This was the final leg of our Fall road trip in our new van, Chickpea. We drove for the first time on the Autobahn with no speed limit (but Chickpea does not go that fast so not a big deal) and stayed at an Airbnb in Flörsheim-am-Main, Germany where we cleaned Chickpea and put them in storage for the winter. We only had 1 full day to do a bit of exploration in Frankfurt before boarding our flight back to the USA. As our trip progressed, the weather turned colder with highs only in the upper 50’s and lower 60’s (°F). One morning when we were walking outside, we could see our breath, it had gotten quite cold in comparison to our time in the French Riviera. Overall, this was a bittersweet last few days for us as we were conflicted upon wanting to stay longer but also missing our house in Arizona and some of the creature comforts that come with living in an actual stick house. Overall, it was a fantastic trip and we saw so many beautiful places, but we are safely back in the USA just in time for voting.

Flörsheim-am-Main, Germany: OK, first a pronunciation lesson, Flörsheim-am-Main is not pronounced Florsh-eim (like the shoes known in the US) am Main (like the primary street in a town) as we both have been saying incorrectly for months. It is pronounced Flurs-heim am Mine. And “Main” does not refer to a Main Street, but the Main River which is the longest tributary of the Rhine River. Yikes, we had this so wrong in our heads.

Tony booked us into a lovely Airbnb directly on the Main River where we could watch the river boats and barges moving up and down the waterway from our large deck running the length of the unit. Tracey has a fondness for barges which we learned about when we previously stayed on the Mississippi River in Arkansas and she sat for hours, sometimes in the middle of the night, watching the movement of the barges. Our Airbnb unit was quite large, well-appointed and it had safe parking right outside the door for Chickpea.

Our first order of business on arrival to the Airbnb was to get our laundry started as we needed to wash all the sheets, towels, blankets, duvet covers and our mattress pad to prepare Chickpea for winter storage. Tony spent considerable time searching for an Airbnb that was close to public transportation and the airport, had parking suitable for Chickpea and had a washer AND dryer. Dryers are not as common in Europe as the US. This unit had all of these things so when Tracey loaded the first small load of duvet covers into the combination washer and dryer machine and it displayed 1 hour 56 minutes for the wash and 4 hours and 45 minutes for the drying cycle, we knew this wasn’t going to work for us and all the laundry we had to do in the next 24 hours. We spoke with the owner who lived upstairs and he said all German dryers take a long time by design and that there was a drying rack available instead. We love drying racks and use them at home for most of our clothing, but one small drying rack was not going to work for our considerable pile of linens and not in the short 24-hour time we had available until we had to drop off the van. We found a laundromat not too far away and hailed an Uber. In 1.5 hours, we were able to wash, dry and fold all our linens and laundry in their large commercial washers and dryers for under €25. Another Uber ride back to the Airbnb and we both agreed it was money well spent as our initial load that was in the Airbnb machine was still on the drying phase. The dryer was finally completed as we were going to bed but when we pulled out the duvets and pillowcases they were a crumpled and wrinkled mess. We aren’t people who need to sleep on crisp ironed sheets but these duvet covers were horribly wrinkled so we spent the next hour IRONING them just to get them into a usable state. It has been a loooong time since we have ironed sheets. UGH!

The next day was set aside for van cleaning and we agreed to take everything out of the van from every drawer, cabinet and storage space so we could start with a blank slate. This gave us the opportunity to do a deep clean of the van including inside the drawers and cabinets, but also gave us the opportunity to inventory all our “stuff” and make decisions on what we really needed and what could be donated or thrown out. The overall consensus was we both had far too many clothes especially jackets, so we packed up the superfluous items to take with us back to the US. We also had a few too many kitchen utensils and table wear which we left for use at this Airbnb, but overall we were in good shape and just getting rid of a few items made the van feel less cluttered. We put all our bedding, pillows and towels in large Ikea zippered Dimpa bags and all of our toiletries, paper products and dry good items inside sturdy plastic totes. Our friends had a mouse inside their van this past year after it sat for a few months and Tony has a mild to moderate case of rodent-phobia so we erred on the side of caution with our winter storage plan. The only dry goods left in the van were some spices, an unopened bottle of balsamic vinegar and some nutritional yeast which were all thoroughly packed inside airtight storage boxes. We finished our van storage prep by mid-afternoon and took the rest of the day off to relax. Our food options were waning and Tracey put on her creative hat to use up the rest of the items to make us a meal. Our food was quite tasty despite the limited ingredients and spices.

