Beijing, Oct. 26 -- The distance from Hamburg to Shanghai is 10,000 kilometers, a journey normally made by plane in about 10 hours.
But there is a notable difference between going to a location and traveling there - for German Tina Ubel, this difference already added up to almost 50 days.
Rather than fly, Ubel took a series of trains, crossing the European and Asian continents and passing through 16 cities in seven countries.
She started her journey from Hamburg in Germany on July 16 and arrived in Shanghai on Sept 1. She then made an extra trip back to Beijing to share her experience with fellow travelers.
Ubel spoke to METRO and recalled that the trip all started one year ago when she was thinking of how to enter particular cities.
"Iran, for example, has always been a country I have wanted to visit," Ubel said.
"It is always in the media and has become such a focus for global politics."
Ubel visited Teheran, the capital, which she named as her best "lover city".
She then traveled through Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan. Instead of passing through Siberia, Ubel took the Silk Road from Urumqi, capital of Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, through Xi'an in Shaanxi province, and on to Beijing. Her last stop of the journey was Shanghai.
"It was a historical way to enter China. It was amazing and I felt so close to history," she said.
Ubel said she stayed in most cities for one to four days.
"Usually, when I was in a city, I didn't visit tourist attractions like castles or temples," she said.
"I walked everywhere. If I knew of anything interesting, I simply headed in that direction. I love to get lost in a city."
The total trip was far from cheap, so Ubel worked and saved for almost one year beforehand.
"The preparation was the hardest thing. I had to know whether it was possible and I had to be exact about particular things," she said.
The most troubling point was getting hold of a valid travel visa.
"It always took a long time to get a visa ready, but then it was only usually valid for one or two weeks," she said.
"Some visas expired before I could go and I also had to know train connections in advance since some ran only two or three times each week."
Ubel said the preparation was a headache, but the experience was sublime. She traveled only with two shirts, one pair of pants, one pair of shoes, a laptop and a camera. "I like traveling by train because I like talking with people," she said."The train is for meeting people. Communication depends more on your desire than your language skill."
This was evident when she sat beside some Russians travellers on a train once - she talked for hours despite only knowing a little of the language.
"We used every possible way to talk with each other, such as writing things down, using body language and asking others for help," Ubel said.
And while she chatted, she watched the world. Traveling by train, she added, offered a much better understanding of distance than a plane could. She witnessed landscapes and languages change slowly.
"I really got a feeling for it and learned just how connected we all are," she said.
She added that when she first looked at the route on a map, it felt like the distance was immense. This gap had closed significantly after the journey was concluded.
Over the trip, Ubel recorded her experiences in more than 300 blog entries.
"Much of it was the actual travel experience, as well as funny moments and misunderstandings," she said.
Ubel said she would go through the postings and try to wrap them together as a book.
With the journey only recently over, Ubel is already planning to take a trip to Cameroon at the end of November.
Traveling might be in her blood, but for now, all she really wants to do is go home and fall asleep.