About Us

Who are we?

“Do you like to discover beautiful places around Jena but your friends are super lazy? Then join our hiking group.” Actually, frequently new people join and we get to know to new people on every event.

Starting from February 2017, we are having weekly trips to visit the beautiful nature, historical sites and amazing lakes. This group focuses on outdoor activities, so sometimes there are even special sports events like boating or skiing besides normal hikes. So far, we have organized more than 200 public events and had participants from everywhere in the world.

The group is originally based on a private Facebook group. However, you can easily find our future events by subscribing us, joining our Telegram Channel or our Instagram-Account. We have also a YouTube channel to share our videos. All the photos are shared on the Facebook group and only members can see it.

What is our goal?

Exploring Nature

Our dynamic and international group’s purpose is organizing hiking trips in the Thuringian State of Germany, specifically around Jena.

Social Contacts, physical movement and the nature with its fresh air are basic human needs. We are combining everything in a casual way. That’s why the destinations linked with the people who joined remain as unforgettable memories.

Sometimes there were big groups, sometimes there were small groups. Sometimes people joined with your friends, sometimes with strangers. Sometimes it was warm, sometimes it was rainy and cold and sometimes we had even snowy hikes.

Connecting People

One of our main goals is to connect people with different backgrounds. We use the hiking opportunities to get to know so many hikers while enjoying the nature and fruitful conversations. People who came up from different parts of the world like to talk about their culture, country diversity and also share their foods and people could easily become closer. Additionally, we motivate each other on long and exhausting hikes.

Especially for newbies in Jena and international students the hiking group is a great way to discover the hiking destinations without being worried about finding the way and without planning the route. Joining helps these people for integration too.

We try to mix with new people and to avoid making small groups with our friends or people from our country. Sometimes we have introduction rounds and small games to support the integration. Usually we easily come closer, find new friends and even relationships were made. Also it is typical to share the food we bring while having breaks outdoors.

Where are we from?

We are proud to be very international, open to new people and new cultures, and love to integrate and exchange. We had people from all continents in the world with different background. So at each hiking there are new members with new stories.

As a small movement, we would like to mark where we are from on this map to celebrate our diversity. If you have been already in one of the previous hiking trips with us, you can tell us your hometown so we can add it to this map. In this way, the people can easily find you if they are interested to know about your hometown.

Who are we?

We are a dynamic student join initiative which focuses on outdoor activities in Jena and the other areas of the state Thuringia, Germany to enjoy the beautiful nature together. The participants are always different but mainly international students, which we want to integrate and to share our adknowledge with by e.g. showing hiking destinations.

The group was initial at Feb 2017 as a hiking group, but since the type of activities is diverse increased and not limited anymore to hikes, we changed the name of the group in "Together in Jena" and now the hiking activities are a part of the main group.

Our group is mainly based on Telegram and it is actually a platform, where everyone can organize events in the JAPP and find people to join. Since 2017, we have organized more than 200 hiking trips and had participants from everywhere in the world.

Everyone is welcome to join our events and team and initiate activities.

In Jena we fortunately have diverse cultures and there are many firendships among them. Nevertheless, there is always a comfort-zone the participants try to stay in. That means there is still a barrier to approach strangers with another background, especially with a different phenotype.

Jena is a city with many student groups and some of them we collaborate with. Generally there is the challenge not to make it overlapping in time, too formal, too boring, not nationality balanced or too restricted in requirements. We already face these issues and try to solve them e.g. by breaking the ice with games and encouraging others to share their skills or organize their own events.

Besides these challenges, there is the technical issue: Many new students come to Jena, have the same questions and want to visit the most popular places. In order to solve this efficiently we added a part about Hiking-Attractions to our website and launched a telegram-bot to collect answers for frequently

Our Philosopy

In addition to the social aspect, we are also interested in the joint exploration of the beautiful landscape, for which access often has to be created first.

In addition, since the pandemic, we have launched another platform called Jena Activity Partner Pool (formerly Hiking Partner Pool), so that participants can become active themselves to organize small events.

[Deutsche Version]

In unserer dynamischen internationalen studentischen Initiative sind die Teilnehmenden genauso vielfältig wie die Aktivitäten und somit wird das niedrigschwellige Kennenlernen neuer Menschen, die interkulturelle Begegnung, der Kulturaustausch durch das sich aktive Einbringen der individuellen Stärken und Traditionen, das Entdecken der Natur und neuer sportlicher sowie künstlerischer Tätigkeiten gefördert.

Wer sind wir?

Unsere internationale Gruppe von Studierenden organisiert Wanderungen in Thüringen insbesondere um Jena. Seit Februar 2017 haben wir mehr als 200 Wanderungen mit Teilnehmern aus aller Welt organisiert. Dabei haben wir auch andere Teilnehmende ermutigt selbst aktiv zu werden und als Organisator aufzutreten.

Am Wochenende planen wir Ausflüge zu berühmten Sehenswürdigkeiten, historischen Orten und idyllische Seen. Neben unseren regelmäßigen Wanderungen organisieren wir manchmal auch andere Outdoor-Aktivitäten wie Bootfahren oder Skifahren.

Unser Ziel

Ziel unserer studentischen Initiative ist das niedrigschwellige Beisammensein durch Offenheit für Menschen jeder Herkunft. Da es in Jena regelmäßig neue internationale Studierende gibt, sehen wir einen großen Nutzen unserer Aktivitäten und wollen ihnen die Chance geben, sich uns anzuschließen und Freunde zu finden.

Das verwirklichen wir insbesondere durch die Organisierung von wöchentlichen Wanderungen, doch auch anderer Projekte um Menschen zu verbinden und voneinander zu lernen.

Vor allem den internationalen Studierenden wollen wir eine Anlaufstelle bieten, um sich schnell und unkompliziert zu integrieren sowie die Natur kennen zu lernen.

Unsere Philosophie

Insgesamt geht es uns neben dem sozialen Aspekt auch um das gemeinsame Erkunden der wunderschönen Landschaft, für die oftmals erst ein Zugang geschaffen werden muss.

Zudem haben wir seit der Pandemie noch eine weitere Plattform gestartet, namens Jena Activity Partner Pool (früher Hiking Partner Pool), sodass Teilnehmende selber aktiv werden um kleine Veranstaltungen zu organisieren.