Heavy Travel Year?

Thanks for sharing your experience. It certainly supports the position to make reservations in advance and not try to "wing it" this year.

In January booked my July flight to London.

Lucky enough to be going to Wimbledon and wanted to be certain airfare was secured.

Expecting a London like I’ve never experienced as my travel abroad months have usually been November and December.

A new adventure AND bucket list item checked off!

We made reservations earlier this year to stay in Passau in a couple weeks. There were few hotels then even offering rooms. Two hotels where we stayed before had no listings. We made a reservation at hotel with good ratings and are happy with our choice; but, I wanted to see if rooms were still so restricted at this time. In fact many more hotels are now open for reservations. I will be interested to see how things are when we get there. Perhaps some hotels were staying on the sidelines till the Covid situation clarified and others filled up.

I've also noticed hotels filling up faster with higher prices. I just assumed there is less supply of hotel/holiday rentals after 2 years of COVID. Flights are also higher but not unreasonable from what I've seen. I'm waiting a few months to see if they get below my "buy now" price and if not I'll just pay full fare.

DJ

We are at the end of a two week visit. Usually we visit a couple weeks earlier. Hotels and trains are noticeably less full than before the pandemic. There are fewer English speaking folks.

Here in Freising the Hotel manager (owner?) told us he only had 3 Americans last year compared to a normal 3000+. I am glad this hotel survived. I have seen 3 restaurants here that are closed, two stating that they are trying to hire a cook. In Regensburg we noticed a couple closed restaurants. Reservations are a good idea at the remaining ones.

Tourist crowds are down but Germans seem to be actively out in public. Masks are hit and miss in stores.

I've found hotel availability to be limited for the end of August. Not in Ramsau or B-gaden but one valley over near Lofer, Unken, etc. Conversely Salzburg has been easy and open. 🤔

I've been to Waidring and Saalfelden and I'm sure I've driven through Lofer. I need to check it out closer. Other than known favorite places, we've not had too much trouble reserving places either now. Unfortunately, Covid has advanced closures of hotels, restaurants, shops etc. That and a generation is passing. As noted, workers from outside Germany/Austria are not in numbers as before.

mchpp, you are absolutely right. We have been over-whelmed with the crowds and thought traveling in off season wouldn't be bad. Everyone has the same idea, and willing to take the risks. It will be interesting to see how it all plays out this summer.