The best travel influencers from Germany

Max Haase is one of the few who earn their view. In August 2026 he rode over the Alps in seven days, Oberstdorf to Bolzano, and pedalled all 10,900 metres of climbing without a motor; two years earlier he had taken the same mountains on foot. Between trips like that he stays in luxury resorts, and ever since a sailing course in Greece he has had a boat of his own.

In 2011 Mirko Büchte began an apprenticeship at a savings bank; in 2017 he bought his first camera. Today he shows, step by step, how to film yourself alone on the road, and sells the craft as a course as well. His clients include Audi, which brought him in for the Q9 world premiere, and the cruise brand Mein Schiff.

In 2018 Janet Dannehl quit her job, booked a flight and left. Ever since, she has explained countries rather than simply showing them: she writes down what works differently in the Philippines, what you ought to see in North Cyprus, and where in the Algarve the steps lead down into the sea cave. Saudi Arabia's tourism board has been booking her since 2023 — first into the mountains of Asir, most recently into the villas on the Red Sea.

Yvonne Pferrer has two professions and lets both show. Thirteen years in television lie behind her, most recently the ZDF series “Inga Lindström”, and alongside them run multi-part expeditions such as the one into Canada's Tweedsmuir Provincial Park. In spring 2026 her count stood at close to 70 of the world's 195 countries. Her cinema documentary “Yabadu – niemals erwachsen” came out in 2025, and she campaigns with Wilderness International for rainforest protection.

The show that made his name was Fritz Meinecke's own invention, and he left it in 2025 — “7 vs. Wild”. Since then he has raced ultra-distance. The Northcape4000 runs from Italy to the North Cape, 4,000 kilometres, and he finished 18th of 536. Then there are the Atlas Mountain Race across Morocco and the Race Across America in an eight-man team with Joey Kelly.

For a good twenty years Andrea David has been holding a printed film still up against the real location and photographing both together, without AI, as she stresses. Her blog lists more than 600 films and series. “Szene für Szene die Welt entdecken” won the ITB Book Award in 2023, and in 2026 she announced a guide to the filming locations of Star Wars.

A first trip together to Barcelona turned into a blog in 2014, kept as a travel diary. Today Nathalie Aron and her husband Patrick are away some 250 days a year; on their seventh wedding anniversary the tally stood at seventy countries visited together. He is usually the one behind the camera. She photographs her native Saxony too, and in 2025, 22 of those pictures hung in the Carrousel du Louvre.

“Entdecke wo du lebst” — discover where you live — is Simon Hegewald's programme and the title of both his KOSMOS guidebooks, 270 German destinations between them. His weekends follow a fixed shape, out on Friday and back on Sunday. His day job is the civil service, previously as a senior police officer; with long-distance hiker Christine Thürmer he co-hosts the podcast “Läuft bei uns”.

Marinus Obermair, a trained cook from Upper Bavaria, collects distances. He hitchhiked from Bavaria to Bali without money, crossed Australia by bike in forty days and walked from Mexico to Colombia. In summer 2026 he set out to swim the Danube from Passau to Bratislava, 350 kilometres in 72 hours; it ended at kilometre 152. Since then he has campaigned with the WorldChanger Foundation for children's swimming safety.

Emanuele Vignoli is a photographer from Florence, in Berlin since 2026, working with his partner Victoria Garcia Martinez as the duo VIEM — the name joins their two first names. What the pair deliver is calm: long mornings on Crete, light just after sunrise, some of it shot on film. Hotel brands like Numa and JW Marriott book exactly that.

Jasmin tests what a stay is worth and what it costs — first restaurants and day trips in Baden-Württemberg, and since 2026 hotels further afield too. Thailand was the first long-haul trip, then came a road trip from Los Angeles to Palm Springs and the Wynn in Las Vegas. What she likes best are places written off as underrated, Kos say, or Warsaw.

Elena and Ben keep rebuilding their home. They lived almost seven years aboard the catamaran OHANA, married in December 2025, and since June 2026 have been converting a French school bus with 400,000 kilometres on it — the second attempt, after the first collapsed seven weeks in. It all started in 2011, when Ben missed his flight home after music school in Sydney and bought a sailing boat for 10,000 euros.

Sophie has flown long-haul since 2015 and has made the stopovers in between her subject. Since 2023 she has been going on safari outside Johannesburg, and Alaska, San Francisco and Boston have followed. Every week she answers questions about the job — most recently why the sunflower lanyard should be taken seriously on board. Her podcast “Höhenluft” has been running since 2023.

Eric Medicke wants to be the first to walk through all 47 countries in Europe — 40,000 kilometres, planned over five years. He passed the 10,000-kilometre point in Norway in July 2026, shortly before his twentieth birthday. In between he ran a race of his own invention to the geographical centre of Germany, 376 kilometres in 108 hours, and he was the only one of three starters to finish.

Friso Richter started with a traineeship at Hessischer Rundfunk in 2007, presented radio shows first and, since 2020, “Der Camping-Check” on ARD, where he climbs through campers that viewers have built themselves. His own, an Eriba-Car with 73 horsepower, is called Pamela and is older than the show. He also talks camping on the podcast “Natural Born Campers”.