The next day was van storage day and Tony was feeling a bit uneasy as all he had was a verbal commitment for our winter storage location from some guy named Stephan. Finding secured and indoor storage is more difficult in Europe than it is in the US. European storage is less formal and is typically not a business but more of a side hustle utilizing overflow space at a business or farm and advertisement is more word of mouth making finding these locations difficult, especially for foreigners like us who don’t speak the local languages or have local connections. Tony spent hours searching for locations before reading about this location on a random forum post. When we arrived, the facility was an automotive and motorhome repair shop which utilizes their large parking lot and overflow indoor storage space for winter indoor and outdoor motorhome parking. The shop had some cool memorabilia including racing suits of famous German racers. The indoor space was only big enough for 16 motorhomes and there were just 2 spaces left but as promised one of them was indeed reserved for us. The owner expertly backed our van into the very narrow indoor space just behind the showroom area. We filled out some paperwork, gave the owner a set of keys for emergencies, did an IBAN bank transfer for the 1^st month’s rent and we were finished. We also learned that for €10/month extra he would hook us up to electricity to maintain our house batteries. The other bonus for this location was they would allow us to do a month-to-month lease for the space and did not require us to commit to an annual lease as many others wanted us to do. We felt particularly good about this place as it has indoor and outdoor security cameras, it is used during the week as an auto repair shop so there are workers around and the indoor space itself was spacious, modern and very clean. There were many other nice vans, including a few Hymers, parked in the indoor space, too, so Chickpea was in good company. Stephan told us that he now has a 3-year waiting list after some recent local news report coverage but he allowed us to verbally commit to an indoor space next year, too. This facility is a huge step-up from our Barcelona storage facility in terms of modernization and cleanliness and it was less expensive, too. We took a bus to a train and it took 1.5 hours to get back to our Airbnb due to a 30-minute delay where we sat on the train for unknown reasons.

Frankfurt, Germany: The next day was our last full day before our flight back to the US, so we took a train into Frankfurt to check it out. Tony had been there previously for work, but Tracey had never been to Frankfurt before.  Frankfurt am Main, Germany has a population of 800,000 people, making it the fifth most populated city in Germany, but the Frankfurt’s metro area has a population of 2.7 million people. It is a proper city. We took another GPS audio tour via the VoiceMap app which guided us through the new Old Town, the old Old Town, the riverfront and to several pedestrian shopping and market areas. Our tour started at the Alte Oper (old opera) House. Tony loved this building, saying it was one of his favorite buildings from all our travels in Europe. The inside of the building had been heavily destroyed during WWII, but the outside was maintained. Over the subsequent years, it was restored on the inside with a modern aesthetic except for the restaurant which was lovingly restored back to its original design. Much of Frankfurt was heavily bombed and damaged during WWII and only 25% of the buildings remained in Old Town at the end of the war. We enjoyed touring the mixture of old and new, now occupying the same space and often next to each other. We saw a piece of the Berlin Wall, Goethe’s house (pronounced Gur-tuh not Go-the as most American’s say 😊) and saw the European Central Bank (ECB) skyscraper from the pedestrian-only Eiserner Steg bridge. There was even an archeological site of Roman ruins in the middle of the city which was quite unexpected. We walked through a large indoor market and bought some dates and snacks for our flight the following day. We met a nice German lady who was taking her Labradoodle out to stretch his legs and he had the major “zoomies” running through a huge garden of ivy that had us all laughing. We ended up liking Frankfurt quite a bit although before visiting our impression was that it was a financial hub and there was not a lot to see in the city. We were wrong about this and we plan to visit again with hopes of exploring some other areas.

Our last stop in Frankfurt was to the downtown Rewe grocery store for some additional snacks for our flight. We have noticed that in what we would call shopping malls in the US, in Europe they also have grocery stores inside the mall. Maybe this is how they drive traffic to the shopping malls and why so many US malls are failing? Another quick train ride home where Tracey pulled together an even more creative dinner using the last of our food ingredients from the van.

