I haven’t been everywhere, but it’s on my list.”
Paulo Coelho
What do you do when the world is in lockdown and you can’t cross borders? You explore your home country! ‘Cause let’s be honest: Germany hadn’t been high on my bucket list.
But we were both positively surprised by what Southern Germany has to offer – even with all the attractions, hotels and restaurants being closed. You just learn to become creative.
What to expect
Road Trip through Southern Germany
As soon as we knew, there is nowhere to go due to covid, we looked at our options. This process went really quickly as we didn’t have many. But we knew one thing: not travelling was not an option!
Where to go and where to sleep
We both really wanted to explore Southern Germany so where to go was easy. The tricky part, however, was that all the hotels and even airbnbs were closed.
Let’s go on a road trip!
As we are both not big into camping, we were left with one other option: let’s do a road trip and sleep in a van! We both loved the idea! But wait – we don’t have a van. Luckily, there is this website called “PaulCamper“ where private people rent out their own camper vans and RVs. (If you book it through this link, you will save 30€ on your first rental car.) It’s like airbnb, only for vehicles.
At this point we totally ignored the fact that the van had neither a toilet nor a shower, let alone a kitchen. Being already back in our backpacker mindset, we thought we’d figure it out on the way.
Little did I know that I had never craved a shower as badly as on this trip…
Bavaria
This is what our trip looked like in Bavaria. All the lines mark the Bavarian Alp Street. However, we did start in Regensburg at our friends’ place who we had met at Lake Bled in 2020.
Day 1 & 2: Gelsenkirchen – Regensburg – Königssee
Day 3: Königssee – Reit im Winkl – Aschau im Chiemgau
Day 4: Aschau im Chiemgau – Oberaudorf – Schliersee
Day 6: Tegernsee – Bad Tölz – Walchensee – Garmisch-Partenkirchen
Day 7: Garmisch-Partenkirchen – Eibsee – Oberammergau – Pfronten
Day 8: Pfronten – Füssen – Scheidegg – Bodensee
Baden-Württemberg
It might look confusing at first but there was logic behind all this back and forward. We wanted to make sure to see my friends on the long weekend but we still wanted to see other places on the way. Hence, the confusing lines.
Day 11: Stuttgart – Black Forest
Day 12: Black Forest – Baden-Baden – Sasbachwalden – Freiburg
Day 13 & 14: Freiburg – Heidelberg – Frankfurt – Gelsenkirchen – Essen
Want to read more about our summer trip in 2021 where we finally get to fly overseas again?
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