going on a road trip through northern Germany. I´m not exactly jumping to the ceiling and beyond, but hey, it´s better than nothing. We´ve got 3 weeks time before we have to pick up Lu and we drive down to Slovenia together. It´s so weird to travel right now, especially since we´ve got 3 different passports (Slovenian, French and German), so I´m already super confused while checking all these charts, numbers and lists. You call the embassy and they say A, you call the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and they say B, you hear from people actually crossing the border and they say C. Now go have a great holiday. It´s just a bit stressful, that´s also why we decided to stay in Germany and see the most of it while we are still here. So we´re driving to almost all if not all the corners I´ve been wanting to visit for a long time already. We expect masses of people, since all the 80mio Germans are mostly staying in the country and it´s the busiest 2 weeks, but hey, there´s no other way now. So, what´s our itinerary? Somehow like this.

NORTHERN GERMANY TRAVEL ITINERARY | the coasts and landscapes of Mecklenburg Vorpommern and Schleswig Holstein

POTSDAM

We plan to make our first longer stop in Potsdam, not to far from Berlin. Potsdam is a wonderful city, I´ve visited already two times, but as always, there is never time to see everything. If you are ever in Berlin and have an extra day to spend, this is a great option as you can easily get here with the train as well.

MECKLENBURGISCHE SEENPLATTE

The next 3-4 days we´ll be relaxing between over 1000 lakes (yup, there are sooo many out there) in the area with this weird name, somewhere half way between Potsdam and the Baltic coast in the north. I wanted to come here for a couple of times already, but it never worked out so I´m even happier to finally do it now. Except the coast, I never really explored the German state of Mecklenburg Pommern, so it will be a nice thing to do. Cycling, canoe rides, swimming and chilling in the hammock – can´t wait! Also, there is like very little info in English online so I think this will be another of those German hidden gems.

ISLAND USEDOM

Now, this island which belongs to Germany as well as Poland has been on my radar for quite a while now, but somehow I´ve never gotten to get to it. I guess now it´s my chance and here we go – we have 4 days. I hope to breathe in as much as fresh air as I can, eat some local delicacies, cycle around until I feel my legs burning and maybe, just maybe, I finally throw myself into this cold sea for the first time. We might also hop over across the border to Poland for a day – there is a town called Swinemünde very close by and apparently it´s a great place for a yummy cheaper lunch.

NP VORPOMMERSCHE BODDENLANDSCHAFT

Here, I´ve spent a few days with Lu in Prerow a couple of years ago, but we were a bit too lazy to explore the whole area. So now, we decided to spend some time here too and maybe cycle and walk around a bit more. Because we were so late with searching for camp sites we only got one night but better than nothing.

PLÖN, SCHLESWIG & FLENSBURG

Heading towards west we eventually reach the German state called Schleswig Holstein and check out the city & lake of Plön, Schleswig & Flensburg towns and maybe even cross over to Denmark for a day. We have no accommodation booked here yet, so it will be a spontaneous decision, but I found lots of motorhome parking places in the area. I´ve already been to Wismar, Lübeck, Rostock, Stralsud, Rügen island, Scharbeutz, Timmedorfer Strand, Kiel and some other known places in the area, but I´m happy to focus on the unknown for the moment.

ISLAND SYLT

This was a hard one – after calling xy times, we finally found the last free spot in a camping on this famous German island. The accommodation seems to be 99% booked out and it´s really not easy to get something at this kind of last minute, except a few hotels for like 300-450€ a night. So, I´m happy to spend 4 days here, lets´s see what the fuss is all about and if it´s really so great as everyone is saying.

HALLIGEN ISLANDS

Just south of Sylt (which is btw the northern most German island) there are a couple of smaller islands, perfect for a day trip and exploring by bicycle. I´ve particularly looked into Amrum and Hooge, but let´s see if we have time for both of these. No clue about accommodation here, we´ll need to find something as we go or book it a few days in advance.

ST. PETER-ORDNIG

The last big stop, I really want to walk around this place which is famous for being one of the best kite surfing spots in Germany – with a loooong white sandy beach it is also the only place in the country where you can legaly drive your car on the sand for a while. It will probably be full like many other places but I guess this is the harsh reality of this year marked by the Coronavirus. On the way home there´s just one more thing I like to do – have  proper drinks with my friends in Hanover and eat as much as I can because the next day I´m getting my wisdom teeth pulled out and I´m gonna be out for a few days after it.

TRAVEL COSTS | accommodation, transport and other costs

How much is it going to cost us? Well, our tank is full, diesel is very cheap right now (just a bit over 1€). We are looking at around 1800km so the gas money shouldn´t be more than 200€ altogether. Camp sites for 2 adults & car are between 20-25€, except on Sylt where we´re paying 35€ a night and sometimes we plan to sleep at official night parking lots so I think we should pay around 300€ for accommodation in total. One more major cost will be the car train to Sylt – 100€ return ticket and there will be more for bicycle & canoe rents, entry fees and of course food. Luckily there are no road tolls in Germany. So this should be a 800€ + food road trip for the two of us.

So, everybody who is interested in this kind of road trip, please follow on INSTAGRAM and FACEBOOK, especially the ones based in Europe who still don´t know where to spend this year´s summer holidays – Germany´s coast might be it for you too.