Travel information

In Germany there is no shortage of high-quality travel information in English. Tourism is an important and well organised industry, standing next to the marketing of congress and trade fair opportunities.

Tourist information centres

Most of Germany’s city tourist information centres stand with the world’s best in service, resources, co-ordination and location. Visitors can step out of main rail or bus stations and be within five minutes of all the information and advice necessary to enjoy their experience. Sometimes there are information kiosks in stations, supported by the central office. Big cities have multiple information offices, though all are not necessarily open at once. Almost everyone speaks English well.

Free guides are plentiful in English and translations are generally of reasonable standard. Maps are excellent and, though not always available free, will rarely cost more than €2.

Tourist services are supported by detailed and user-friendly information websites, but the English versions of tourist office websites (or transport sites) do not always have identical scope and detail.  Sometimes the tourist information component is incorporated in the local civic site.

Germany – Simply inspiring, the brand for the national tourist board Deutsche Zentrale für Tourismus, is responsible for international marketing. Its website can provide some thematic ideas.

Tourist offices in the biggest cities are generally open seven days, M-F 9.00 or 10.00 to 17.00 or 18.00 (between April and October this can extend to 20.00) and until 17.00 Saturdays. Sunday hours, where available, may be shorter and secondary offices might be closed. Public holidays affect opening hours.

A booking service (Zimmervermittlung) for hotels or other rooms will usually be provided, though not necessarily from the same desk or for the same hours. Sometimes there will also be information or ticket sales for entertainments and events. Official guided tours or tour guides can usually be arranged and booked.

Here are the official sites for key German destinations:

Aachen: www.aachen-tourismus.de/en   

Amberg: tourismus.amberg.de (use browser translation, see Websites below) 

Augsburg: www.augsburg-tourismus.de/en   

Bamberg: www.bamberg.info   

Bautzen: www.bautzen.de/en    

Berlin: www.visitberlin.de/en   

Bonn: www.bonn.de/microsite/en/highlights/tourist-information/tourist-information.php   

Bremen: www.bremen-tourismus.de/en  

Cochem: www.ferienland-cochem.de/en/holiday-region/towns-and-villages/cochem    

Cologne: www.cologne-tourism.com   

Dinkelsbühl: www.dinkelsbuehl.de/englisch/tourist-information   

Dresden: www.dresden.de/en/tourism/tourism.php   

Düsseldorf: www.duesseldorf-tourismus.de   

Eisenach: www.eisenach.info/en    

Erfurt: www.erfurt-tourismus.de/en    

Frankfurt: www.frankfurt-tourismus.de/en   

Füssen: en.fuessen.de    

Görlitz: www.goerlitz-tourismus.de (use browser translation)  

Goslar: www.goslar.de/home-en

Greifswald: www.greifswald.info (use browser translation) and www.hanse.org/en/tourist/greifswald     

Hamburg: www.hamburg-travel.com   

Hannover: www.hannover.de/en   

Heidelberg: www.heidelberg.de/english/Home/Visit.html    

Koblenz: www.visit-koblenz.de/en    

Lübeck: www.visit-luebeck.com   

Lutherstadt Wittenberg: lutherstadt-wittenberg.de/en    

Mainz: www.mainz-tourismus.com/en   

Meissen: www.stadt-meissen.de/en/tourism.html    

Munich: www.munich.travel/en and www.muenchen.de/en/tourism   

Nuremberg: tourismus.nuernberg.de/en   

Passau: tourism.passau.de  

Potsdam: www.potsdam-tourism.com/en/home   

Quedlinburg: www.quedlinburg-info.de/en      

Regensburg: tourismus.regensburg.de/en   

Rostock: www.rostock.de/en 

Rothenburg ob der Tauber: www.rothenburg-tourismus.de/en   

Schwerin: www.schwerin.com/en   

Stralsund: www.stralsundtourismus.de/en/welcome    

Stuttgart: www.stuttgart-tourist.de/en   

Trier: www.trier-info.de/en  

Ulm: tourismus.ulm.de/en  

Weimar: www.weimar.de/en/tourism    

Wernigerode: www.wernigerode-tourismus.de/english    

Wismar: www.wismar.de/Tourismus (scroll and select English at bottom)

Worms: www.worms-erleben.de/experience   

Würzburg: www.wuerzburg.de/en/visitors/index.html   

Xanten: www.xanten.de/de/tix/tourismus-freizeit (use browser translation)

State tourism organisations

State tourist authorities or associations give an overview of the attractions available and their websites and literature can assist in the discovery of the most appealing destinations or activities. As separate states Berlin, Hamburg and Bremen (including Bremerhaven) have their own organisations and sites. Packages and options can be examined and more information or booking pages are linked, although advertising material is included in some sites. In some cases there are pages for individual cities and towns.

Other visitor information

Travellers can afford to ignore pure souvenir shops in their search for the background story.  Outside the hours of services, cathedrals and large churches are attuned to visitors’ needs and information sheets or inexpensive booklet guides in translation are available – look for the recent and detailed Verlag Schnell & Steiner, DKV Kunstführer or Schöning Verlag guides (€2.50-4). Some churches offer daily tours but visitor services vary and much of the staffing is by volunteers.

Museum shops are among the best places to browse for literature and reputable book shops are easy to find in the city hubs. The travel literature sections of German bookshops are notable for their wide selections and English editions are often included.

At sites such as castles or palaces, there is usually good information in English – perhaps a whole shop – along with the inevitable postcards and souvenirs.

