Do you enjoy “off the beaten path” towns in Germany?

Well, all things "off the beaten path" throughout the world have been discovered by tourists. However, some places are more difficult to get to or haven't received as much publicity or marketing by tourist bureaus and thus are less crowded. I love visiting small German villages and did so once again earlier this year.

You can find many picturesque places this way. I have found really nice views with my husband. We've been travelling to France by car, had to cross Germany. It's worth it definitely!

I don't know Grimm well enough to say whether the town of Büdingen ever had a role in their fairy tales. That I would think is one criterion for membership in the "Fairy Tale Road" club. Another is a willingness to pay the dues. Joining any theme route association normally means a substantial outlay of Euros for the marketing services the marketing group provides.

Büdingen has a large number of half-timbered houses. But a few years ago it gave up membership in the Half-timbered House Route group because it was not seeing the boost in tourism it had expected.

We went to Ziegenhain, a part of Schwalmstadt and on the 'Fairy Tale' Road. It was Festung Ziegenhain (a fortress) before becoming a town. The moat is still there as is the paradeplatz. The old fort is now a prison with the walls holding people in rather than out. It is another example of small town Germany with nice people and a bunch of history. Rosengarten Hotel dates back to the 1600's and again has friendly people. Stop by the Museum to see the connection with 'Little Red Riding Hood' tale.

I like a mix of tourist and non-tourist towns. We stayed in Aschaffenburg (3 times), Bad Mergentheim, Ansbach, Straubing, Kulmbach, Landshut and Erlangen in the last few years. These are not tourist villages but small to mid-size working towns that were very enjoyable for me when I wanted a change.

Büdingen has a large number of half-timbered houses. But a few years
ago it gave up membership in the Half-timbered House Route group
because it was not seeing the boost in tourism it had expected.

I guess the town decided to go a cheaper route to boost tourism... perhaps something like having town employees create pro-Büdingen threads on travel boards when they have down time on their jobs. RoadTripper has a total of 2 posts -- the other was posted in May and entitled, "Büdingen, Germany - A Mini Rothenburg ob der Tauber."

Actually I’m a grandmother and former school teacher in North Carolina, not an employee of the TI in Budingen...although I certainly would have enjoyed such a job when we lived there! My appreciation of the charming town of Budingen began 30+ years ago when my husband was stationed there with the US Army. Since that time, we have included Budingen on return visits in order to share with the sights of the town with family and friends. I apologize if my enthusiasm sounded insincere or unauthentic.

Actually I’m a grandmother and former school teacher in North Carolina, not an employee of the TI in Budingen...although I certainly would have enjoyed such a job when we lived there! My appreciation of the charming town of Budingen began 30+ years ago when my husband was stationed there with the US Army. Since that time, we have included Budingen on return visits in order to share with the sights of the town with family and friends. I apologize if my enthusiasm sounded insincere or unauthentic.

Thanks for the recommendation. I have not been there...as yet. What you described as "off the beaten path." whose beaten path?

There are numerous, numerous places both cities and smaller towns in both eastern and western Germany where one can go to, places completely off the tourist and, especially off the North American tourist radar if you're interested...

.Weimar, Hameln, Pirna, Minden an der Weser, Cuxhaven, Greifswald, Eutin/Holsten, Sigmaringen an der Donau, Flensburg, Rastatt, Celle, Kiel Förde, Soest/Westf., Lüneburg, Magdeburg, Schleswig, etc ,etc,,,all depends on your interest and willingness to track down these places.

Well Dave, I post about Büdingen ALL the time, as well as the Half-timbered Route as alternatives to Rothenburg and the Romantic Road. Am also not an employee of the tourist board in Büdingen. Nice way to welcome a newcomer to the forum. We all had our first posts on here.

@RoadTripper... Welcome to the board. Thank you for dedicating your life to teaching children, and thank you to your husband for his service to our country. Thanks for clearing the air with your response. No apology is necessary on your part, but I certainly do apologize for my manner of expressing my suspicion and the offense it caused. As a former teacher who probably still keeps up with what is going on in education, I'm sure you are aware that one of the big movements in the field is to teach kids to think critically about what they read on the internet because there is a lot of marketing, deception, and scams parading as "real people" all over the web. So, I'm guessing you aren't that surprised when another professional who works with children and adolescents (pediatrician) and talks to them daily about internet literacy wonders about the veracity of back-to-back posts 3 months apart endorsing the same town with headings that read like ad-agency copy. To be honest, I sometimes wonder if my own posts that gush over cities, hotels, attractions and tour guides sound like plants. I'm glad you are enthusiastic about Büdingen, and I look forward to hearing more about other places in Germany that you've grown to love over the last 30+ years.

