Tour to Germany, April 2022
Here, Jo reflects on our tour to Germany - the first in which we travelled by electric car - and what it was like joining the ‘slow travel’ movement (although in the Tesla on the Autobahn, it wasn’t that slow!).
“We’re just back from our first low-carbon tour of Germany, and there are many positives to share about it.
Before the trip I was very nervous about being in the car for so long, whether I would be ok as a passenger, as I’m used to being the main driver, how all the charging would work, and the ratio of driving to playing (also in terms of how it would affect our focus in concerts).
Pleased to report - all excellent.
We enjoyed sharing the driving, and though we couldn’t quite agree on an audiobook, we settled on a comedy series which kept us all entertained. We insured everyone to drive, for me to insure three extra people for a month was around £35. It meant we could swap around between the two cars which worked really well.
With electric cars you are forced to take a break every two or three hours (c.300km) which seemed to suit everyone very well. Two cars for five people and six instruments was great, no one felt squashed up. Nobody missed the hassle of getting big instruments on to planes! German roads of course were very well kept, quite a few contraflows but we never got stuck in traffic, not bad for a 1600 mile round trip. We kept to the charging points suggested by the car route planner - very easy and planning the route didn’t take up too much head space. The total cost for the charging for one car was around £190, plus £260 for the Eurotunnel, so very favourable compared to flying three people and buying instrument seats.
The charging points were all situated with food and toilets nearby, and there were always lots of chargers (usually 15-20) so there was never any need to wait to charge. I enjoyed the fact that sometimes the charging places were in small villages, for example we stopped at a restaurant on the way to Eisenach which specialised in rosehips - we came away with wine, jam and schnapps. In addition we could also charge in the towns and with our very accommodating hosts, for example free charging at the spa which we visited on our afternoon off.
After the concerts we got given local wine, jam and reusable glass water bottles, no problem to stick them in the car without wondering if they were going to weigh our luggage down too much.
Having our own cars meant we had more flexibility in planning our trip, we could play in smaller venues without relying on promoters to ferry us around, and it was convenient for nipping in to local towns for food, collecting forgotten prescriptions etc.
What would I do differently? Only bring a pack of cards and possibly try to find an audio book that everyone enjoyed.”
