About the journal
Twelve years, no short flights
Ferrylight started as a notebook of connections that worked.
In 2014 I travelled from Hamburg to the Scottish islands without a plane and wrote down every train, ferry and bus. Friends asked for the list, then friends of friends. Today the journal has 64 routes, and every one has been travelled at least twice.
The journeys behind the journal
Five trips that changed how I travel and what I write about.
To the Hebrides by train
Hamburg to Oban in two days, the first route in the notebook.
The night ferry habit
A cabin on the ferry to Norway replaces a hotel night and half a day of travel.
The journal goes online
The notebook becomes Ferrylight, with the first 20 routes.
Islands by bike
A summer on the car-free islands of the Baltic and the North Sea.
The handbook in print
The Slow Coast Handbook with twelve journeys, in the shop.
How I travel and how I write about it
I travel by train, ferry, bus and bike, and on foot for the last part. Flights only for distances over 1,500 kilometres, and only when there is no night train.
I pay for my own tickets and rooms. No operator, hotel or tourist board pays for a post, and the shop is the only thing that pays for the journal.
Timetables change every season, so I name the operator to check instead of printing times. When a reader writes that a ferry no longer runs, I correct the post the same week.
Questions about a route are welcome. Write to me and I answer within a few days, from wherever I am.
My tip
Book the first night before you set off and leave the rest open. Arriving with a bed for the night makes every missed connection a story instead of a problem.
Tilda Brennick
The harbour letter
One letter a month from wherever the ferry docked.
A new route, a timetable change worth knowing and a place I would go back to. No offers, no tracking pixels, and you can leave with one click.