Black Forest, Germany

If you stay in most towns in the BF, you will get a card good for free local transportation. Most town websites will have a WANDERN tab listing local hikes. The Wikipedia entry for the town will list the town’s website.

www.schwarzwald-tourismus.info is also a good resource

stephen refers to the Konus Guest Card: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KkgzMXQ7blQ

I had a lovely hike of roughly 2 hours a few years ago starting from the Titisee-Neustadt station. Trail up from there to the Hochfirst, a peak overlooking Titisee with an observation tower you can climb and a fine view of the Feldberg, the Black Forest's highest peak. There's a small inn that serves food next to the tower. There's a trail that proceeds downhill toward Titsee after that, where you can catch a train to wherever.

This couple takes the same hike up to the Hochfirst from the Neustadt station. Annoying music, but you'll see what the hike is like!!

Railways connect dozens and dozens of small towns all around the Black Forest. A car is unnecessary. See map on p. 2 of the linked flyer below:

https://prospektbestellung.toubiz.de/media/prospekt/file/5736289_KONUS_GB_2022.pdf

I've only driven my own car. I really do not know the public transprtation situation. Look at the Feldberg for hiking. You can take the lift up or not. Great view of the Black Forest. If driving, you should check out the Black Forest High Road. If you want to overnight look at Saig 79853 Lenzkirch.

We took a really nice hike out of Hinterzarten.

There's an easy trail to the Geroldsauer Wasserfall, which is quite beautiful. The walk is much less than 2 hours but you can keep going after the falls to stretch further.

There's also a network of trails around Ruhestein that can be combined into just about any length or difficulty level. That section is all in the proper national park and is really stellar too. We did Ruhestein to Mummelsee, and loved it. That route is bus-accessible.

I actually wanted to see super-touristy Titisee while I was staying in Hinterzarten. As in many locations, there are three levels of difficulty available for the hike (mostly level) back to Hinterzarten. The line for the TI office was so slow that I gave up on getting an actual suggestion and a map from a human. But the routes were on steel signposts downtown, leading to the forest. I will say that I lost the "blazes" for the easiest route, and I think I took the moderate route for much of the way. But due to poor planning, I was wearing rubber-soled penny loafers. In fact, I didn't slip or step out of the shoes the whole way. The hardest part was the short downward slope on the home stretch to my luxury resort in Hinterzarten.

Please note that I'm describing a well-trodden, "easy" area of the BF. You may well prefer one of the hundreds of other options. This was a long time ago, but I was asked to return my KONUS card to the hotel before departure. I think that's not strictly correct.

Tim: The hotel's instructions to give up the card upon check-out were probably wrong. The KONUS program has been around for many years, and for as long as I have been familiar with it, guests are supposed to be able to use it anytime on the day they check out as well. The 2022 KONUS flyer confirms this under point #9:

"KONUS can be used for the departure journey..."

I've never been asked to return it. But I have encountered hosts who were confused about other details of the program. One of my hosts insisted that I needed to pay my Kurtax at the TI office and get my card there. The TI office rep I spoke to insisted that the tax is always collected by the hosts and the card issued by them as well, then muttered something about the denseness of certain B&B hosts and helped me get the card right there in the office.

I've never been asked for it back either, and have used it for a departure day. KONUS is a really good deal.