My first trip to Germany was meant to be 3 days in Munich and a flight home. I ended up staying 9, mostly because every time I looked at a map I found another town I’d never heard of that turned out to be gorgeous. That’s the pattern with this country. You come for one thing and leave with a list of 6 more.
Germany doesn’t sell itself the way Italy or Spain do. There’s no single postcard image that does the job. It’s a country of sixteen federal states that all behave a bit differently, and the gap between a night out in Berlin and a Sunday afternoon in a Bavarian village is enormous. Some people find that confusing. I think it’s the best thing about the place.
This guide is the version I wish someone had handed me on that first trip. What’s brilliant, what’s overrated, what costs what, and the practical stuff that trips people up on day one. If you want the wider picture first, our Germany travel guide hub has everything else we’ve written about the country in one place.
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Visit Germany: Quick Facts
Germany at a glance
What actually surprised me about Germany
I’d been sold the cliché before I went. Efficient, orderly, a bit serious. Some of that holds up. Most of it doesn’t survive contact with a Cologne pub at eleven on a Friday, or a Munich beer garden where a table of strangers shuffles up so you can sit down and immediately starts talking to you.
What actually got me was how normal it feels to be somewhere beautiful. Half-timbered towns in Germany aren’t preserved museum pieces with a gift shop bolted on. People live in them. There’s a bloke putting his bins out in front of a five-hundred-year-old building and he’s not thinking about it at all. That does something to how a place feels.
The other surprise was the price. Germany is noticeably cheaper than France, Switzerland or the Nordics, and often cheaper than the UK for food and drink. A decent beer in a normal pub runs €4 to €5.50 (about £3.45 to £4.75 / $4.65 to $6.40). Try that in central London.
The cities all feel different, and that's the point
This is where people get Germany wrong. They do Berlin, decide they’ve “done Germany”, and skip the rest. Berlin is fantastic and it is also completely unrepresentative of the country. Going from Berlin to Munich is a bigger cultural jump than going from London to Amsterdam.
Here’s how the main cities actually stack up, based on the ones I keep going back to.
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| City | The feel | Go if you want | Ideal stay |
|---|---|---|---|
| Berlin | Scruffy, huge, unpolished, endlessly interesting | History, nightlife, galleries, cheap eating | 3 to 4 nights |
| Munich | Wealthy, tidy, traditional, Alps on the doorstep | Beer gardens, day trips, castles, mountains | 3 nights plus day trips |
| Hamburg | Maritime, moneyed, brick warehouses, rain | Waterfront walks, live music, seafood | 2 nights |
| Cologne | Friendly, loud, unpretentious, pub-heavy | The cathedral, Kölsch culture, Carnival | 2 nights |
| Dresden | Baroque, rebuilt, dramatic riverfront | Architecture, art collections, quieter crowds | 2 nights |
| Leipzig | Creative, cheap, a bit like Berlin was | Music, coffee, low prices, no queues | 2 nights |
| Nuremberg | Walled, medieval, heavy history | Old town, castle, the Christmas market | 1 to 2 nights |
If you only have a week, I’d pair one big city with one small region rather than trying to tick off four cities. Berlin plus Saxony works beautifully. So does Munich plus the Bavarian Alps, which is covered properly in our guide to the best places to visit in Bavaria.
Where to Stay in Germany
The castles and old towns really do live up to it
I’m usually sceptical about anything described as fairytale. Germany earns it. Not because of one castle, but because there are hundreds of them and quite a few sit in spectacular positions.
Neuschwanstein is the famous one, and yes it’s mobbed, and yes it’s still worth doing once. Entry is €21 for adults with a €2.50 booking fee on top (roughly £18 / $24 plus the fee). Under 18s go free but still need a ticket, and that ticket still carries its own €2.50 fee, which catches families out at checkout. Book online well ahead. Same-day tickets at the counter sell out early and there’s no reservation system to fall back on.
