Travelling With-Nils Frahm

The German musician on crossing borders, the “emotional plane effect” and wanderlust.

I didn’t do a huge amount of travelling as a kid.

I grew up in Hamburg in the north of Germany. If we went on holiday, we would always drive. As a family, we usually visited Italy or Denmark and I remember driving for hours, sometimes up to 12, just to get there. We visited Portugal once, which was definitely one of my favourite trips. I don’t know what made it so special for me, but I just remember feeling so excited by it. Our car died a few times along the way, which was entertaining, to say the least. I also remember having one amazing holiday in the Czech Republic. It was just after the wall had come down, so discovering the east was like discovering a completely different planet. We weren’t used to that side. It was all so different.

When I travel nowadays, it’s usually for work.