Two-Week Road Trip in Europe

We kicked off our long-term travel by a road trip starting in Frankfurt. Our flight from Seattle was with Condor (a German low-budget airline), and was largely uneventful, i.e. it went well. Our son happens to LOVE flying, so he is super excited to be on the plane, and after playing some games and watching some cartoons, he slept most of the way to Frankfurt. We rented a car, a hybrid Jeep Renegade (which caused us some problems, but more on that later), and did a loop in Germany, Luxembourg, and France. The focus of the trip was mostly smaller towns and villages. Before I recount the details of the road trip, I’m going to delve a bit into what we brought with us.

Travel Gear

I usually write a separate blog post about the trip, but this time around, I’m just going to discuss in short, as our travel gear is mostly similar to the last year’s trip.

As a reminder, we love to travel lightweight, so I’m only carrying a 30L backpack (Patagonia Mini MLC), my wife and son each have a carry-on luggage (my son’s is a cute little Mickey Mouse luggage), and my wife has a daypack. We have brought a stroller for my son (Uppababy Minu), which has proven to be extremely useful so far.

I carry all my clothes in one medium-size compression packing cube, plus a packable down jacket and a packable rain jacket. Similar to last year, I’ve brought both my Ricoh GR3, and Sony A7RII cameras, but this time, I’ve brought the Tamron 20-40mm F2.8 lens, plus Rokinon 75mm F1.8. I’m already quasi-regretting bringing the Sony, as I have used it only a couple of times so far, and it adds 1.5kg (3 lb) to my bag. I guess I will see in future whether I get to use it more to not. I carry my camera and other daily stuff in a Hydroflask Slingbag, which is great, as it also allows me to bring a bottle of water (something that most other slings won’t allow). We have brought an iPad Pro with Magic Keyboard, to both entertain our son, and use as personal computer. One of the things that I’ve added to my gear this time is Mogics Bagel. It works as a power strip, travel adapter, and charger. It’s quite handy.

Now that we are done with the travel gear, let’s talk about the actual trip!

Germany

One of the places I wanted to visit was Eltz Castle, which is an hour and half from Frankfurt. So when we arrived (and finally managed to get the car after an hour of wait), we drove to a small town close to the castle. However, looking back, that wasn’t such a great idea. I was seriously jetlagged (it was way past midnight in Seattle for me), and I couldn’t keep my eyes from closing while driving. We had to stop along the way, so I could catch some sleep. Note to self: Don’t plan a drive right after a redeye flight.

Eltz Castle is one of the most beautiful castles in Germany, though not as famous as Neuschwanstein Castle in Bavaria. Fun fact: This castle has been owned by one family, the Eltz family, for over 800 years! Anyhow, in my opinion, most castles are best enjoyed from outside, as the interior is typically lackluster, so all I wanted to do was to snap a few pictures from outside in good light, and with no people around. So with that in mind, I woke up early one day (still being jetlagged), and went to the castle by myself before the opening hour. You need a car to visit the castle, and you have to drive to a parking lot, and walk down a path (15 min) to the castle. After taking some photos, I met another early-bird photographer, called Peterson (first name), and we chatted a while about photography and travel. I always enjoy chatting with other photographers, but most photographers that I meet while traveling are quite reserved, and you can’t talk with them much. It was refreshing to meet another photographer who likes to chat about photography.

Apart from Eltz Castle, we visited Cochem, which was a lovely little town on Moselle river. People do a lot of river cruising in this part of Germany; though mostly on Rhine, some cruises go on Moselle too. Of course, we also obliged, and did a boat tour on Moselle, especially because my son wanted to oh-so-badly!

Trier was another small town with a Roman-era gate, called Porta Nigra - since it is all blackened this days. This massive gate, maybe 5-6 story high, had an interesting history behind it. It was actually a gate to the largest Roman town in Germany, circa 100-200 CE, but as the Roman Empire collapsed, this gate fell into disuse and disrepair, and later in 1000 CE or so, they converted it into a church by adding to and modifying the structure. The church continued to exist, until Napoleon ordered to dismantle it so that the original Roman gate is preserved and open for display.

It was in Trier that our little Jeep started acting up, and beeping loudly that the airbags are faulty. Luckily, there was a branch of the rental agency in town. After examination, they told us that we have to change the car, and the only car they had available was an electric Mercedes EQA. This was a nice (free) upgrade for us, and the first time driving an electric car for me. However, the challenge ahead was figuring out how to charge it – but I’ll delve into that in more detail in the FAQ section.

Luxembourg

This part is embarrassingly (or expectedly?) short, as we just did a day-visit to Luxembourg, while we stayed at our next location in France. For those who don’t know, Luxembourg is the largest tiny country in Europe, landlocked between Belgium, Germany and France. I say largest tiny country, because I compare it to the really tiny ones, like Monaco, Vatican, San Marino, Lichtenstein, etc. You can basically criss-cross the country within a couple of hours.

Luxembourg (the city) is a nice upscale city, reminding me a lot of Zurich, for example. There was not much to see or do over there, but it was nice enough to spend a few hours walking around, especially down to the lower part of the city by taking elevators. I’m sure there are more to do and see in this rich and tiny country, but my search online didn’t show anything considerably noteworthy.

France

In this road trip, we spent most of our time in France. Even to visit Luxembourg, we stayed in a French town near the border (Amnéville) as the prices in Luxembourg were much higher. One thing that I loved about France is that I speak the language (not that good though), so it was much easier to interact with people. One thing I loved to do in France was to just strike up a conversation with people and practice my French. While in Amnéville, we visited Metz too, which was a cute little town, and worth a day visit.