The ones I’d rate higher for actual atmosphere:
- Burg Eltz, hidden in a wooded valley in the Moselle, still owned by the same family after more than thirty generations
- Wartburg in Thuringia, where Luther translated the New Testament while in hiding
- Heidelberg Castle, half-ruined, sitting above one of the prettiest university towns in Europe
- Marksburg on the Rhine, the only hill castle on the river never destroyed
Then there are the towns. Rothenburg ob der Tauber, Bamberg, Quedlinburg, Görlitz, Regensburg. Places where the whole centre is intact, not just one restored square. If you want the ones fewer people have found, our Germany hidden gems guide goes further off the map.
Recommended Tours & Tickets for Germany
Getting around: the honest version of German trains
Right, this is the bit where most guides lie to you. German trains are comfortable, they go almost everywhere, the stations are central, and the long-distance network is currently having a rough time of it.
Deutsche Bahn counts a train as on time if it arrives less than six minutes late. By that measure, only about six in ten long-distance ICE and IC services are managing it, which is the worst run in decades. The causes are decades of underinvestment in the network plus an enormous programme of corridor rebuilding that is, ironically, making things worse before it makes them better. Regional trains are a different story and run close to ninety percent on time.
None of this means don’t take the train. It means build buffer time into connections, don’t schedule a tight flight after a five-hour ICE, and download the DB Navigator app so you can see problems coming.
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| Option | Rough cost | Best for | Watch for |
|---|---|---|---|
| ICE / IC long-distance | €25 to €90 per leg booked ahead (£22 to £77 / $29 to $104) | City to city, fast and comfortable | Delays, cheap fares tied to one train |
| Deutschlandticket | €63 per month (about £54 / $73) | Slow travel, regional hopping, city transport | Subscription only, no ICE, cancel by the 10th |
| Regional trains (RE / RB) | €8 to €30 per leg (£7 to £26 / $9 to $35) | Short hops, small towns, castle day trips | Slower, more stops, occasionally no toilet |
| Long-distance coach | €10 to €35 (£9 to £30 / $12 to $41) | Tight budgets, awkward routes | Traffic, out-of-centre bus stations |
| Hire car | €35 to €70 per day (£30 to £60 / $41 to $81) | Black Forest, Moselle, Romantic Road, Alps | City parking costs, low-emission zone stickers |
| Night train | From about €30 seat, €50 couchette (£26 / £43) | Reaching Germany from elsewhere in Europe | Berths sell out months ahead in summer |
Sleeper trains deserve a mention because the map keeps shifting. Paris to Berlin came back under a private operator running three nights a week, Zurich to Hamburg and Munich to Venice both run overnight, and a handful of other routes have quietly disappeared. If a specific sleeper is on your list, ride it while it exists.
For the regions where a car beats the train, our guide to road trips in Germany covers the Romantic Road, the Fairy Tale Road and the Castle Road. Compare rates through car hire before you commit, because pickup location makes a bigger difference to price than the car itself.
What a trip to Germany actually costs
Germany sits in a nice spot on the European price curve. Cheaper than France and Scandinavia, pricier than Poland or Portugal, and much better value than its reputation suggests once you’re off the tourist strips.
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| What | Euro | Pound | Dollar |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hostel dorm bed | €25 to €45 | £22 to £39 | $29 to $52 |
| Mid-range hotel double | €90 to €160 | £77 to £138 | $104 to $186 |
| Bakery breakfast | €3 to €6 | £2.60 to £5.15 | $3.50 to $7 |
| Currywurst and chips | €6 to €9 | £5.15 to £7.75 | $7 to $10.50 |
| Restaurant main course | €14 to €26 | £12 to £22 | $16 to $30 |
| Half-litre of beer in a pub | €4 to €5.50 | £3.45 to £4.75 | $4.65 to $6.40 |
| Museum entry | €8 to €18 | £7 to £15.50 | $9 to $21 |
| Litre of beer at Oktoberfest | €14.80 to €15.90 | £12.75 to £13.70 | $17 to $18.50 |
Prices are a guide and vary by city, season and how far in advance you book. Munich and Hamburg run noticeably dearer than Leipzig or Dresden for the same standard of room.
Gear we actually travel with
Passport holders, packing cubes, travel wallets. Stuff that earns its place in the bag.
