An in-depth understanding of travel behaviour determinants, including the relationship to non-travel activities, is the foundation for modelling and policy making. National Travel Surveys (NTS) and time use surveys (TUS) are two major data sources for travel behaviour and activity participation. The aim of this paper is to systematically compare both survey types regarding travel activities and non-travel activities. The analyses are based on the German National Travel Survey and the German National Time Use Survey from 2002.The number of trips and daily travel time for mobile respondents were computed as the main travel estimates. The number of trips per person is higher in the German TUS when changes in location without a trip are included. Location changes without a trip are consecutive non-trip activities with different locations but without a trip in-between. The daily travel time is consistently higher in the German TUS. The main reason for this difference is the 10-min interval used. Differences in travel estimates between the German TUS and NTS result from several interaction effects. Activity time in NTS is comparable with TUS for subsistence activities.Our analyses confirm that both survey types have advantages and disadvantages. TUS provide reliable travel estimates. The number of trips even seems preferable to NTS if missed trips are properly identified and considered. Daily travel times are somewhat exaggerated due to the 10-min interval. The fixed time interval is the most important limitation of TUS data. The result is that trip times in TUS do not represent actual trip times very well and should be treated with caution.We can use NTS activity data for subsistence activities between the first trip and the last trip. This can potentially benefit activity-based approaches since most activities before the first trip and after the last trip are typical home-based activities which are rarely substituted by out-of-home activities.