A 17-year-old German teen has been living life as a modern nomad, leaving his parents’ house to live on trains and travel all over his country.
While most 17-year-olds are only just beginning to consider the idea of leaving the nest, Lasse Stolley has already been on his own for over a year and a half. Convinced that his school studies were already behind him, he convinced his parents to allow him to leave their home in Fockbek, Schleswig-Holstein to embark on a unique train-hopping adventure. It took a lot of convincing, but they eventually agreed, and for the last year and a half, the German teen has essentially been living on trains, traveling all over his home country, working as a self-employed coder during the day, and sleeping on night trains at night.
“I’ve been living on the train as a digital nomad for a year and a half now,” Lasse told Business Insider. “At night I sleep on the moving Intercity Express (ICE) train and during the day I sit in a seat, at a table and work as a programmer, surrounded by many other commuters and passengers. I travel from one end of the country to the other. I’m exploring the whole of Germany.”
He gave into his wanderlust in 2022, selling most of his possessions and packing what was left in a 36-liter backpack that he has been carrying with him ever since. Minimalism and resisting the urge to acquire new stuff are an essential part of his lifestyle, as he needs to take everything with him wherever he goes. It’s not always easy, but he has found a way to make it work.
https://www.odditycentral.com/news/german-teenager-left-parents-home-to-live-exclusively-on-trains-for-the-last-year-and-a-half.html
https://www.businessinsider.de/leben/bahncard100-17-jaehriger-lebt-seit-jahr-2022-in-den-zuegen-der-bahn/
“The challenge of not accumulating more and more things is a central component of minimalist living. Especially with a backpack, you quickly reach a space limit,” Stolley said. “The most important thing is my laptop and my noise-canceling headphones, which at least give me a little privacy on the train.”
After deciding that he wanted to move out of his childhood home to adopt a nomad lifestyle, Lasse Stolley signed up for Germany’s rail discount scheme and bought himself a Bahncard 100, which allowed him to hop on and off any Deutsche Bahn indefinitely. He estimates that this unusual living arrangement has cost him around 10,000 euros per year, which doesn’t sound like much, but is also not the most convenient way to live.
“The early months were tough and I had to learn a lot about how it all worked. Everything was different than how I’d imagined,” the teen said. “Every night I have to make sure that I catch the night train and sometimes I have to reschedule very quickly because it suddenly doesn’t arrive.”
But living on trains also has its perks, as it allows the young nomad to visit virtually every part of Germany, from the sea in the north to the Alps for a nice hike, as well as bustling cities like Berlin and Munich. Everything is just a train ride away, and he has gotten used to traveling approximately 600 miles per day. He estimated he has traveled more than 300,000 miles on trains since leaving his parents’ house.
Lasse gets to hang out in first-class carriages when he’s not working on his laptop and mostly eats at Deutsche Bahn lounges at train stations around the country. Personal hygiene is a bit trickier, as he has to shower in public swimming pools and leisure centers.
Living on trains is not ideal, and 17-year-old Lasse Stolley doesn’t see himself doing it for the rest of his life, but it works for now, as he still has much of Germany to see. Plus, his Bahncard 100 card is still valid for six months.
>>1986083why do rustics have such an obsession with being surrounded with 5000 kg of trash they bought off temu?
>>1986079 (OP)Somewhere a homeless person in San Francisco or New York is laughing at this amateur dork.
>>1986083>consooming is bad>not consooming is also badCan you retards make your mind up already
>>1986087Theyre not, they dont have access to the internet, and most Americans can't fathom that a world outside of le eagle country exists
>>1986084Boomers are usually desperate to justify their compulsive shopping habits
>>1986079 (OP)Say what you want but i think hes pretty based. Autistic for sure but the experience he makes in just a few months will probably shape his whole life.
Learning to stop consooming useless shit is hard for most people.
>>1986131it doesn't matter, replace "temu" with "walmart" or "tesco" or "amazon" or "ali express". Same shit. Pink faced boomer bitches about how the factory closed and then proceeds to buy the cheapest shit they can find imported directly from china because personal responsibility is only for other people (who should be punished for behaving exactly the same as the boomer because rightoid logic)
>17-year-old has been living on Deutsche Bahn trains for one and a half years
Gee, I didn't know their delays were this bad.
How the hell does he stay in shape? You can’t get much exercise sitting on a train all day. What about fresh air?
>>1986084How about having a skill or hobby beyond "breathe and eat"?
Lets say theoretically I take a trip to Germany and do this to get out of paying for a hotel. Would I get kicked out of the country?
>>1986503No, as long as you pay for the tickets nobody will care. But why would you do that, this sounds like literal hell to me.
>>1986079 (OP)>17-year-old has beenDamn, I guess he peaked early.
>>1986729Because hotels are cringe and homelessmoding sounds like fun.
>>1986464Buying stuff isn't a skill or a hobby
>>1986744yeah, buying train tickets is not a hobby
>shower in public swimming pools and leisure centers
Why doesn't he visit whores with the money he saves on rent?
>>1986202Charlie on the Deutsche Bahn https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xsqBtZNBL60
>Child homelessness is le good
All of you, kill yourselves immediately. And who is hiring this mentally defective underage vagrant to do their programming for them? And finally, do you think he’s been molested yet?
>>1986079 (OP)>self employed coderbullshit
niggas with a whole ass coding degree are broke how tf is he doing it
>>1992774With jobs like that it's all about references and work history. The degree means almost nothing unless it's harvard or MIT and even there, it just gets you an interview
>>1987505>article about young boy adventuring around his country>immediately jump to dreaming about molestationWhat the fuck is wrong with you ?
