- 5 hours ago
Discover practical ways to save money while traveling or living in Germany, from choosing cheaper transport to finding better-value accommodation and food. This first-person travel guide compares advance train bookings, regional group tickets, FlixTrain, long-distance buses and rideshares, then shares tips for booking hotels directly and avoiding extra costs.
You’ll also learn how German discount supermarkets, tap water, food-saving apps, bottle deposits and flea markets can help stretch your budget. A casual Germany travel and lifestyle guide for visitors, expats and residents planning affordable trips, cheap transport, budget accommodation and low-cost meals. Search for practical Germany travel tips, budget travel advice and everyday ways to save money in Germany.
You’ll also learn how German discount supermarkets, tap water, food-saving apps, bottle deposits and flea markets can help stretch your budget. A casual Germany travel and lifestyle guide for visitors, expats and residents planning affordable trips, cheap transport, budget accommodation and low-cost meals. Search for practical Germany travel tips, budget travel advice and everyday ways to save money in Germany.
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TravelTranscript
00:00hi guys you know what time it is it's time for beer and to give you some tips
00:07on how to save money traveling Germany because I'm traveling myself and I see
00:11how ridiculously expensive some things are so I've prepared a list for you with
00:17the best money-saving tips for Germany and I'm pretty sure that even if you
00:22live in Germany you don't know many of these tips when you're traveling you
00:27have three main expenses accommodation transportation and food and also
00:32activities but that's the smaller part probably let's start with transportation
00:37if you want to go from one city to the next one usually the quickest way is to
00:41take the train but trains can be ridiculously expensive in Germany until
00:46maybe two three years ago there was only one provider for trains and that is the
00:51Deutsche Bahn so they basically have a monopoly and can ask whatever price they
00:55want and as Germans are they only give you a good price for the train ticket if
01:01you book far in advance as much as possible if you want to go from Berlin to
01:07Stuttgart for example which is almost through the entire country takes like
01:11six seven hours you would have to pay 150 euro for the train ticket if you book
01:17one day in advance or the same day but if you book the same train ride for the same
01:23train six weeks in advance it's only 25 euro so you need to pay 600% more if you
01:32don't plan ahead in Germany and that's actually the reason I rarely take the
01:36train because I hate planning so far ahead I don't know about you but I'm glad I
01:42know what I eat for dinner you know so book these train tickets as far in advance as
01:46possible and as I mentioned there's new competitor on the market it's called
01:50Flix train they don't cover all the cities in Germany yet but they have like
01:55five or six major routes they cover and the train tickets there are way cheaper
02:00so go check them out another alternative which is even cheaper would be the Flix
02:05bus the buses but yeah you will need a lot of time if you want to go the same
02:12ride from Berlin to Stuttgart if you need seven hours with the train you would
02:16probably need like 10 to 11 hours with the bus I personally wouldn't recommend
02:21taking the bus for trips that are more than three or four hours long because
02:25they're not very comfortable ah another thing for the train tickets if you are
02:29traveling only within a federal state of Germany a Bundesland with a group of
02:35people you can get very good and cheap group tickets because I think 25 euro for a
02:41day so you can pay 25 euro for five people that altogether that's the whole
02:46price and you can go the whole day as much as you want around the federal state
02:50but only with the regional train not the ICE you know not the fast one another
02:58great alternative is the BlaBla car which is a platform everybody who has a car and
03:03is going to another city can list there right there and you can book a spot in
03:07their car to go to this specific city or to a city on the road when I was
03:12studying this was the only way I got around through Germany because it's one of
03:17the cheapest ways to do so you usually pay between 5 and 8 euro per 100
03:22kilometers depending on the car they use and I've probably taken 30 to 40 trips
03:27with BlaBla car and I actually never had a bad experience and if you're too cool or
03:33too rich for any of those options you can also rent a car in Germany it's pretty
03:38easy to do and there's one company I can recommend and one I can absolutely not
03:44recommend I've rented quite a few cars in my days with many different companies
03:48the one company I cannot recommend is Sixt and this is only me speaking from my
03:55own experience and some experiences for my friends I only had problems with this
03:59company last time I rented something from them they sent me an invoice after
04:03of 1,000 euro two weeks later for a little scratch they found somewhere in
04:08the car yeah I was not responsible for this scratch and they wanted 1,000 euro
04:14and then I talked to a friend who also used Sixt quite often for work and he said
04:20yeah in one month he rented this company's car maybe 10 times and 5 out of 10 times
04:27they asked for a lot of money after like hundreds of euros because of some
04:32little scratches they found so I looked it up on Trustpilot and it seems that a
04:37lot of people have the same issue with this company so apparently and this is
04:43just a thesis they make very cheap prices to give you the car but then they try to
04:49squeeze some money out with different not so legal strategies I would say yeah they
04:56send me an invoice of 1,000 euro and then I said I'm not gonna pay this yeah I didn't
05:02do
05:02this and then they try to threaten me with legal actions with court you know I
05:07didn't pay nothing happened that I never heard from them again some people pay and
05:13if you don't pay they don't do anything because they can't prove it was actually
05:16you there's another company I used a lot to rent cars and I had only good
05:21experiences with I never had any problems and that is enterprise yeah they
05:26have good prices always reliable this is not sponsored I just like them okay
05:31before we move on to the accommodation part I quickly want to tell you about
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05:41my opinion everybody should have one it doesn't only protect your online privacy
