True Driving Times Garmisch to Lindau

According to ViaMichelin, the fastest route, which takes you through Lermoos and Reutte, Austria, then through Hohenschwangau (Neuschwanstein), and passes just south of Kempten, will take about 2½ hrs, driving time. But that route uses a lot of flat, major roads, is not very twisting, and would be somewhat uninteresting. I would prefer (and have been on most of this route by bus and train) going north from Garmisch-Partenkirchen to Oberammergau and Echelsbacher Brücke, past Wieskirche, to Hohenschwangau. From Hohenschwangau go to Pfronten, Germany, then through Neselwang, over the mountains at Oberjoch, then down the spectacular switchback road into Bad Hindelang. From there, the road to Sonthofen, Immenstadt, and Lindau is pretty flat and straight.

This route essentially follows the German Alpenstrasse (alpine road). ViaMichelin estimates the time at 3h40m, Garmisch to Lindau. Füssen to Sonthofen has most of the twisting, mountainous parts of the route and via Michelin says it takes just over an hour. I've been on the same road by bus, and I know it took about 1½ hrs despite numerous stops, so I tend to believe ViaMichelin.

Thanks Lee - thats helpful. Do you know if I rent the car in Garmisch, is it ok to take a rental through Austria without any additional charges?

I don't know. I've never rented a car in Germany (I've spent almost 150 nights there, 85% in small towns, and never needed a car to get anywhere I wanted to go). However, if you take the route I recommended through Oberammergau, you won't have to cross into Austria. That part would not take that much extra time; you could still go to Lindau via Kempten.

I've driven the route many times between GaP and Füssen. The direct route through Austria between Ehrwald and Reutte is faster, taking less than an hour. It's also pretty scenic.

I've only driven specifically from Füssen to Lindau once, so my memory may not be completely accurate on the actual drive time. I'm pretty sure I took A7 to A980 to B12, and as far as I can remember, it took considerably less than 2 hours. As Lee noted, the roads aren't particularly twisting. On the secondary roads, unless you're actually driving within the town limits, the speed limit is 100 km/hr. So you can move pretty quickly. This area is mostly rural, and heavy traffic on rural secondary roads in Germany is extremely rare.

According to ViaMichelin, it takes 1 hr (+0 min) to get from Garmisch-Partenkirchen to Füssen via Reutte, but the castles are outside of Hohenschwangau, not in Füssen. It take 1h03m to Hohenschwangau. Going via the Alpenstrasse takes 1h13m, but it might take longer if you wanted to stop at Ettal, Oberammergau, and/or Wieskirche.

The drive via the Alpenstrasse from Oberjoch to Sonthofen comes down a switchback road on the face of a mountain to Bad Hindelang. Talk about twisting roads. It's definitely not for the faint of heart.

On our last trip we drove from Lindau to Fuessen - stayed for a couple of days to visit the castles and other sights in the area, then drove to Salzburg from Fuessen - stopping by Linderhof along the way. I had used ViaMichelin to build my plan and the driving times it provided were conservative compared to the actual time it took us - we were able to do the drives faster - the only exception was due to some road construction.

We had rented the car in Germany for the first week of the trip, then drove into Switzerland for a few days and then into Austria for a week then returned it at an airport in Germany - there were no additional fees for the rental car itself, however since we drove on both Swiss and Austrian 'Autobahns' we needed to buy the 'vignettes' for each country (the rental car was brand new so no-one had taken it to other countries yet). The vignettes are stickers that basically give you access to the 4-lane divided highways in the country. I can't remember the exact price, but it was something like $30 (US) for each country.

Plan to take longer - there are a lot of great spots to take pictures along the way. :-)

have fun!