>>1992458I always thought it was a war crime that Truman insisted they must treat their water with oestrogen.
>>1992874Agreed. His grandfather, who probably sacrificed his life for the fatherland on the Eastern Front, would die again out of sheer shame if he could see this basedcuck of a grandson now - i bet he also got all the clotshots.
>>1997048You mean hes not showering before or after sex. Maybe washes his hands.
>>1992774Dude's probably "self employed" coder for his parents of aunt/uncle's business. Also not stated: Trust fund was given to him at 17 of only 600,000 Euros.
>>2000417Having direct access to the trust fund is not necessary to have a big impact on one's early life. One need only understand that no matter how badly one fucks up, one has something upon which back to fall. This is why the rich can be "entrepreneurs", they will always have infinite respawns while the rest of us avoid risk because one fuckup is the end.
>>1986732It is fun. I've done this (with the deutschlandticket even so with less comfy/slower/shorter regional trains instead of the expresses this guy lives on) to get across germany for free or almost free and it's kind of hellish but it's a fun adventure. Do it anon
>>1986098can you make a nuanced argument for once?
>>1986463>How the hell does he stay in shape?not eating like a fat fucking pig. you can stay thin sitting down all day if you do this too.
>>1986087Bold of you to assume that their crackbrains haven't made them piss and shit themselves so much that they cease all motor functions.
>>1992458Nice titties
>>2003169You still need exercise. If you don't you end up a skinny weak fag with tits oh wait hang on a minute
>>2000421i had a good buddy in college who dated a girl from an extraordinarily wealthy west coast lumber baron family. at their yearly family get together all the younglings would pitch their entrepreneur ideas to the adults and many of them would end up getting funded. most failed, of course, but failure is part of being a serial entrepreneur, or even the average small business owner. as you say, it's obviously easier to take these sorts of business risks when you know it won't ruin you financially or really have any effect at all. never forget that the vast majority of wealth is inherited, not won from scrapping in the free market
there's an interview with him today in the most serious German newspaper FAZ. some takeaways
>he mostly eats the free food in the DB Lounges
>after 1 year he upgraded to first class, he plans to do this one more year to get to 1 million km on rails.
>during his first year he slept on an air mattress in the luggage rack
>he washes his clothes in the DB Lounge and then hangs his clothes in the train to dry
>he usually works in the lounges for an IT start-up because of the free wifi. the wifi in the trains is too slow.
>he sleeps in the ICE trains that run through the night, somehow he managed not to get mugged so far, as theft is a common occurrence.
>he showers in indoor swimming facilities in Munich and Berlin.
>there are about 10 other people doing this
sauce:
https://www.faz.net/aktuell/gesellschaft/menschen/bahncard-100-statt-wohnung-wie-lasse-stolley-seit-fast-2-jahren-im-zug-lebt-19849724.html
if you don't know how to bypass paywalls, then just stand next to the first class of a ICE train, connect to the wifi and download the FAZ newspaper for free.
>>2008180there's a joke in here somewhere about how germans are so obedient that even the railroad bums pay their fares but I'm too lazy to construct it
>>1986098Being obsessed in either direction is bad. Being a hoarder or a braindead npc who only exists to buy product are sins of excess, but people who go out of their way to be “minimalist” are also retarded. Honestly, I’ll take the npc over the guy who gets stressed because he didn’t measure his new toothbrush and it’s half a gram heavier and takes up an extra cc of space compared to the old one.
IMG_7940
md5: 725dd3347500ded84d8ece7bbebb414f
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>>1986464>beyond eatingThat’s all average suburban hogs know
>>1986079 (OP)If he was black you would call him a lazy nigger
>>1987505He is living a more interesting life than you ever will while 80% of it is still ahead of him.
>molested on well-staffed public transportationIt's a first-world country, not Hungary or America.
>>1986176>directionbrainYou almost had a point until you played the retard card
>>2023420You're only mad because he described (You)r own behavior to the t
>>2017735I can no longer see helicopter shots of stroads without thinking of the west hollywood shootout
>>2030799Your mind is broken. Stop watching stupid youtube videos.
>>1986176>I get caught speeding sometimes so we should get rid of traffic lawsSee how dumb that sounds? I'm neither right-wing or a boomer but you make shit arguments. People can engage in plenty of destructive/sinful things and still recognize the need to legislate or even forbid them to prevent excesses from forming. I've drank on my bike, too, doesn't mean I think it ought to be legal, just that at the time I deemed the fun outweighed the risk*price of the ticket which I would have paid without objection had I got one.
>>2035400>random angry rant about his alcoholism problemok but what does that have to do with hoarder boomers and compulsively buying cheap garbage
The difference between him and everyone else on those trains is that they're all going somewhere, while he's going nowhere.
>>2021062>>2026001>>2028096stop bumping this garbage, nobody gives a fuck
This is how snow piercer started, right?
10k euros would get him a nice house in name places in Europe if he really works online, probably even Germany
>>1986080>He estimates that this unusual living arrangement has cost him around 10,000 euros per year, which doesn’t sound like muchThat's about the same as my yearly rent for a two bedroom apartment. The fuck is the point of being "homeless" if you're not at least saving money?
>>1986100americans living in vans under bridges probably think the average german is jealous of their existence
>>2046702Thanks for bumping my thread