Browse the shopThe food is better than its reputation
German food gets a bad press from people who’ve only eaten schnitzel at an airport. The regional cooking is excellent, it’s just quietly done and rarely exported.
A few things worth going out of your way for:
- Käsespätzle in Swabia. Soft egg noodles, melted cheese, fried onions on top. Astonishing after a day walking.
- Rauchbier in Bamberg, which tastes like drinking a bonfire and is somehow brilliant by the second glass.
- Fischbrötchen on the northern coast. A bread roll, raw onion, pickled herring, eaten standing up in the wind.
- Weisswurst in Munich, traditionally eaten before midday. Never cut it with a knife, you suck the meat out of the skin.
- Anything from a proper Bäckerei at half seven in the morning. Germany does bread better than almost anywhere.
And the beer. 6 breweries pour at Oktoberfest and all of them sit inside Munich’s old city limits, which tells you how seriously it’s taken. But the good stuff is everywhere. Cologne has Kölsch served in small glasses that keep arriving until you put a beer mat on top. Düsseldorf has Altbier and a rivalry about it. Bavaria has wheat beer worth the trip on its own.
The outdoors bit people forget about
Ask someone to picture Germany and they’ll usually give you a city or a castle. The landscape barely features, which is odd given how much of it there is.
The Bavarian Alps run along the southern border and give you Zugspitze, the country’s highest point, plus a stack of lakes that look painted. The Partnach Gorge near Garmisch is a walkway cut into the rock with the river hammering past below, and it’s one of the few places I’ve been that’s better in winter when the whole thing ices over.
Further north there’s the Black Forest, which is denser and hillier than the name suggests, plus the Moselle and Middle Rhine valleys where vineyards run straight down to the water and castles sit on every other ridge. Saxon Switzerland near Dresden has sandstone towers you can climb between on bridges. And the Baltic coast has proper white-sand beaches that almost no international visitor knows about.
Germany also does hiking infrastructure properly. Trails are signposted to an obsessive standard, huts serve real food, and public transport reaches trailheads that in most countries would need a car.
Festivals, markets and the reason to time it right
Germany has a festival calendar that’s worth planning around rather than accidentally colliding with.
Oktoberfest is the obvious one. It runs sixteen days from late September into early October, admission to the grounds is free, and a litre of beer costs €14.80 to €15.90 depending on the tent. There are now free water fountains dotted around the grounds too, which is a small mercy. Book accommodation absurdly far ahead or stay outside Munich and commute in.
Carnival in the Rhineland is the other big one, and honestly it’s more fun. Cologne and Düsseldorf shut down for the better part of a week in the run-up to Lent and the whole city dresses up. It’s chaotic, warm and completely unlike the buttoned-up stereotype.
Then December. German Christmas markets are the real thing and every city runs several. Nuremberg and Dresden are the historic heavyweights, Cologne clusters six or seven markets within walking distance of each other, and dozens of small towns run markets that feel less like a tourist product. Our roundup of the best Christmas markets in Europe covers which ones suit which kind of traveller.
When to go, season by season
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| Season | What it’s like | Crowds | Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|
| Spring | Mild, blossom everywhere, beer gardens reopening | Low to moderate | My pick for a first trip |
| Summer | Warm to hot, long evenings, festivals in every town | High | Best for the Alps and lakes |
| Early autumn | Crisp, wine harvest, Oktoberfest, gorgeous light | Moderate, spiking in Munich | The best all-round window |
| Late autumn | Grey, damp, quiet, cheap | Very low | Museum weather, bargain hotels |
| December | Cold, dark by four, markets in full swing | High in market cities | Worth the crowds once |
| Deep winter | Snowy in the south, bleak in the north | Low outside ski areas | Alps yes, flat north no |
If you’re weighing up a specific city, we’ve broken this down further for Berlin and Munich, which have quite different sweet spots.
The unwritten rules that catch people out
Germany runs on a set of social conventions that nobody explains and everybody follows. Break them and you get The Look.
- Cash still matters. Card acceptance is much better than it used to be, but bakeries, market stalls, some restaurants and plenty of small museums remain cash only. Avoid Euronet ATMs, the rates are terrible. Look for a bank machine, called a Bankomat.
