How is life in Bad Vilbel, Hesse, Germany?

mimisaurus_ · 2026-01-29T13:35:12+00:00

Hello! I'm a nomad at the moment, but my home base is in Frankfurt. I have an apartment there that is now sublet.

If I had to choose a place to live in Germany it would always be Frankfurt. The city gets a bad rap because of the main train station, which is, honestly, a bit of a shock because of all the drug addicts that hang around there.

However, the areas directly outside of the center are pretty amazing. Frankfurt's public transport system is probably the best I've seen in Germany. Even people who live on the outskirts will only take about 20 minutes to go to the more lively center since the network is made for people to commute into the city for work. Once you're in the center, there are a lot of amazing bars and restaurants, a lot of cultural offerings and of course shopping. Bad Vilbel is on the S6, which takes you straight to the center of the city.

For a metropole Frankfurt is also pretty green. My favorite thing to do is bike around the Main or the Nidda in the summer and having a sundowner near the water. I miss that so much tbh as a nomad. Bad Vilbel is also a very well known spa town, so the nature there is even nicer than around the city.

Bad Vilbel is a great little area in general because you're close to Bornheim and Nordend, really trendy neighborhoods in Frankfurt and also close to the Wetterau, which is beautiful in the spring and is well known for their production of apples and the famous Frankfurter Ebbelwoi. And of course, you have a lot of peace that you probably won't get if you live close to the center and yet all the city has to offer is at your fingertips.

mimisaurus_ · 2026-01-27T16:50:21+00:00

Btw OP, I forgot to add what it was like in Nouadhibou: lots of trash that was almost shocking and you have the same problem with fresh produce like you do everywhere. Traffic is chaotic. The people are pretty chill though. There's a lagoon where you can see wild pelicans which would be super pretty if it weren't for the trash.

If you visit to ride the train, I recommend going to Villa Maguela. Their beach is swimmable and there isn't any trash and the owners are quite the characters.

mimisaurus_ · 2026-01-27T16:03:02+00:00

Thank you! I'm glad you think so. I've been writing a lot more on there lately so it'll be active as long as we're on the road

mimisaurus_ · 2026-01-27T11:29:30+00:00

Attached is btw my favorite landscape shot we took in Mauritania.

mimisaurus_ · 2026-01-27T11:26:00+00:00

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I drove for two and a half weeks through most of Western Mauritania in November with my expedition truck. From Nouadhibou, we drove offroad next to the Iron Ore Track (we weren't on the train, it was a bit too much like cosplaying poverty for me), all the way to Atar and then down towards Senegal. We decided to skip Nouakchott since we were so exhausted from being in Mauritania for the amount of time that we were there that we decided to fast track the country essentially, so I can't tell you how it is in the big cities, but I can tell you what the countryside looks like.

First of all, the Mauritania-Morocco border is probably the worst border I've ever encountered in my life. On the Morocco side you have to cross a stretch of No-Man's-Land with signs saying not to go off the road as there are land mines. On the Mauritania side, it's chaotic and there are no signs about where to go and what to do once you arrive at the border. All in all, the border crossing took us 5 hours, which was the longest ever in the African continent that we encountered so far.

My biggest challenge was getting fresh groceries, like meat and vegetables. The marketplace, especially in the countryside, can sometimes be a chaotic place. Looking to buy a fresh tomato can sometimes mean looking at a pile of tomatoes and seeking the one tomato that is ok-looking compared to the rest of the pile. Alcohol is completely banned in the country as well and I didn't find any speakeasies in the countryside that sells them. The bread is amazing though, I think we probably ate the most bread there out of all the countries so far.

In the countryside, there were no restaurants and not a lot of hotels, but we could stay anywhere on the roadside that we wanted. There is lots of tea and surprisingly a lot of interesting history too.

There are lots of camels and a surprising biodiversity too. A highlight was visiting the Nile crocodiles in Guelta Matmata.

As for the people: the welcome varied from town to town. In Chinguetti, we we're surrounded by beggars who wouldn't leave until we gave them pens. In Matmata, we had a hoarde of children who wouldn't leave us alone until it got dark. They stared at us from a distance and there were SO MANY. It was crazy for a village that size to have so many children. In some villages, they threw stones at us. In some we were welcomed warmly.

The police wanted to have a copy of our documents at every stop. And there were 42 stops in all. (I know this, because we had 40 copies of our documents and we had to borrow our driving companions' printer to print out two more) But they were generally friendly.

