Life with Bahncard100: 17-year-old lives and works on the rails

Digital nomad
BahnCard 100 instead of an apartment: This 17-year-old is enjoying life to the fullest

Train instead of shared apartment: One and a half years ago, school ended for the programmer Lasse Stolley. Unsurprisingly, he moved out of his parents’ home. Instead of in the student dormitory, however, he settled in on Europe’s tracks.

Athens, Ankara, Konstanza, Paris, Amsterdam, Narvik and Gdansk: 17-year-old Lasse Stolley’s “home” is in many places. Because his apartment has wheels – and runs on rails. He has been living as a digital nomad for around a year and a half and is now traveling all over Europe. The journey map on his website “Life on a train” is like a spider’s web. Here today, there tomorrow.

In an article that “Business Insider” published about Stolley, the programmer describes why he chose this life. “I chose life on the train when I was 16 years old. My school days were behind me and the world was open to me.”

First class through Europe

Since August 2023 he has had a Bahncard 100 First, which gives him access to first class. This costs him 7,714 euros per year. The equivalent of 643 euros per month. A small apartment in a big city is no longer cheaper. How does he finance this? Stolley works as an IT specialist for a start-up. He doesn’t have to go to an office to do this; there don’t seem to be any fixed working hours.

What some people dream about is everyday life for Lasse – endless wanderlust. “If I feel like traveling to the sea, I take the train north in the morning. If I long for the hustle and bustle of the big city, then I look for a connection to Berlin or Munich.” Over the past year, Stolley has expanded his boundaries. The European Union’s Interrail offer and the so-called Global Pass, which costs between 600 and 800 euros depending on the class, took him to Narvik, north of the Arctic Circle.

Lasse Stolley organizes his everyday life using the train app. In the evening we decide where to go the next day. We sleep on the train. He keeps a public diary about his life. Despite all the railway romanticism, he describes his existence as “pretty restless,” he explains.

Railway insider tips from the full professional

If things get too hectic for him, he switches to routes that calm him down and slow him down. This survival strategy provides valuable tips for his followers – because who, if not Lasse, can judge the beauty of a railway line better?

“My favorite route runs through the Middle Rhine Valley between Mainz and Bonn. Here the trains always travel very slowly along the river – a picturesque route that stretches at the foot of the vineyards,” he reveals, among other things. Another tip: “I know that I always find complete peace on the route between Garmisch-Partenkirchen and Mittenwald in Upper Bavaria. Here, surrounded by the mountains that I love so much, the railway winds carefully through the valleys and in front An idyllic Alpine panorama stretches out from the windows.”

Stolley is still counting. He writes that he claims to have covered over half a million kilometers by now. His current Bahncard 100 is still valid for six months. He says he doesn’t know how long he wants to continue this. But for him one thing is still clear: “I haven’t seen enough yet.”