Even when your inner self is balanced as hell, you might appreciate an external impulse to get things going.

Creeping slowly out of my frustration hole about the disabled Grand Trip 2020, I suddenly hold a travel book in my hands: “Let’s Camp”, published by “fort & glücklich” – already the cover causes a little smile on my face. Flipping through the book, my travel lust gets more and more activated. First consequence is the decision to either work (find a job, earn money for serious travels in 2021 or later) or to use June for spontaneous trips across Germany. While in fact I hope for the money, a hidden part of me might like the latter.

The second consequence is that, almost unconsciously, I start packing up Hector. Bed and blankets, towels and fresh water, coffee, tea and wine. These days (mid May), you hardly find any reliable information about Bavarian camping possibilities. The only thing sure: campsites are closed. But what about official overnight-parkings and other alternatives?

I decide to try it out. Hector, of course, is eager to get out and play. On Wednesday (my favourite holiday-weekday), we head off and an hour later find our spot for the night: The camper parking at Sylvenstein Stausee is open for campers! A nice mixture of vans, RVs, cars with roof-tents and any other possible overnight shelter is dispersed under high trees. The lake shore is a 4-minutes-walk away from Hector’s spot and the sun keeps smiling from an almost cloudless sky.

I keep it low and lazy, enjoying the view across the lake towards the Alps while reading a book and munching peanut flips. This typical holiday feeling motivates me to unpack my folded bike and look for even more touristic pictures around the dam wall.

Lucky me that I can finally test my new bike storage. I will need to coat the inner carton walls with some smooth material, aiming to ease the packing + unpacking of my bike. All the rest is just perfect: the compartment within the van, the bike itself and the adoring comments from other campers. Funny that most travellers make such an effort with bike carriers behind their vans when it is so easy to change perspective, chose another kind of bike and just fold it wherever your car offers some cubic centimetres of space.

The evening develops quite pleasant as I sit together with a young couple from Osnabrück and two other single campers. We share wine and beer, chats and experiences. Oh, I really missed the normal life with random encounters and travel stories!