05:46but it can also save you a lot of money and here's how I'm sure most of you have some
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05:58that those services have different prices for different countries Netflix for example costs 8
06:03euro in Germany per month and in Turkey it only costs 2 euro so what many people do is just
06:09they
06:10change their virtual location from Germany to Turkey or somewhere else and then they
06:16need to pay less for the subscription and depending on how many subscription
06:19services you use you can potentially save hundreds of euro each year that means a
06:25VPN client is also a tool that can save you a lot of money it's super easy to use
06:30you can use it on up to six devices simultaneously so if I want to connect to
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06:48get a two-year plan plus one additional month with a huge discount and if you're
06:52still not sure if you need it you can try it risk-free for 30 days with the money
06:56back guarantee you're welcome all right next accommodation so in many big cities in
07:04Germany we have something like the city tax Bettensteuer in German which is
07:08basically a tourist tax in Berlin for example that's five percent which you
07:12need to pay on top of the normal hotel rate but there's a loophole business
07:17people who are traveling for business reasons don't need to pay this tax and
07:21guess what I was working in a hotel back in a day and no one ever checks if
07:27you're actually on a business trip especially if you're coming from abroad you
07:31can just say all right I'm traveling for business reasons and then you don't
07:35have to pay this tax you can thank me later for German people there might be a
07:42very very low chance they will actually check that at some point but if you're
07:46coming from abroad no chance another way to save 10 to 15 percent on the
07:52booking sometimes is to not book through booking.com or Agoda or something like that
07:57because booking.com for example takes 20 percent commission on the booking so 20
08:04percent of what you're paying is not actually going to the hotel but to the
08:08booking website this is actually a tip you can use in the whole world because
08:13they take everywhere the same commission so just call the hotel and ask if you can
08:18get 10 percent off on the listing price and then there's a good chance they will
08:22say yes in my experience this works best for like smaller hotels not so much with
08:28the big ones because the big ones they don't want to go through the hassle to
08:31make this separate bookings but the small ones if they get the next 10 percent
08:35they're very happy about that next we have reached the food part I didn't plan on
08:42this video becoming that long but hey here we are we all want to save some money
08:47right tip number one considering food choose your supermarket wisely there are
08:53many different supermarkets in Germany but there are two categories of
08:57supermarkets there are normal big supermarkets like Rewe, Edeka, Kaufland etc and
09:04then there's discounters like Aldi, Lidl, Netto and those two categories have
09:09huge price differences if you're gonna fill your trolley in a discounter you
09:14maybe have to pay 70 euro for a full trolley depending on what you buy but if
09:20you want to buy the same stuff in one of these supermarkets you most likely
09:23will pay double if not even more what I usually do is I buy all my basics in
09:28the discounter and everything I cannot buy in the discounter like specialties
09:33and stuff I will buy in Rewe or Edeka or Kaufland because they have a much
09:38bigger choice and if you do this this will save you hundreds of euros each month I
09:43promise you tip number two is pretty easy to do just drink tap water instead of
09:50bottled water tap water is basically free in your hotel your Airbnb or wherever and
09:56it's perfectly safe to drink Germany it's actually cleaner than bottled water
10:01because the regulation is much stricter by law the water quality of tap water
10:07needs to be better than it has to be for bottled water the third tip is get an app
10:12like too good to go which is an anti food waste app it's nonprofit I guess it's for
10:19free sometimes it's meals a restaurant has too many of or bakeries in the end of
10:24the day they need to get rid of all the stuff and also supermarkets put their
10:28products there which are soon going to waste with this app you can check who's
10:33offering what where and then you can just go there and get it for a better price
10:37that's a very good way to save some money and also do something great for the
10:41environment so less food goes to waste and don't forget to bring back your empty
10:46cans and bottles to the supermarket in Germany there's a deposit on them this
10:50one would be 25 cents beer bottles are 8 cents and the other plastic bottles are
10:5515 cents so bring them back get your money back do something good for the
11:00environment when you're traveling you also sometimes want to buy some stuff on the
11:04road like clothing maybe some local souvenirs and there's a lot of money to
11:09be saved here you don't necessarily need to go to a proper shop to get the good
11:13stuff you can also go to the flea market I think more than half of the stuff I
11:17own is from flea markets not only my clothing but also my furniture in Germany
11:21flea markets are a big part of the weekend culture every Sunday in most German
11:27cities even the small ones there are flea markets people don't only sell their
11:32second-hand stuff there's also a lot of local designers and artists who have
11:37shops in the city but on the weekend on Sunday they sell also on the flea market
11:42for a much better price often like 50% off even and they do that because they
11:47don't have to pay tax on the flea market oh I almost forgot the most important tip
11:52and it is to drink beer as much as possible German beer not this beer beer is so
11:59ridiculously cheap in Germany it's probably the cheapest beverage you can
12:04get aside from water and there's actually a law in Germany that if you're
12:08going to a restaurant there must be one option of beverage that is cheaper than
12:13beer so that it's not more economic to drink beer and people who get drunk just to
12:18save some money but this doesn't apply to the supermarket so there's some cheap
12:23beer brand that costs maybe 5 or 10 cents probably tastes like that too but it's cheap save some
12:29money drink some beer and have a good time in Germany if you have any other
12:33tips you think are worth sharing put them in the comments below I think the
12:37other viewers would appreciate that until next time I'll be back