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I spend £8,500 a year to live on a train

metro.co.uk

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Re: I spend £8,500 a year to live on a train

#331

Post by moooo99 »

kragen wrote: post #281
corobo wrote: post #47

I love trains as much as the next nerd but that's a heck of a commitment haha I think if I wanted to do the digital nomad thing I'd have to cheat on the nomad bit a little and have an anchor flat somewhere.. where else would I keep the NAS?! As it stands my lil studio flat is 300/yr cheaper with all bills inc and has a coffee machine built into the (admittedly communal, but massive) kitchen. Plenty of caffeine, plent…

a colo will host your nas in a virtual machine for €5 a month or in a physical machine for €30 a month. this includes the machine and internet connection. i think you'll have a hard time finding a studio flat in europe for under €150 a month

They put his yearly cost at ~9900€ which comes out to ~830€/mo. So 300€/mo cheaper would come out at around 530€/mo. At that price you could get a studio apartment in many cities or at least afford to live with 1-2 roommates.

Re: I spend £8,500 a year to live on a train

#332

Post by xutopia »

This is horrible and I hope it doesn't encourage anyone to do this. No friendships beyond the very shallow relationships you can develop with the workers onboard the train or the people passing through.

This feels inhumane to me. I can't imagine someone being happy doing this for any length of time.

Re: I spend £8,500 a year to live on a train

#333

Post by myaccountonhn »

15457345234 wrote: post #223
koevet wrote: post #144

I wonder how does he actually work as a digital nomad. Internet on DB trains is massively unreliable, there are entire patches of country that are not covered by mobile signal.

> I wonder how does he actually work as a digital nomad. I suspect the secret here is that a lot of people adopting this type of lifestyle produce really mediocre output and some way or another fit into the gaps at a large company that doesn't conduct aggressive performance reviews. Everyone is different but I find it hard to believe that high quality code is generated from working consistently in that type of enviro…

Having met many people who work remotely and travel, you have everything from mediocre english teachers, grifters, programmers (good and bad) to over-achievers with successful lifestyle-businesses.

Lately I've been programming less and less with wifi while sitting at libraries and cafes without wifi. It's fine, just have proper dev environments, use isync for offline emails, download docs and learn to read manuals instead of stackoverflow.

Re: I spend £8,500 a year to live on a train

#334

Post by Tijdreiziger »

brnt wrote: post #289
martinald wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

After spending a lot of time in Europe, the grass definitely isn't greener. Trains in France are not vastly cheaper than the UK, but the service pattern is awful outside the very main routes. Often huge gaps in service for parts of the day and non-clockface timetabling. Seems to be very poor utilisation of rolling stock, with a lot of the stations having trains sitting for hours doing nothing (which should really be…

> Netherlands You cannot possible rate the Netherlands good on comfort. It's cattle class, even on 'long' (for Dutch standards) haul routes. They _just_ started to operate carriages with power sockets! I rode better trains in Poland 10 years ago than in NL. I take el cheapo French TGV (Ouigo) over any Dutch rolling stock any day.

Ouigo comfort is far less than any Dutch IC-class stock. Maybe the Ouigo is on par with Sprinter-class stock, but even then it’s a stretch.

Compared to German stock — yes, the German stock is nicer (mainly has to do with different usage patterns, though — Netherlands train network has been said to resemble a country-sized metro network).

Outlets — who cares, just bring a power bank — again, compare to networks like London Overground or Paris RER.

Re: I spend £8,500 a year to live on a train

#335

Post by corobo »

marcosdumay wrote: post #269
corobo wrote: post #47

I love trains as much as the next nerd but that's a heck of a commitment haha I think if I wanted to do the digital nomad thing I'd have to cheat on the nomad bit a little and have an anchor flat somewhere.. where else would I keep the NAS?! As it stands my lil studio flat is 300/yr cheaper with all bills inc and has a coffee machine built into the (admittedly communal, but massive) kitchen. Plenty of caffeine, plent…

> where else would I keep the NAS?! In a colocation? I mean, I guess I get what you are trying to say, by the NAS is the least compelling reason to keep an address somewhere.

Well yeah I was making a little bit of a joke there. It's also a handy place to keep the rest of my stuff, receive letters, use as an address for banks, sleep in known comfort, all the good stuff that comes with having a fixed abode

If it was the only thing stopping me doing the nomad thing I'd set it up at a friend's house (with payment in terabytes of storage) or aye colo it

Re: I spend £8,500 a year to live on a train

#336

Post by Tijdreiziger »

baud147258 wrote: post #324
brnt wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Netherlands You cannot possible rate the Netherlands good on comfort. It's cattle class, even on 'long' (for Dutch standards) haul routes. They _just_ started to operate carriages with power sockets! I rode better trains in Poland 10 years ago than in NL. I take el cheapo French TGV (Ouigo) over any Dutch rolling stock any day.

> el cheapo French TGV (Ouigo) from the handfull of times I've taken Ouigo, it's just normal TGV, just without first class and sometime less convenient train stations (like outside of Paris instead of close to the center)...

IME, seat comfort on Ouigo is far less than e.g. Thalys or TGV Lyria.

Haven’t been on regular TGV to compare, but it can’t be much worse than Ouigo…

Re: I spend £8,500 a year to live on a train

#337

Post by iraqmtpizza »

johnwalkr wrote: post #319
iraqmtpizza wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, it's subsidized by taxes on French people and runs at a loss

That's true of most transit and also true for roads.

Two wrongs don't make a right. If a particular taxpayer-funded road was one cent per mile for the end user as opposed to other higher-priced roads, you wouldn't say, "wow, this road is reasonably priced!" Unless you're literally just doing a travel blog

Re: I spend £8,500 a year to live on a train

#338

Post by flohofwoe »

sandworm101 wrote: post #317

I do not believe. Does this guy have a passport? Then he has a mailing address. He claims to work. Then he pays taxes. In which country? he has a mailing address. At 17, I'd bet good money that his mailing address is also his parent's mailing address. This is a gap student having fun bouncing around Europe, about as nomadic as any other backpacker.

He's most likely registered at his parent's address, but it's not like there's an age restriction where you're no longer allowed to live in your parent's basement or to physically be there ;)

At that age he's also mostly included in his parent's insurances, so one less thing to worry about. Taxes are deducted automatically from his wage. And to receive the wage he just needs a bank account.

Re: I spend £8,500 a year to live on a train

#339

Post by Mistletoe »

xutopia wrote: post #332

This is horrible and I hope it doesn't encourage anyone to do this. No friendships beyond the very shallow relationships you can develop with the workers onboard the train or the people passing through. This feels inhumane to me. I can't imagine someone being happy doing this for any length of time.

This is kind of what I want to do for several years with my girlfriend. Hide out from the real world on the trains of Europe and explore. Can someone tell me if this pass is Germany only or is something like this available for a lot of Europe?

Re: I spend £8,500 a year to live on a train

#340

Post by mudita »

sandworm101 wrote: post #317

I do not believe. Does this guy have a passport? Then he has a mailing address. He claims to work. Then he pays taxes. In which country? he has a mailing address. At 17, I'd bet good money that his mailing address is also his parent's mailing address. This is a gap student having fun bouncing around Europe, about as nomadic as any other backpacker.

As far as I know, it is possible to have the entry "ohne festen Wohnsitz"(without a permanent residence) instead of a mailing address in a German passport and he's legally not allowed to use his parents address, if he's not there for at least 183 days a year.

But I don't really understand how this small legal detail would change the whole character of his life experience, in any case. No matter what is written in his passport, he spends the whole year in a train.

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