🇩🇪 3-Day Road Trip Around Munich 🚗

For the Ascension Day holiday in August, I rented a car for three days to explore small towns near Munich. Selection criteria: Easy to reach by car 🚗 + Hard to reach by train 🚆 + Good weather ☀️ Day 1: Gosau + Hallstatt (Austria) Austrian highway vignette: 1-day pass €9.3, 10-day pass €12.4 (buy online with license plate). If unsure, go for the 10-day pass! Hallstatt in summer is overcrowded 😵 – parking is a nightmare! Secret parking lots are time-limited (90 mins) with frequent police patrols 👮. Gosau: Arrived at 12 PM – parking near the cable car was full. Had to park farther away (15-min walk to cable car). Cable car runs every 15 minutes. P1 was taken on the cable car! 🚡 Only had time to loop around the first lake due to time constraints. Returned to Hallstatt – even at 5 PM, no parking spots! Finally parked 30 mins away from the town center. Dinner at Asia Restaurant in Bad Ischler (20-min drive): Steamed fish, "juejue" chicken, and beef chow mein – all delicious! 😋 Day 2: Rothenburg ob der Tauber Medieval castle town 🏰 Dubai Chocolate Ice Cream highly recommended! 🍦 Nutcracker shop with strong Christmas vibes (and air conditioning!) – a must-visit! Town is small – explored in 2-3 hours. Lunch at Michelangelo Restaurant (popular on Xiaohongshu): Potato soup 🥣 and bacon-wrapped prawns 🍤 were great! Day 3: Baumwipfelpfad Bayerischer Wald + Tierfreigelände Towering trees everywhere 🌲 – felt like a wild version of Berlin’s Reichstag! No phone signal in the forest 📵 – download offline maps! Wild boars and brown bears in the zoo were hard to spot 🐗🐻. Car Rental Tips: Drove 1500 km in 3 days. Gas is cheaper in Austria than Germany ⛽. E10 is cheaper than E5, but fuel efficiency varies. VTM Fair Tankstelle (20 km from airport) had no E10. #OffTheBeatenPath #StudyAbroadTravel #MunichRoadTrip #Austria #Germany #Hallstatt