Last summer I went on a road trip with my boyfriend for two weeks! Because of the COVID-19 pandemic🦠, we decided to stay close to the Netherlands. Didn’t we still have an old camper somewhere? Yes right? Let’s go! Unfortunately, our road trip was only 2 weeks, but we have seen so many beautiful places! I’ve described 5 of them for you. Did you become curious and do you want to make a road trip without a plan yourself? Besides my experience, I also like to share some tips!
Do you not have a camper? No worries! It is also an option to go with a caravan or make a road trip with a car and a tent. There are also possibilities to rent.
Preparation is half the job 🛒🛍️
Despite the fact that we had no plan for our destinations, it was extremely important to be well prepared. So our holiday started with shopping for the camper. Also a few things had to be repaired and tidied up. Oh and just to give you an impression: it was around 34 degrees in those weeks.💦 At least it was a good temperature to get into the holiday feeling!
📣Tip #1: don’t be mistaken with the amount of preparation! Take your time. Make a list of essentials for yourself, groceries, furnishing for the camper / caravan / car. And don’t forget: insurances and read through the legislation and requirements before entering a country, e.g. vignettes or environmental stickers!
The first stop of our road trip: Metz
After a stopover in Well (Limburg, The Netherlands) and Trier (Germany) the first real stop of our road trip was in Metz (France). We stayed in this beautiful city in the northeast of France for two days. It is a beautiful city with many amazing sightseeing spots. For example, the city has a beautiful island🏝️ between two twists and turns in the Moselle. It includes the oldest operating theater in France and the German church Temple Neuf. Furthermore, the island has a beautiful appearance and it is the place for a nice (evening) walk. The city center has numerous restaurants. We had dinner at a restaurant called La Fabrik à Fromage🍽️. The food was tasty and the staff was very friendly. The location of the restaurant made the experience complete. From the terrace you overlooked the Moselle and the previously mentioned German cathedral⛪! Highly recommended. You can walk through the city for days without getting bored. There are also many opportunities to admire the Moselle. For instance walking routes, cycling routes and even a canal cruise. Unfortunately we only stayed here for two nights, so we were not able to see a lot. The ANWB lists the top 10 sights of Metz here!
And we continued our road trip
To give an impression of our situation on the road 🚐. From day one of our road trip, the weather was bloody hot. And guess what, of course, such an old camper as ours had no air conditioning at all. So that meant sweating at the campsites and on the road as well🌞😅. The weather forecast was the same in France for the next few days, so we decided to go back to Germany! We packed our stuff, got ready and drove to Germany. On the way, we chose our next stop: Schwangau. That was over 500 kilometers. With such an old camper as ours that has little power, I can tell you, it was a long, very long drive.
📣Tip #2 Find out what the weather situation of a place/region is before you go there. Do you want to do active things? Then travel to a country where you can and where the weather allows it!
This is why you should make a stopover in Schwangau with your road trip!
Schwangau is located at the foot of the Tegelberg and is located directly at a lake as well. Our campsite and even our camper place overlooked this lake called the Bannwaldsee. The village is close to the famous Neuschwanstein Castle🏰. We definitely recommend this as a fun day trip! There are several buses from places in the region you can take to get there🚏. First of all, you have a lovely walk up towards the castle and then you can enjoy the beautiful view of the surroundings and the castle itself. It is castle inside. Unfortunately we were unable to do this because of the also possible to walk a little further up to walk around the castle. Tickets🎫 are sold (at the bottom of the mountain) to visit theCoronavirus. Tripadvisor lists the 10 best things to do in Schwangau right here!
Because of something on my boyfriend’s bucket list he wanted to see, we went after two days in Schwangau, to Reutte (Austria).
📣Tip #3: It is very tempting to take the highway all the time to arrive at your destination as quickly as possible. Just take an inside route. Then you see many beautiful things that you would otherwise never see.
The short stop in Reutte was the scariest moment of our road trip😨
Reutte is known for the suspension bridge Highline 179. This is not only the longest suspension bridge in Austria… No! It is the longest suspension bridge in the world. With a length of no less than 405 meters, the suspension bridge connects Ehrenberg Castle on one side of the valley, to Fort Claudia on the other side of the valley😱. The bridge is 110 meters above the ground. Even though it is completely safe (as they say), you still need to have a bit of courage to walk across the bridge. With my fear of heights and fear of grids, I think I dared to take 30 steps. In short: I was shitting in my pants as we would say in The Netherlands. So I asked my boyfriend to take a picture📷 of me and got off that busy and wobbly bridge as fast as I could. However, my boyfriend just went back and forth like it was no big deal. I think it was not only the scariest thing of my road trip, it was even the scariest thing I have done so far in my life. Neverteless, I have had an amazing experience. So for all the daredevils among us: do it. It is worth it!
