10 advices for a GIRL travelling ALONE with CS in the south of GERMANY

If you are a girl and you want to travel alone in the south of Germany, without hostels and hotels...this is the post for you. I took a trip from Italy to Munich, Passau, Regensburg, Nürnberg, Heidelberg, Freiburg, Konstanz am Bodensee and Innsbruck. Then I stopped in Fai della Paganella in Tirol, where a friend of mine was working in a restaurant.

I travelled only with couchsurfing, a website where you can make couch requests and people that live where you want to go can accept or decline your requests, and host you for some days (for free of course). I brought also the tourist guide Lonely Planet where it is written that girls can go to Germany alone, without getting disturbed and they can drink a cocktail after midnight alone in a bar.

After this introducion, I think is better to start with some advice:

1. if you want a tourist guide, buy it on the web or borrow from the library. Control that it is UPDATED! Mine was from 2007 and in Munich the metromap from Lonely Planet skip one or two stops (...)

2. when you take public transportation as bus or train, check the time of arrival. If the day before leaving you hosted a party, make sure you don’t oversleep! Set the alarm clock…it helps!:)

3. when people hosting you give the address, be careful not to write it in a post-it and do not put the post-it in the tourist guide as you might risk to lose it.

Don't use POST-ITS! It is better to use glue or something more safe...

4. if you want to go to Germany, maybe Nürnberg...before leaving your city, be careful to check the weather, because it can be cold! You are lucky if you'll find somebody, like the guy who hosts you for those days, that can give to you his/her jacket! (Thanks Nour!)

5. in some cities there will be the sun, because it's summer...so you should bring your bikini in your rucksack. Don't forget it when you are going to a lake or the sea. If you bring it and then you leave it at "your home" in Germany, you are forgetful and you must spend money to buy a new one. I made this mistake with my friend Bettina, when we were going to Attersee in Österreich. (19€ for a bikini, arghh)

6. if you want to travel alone around Germany, there is a German bus company called Meinfernbus, that can bring you to many cities in the country. It's cheaper than train, but it is used only by German people, because tourists don't know its existence. And maybe, if you are lucky as me, you can buy the ticket on the bus and find an Italian busdriver from Calabria (in the south of Italy) who gives you a present: a free bus ride from Heidelberg to Freiburg! =) "It's a present from Heidelberg for Feast of the Assumption!", he said to me. "You are travelling alone with that huge rucksack, so go and enjoy your vacations".

7. other piece of advice for transportation around Bavaria, a German region in the south of Germany, is the Bavarian ticket. You can buy it and share it with 5 persons adding for every person more additionally 4€, infact if you are going to the train station and you take a look of persons with rucksack and "maletas", you must say: "Where are you going? Maybe we can share the ticket if we are going to the same direction". In this way you can share the ticket and also the cost: 22 or 22,80 €. With that ticket you can use unlimited all regional trains in Bavaria for one day.

8. if you are travelling with a huge rucksack, as mine, be careful to enter in shops and supermarkets, because people believe that you are a homeless. In two cases persons didn't serve me and they said: "Entschuldigung, wir haben kein mehr Essen", that means "I'm sorry, we don't have enough food for you, it's finished". With a lot of people out, in the bar garden eating happy (...).

Later, I understood why I was treated in that way and it is because Germany is full of young homeless people with huge rucksack as mine. But, please I'm a tourist, not a homeless! Schade!

9. if you want to take a lot of pictures and maybe you are a bit shy to ask people: "I'm sorry, can you take a picture of me, please?", you must have a camera with automatic shutter release and it can be easier. Or maybe if you want to know different persons, you can ask somebody to take it. In Heidelberg I found an old couple from Münster, in the north of Germany near Düsseldorf and we spoke a lot about the history of their small village. At the beginning it was funny, but after 10 minutes...a bit boring! :) They thought I was from New Jersey!!!

10. Keep on smiling, everywhere and with everybody. I think with a smile you can be safe and happy at the same time. However  it is good to pay attetion to other people. There can be freaks around!