- Don’t cross on a red man. Even on an empty street at midnight. Especially with children nearby. People will say something.
- Sunday is Ruhetag. Shops closed, no DIY, no loud noise. Supermarkets in main train stations are the workaround.
- Quiet hours are real. Generally overnight and often on Sunday. Thin walls plus hoovering at ten on a Sunday morning equals a knock at the door.
- Recycling is a competitive sport. Bottles carry a deposit, Pfand, of up to €0.25. Return them at supermarket machines for the cash back.
- Tipping is light. Round up or add five to ten percent. Say the total when you pay rather than leaving coins on the table.
- Tap water isn’t automatic. Ask for Leitungswasser if you want free tap water, otherwise you’ll get a bottle of sparkling and a bill.
Entry, borders and the admin nobody enjoys
Germany is in the Schengen area, so the rules are the standard European ones. Visitors from the UK, US, Canada, Australia and dozens of other countries can stay up to 90 days in any 180-day period without a visa.
What has changed is the border process itself. The EU’s Entry/Exit System is now running at Schengen external borders, which means biometrics rather than a passport stamp. On your first entry you’ll give fingerprints and have your photo taken, and the system tracks your 90 days automatically. It’s added real queueing time at busy airports, so build in a buffer.
ETIAS, the travel authorisation everyone keeps writing about, is still not live. There’s no confirmed launch date and no way to apply. When it does arrive it’ll cost €20 (around £17 / $23), last three years, and be free for under 18s and over 70s. Ignore any website offering to sell you one now, they’re all scams.
Two practical things worth sorting before you fly. Get a data plan sorted so you’re not hunting station wifi with a delayed connection to reschedule, an eSIM takes about two minutes to set up and works the moment you land. And check your travel insurance actually covers what you’re planning, particularly if there’s hiking or skiing involved. Mountain rescue is not cheap.
How to build your first German trip
Three shapes work well depending on how long you’ve got.
Long weekend. One city, done properly. Berlin for history and nightlife, Munich if you want mountains within reach, Cologne if you want to eat and drink well without much planning. Three nights minimum, four is better.
A week. One big city plus one region. Munich with the Bavarian Alps and a castle day. Berlin with Dresden and Saxon Switzerland. Frankfurt as an arrival point then straight to the Rhine or Moselle valleys, which are close and criminally underrated.
Two weeks. Now you can do the classic north-to-south or the reverse. Berlin, Dresden, Bamberg, Nuremberg, Rothenburg, Munich. It’s roughly the route in our Berlin to Munich road trip and it works by train too, just slower.
Whatever shape you pick, resist the urge to add one more city. Two nights somewhere is one full day once you subtract travel, and you’ll enjoy four places properly far more than seven places badly. That’s the single biggest mistake I see people make with Germany, and I made it myself the first time.
Where to Stay in Germany
Germany has a wider spread of accommodation types than most of Europe, and a few of them don’t really exist elsewhere. Knowing the vocabulary saves you money, because the good-value options rarely show up first in a search.
A Pension or a Gasthof is the one people miss. Family-run, usually a few rooms above a restaurant, breakfast included, and often half what a chain hotel charges two streets away. In small towns they’re frequently the only option, and they’re almost always the nicest one. I’ve had better nights in a €65 Gasthof in Franconia than in some city hotels costing three times that.
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| Type | Typical night | Best for | Worth knowing |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hostel dorm | €25 to €45 (£22 to £39 / $29 to $52) | Solo travellers, cities, meeting people | German hostels are modern and central |
| Hostel private room | €60 to €95 (£52 to £82 / $70 to $110) | Couples on a budget, longer stays | Often beats budget hotels on location |
| Pension or Gasthof | €55 to €85 (£47 to £73 / $64 to $99) | Small towns, road trips, rural regions | Breakfast included, cash sometimes only |
| Mid-range hotel | €90 to €160 (£77 to £138 / $104 to $186) | City breaks, first-time visitors | Look for Hotel garni, room and breakfast only |
| Ferienwohnung (apartment) | €80 to €140 (£69 to £120 / $93 to $162) | Families, groups, stays over three nights | Kitchen matters given Sunday closures |
| Castle or Schlosshotel | €150 to €300 (£129 to £258 / $174 to $348) | A one-night splurge on a road trip | Cheapest along the Rhine and Moselle |
Prices are a guide and swing hard with season and city. Munich during Oktoberfest and Cologne during Carnival can triple, and Frankfurt jumps whenever there’s a trade fair on, which is more often than you’d think.