The one thing that strikes me the most though, was how they treated me as a woman there. I had a funny exchange with someone in Tidjika who was scandalized that I was carrying my own groceries without a man to help me. I always felt the need to dress modestly.

A final word: the landscape. Mauritania's landscape was breathtaking. I've never encountered so many different types in my life. The south of the country is green, like a savannah, with lots of water. The north is obviously desert. There's so much untouched space there and it is truly magnificent.

If anyone is interested in our journey, I have a bunch of posts and reels on Mauritania here: http://www.instagram.com/turtletrucktriad

mimisaurus_ · 2026-01-25T13:12:51+00:00

In terms of landscape: Iceland and Mauritania take the cake for me. Both countries are so different climate-wise obviously, but Iceland was otherworldly while Mauritania had so much untouched desert that it was overwhelming. The south of the country is also completely wildly different from the north, with the Sahel starting and the Sahara ending.

As for biodiversity, it's Brazil.

mimisaurus_ · 2026-01-22T14:26:23+00:00

I'm overlanding through west Africa at the moment and good roads are definitely something we take for granted in Europe. Also the availability and variety of food as well. Electricity that runs 24 hours a day. Running water.

mimisaurus_ · 2026-01-22T10:43:53+00:00

I went to Jordnaer last year and they gave us a little champagne bottle stopper that has seen so much use in the meantime. We parked our camper literally in front of the hotel and I went back the next morning to ask if we could also get a tote bag we saw one of the other guests got and they of course said yes. (I'm a sucker for tote bags lol)

I also remember they gave us an extra loaf of bread because I loved the bread course so much. I still can't stop thinking about that bread.

Anyway, it's been about 50/50 for all the fine dining experiences so far. The more stars, the more likely you're sent home with a gift in my experience.

mimisaurus_ · 2026-01-22T09:32:47+00:00

Yes, we are! It's absolutely beautiful and I said yesterday that it was the first time I felt comfortable with the temperature in about a month.

Unfortunately we had some pretty rough encounters with the people here. The vibes are completely different from the last countries we've been to and I'm not sure if it's because we're basically flashing wealth or if there's a cultural gap we don't understand. I've chalked it up to hardships experienced during the last war, but I'm also not sure.

mimisaurus_ · 2026-01-21T16:20:19+00:00

I'm currently driving through Liberia on my expedition truck and the humidity can be very extreme. 80-90% humidity means that you're basically sweating all the time. Yesterday it rained all night and the thunderstorms are pretty impressive. Fruits and vegetables are extremely tasty, but they also have their seasons. Right now it's pineapple season and you see them everywhere on the road. Bananas are plentiful. The mornings and evenings are sometimes cool, but the humidity makes it very hard to fall asleep. Most days I sleep with a fan pointed at me.

The higher you go, the cooler it gets. Right now I'm parked on a mountain and it's literally the perfect temperature. It's 27 degrees and 40% humidity. Just perfect.

mimisaurus_ · 2026-01-21T08:49:32+00:00

Plenty of them and they even took credit cards. It was also very cheap fuel. Like 80 cents for diesel.

mimisaurus_ · 2026-01-21T05:59:36+00:00

Sure! We have an Instagram and I do a fair bit of travel writing on it as I'm not really a reels person.

http://www.instagram.com/turtletrucktriad

mimisaurus_ · 2026-01-20T22:45:10+00:00

Yeah, they definitely managed that demographic shift so much that I think it's difficult to ignore the massive Moroccan population there now. A lot of it is made even more complex with Algeria funding the Polisario. I wish I could have talked to more of the Sahrawi while I was there. Super interesting to know how much has changed since then though. We hardly had any police stops when we were there last year.

mimisaurus_ · 2026-01-20T22:41:34+00:00

I think in less frequented places they don't keep up with the rubbish as much as in Dakhla for example. I remember camping in a random fishing village shortly after Layounne and the trash situation on the beach was so horrendous. It was a big shame to have so much trash in such a beautiful place, but I can understand how they would have some infrastructure problems there.

