I don't even know where to start on this... Just got my passport a couple of years ago and international travel has become a much bigger part of my life.

I stumbled into a fantastic fare from Newark to Dusseldorf. My wife and I had no idea what we might do but bought tickets that straddle our anniversary (August 1st).

I'm trying to do everything from findgin a SIM card (with data) for our iPhones that will work acceptably (i.e. not a king's ransom) if we cross the border into Belgium, France and Austria to figuring out just what areas we can concentrate on. About the only thing we KNOW is that we're renting a car for the duration and staying at B&B's along the way.

We know we want to stay in the Black Forest for a bit and visit the castles near Fussen and do 'Bavaria' (with a side to Salzburg).

It was far easier to do a similar trip around Scotland a little over a year ago.

So... Are there recommendations for sites to help me narrow this down a bit? A Germany-centric site for B&B's that might not be known on this side of the pond? A collection of regionally-grouped "things to do" lists that might help us decide which areas stay, or go, or are "can't miss"?

Help!

Thanks in advance.

Considering that you are starting in DUS and want to go to southern Germany, I would recommend you start in Cologne (one day should be enough) and then continue your journey along the rhine (take Autobahn A61) and take in the usual sights (Koblenz, the Loreley) which should take a maximum of three days (BTW, you could also do this by train, no need for a car). You can safely omit Frankfurt, as IMHO it's not really worth visiting, and then continue via Heidelberg to the Black Forest. All of this shouldn't take more than one week of your time.

If you want to visit France and Belgium, you should continue your journey back to D�sseldorf via Strasbourg, maybe Metz and then Luxembourg. From there, you could also visit Brussels, Li�ge and Antwerp (probably not all three as you schedule could get quite packed) and then go back to DUS. Including transfer times, this should be very doable in a 2-weeks-timeframe.

I wouldn't recommend to travel to Bavaria, Salzburg or Austria in general on this trip as this will take you too far away from your departure point (and you'd have to drive more than 1000 km in order to get back, especially the route between the Black Forest and Bavaria (A8) is extremely slow and packed on most days).

As to the B&B, I cannot really help. The only site that comes to my mind is airbnb.com which is actually a couchsurfing community (and probably not what you want). However, especially in the more touristy regions of Germany (which you'll be mostly travelling to) there should not be a problem to organize BnBs "on the fly" unless you are travelling in peak times (at Easter, Whitsun or Labor Day or the many public holidays in June). Oh, and something more - you'll be travelling at a time when most german states, and especially the southern states have summer holidays; thus, it may be good advice to try to book your lodging in advance.

Well there are many things one shouldn`t miss.
Some places i prefered might be of interest to you:
Cologne (cathedral etc.), Hamburg (many legandary places like harbour etc.), Rheinfall (close to Swiss border so it might be too far, but still worth).

Have a good time!

It's a big country with lots of interesting/different things. Really depends on your interests. Sounds like you are on the right track though. I would say look at a map and figure out which towns look like that might be large enough to have some things of interest along your route and start researching.

Every city/town has a website. Or there is also the main German tourism website http://www.germany.travel/en/index.html Tons of info there.

I am doing 2 weeks in Germany this summer. I plan to just take trains to get around. You can get to most places by train. My itinerary is Hamburg, Cologne (day trip up to Xanten), Trier, Koblenz, Mainz, Frankfurt.

I like the suggestion above of going back via Strasbourg and Luxembourg. I spent several days in Luxembourg a few years ago and really enjoyed it.

A lot also depends on how fast paced you want to be. I personally like to take my time. And I don't like being constantly on the move, packing and unpacking, etc.

We're trying to find that "sweet spot" between relaxing and trying to do too much. Already it looks like Berlin might not make the cut. Hamburg has already been put off for another trip.

The drives don't seem to be too bad - especially with the autobahn. I mean, our last European trips had us driving in Scotland and Ireland and THAT took some getting used to!

We're travelling (domestically) at the moment but I'm certainly going to check out some of the suggestions after we get home. We'd used Airbnb before and that seemed to turn out ok (for Paris, London and Dublin). In Scotland we did more web surfing and also used BedAndBreakfast.com - I think we'll probably be doing more of that this time around.

On top of everything else, we'll have others joining us during parts of this trip - like I needed more complications! But I have to admit, it's kind of fun discovering all this stuff and realizing that we actually have opportunity to actually SEE some of it for ourselves. The more we travel internationally, the more we want to.

...plays hell with the budgets, though.

A lot of info to digest�

Any particular reason why you don�t want to go with an international phone/data plan? I got the basic package from AT&T for a trip to Berlin, Paris and Rome and didn�t come close to hitting my maximum usage. When you get back, you call and cancel and they will pro-rate your bill for you. Obviously, I don�t know your schedule, but I can�t imagine why you�d use your phone to make lots of calls beyond your hotel.

Missing Berlin is really a shame. It�s one of my favorite European cities. I�d make every effort to get there, even if it means that you have to ditch the car and catch a train/flight from Bavaria. Not going to Berlin is like hitting up France and bypassing Paris IMO.

I hate to say this, because it�s a must, but Fussen is going to be very underwhelming. The castles are hard to get to and they are largely unfinished. Beautiful scenery, but a little disappointing.

Having a car in Salzburg is a hassle. Most of the Aldstadt is in the pedestrian only area. However, I would look into going to Hallstatt as a side trip. Yes, it takes you a little further into Austria, but it�s worth it: http://www.hallstatt.net/home-en-US/

I�m assuming that you know about Nurenburg and the Romantic Road already.

