As a digital nomad: German (17) lives on the train instead of at home

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Always on the go: Lasse Stolley (17) from Schleswig-Holstein lives on the ICE trains in Germany. He has already traveled 500,000 kilometers with his Bahncard 100. This corresponds to twelve orbits around the Earth.

As a digital nomad, he travels through Germany without a permanent residence and works as a programmer wherever he is. “I have a lot of freedom and can decide every day where I want to go: to the Alps, to a big city or to the sea. “I am completely flexible,” the youngster tells “Business Insider”.

“There is no privacy”

He leads a very minimalist lifestyle at Deutsche Bahn: he sleeps on Deutsche Bahn trains and serves himself for free at the DB lounge buffets in larger train stations or goes to the supermarket. He showers in public bathrooms and lives with four T-shirts, two pairs of pants, a neck pillow and a travel blanket. He stores all this in a 36 liter backpack.

As much as Stolley sees advantages in his way of life, he also has to admit that there is no such thing as privacy when you live on the train. “The most important thing is my laptop and my noise-canceling headphones, which at least give me a little privacy on the train.” There is also a lot of theft on night trains.

His life costs him about 10,000 euros a year. He has to spend the most money for the Bahncard 100 first class. He bought it for a youth price of 5,888 euros, about 5,600 francs. With the Bahncard 100 first class he can travel through Germany for free for twelve months. His parents also continue to support him, for example with health insurance. Stolley also works at an IT start-up from Cologne and independently develops apps.

Financing your own nomadic life

Stolley made the decision at the age of 16 to travel the world as a digital nomad. At the time, his promised internship as an IT specialist after graduating from high school was canceled at short notice and he had to reorient himself. He came up with the idea of ​​the Bahncard 100 through a YouTube video. His parents were initially not so enthusiastic, the teenager reports: “I had to do a lot of convincing.”

His biggest dream is to finance his nomadic life himself. He has devised a concrete plan for this: “My wish would be to provide feedback to the transport companies, for example Deutsche Bahn or the train manufacturers, and to be compensated for it.” Line management has already asked for his experience and information, but he has not yet received a concrete offer. (mgf)

Source: Blick