Our impressions of Germany in comparison to Switzerland are that there are more homeless people in Germany (but not anything near what we have in the US), the trains and buses are closer to cleanliness and punctuality as to what we have in the US in comparison to the uber efficient and clean Swiss public transport, many more German smokers and vapors than in Switzerland, many more immigrants in Germany leading to a more vibrant food and cultural vibe than Switzerland, Switzerland is overall much cleaner, the cost of goods is significantly less in Germany and we found both the Germans and Swiss to be quite friendly and helpful.

The following day we checked out of our Airbnb, haled a €20 Uber to the airport. The Frankfurt Airport is large being the 5^th busiest in Europe so we had to walk quite a distance within the airport itself. We had an oh-oh moment at the Passport Control booth. The officer was confused as to our comings and goings within the Schengen Zone and thought we had overstayed our visa. He was looking at our passport stamps incorrectly and after a few exchanges where we politely provided the dates of arrival and departure and from what countries this past year, he realized his error and let us through. Our flight was on a Boeing Dreamliner and it was 100% packed. Our flight to Denver was uneventful and we had just enough time with a 1.75-hour layover to get through immigration, check back through security and get to our connecting gate for boarding. It had been 22 hours of traveling when we finally arrived to our home airport and our brains were a bit fried. We hailed an Uber to get us home only to realize the driver was not going in the right direction. A quick check of the app showed that we had somehow put in the incorrect address and the driver was taking us to the completely wrong side of town. The Uber driver allowed us to cancel our ride and we hailed a 2^nd Uber driver who eventually delivered us to our house.

Arizona, USA: We arrived home and everything at the house was just as we had left it. It took us less than 2 hours to get all our belongings and clothing put away and get our house back in working order. Within a few hours, the dry desert had also sucked every ounce of moisture from our skin and lips and we are back to having to religiously use lip balm and moisturizer. We have been home for 3 days and we have yet to adjust to the new time zone as we are still getting up at 2 AM each morning. Maybe our anti-jetlag experiment from the beginning of our trip worked TOO well??

Overall, we had another fantastic trip in Chickpea. We were gone 58 days on this trip and went to 5 countries (Spain, France, Italy, Switzerland and Germany) starting in Barcelona and ending in Frankfurt. The weather held out for us and we were only rained out completely a few days. We saw waterfalls, calanques, rivers, the Mediterranean Ocean, the Alps, and glaciers. We met amazing people who welcomed us and made our experience richer. We learned about history that was never taught to us in school. We experienced a different way of living with walkable cities, daily grocery store runs and abundant and reliable public transportation. We are still processing all the places we have had a chance to visit and we are still trying to decide on our favorites. We are still pinching ourselves that our dream which started 3 years ago of owning a van in Europe has come to fruition. We know how lucky we are to have the freedom to be able to do these types of trips.

Our plans for 2025 include spending 6 months in Europe including time in England and Wales. We traveled in the EU during shoulder season this year and plan to do the same next year, except we plan to exit to England and Wales (including a 30 day Airbnb stay) instead of flying home to reset our Schengen Agreement clock which only allows us to stay in continental Europe for 90 days out of every rolling 180 days. Our 2025 trip will include exploration of Northern France (have we mentioned how much we LOVE France?), but also plans to visit Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg and more of Germany, in addition to England and Wales.

Our goals over the winter are for Tony to learn some basic French and for Tracey to dust off her middle school German books and learn basic conversation. Our experience would have been even better if we could carry on even basic conversation in the local languages and not have to rely on Google Translate so much.

Onwards and Until the Next Time!

Cumulative Wildlife Spotted on this Trip: flamingos, 1 wild boar, jellyfish, 1 deer, swans, 1 lowly black squirrel and 3 storks {again, where are all of the animals?? I am seriously asking this, not joking.}

Short-List for a Possible Permanent Future Move: Geneva, Switzerland (although we love it there, it is sadly out of our budget); Aix-en-Provence, France; Nice, France, Lugano, Switzerland (also sadly probably out of our budget)

Up Next: Return to Frankfurt, Germany in mid-April 2025. We also have several domestic US trips to California, Arizona and New Mexico planned in Tofu over the winter. We are #vanlifers at ♥.