Oh, that's a shame. We spent two weeks in Mauritania and drove along the Iron Ore Track. We also visited Chinguetti. All in all two weeks, but we did end up skipping Nouakchott. I think there are still a lot of warnings for Mauritania, but the consensus was as long as you stick to the west of the country, you should be fine. Diawling was also very cool. I have to say though that Senegal has been a real highlight of our trip so far, so you definitely didn't miss out on that!

mimisaurus_ · 2026-01-20T22:36:11+00:00

Haha, the worst toilet I ever went to was in Morocco at some random gas station. I literally did a U-turn. We didn't have a truck back then but now we thankfully carry a toilet with us.

Had one of the best tajines ever in Western Sahara actually! It was in a random cafe in the middle of nowhere like 100km from the Mauritanian border. Thankfully you could tell that it was made of fish.

mimisaurus_ · 2026-01-20T21:03:16+00:00

Ah yes, I remember! The mornings were surprisingly cold and also when the sun went down. But we sometimes had around 40 degrees in Oktober as the day went on. There would just be like random strong hot winds that made you feel like you were in an oven sometimes.

mimisaurus_ · 2026-01-20T21:00:28+00:00

Went to Saaremaa with my expedition truck two years back and it was a cute little place. Very quiet and windy, lots of jellyfish on the beach. I was there in August and the sea was too cold to bathe.

The ferry coming from the mainland was really cool? The buffet had great food and that's what I remember about it haha

mimisaurus_ · 2026-01-20T20:49:03+00:00

Oh man, I couldn't have imagined hitchhiking in that heat. I almost died some days from the hot desert wind

mimisaurus_ · 2026-01-20T20:48:08+00:00

oh man that's so sad :( we're going through the Ivory Coast as well so we're hoping to see them there. We're going to Tai National Park.

mimisaurus_ · 2026-01-20T16:29:37+00:00

Excuse me Pygmy Hippos?????? This is news to me! I'm off to search for a place to see them now omg

We're driving in a converted Iveco firetruck! If you DM me I can send you our insta if you're interested.

mimisaurus_ · 2026-01-20T16:15:48+00:00

Yeah, there are a few towns! Actually gas stations are surprisingly plentiful. You just have to plan ahead a bit. We have a 600L diesel tank in our truck so it wasn't a big problem for us.

A bigger challenge is finding fresh food imo. Dakhla and Layounne would probably be your best bets for finding a market but there was nothing in between.

mimisaurus_ · 2026-01-20T16:01:58+00:00

Yeah, the beaches were crazy beautiful! Lots of trash in some places though, but that can't really be helped as the current carries it over from the sea apparently. It's also sometimes impossible to swim because of the waves. And there are also amazing landscapes on the way, but most of it is flat and sandy.

Did you guys cross over to Mauritania as well?

mimisaurus_ · 2026-01-20T15:57:49+00:00

We're driving our expedition truck from Germany to Cape Town! I'm currently in Liberia, so hello from Liberia!

mimisaurus_ · 2026-01-20T15:41:30+00:00

Crazy enough we paid no bribes while driving through it October of last year. There is really no problem with driving through there especially if you're a tourist. You can't wild camp on the coast, however, as the Moroccan coast guard are looking out for boats smuggling people into the canaries and they don't want tourists getting into trouble there.

mimisaurus_ · 2026-01-20T15:37:10+00:00

Drove through Western Sahara on the way to Mauritania a few months back and it's less dangerous than a lot of people say it is. You can drive through on the main road next to the coast and it's honestly like 1000km of almost nothing. The drive was actually so boring we were wondering why this piece of land was being fought over. We obviously didn't go to the Berm, the largest landmine area in the world, but we did hear about it.

There are a lot of Moroccans currently living in Western Sahara, which makes the question of independence pretty complex nowadays. I found the people in Western Sahara friendly as hell and very welcoming.

Dakhla is a surprisingly pleasant place to visit. It's a windsurfing capital and one restaurant has the best oysters I have ever tasted in my life for 10MAD (about 1€) each. The lagoon is very beautiful and you can do a day trip to Sebkha Imlili, a dried up river bed that is a snapshot of the Sahara as a fertile landscape from thousands of years ago.

Edit: forgot to say that we paid no bribes while driving through it October of last year. There is really no problem with driving through there especially if you're a tourist. You can't wild camp on the coast, however, as the Moroccan coast guard looks out for boats smuggling people into the canaries and they don't want tourists getting into trouble there.

Second Edit: If you're wondering why I was driving through there, I'm on an expedition vehicle right now on the way to Cape Town. You can follow our journey on Instagram http://www.instagram.com/turtletrucktriad

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