Talking about a trip you've taken is one of the most frequent topics in the B1 speaking exam, specifically in Sprechen Teil 2, where you give a short, organized presentation about a personal experience. This requires combining three grammar tools you've learned separately into one coherent narrative: Perfekt for narrating the main sequence of events in order, Plusquamperfekt when you need to point to an event that happened before another past event you already mentioned, and Relativsätze (relative clauses) for describing places and people in more detail than a single adjective allows, as in Das Hotel, in dem wir wohnten, war sehr schön ("The hotel we stayed in was very beautiful").
One point deserving special attention is the prepositions used with destinations, since the choice in German depends on the type of place, not just a general sense of "to." This differs from languages that often get by with a single all-purpose word for "to." With cities and most (grammatically neuter) countries, you use nach with no article at all, as in nach Marokko or nach Berlin. With countries that are grammatically feminine or plural, like die Türkei, die Schweiz, or die USA, you use in die, because these countries carry a fixed article that must stay visible. With natural destinations like the sea or mountains, you use an or auf depending on the type of place, as in ans Meer or auf die Insel.
Perfekt alone isn't enough to tell a rich story; a strong B1-level narrative mixes main events in Perfekt with descriptive touches from relative clauses or ready-made expressive phrases like Das hat mich beeindruckt ("that impressed me") or Es hat mir sehr gefallen ("I really liked it"), which give the narration a personal, emotional quality beyond a dry list of facts.
The most common mistake is using in instead of nach when talking about a destination (wohin?) rather than a location (wo?), producing sentences like Ich fahre in Deutschland when the intended meaning is "I'm traveling to Germany" — the correct form is Ich fahre nach Deutschland. Remember: in marks being inside a place, while nach marks heading toward it — a crucial distinction among German prepositions of motion.