Steffen Hager

is a travel consultant, travel blogger and is working in online communications. He’s been traveling extensively since the age of 16, flew over 700 times over the years and lived in various cities, for example Dubai. In 2016 Steffen Hager took over InsideFlyer.de as the Managing Editor and is responsible for the website-content and the German blogger-team. Today we talked to him about his experience as a frequent flyer.

Thank you for being with us today! To start off: What do you love most about traveling?

I love to discover new cities and to feel all the different “vibes”. Furthermore I just love being up in the air, looking out of the window and enjoying the view. That’s quality time.

How is traveling related to your job?

As a travel blogger I am traveling a lot in order to review as many airlines and hotels as possible. Combined with my private travels I am doing more than 100 flights and 130 hotel nights per year.

That sounds like you do indeed enjoy traveling a lot! What would make traveling even more pleasant for you?

Since I am flying a lot within in Europe, a system like TSA pre in the US would be amazing here in Europe. It would simplify the processes at the airport drastically! Another very useful thing would be if airlines, hotels and train services improved their usage of mobile apps. Via mobile apps it is so easy to communicate with customers in “real time” and inform them about any travel updates, delays or other changes.

How do you battle jet lag?

The only way which works for me is that I am thinking in the time at my destination once I board a flight. And espresso of course 😉 .

How did you become a passionate traveler?

Thanks to my parents I got to travel already as a small child. In order to prevent my father from flying back to Germany in order to attend conferences we started to fly to Florida when I was only a few years old. I think that was when I was bitten by the travel bug. Over the years I traveled a lot with my parents. However, when I was 16 years old I started to inform myself about all the airlines, the loyality programmes etc. I realized that there are many ways to travel comfortably and quite a lot for a kind of low amount of money if you know how to do it right. After that I started to inform myself more and more and learned a lot. After I finished school, I worked as a travel consultant for a Dubai-based company. 2015 I joined InsideFlyer as an author and since May 2016 I took over as Managing Editor for Germany. All in all I already flew more than 700 times and I am always happy to get up in the air again.

Which one’s your favorite airport and why?

Oh that’s a difficult question. I really like Munich Airport Terminal 2 as it’s a modern and bright building with kind of easy processes. However I also like London Heathrow Terminal 5, Doha Hamad Airport and of course the airport of my hometown, Hannover, as I only need 5 Minutes to get from the entrance into the Lufthansa lounge.

Which is your favorite airline?

It depends. Within Europe Lufthansa is my preferred choice. When it comes to long-haul flights towards Asia I usually enjoy to fly with Qatar Airways or Cathay Pacific and if I am flying to North America I really like Air Canada.

What’s the one item in your hand luggage you can’t live without?

Well first of all its my hand luggage itself, my Rimowa trolley. But a high quality liquid case is also very important to me as a frequent flyer and of course a foldable travel bag from TUMI which is very useful!

What’s your favorite travel-related sentence?

“Take-off in 1 minute!”

Thank you so much for taking the time to talk to us today!