Our next destination was Alsace region, so we did a stop in Nancy, which was another nice little city - almost like a mini-Paris - and then carried on to Colmar. Visiting Alsace was the main reason for this road trip. It’s colorful German-looking but French little towns and villages were of great interest to me. We chose to stay in a farm outside Colmar, called “Chez Marguerite Gîtes à la ferme”. We were delighted when we arrived, as not only Marguerite and her dad, Jean-Daniel, made us feel very welcomed, the place itself was super nice, and spotless clean. They also had a girl from US doing Wwoofing with them. If you don’t know, WWOOF is a global program where volunteers work on organic farms in exchange for food, accommodation, and the chance to learn about sustainable farming practices. In the farm, they had 50 or so cows, some rabbits (bred for the table), and some chickens. I enjoyed chatting with Jean-Daniel everyday, and learn a few things about the farm. You can find him in this video talking about Wwoofing in Alsatian, which is the German dialect of this region.

Colmar is a great little city, and a good base for exploring the region, including the highlights such as Eguisheim, Kaysersberg, Riquewihr and Ribeauvillé. The half-timbered, often colorful traditional Alsatian houses were everywhere, and I really enjoyed photographing them. The food, wine and cheese is also excellent from this region, and a must-try for any visitor. We tried some of the “smelly cheese” from this region and other parts of France, and though delicious, we quickly realized that they need to be stored in properly sealed packaging, otherwise the whole house will be smelly!

We also spent a few nights close to Strasbourg, and took our time to visit the city over a few days. Strasbourg’s cathedral is impressively tall - in fact, it was the tallest building in the world for around 200 years. I’m not counting the pyramid of Giza as a building (since it wasn’t inhabited) which was the tallest man-made structure for a few thousand years up until Eiffel Tower! Strasbourg is certainly worth a visit, if you are visiting this part of France.

The intriguing history of Alsace is evident in its unmistakable German influence, despite being French for most of the past 400 years. The Germanic touch is found in the streets’ and towns’ names, and even the food, though it is a tastier twist than typical German cuisine (sorry, but the cuisine stereotypes are mostly accurate). Some locals still speak Alsatian to this day, adding to the region’s unique cultural blend. Over the past 500 years, Alsace has switched hands between France and Germany approximately five times, with some transitions as recent as the 20th century. Jean-Daniel said that his parents were born French, then became German during the Nazi occupation, only to revert to French nationality at the end of the war. Such historical shifts make border regions like Alsace incredibly fascinating. Side Note: If you’re interested in exploring more stories about borders, Vox has a YouTube series aptly named “Borders.” It’s definitely worth checking out!

We wrapped up the road trip with a night in a vineyard near Heidelberg - a city definitely worth exploring. The next day, we returned the car at Frankfurt Airport and hopped on a train to Hamburg, where we’re currently visiting my cousin. After a few days of relaxation here, our next destination will be the beautiful Greek island of Crete! Stay tuned!

FAQ

How was the experience of road tripping with an electric car in Europe?

Before the trip, I had done a lot of research into this, as I personally wanted to rent an electric car - both for its novelty, and the fact that it has lower carbon footprint. However, all discussions on Reddit and elsewhere indicated that this is going to be a problem, because of the messy EV charging situation in Europe. Many charging stations require their bespoke RFID cards that should be obtained beforehand (and I’m not sure how it can be done from outside Europe). Others have their own app, or website, but many don’t accept American credit cards. It was so risky that I decided against it.

Now that I was forced to get an EV - since no other car was available - I had to somehow make it work. Long story short, I tried a few charging stations, but none worked, as noted by others online. The only one that worked for me (and I stuck to that for the rest of the trip, so didn’t try others) was Tesla superchargers (I’ve read online that Ionity may work too, but I didn’t try since it was double the price per kWh ). This was such a relief, as the charging experience was excellent, even though I was not driving a Tesla. Kudos to the folks at Tesla for building such an impressive network of chargers, plus an easy, intuitive interface for charging (just download the Tesla app, add a credit card, and follow the prompts), and opening the network to other non-Tesla cars.

Apart from the charging situation, driving the Mercedes EQA was a great experience. I really enjoyed the ride, and the fact that you can charge the car at (typically) a mall, while doing your shopping. The experience would have been much more enjoyable, if you could charge the car by normal contactless payment everywhere. Sometimes engineers and companies make things so difficult for everyone for myopic reasons. Why do you need an app or a separate RFID card, etc, to charge an EV? Why not just use the credit card like good old gas stations?

Now that I know electric cars can be charged at Tesla superchargers, I wouldn’t hesitate recommending road tripping with an EV, when possible. It’s not only greener, but also cheaper. We paid less than third of what we would have paid for gas for electricity. If you have a membership, or if you can charge at cheaper places, you can further lower the cost. EVs are also being rented out with similar or even lower prices as gas cars in certain places in Europe. Check them out!

How was the road trip with a toddler?

Surprisingly good! Last year, we had some difficulties in our Italy road trip, as our son was only 14 months old, and didn’t enjoy being in the car, primarily because his car seat was rear-facing. This time around, he totally loved being in the car, spotting other cars and heavy machinery on the side of the road, whenever he could.

Apart from that, traveling with a toddler has been pretty fun so far. Of course, we deal with occasional bouts of temper-tantrums at this age, but we would have had the same experience back at home. Our son eagerly anticipates his daily ice cream treat. He (begrudgingly) gets to watch his favorite cartoons twice a day. And he gets to play in playgrounds, whenever possible. Some places we have stayed so far have even provided toys, which has been nice. We try to take it slow, as much as possible, and let him enjoy having a routine. Our goal is not to see everything. We try to stay at least a few nights wherever we go, and we take it slow.