We continued our road trip adventure in Imst!
Imst is one of the largest cities in Tyrol. The city has a beautiful center with a lot of architecture. Imst is also known for the beautiful landscape around the city⛰️. Ideal for hiking, mountain biking, rock climbing and even rafting. We opted for a walk through the Rosengartenschlucht gorge. That was amazing! It is one of the most beautiful gorges in Austria. The gorge is 2 kilometers long and leads from Johannes church in Imst to the blue cave in Hoch-Imst. We walked between rocks, past houses, a stone staircase and rock tunnels. The wild water of the Schinderbach, which flows through te gorge, can be heard and een all the time. It was so impressive! Once at the top we treated ourselves to a delicious apple strudel and an ice cream🍦.
We also went on the longest summer toboggan run in the Alps with a length of 3535 meters. The Alpine Coaster in Imst! The start of the course is at an altitude of 1500 meters! You can walk up or take a mountain lift🚠. We opted for the mountain lift. The view was amazing! Not to forget the tobogganing was fantastic. I could really do that all day long. So if you are near Imst. In any case, take a hike through the De Rosengartenschlucht gorge and go tobogganing🛷.
📣Tip #4: Make sure you always have food on the go or when supermarkets are not open! For example, it could be that there are holidays that we do not know about or that the supermarkets are closed on Sundays. Then you can always, for example, make a sausage sandwich, heat up soup or bake pancakes.
Our final stop to surprise my parents
My parents were on vacation in Fieberbrunn. During their holiday it was my stepfather’s birthday🎉🎂. As a surprise, we decided to go out for dinner on his birthday with my mother and brother in the plot. We called him that day to congratulate him and lied that we were in stuttgart. My mother had booked a nice restaurant for that night and we agreed that we would be there before them. We walked 2 hours to get to the restaurant🚶. But it was worth it! He was so surprised and so grateful that we arranged this for him. He couldn’t believe that we had actually been in St. Johan in Tirol (11 kilometers from Fieberbrunn) for two days.
The trip to St Johann in Tirol and the stay was very nice! We took it easy. During our road trip from imst to St Johann in Tirol we made a small detour because we had received a tip from friends about a beautiful waterfall. We went to the Grawa wasserfall. Because we didn’t want to take a long walk, we decided not to walk up the waterfall. At the bottom of the waterfall was a platform where you could enjoy the view. We relaxed for a while and we ate a sandwich🥪 before we continued the road trip. We stayed on a farmer’s campsite with a very modern toilet and shower building. The owners were very nice. We had a great time there. In addition to relaxing at the campsite, we also made a small trip. We wanted to take a trip high up in the mountains. Therefore we went to the mountain railway in St. Johan in Tirol. Here we went all the way up the mountain with the ski lift⛰️🚠. There we had a delicious meal in a restaurant. We took some beautiful pictures there and saw stray mountain cows up close. I went back down with the ski lift and my boyfriend went down mountain karting!
Unfortunately our adventure came to an end that day after and we drove home in one go. It was an amazing road trip to never forget.
📣Tip #5: Nothing is more sin than after a great road trip, getting into an argument about money. So make sure you have a good overview of the expenses that everyone has incurred! I downloaded the app ‘Wie betaald wat’ (In English: Who pays what). In this app, everyone can write down his/her expenses and at the end the balance is drawn up and outstanding amounts are settled. This way everyone has transparent insight into all expenses that have been made.
In short
In short, I hope I was able to inspire you to go on a road trip! It doesn’t matter how, but do it without a plan. Looking at what you would like to do from day to day is fantastic🤩. It gives you the ultimate feeling of freedom♾️. You see beautiful things and you will make unforgettable memories. But don’t forget to be well prepared! That makes your road trip so much easier. Do you want more travel stories, travel experiences and travel tips? Then sign up for the newsletter!
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Do you like this article and would you like to read more about road trips? Then read this post: “5 BEST CALIFORNIA ROAD TRIP STOPS NEAR SAN FRANCISCO“.
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