Epic 30-day Road Trip Advise: What do you guys think about our month-long road trip plan from Early Dec to Early Jan? Looking for which part of the trip to drop the car and travel by train and other scenic transport options? Also let me know if this trip is too long or hectic for a couple 🙂 Thanks!
16 comments
Why would you do that to yourself? I count 14 cities, so switching and packing every 2 days? The weather in that time frame is mainly dark and rainy. It gets dark early and it is really not fun to drive at all in that conditions. With a trip like this you will mainly spend your time on the streets.
I would pick 4-5 main stations and really take the time to travel and not only visit. My personal preference would probably be something like München – Wien – Prag – Berlin – Hamburg.
But this is only me. I prefer not dragging my luggage around but stay more in one place and do trips around that city. Also I would travel not by car but by train and in emergency reasons by plane.
P.S. The places we’ve marked are the places we’ll be using as bases for 2 or 3 days each. With day trips planned for the nearby places.
You could plan a visit to Tübingen (after visiting Freiburg) its a very nice small town.
Are you driving from köln directly to hamburg when you’re done? Maybe visit Paderborn. That’s the city i Was born in!
While heading towards Munich from Frankfurt, you should add the Romantischstraße to your route. Takes you through a few smaller towns and has great scenery. I did that route last year in my vintage car and it was an amazing experience .
If you just hop from major city to major city anyway, scrap the car completely. Why would you want to drive from Prague to Berlin just to have to drive and park a car in Berlin? Or drive down to Freiburg only to drive up to Nuremberg again? A car makes only sense to reach all the small interesting areas that aren’t easy to reach with public transport, and you seem to avoid those. Driving on the German Autobahn all day is not as interesting as you seem to hope.
Definitely too hectic.
Why don’t you pick either west + Switzerland AND France – Strasbourg or Nancy or east + Czech Rep or north + Scandinavia or south + Austria?
So many city tours are boring. I would go Freiburg to Bodensee, to Munich, to Königssee to Salzburg.
Its better to spend more than 3 days in Vienna and Prague.
Personally I like a rough plan and sort of winging it so I can do what I’m enjoying along the way, but I like it as a rough outline. Also, imho, add Rottenberg to your list of don’t miss towns.
That dinosaur has only one arm and no head…fix plz for dinosaur roadtrip glory
As others have said, take trains. You’ll see more of the country than on Autobahnen (mostly what you see on Autobahnen is trees – they plant them around Autobahnen for noise protection, or the Autobahn goes through forests anyway. So. Ditch the car, hop on trains. The route from Cologne to Bacharach in particular is incredibly pretty, always right next to the Rhine.
And, take your time to take in the sights. Experience *being* in that place, don’t just tick a name off a list. Get a vibe for Cologne and then see how it’s different from another large city like München, and how both of those are different from small towns like Rothenburg.
Is your trip doable? Sure. Will you enjoy it, if you do it this way? Possibly. Will you remember what was where, and how each place felt, and what you did where? Debatable. In any case I advise journaling to help you remember, with mementos like ticket stubs etc if you get them. Otherwise it will all jumble together in your memory.
You do realise that December is the darkest month of the year, right? Sun gets up after eight and sets around four o’clock. The weather will most likely be cold, rainy, and windy. Are you sure you wouldn’t rather do this trip between May and September instead?
i think its a good route, but would go after Munich to Lake of Constance and the south of the Black Forest to Freiburg and skip Nürmberg
Wrong time of the year
If you Drive by Heidelberg and Karlsruhe anyways, you might aswell stop in those cities for a couple of hours. Beautiful cities
I would ditch the car for all of it. Driving in Germany/Austria/Czechia at this time of the year is absolutely not my idea of fun. Actually travelling at all wouldn’t be my idea of fun. Dark. Wet. Cold.