@Ms Jo... Yes, you do post about Büdingen, and I appreciate the tiny percentage of your 6780 posts that mention the town, as well as all the excellent information you contribute to the board about many, many other locales. I will admit that my comment caustically expressed my suspiciousness of the post, though I certainly do not think my suspicion is groundless. I nonetheless could have probed in a kinder, gentler way.

There are numerous, numerous places both cities and smaller towns in
both eastern and western Germany where one can go to, places
completely off the tourist and, especially off the North American
tourist radar if you're interested...

Well, on this forum almost anything but the usual tour from Frankfurts airport via Rothenburg to Munich, "the castles" and Salzburg, is off the beaten path... ;-)

That's right, Martin. But it's not just the RS forum... Rick's online instructions for seeing Germany explain this North American stampede:

• 3 days: Munich, Bavarian castles
• 5 days, add: Rhine Valley, Rothenburg
• 7 days, add: More of Bavaria and Tirol, side-trip to Salzburg

The forum is actually a fairly good place for gathering alternative choices. But it's likely that first-timers heading to Germany (who surely make up the bulk of OP's) have already seen Rick's advice - and they seem much less interested in alternatives (even if they ask) and more interested in trampling the Guru's already tourist-trampled trail. That's how most "revised" itineraries look to me, anyway.

Thanks for this recommendation. Looks like a nice little town!

A few "off the beaten path" towns I've posted before:

• Greding - cute walled town with lots of natural beauty nearby. Easy stop while driving form Nuremburg to Ingolstadt.
• Wasserburg am Inn - town built on a sharp bend on the Inn River. Easy day trip from Munich.
• A few "off the beaten path" of the "usual tour from Frankfurts airport via Rothenburg to Munich" but certainly not unknown to a lot of travelers on this forum:
  • Landshut
  • Rosenheim
  • Oberstaufen
  • Areas served by the Bayriche Oberlandbahn: Bad Tölz, Lenggries, Tegernsee, Schliersee, Bayrischzell

Thanks for helping people broaden their travel expectations!

DJ

"...they seem much less interested in alternatives...." True!

all things "off the beaten path" throughout the world have been
discovered by tourists.

Nobody goes there anymore. It's too crowded. - Yogi Berra

all things "off the beaten path" throughout the world have been
discovered by tourists.
Nobody goes there anymore. It's too crowded. - Yogi Berra

Not by American tourists though. They all flock to the same few places in Southern Germany. I've read that some people here have visited Rothenburg for the 5th or 6th time. Don't complain about crowds....

I always like to show this map:
Highlights of Germany

How many Germany "experts" here have visited Stralsund, Hamelin or Görlitz? You see more Japanese than Americans there.

One out of three...I was in Hameln in 2007, did a day trip there. Hameln is a place I should have visited before the Wende/reunification.

How many [...] here have visited Stralsund, Hamelin or Görlitz? You see more Japanese than Americans there.

Or, e.g.,

Wiblingen, Ochsenhausen, Gutenzell, Buxheim, Biberach, Schussenried, Obermarchtal, Zwiefalten, Weingarten

-- just a few of the delightful places along the Oberschwäbische Barockstrasse between Ulm and Lake Constance. There you don't meet Japanese either.

None of these places. The only place I have visited in the Lake Constance area is Radolfzell am Bodensee. That was in late August 1971.

Size of a place, ie population, is one determining factor along with the attractions it has to offer. It all depends on what one wants to see relative to interests.

What about Eutin/Holstein, Cuxhaven, Soest/Westf, Bad Nauheim, Ludwigslust, Weimar, Magdeburg, Wetzlar? Stralsund is on the bucket list as is Naumburg an der Saale (cultural history). A few years ago I was on the regional train from Berlin Hbf which had Stralsund as its terminus, which I was not aware of prior to boarding as my destination en route was Neustrelitz.

