My family and I have the opportunity to go to Germany and connect with relatives and enjoy leisure time next summer (2025) for 4-5 weeks. I'd like to stay in a small city or town as a home base, and perhaps take day or overnight trips throughout the country.
Our kids are young--they will be 2 and 5--and so we'd love someplace very walkable, bikeable, with plenty of restaurants and playgrounds nearby. In other words...we want to live as locals for a month!
We plan to use public transport--our son loves trains--though renting a car is an option. Our cousins we'll visit live in Heidelberg, Berlin, and Trier. So-- all over.
Any suggestions for locale? Thank you!
Posted by
8071 posts
You want to visit Heidelberg, Berlin and Trier. What area are you considering staying?
Renting a car may be a good idea if you want to visit the countryside or small towns. Like the Romantic Road that is filled with medieval walled towns or small cities.
https://www.romanticroadgermany.com
The Romantic Road runs through the middle of the southern part of the country from Wurzburg to Fussen.
Consider staying in one of these towns (unless you picked Wurzburg or Augsburg you would need a rental car.
Heidelberg would be a great place to stay, but it is likely expensive. Still, check it out, as well as Speyer.
On visiting Bavaria, consider staying part of your time in Garmish.
Trier is a great place to visit and you can go into Luxemburg.
Posted by
Germany
184 posts
1 hour northeast of Trier there is a Holiday Resort above the tourist town of Cochem and the Mosel River.
That might be an option for a 1 or 2 week stay
Visit Trier Cochem Burg Eltz and the Mosel River Valley before going on to Heidelberg
Car would be necessary from my point of view
Posted by
Alsenborn, Germany
1312 posts
Go to Berlin first, or last. Then move down between Heidelberg and Trier. There are a lot of nicely furnished AirBnB places available. You want to stay on the train line that runs Heidelberg, Mannheim, Kaiserslautern, Saarbrucken. That will also get you to Trier and a lot of the smaller cities between a line south of Mainz and north of Karlsruhe. You can easily find a nice house in one of the smaller cities for less than $100/night. I put my cousins up in my town this summer, walking distance to stores and train station, etc, and we then traveled all over the region by train. Even down to the French border.
You can also look for a place by googling "tdla Kaiserslautern" which will give you a number of places that are normally rented out to the military for short terms and come furnished. Some of these may include a car as part of the package.
There's a huge amount of stuff to see and do in the Rhineland Pfalz, from forest hikes to major cities, and in the summer there's always some town with a fest or something going on. Here's a good link that will give you some ideas.