If you want to do a nice trip starting and ending in DUS I would recommend to travel along the rhine all the way down to Switzerland and back up. As the other mentioned you can stop along the way at the following places:

Cologne, Bonn, Rhine Valley Gorge (with tons of castles, small villages, great wine areas, a world famous monastery Kloster Eberbach), Mainz, Worms, Heidelberg, Black Forest, the Rhine Waterfalls, Basel, etc.)

August is the perfect time for Germany.

Cheers
Christoph

FWIW, I know there are something shy of a billion brands of SIM cards out there that will fit the iPhone 4s (my wife and I each have one). I'm still trying to figure out how much "data" I'll need for things like sign translations - using one of those apps to take a picture of a menu and have it translated to English sounds fantastic but I haven't seen any numbers for how much data goes back and forth.

Now that I'm back from California, the *real* research starts for this trip...

I guess that the data volume very much depends on your phones camera resolution. Thus, a single OCR request can easily add up to 1MB, and I would discourage use of OCR translation apps when on a volume data plan. However, there really is a huge number of mobile providers who offer prepaid data flatrates (usually up to several hundred MB a day) for as little as 2 EUR per day, or 30 EUR per month. Signing up is easy, just walk into a store (don't know whether there are mobile phone stores in DUS, I'm already airside as I'm writing this) and ask for a suitable plan. This should also work without knowing a single german word.

Last (probably stupid) question - it seems to be that all the offers I see are either for 'data' SIMs or 'talk' SIMs. On some sites, no matter how much I looked, I couldn't find ANYTHING on minutes/rates for voice calls but *everything* I needed on the rates for data.

Am I missing something here? Although I'm a Sprint customer here in the US (CDMA), the AT&T folks are GSM and their plans include voice and data on their SIM cards.

Voice+TXT+Data is buried in some of the websites. T-Mobile DE has theirs at:
http://www.t-mobile.de/tarifuebersic...ml#grp=0&dev=0

Option1 = EUR20 for the card and fee for the month + by-the-minute rates for calls (up to EUR15 already loaded on your card. Unlimited HSDPA data at up to 7.2mbps. There seems to be a 100MB monthly limit on the high speed data though. After that data is throttled to slow speeds.
Option2 = EUR10 for the card + lower by the minute rates for calls. EUR10 preloaded on the card. EUR1 per day of usage.
Option3 = same base fee + different per minute and per text fees. 200MB data high speed data limit for the month. After that data is throttled to slow speeds.

You should go in Belgium and certainly visit Brussels! It's a little but beautiful city where you can meet a lot of nice people.
I went in Brussels a year ago and I will return for sure so if I can advise you something is to go there! If you need more info about the city this site http://www.brusselscity.net/ helped me a lot to find places to visit and good restaurants and also if you look at a hotel, you can find everything you need to know. Hope you will like it

I don�t think that you should take too long trips like all the way down to Switzerland - there is plenty of things to see without driving so much (just my opinion because I am not a fan of the whole "a whole country in a day"-thing)

I would suggest to stay in the nearer region which might include the following towns or topics:
- Xanten, Cologne, Trier, Teutoburger Wald, ... for roman and germanic history
- The Ruhr Metropolitan Region, Essen, Dortmund, ... for the Industrial Heritage Trail and the newer history, especially of the "Ruhrgebiet"
- Ahr valley, Mosel valley, Rhine gorge, ... for some wine and nice food
- Cologne for K�lsch beer, D�sseldorf for Alt beer (don�t mix that up! )
- Belgium for nice food and beers (Bruxelles, Hasselt, Li�ge, ...)
- Taunus, Sauerland, Eifel, "Rheinsteig", ... for nature, hiking, mountainbiking.
- Cologne, Amsterdam, Essen, ... for culture, art and museums

If you have questions or if you need more ideas or topics you would like to consider (sports, animals, theme parks, ...), just contact me.

If you are concerned about costs (and I assume "plays hell with the budgets, though." means that you are), the single most expensive form of transport in Germany is a rented car (taxi is more expensive on long distances, but on short distances a rented car is more expensive).

As others have already pointed out, there are trains going to most places you would like to visit. The German railroad offers various discount tickets that you can read about here: http://www.bahn.de/i/view/GBR/en/prices/index.shtml (in English).

You can buy various tickets that let you get off the train when you see something interesting, then continue the ride later. The tickets are also valid on many bus lines, so that gives you even more options. You will also find that most workers you will meet in the trains speak English (conductors, ticket sales, information, etc.). On the motorway, you will have a lot of difficulty getting information at road stops and ticket plazas in English.

And finally, if you drive, you will find that many of the road repairs on the national roadways are done during the warm weather (summer). I know this because I used to drive and after sitting still for a long time on a hot day in a rented car, I decided to take the train. I did and have never been tempted to go back.

....and like I *needed* more than the proverbial "31 flavors", I just discovered that some of the DB rail passes include river cruises....

Right now it looks like the "major stages" will be:

- arriving in DUS and heading down to somewhere in the Black Forest for a few days.
- travelling to Munich for a few days (may stop in Fussen on the way) with a possible side trip to Salzburg.
- Up to Berlin for a few days.
- Back to Dusseldorf, possibly via Hamburg if there's enough time.

So far, the ONLY drawback to taking the train seems to be the "lugging luggage" - especially for some little stopover along the way to somewhere else... ...and there's the issue of "getting around" in small towns to whatever attractions we're looking for.

Oh - and the "plays hell with the budgets" referred to replacing a cheaper hobby (local driving trips) with something more expensive (international travel that is NOT driving 4 hours to Canada).