People leave Worms off their visiting list for some reason. Even Rick didn't include it in his Martin Luther/Reformation film. The cathedral is beautiful. The Jewish cemetery is the oldest one north of the Alps and it wasn't destroyed. The Rashi house is interesting and all text is in English. Sadly, the Mikvah is closed for renovation. Near Worms is Osthofen, one of the first concentration camps in Germany. Built to imprison political prisoners: Socialists, Communists and Union Leaders. It is a very interesting place to visit and just 1 train stop from Worms. http://www.gedenkstaette-osthofen-rlp.de/index.php?id=42&L=1

Friedberg! All the Elvis fans should go here. What is also here is one of the deepest Mikvahs I have ever seen. Walk down 25 meters on steep stone steps before you get to the water.

Every country will have fascinating places to visit where the tour buses don't go. Mainly because they aren't featured in some guide book. Once that happens, then they get busy and full. It doesn't meant they are worthier than other towns, just that the writer found time to go there and not someplace else.

How many times have people asked here on the forum about Mainz or Heidleberg? Both cities that Rick clearly states in his guidebook not to visit. Why? When was the last time he was there? What makes them unworthy of your time?

Seth Kugel, the NYTimes former Frugal Traveler, suggests you largely ignore the tourist guidebooks & follow your nose, and Don’t Let TripAdvisor Kill Adventure.

A summer trip is a rare chance to break from routine, to escape the narrow sliver of the planet we inhabit the rest of the year. It used to be easy to distinguish such independent travelers from the lemmings following flag-waving tour guides. But the line between them has blurred. If your trip follows a tightly-planned agenda inspired by user reviews, popular Instagram feeds and Top 10 lists, aren’t you really just taking a virtual group tour, with your smartphone waving the flag?

"Don't Let Trip Advisor Kill Adventure"....That's why I don't ever use Trip Advisor in planning my trips and visits in Germany.

I use TA all the time. They list most of the tours, the museums, the restaurants, in cities and towns all over the world, with all the websites and maps right there. Yes, I even read the reviews as well as write them. TA is a useful tool and at least the reviews (and photos) are up to date, written by real people including local residents, unlike a guide book which is woefully out of date before it ever goes to press. Is every hotel, restaurant or tour listed? No, but far more than any other site.

Listing of hotels and restaurants in a guide book is one of the oddest things to do. There is no way that the RS editors can visit and sleep in every hotel, go on every tour, and eat in every restaurant in each of their books. Every year. They should at least stop pretending that they do. I am sure they visit a lot of them, but a 5 min. visit in 10 hotels in a city with 200 hotels isn't very helpful.

I have been to Gorlitz and Bautzen as well as Wernigerode and Goslar and Bad Hersfeld.
Mike

I like TA.

I like travel guides.

I like ideas from random books I read.

I like this travel forum, especially Russ and Fred.

I like advice from Germans who live near me (BMW and its suppliers nearby).

I like advice from my online German language tutors.

I like advice from ex-pats living in Germany.

I like asking locals once on the ground in Germany.

I like wandering around in Germany and running into things serendipitously.

I use Trip Advisor all the time. Is is complete? No, nothing is. From my trip to Spain, France and Italy this spring, I added 3 attractions and tried to add a restaurant listing which for some reason was rejected.

One little town probably isn't worth it for me to go far across Germany, but there are certainly areas that I've discovered with multiple towns that are wonderful.

The Half-Timbered Road that goes into the Swabian Jura in Southwestern Germany has many charming, non-touristy towns like Calw, Herrenberg, Tubingen (well, OK, a little touristy), Haigerloch...

I'm also a big fan of the Remstal area, a beautiful wine growing valley with numerous charming towns. Waiblingen, Weinstadt, Winterbach, Schondorf. You simply won't run into English-speaking tourists in this area. It's delightful.

Every corner of Germany has areas like this, though. I just know these because I live nearby.

@ Dave..."I like wandering around Germany...." True. I would suggest wandering around in the east and up north...Schleswig-Holstein,

towns like Plön, Eutin, Laboe, Schleswig, Husum, Flensburg, Lüneburg, etc etc. or in the east, such as Neustrelitz, Weimar,

Pillnitz (near Dresden), Magdeburg, Ludwigslust, Schwerin, Rheinsberg, Greifswald, etc, etc. In the east you'll get a totally different feel, linguistically and culturally. people contact wise too.

Between Frankfurt and Hamburg I heartily suggest these places...Soest, Duisburg (for that esoteric history museum), Detmold

area, Hameln, Minden for the museum, half-timbered houses, war monuments and memorials, the Mittellandkanal between the Elbe and Weser, Höxten/Westf. for the "chateau."

All have cultural and historical sights and museums well worthy of tracking down.