Which neighbourhood to pick
Staying in the right district matters more in German cities than in most places, mainly because the centres are compact but the cities themselves sprawl a long way.
- Berlin: Kreuzberg or Neukölln for food and nightlife, Prenzlauer Berg for a quieter and greener base, Mitte if you want to walk to the big sights and don’t mind paying for it.
- Munich: Altstadt puts everything on your doorstep. Glockenbachviertel is livelier and better for eating. Haidhausen is calmer and cheaper with a short tram ride in.
- Hamburg: St Pauli for nightlife, Sternschanze for independent shops and cafés, HafenCity for modern rooms and waterfront walks.
- Cologne: Belgisches Viertel beats the tourist strip near the cathedral by a distance, and it’s still walkable to everything.
- Dresden: Neustadt across the river is where the bars and the character are, and it’s ten minutes on foot from the baroque old town.
One general rule for Germany: staying within a few minutes of an S-Bahn or U-Bahn stop is worth more than staying dead central. The networks are excellent and a slightly cheaper room three stops out is usually the better trade. Compare what’s near a station on Booking.com, and if you’re travelling solo, check the private twins on hostels before you default to a chain.
Is Germany worth visiting?
Yes, and more than once. It’s a country that rewards return visits in a way that single-highlight destinations don’t, because there’s always another region behaving like its own small country.
The train situation is annoying. The Sunday closures take adjusting to. But you get castles that aren’t roped off, cities with actual character rather than curated charm, mountains and coastline and forest all within one border, and prices that don’t make you flinch. That’s a rare combination.
Ready to start planning? Have a browse through our Germany travel guides for city breakdowns, road trip routes and regional deep dives, or head straight to Germany’s most romantic locations if you’re travelling as a pair. Pick your two regions, book the beds, and leave the rest of the list for next time.
FAQs
Is Germany expensive to visit?
Less than most of western Europe. A comfortable mid-range day runs about €130 to €200 including a hotel, meals out and transport, which is roughly £112 to £172 or $151 to $232. Backpackers manage on €70 to €100 a day. Food and drink in particular are better value than in the UK, France or Scandinavia, and eastern cities like Leipzig and Dresden are cheaper again.
Do I need to speak German to travel there?
No. English is widely spoken in cities, hotels, museums and anywhere used to visitors. It thins out in small towns, on regional trains and with older people. Learning bitte, danke, entschuldigung and a rough attempt at ordering will change how people respond to you more than you’d expect.
How many days do you need in Germany?
Seven to ten days gives you a proper trip covering one major city and one region without rushing. Three or four nights works for a single city break. Two weeks lets you cross the country north to south and see the full range, from Baltic beaches to Alpine peaks.
Are German trains reliable?
Regional trains are, running close to ninety percent on time. Long-distance ICE and IC services are currently struggling, with only about six in ten arriving within six minutes of schedule while the network undergoes major rebuilding. Leave generous connection buffers, use the DB Navigator app, and claim your compensation if you’re delayed an hour or more.
What's the best time of year to visit Germany?
Late spring and early autumn hit the best balance of weather, daylight and manageable crowds. Summer is best for the Alps and the lakes but busiest everywhere. December is worth it once for the Christmas markets, as long as you accept the crowds and the four o’clock sunsets.
Travel Hubs
Recommended Websites and Resources:
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- Travel insurance: EKTA for worldwide cover · AirHelp for flight delay compensation
- Activities: Tours and skip-the-line tickets on GetYourGuide · Instant mobile tickets on Tiqets
- Trains: Most affordable trains on Trainline · Rail passes on Rail Europe
- Travel eSIMs: Use your mobile phone anywhere worldwide with Airalo
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