Historic Highlights of Germany is a tourist marketing initiative by a group of 17 historic cities. The website offers good short guides to each city or thematic options for travellers. A similar site is Travel guide to Germany’s historic cities.

There is an unofficial online guide with lots of German destinations, including pictures, and locally based tips including the top activities and sights.

Maps

German street addresses give the street name first, followed by the house or building number. The pattern of street numbers will generally be odd numbers on one side and even on the other, but there are many exceptions and in parts of Berlin it is possible to find an odd street number where an even one would be expected. Kantstraße numbers sequentially up one side then down the other so that No.148 is more or less opposite No.21. In Berlin, too, as with other cities in the former GDR, some street names have changed in the past 30 years, which can add to confusion if old hard-copy maps are used.

Road atlases: The 1:200,000 scale AA Road Atlas Germany is available for purchase online but its A3 format big brother, superbly detailed at 1:150,000 scale, is now scarce. Seek out the German edition, ADAC MaxiAtlas Deutschland 2023/2024. A Germany road atlas including adjacent countries at 1:300,000 is available from Michelin.

Motorists can go to the AA route planner for point-to-point journeys including map and directions with distances and approximate travel times. Times over longer distances assume Autobahn travel.

Sheet maps: Excellent foldout city and 1:150,000 regional maps are available from the German publisher Falk, generally including street or placename registers. Falk Cityplans are among the best of the type, including public transport routes. Buy recent versions as the routes can become outdated quickly. The Austrian publisher Freytag & Berndt offers 1:20,000 plans of main cities and inexpensive 1:10,000 thematic pocket tourist maps of Berlin, Hamburg, Munich, Cologne, Regensburg and Nuremberg.

Among regional maps Marco Polo Mairs (1:200,000) and Kümmerley+Frey (1:275,000) are high-quality – K+F is particularly strong in outdoor activity maps. Marco Polo-Mairs publishes Germany foldout road maps at 1:900,000 and regional maps at 1:200,000.

Freytag & Berndt is a leading purveyor of general and outdoor activity maps but has a  German store only in Regensburg. However its online store operates partly in English.

The general bookstore chains Hugendubel and Thalia have excellent map selections among their ranges of guidebooks and other travel literature.

Online maps: Google’s maps and satellite photos, including Google Earth, cover Germany intensively and can provide detailed directions, distances and guides to travel times for routes. But Google's Street View function is limited to some major cities – the result of a long public controversy over privacy provisions and extensive opting out.

Google street views are available for Berlin (but only part of Potsdam), Hamburg, Cologne, Düsseldorf, Bonn, Dresden, Leipzig, Frankfurt am Main, Bremen, Hannover, Stuttgart, Munich, Nuremberg, Mannheim, Bielefeld and areas of the Ruhr industrial region including Duisburg, Dortmund, Essen and Wuppertal. Not all inner-city thoroughfares are covered, though sometimes Panoramio street images (contributed and sometimes unreliable in terms of map placement) can be used. Many existing Street View images are now outdated, sometimes going back to 2008, and have been blurred in the interests of privacy or in cases of significant changes to the streetscape.

Bing Maps offers wide coverage in maps and aerial images but visuals from its Streetside coverage were disabled indefinitely in 2012. Its Bird's Eye feature however offers useful views when zoomed.

The detailed maps of Here.com are especially good for street numbers but do not offer street-level images.

The Stadtplan.de website has detailed maps (click ‘Hier geht’s zur Karte’). The similarly named Stadtplan.net has an excellent point-to-point function that will provide directions in English along with a waymarker line and interim distances. But there are no street numbers.

Websites

There are sites covering German life and culture in English, and sites in German with English versions, that offer useful cultural perspectives.

Translating websites from German: Sites in German sometimes translate reasonably well in browsers or using translation programs or functions. Google Chrome has the advantage of automatically seeking out suitable versions for users in English-speaking countries while allowing the option of automatically translating German sites. Bring up the site by using a normal subject search, such as ‘Regensburg tourist office’ and click “Translate this page” to the right of the URL. An easy view of original text is available by clicking at top right or (on a PC) by hovering a mouse over text sections.

Google Translate allows travellers (or armchair travellers) to translate blocks of pasted text at will and is especially easy to use when bookmarked in the browser. A Google Translator add-on can be downloaded for Mozilla Firefox.

Microsoft Edge supports the free, downloadable Microsoft Translator tool, which powers the Bing Translator for multiple languages. The app automatically detects foreign languages and offers the translation.

Note that when searching German words or names with mutated (Umlaut) vowels (ä, ö, ü) it is usual to type 'e' directly after the base vowel (for Würzburg, type 'Wuerzburg'). Where words or names use the character 'ß', type 'ss' (for Hauptstraße, type 'Hauptstrasse').  This will usually be the case where URLs include such names.

Official sites: Two German websites offer multiple links to explore individual interests. Goethe-Institut, Germany’s worldwide cultural organisation and German language teacher, devotes its site to all its work as well as articles on aspects of life, society, the arts and politics. The Deutsche Welle site has much general information in English (and about 30 other languages) including travel articles, the arts and culture, as well as resources for learning German.

Expatriate guides: The practical business of living in Germany, including housing, employment, education and networking, is covered by two European online networks with associated online newsletters. The Spanish-based international site Just Landed, which covers many countries, has a Germany page. Basic articles are backed up by an online forum with tips from expats in response to queries, although there are some personal notices and the services section is largely business-based.

Expatica.com is a Netherlands-based enterprise covering 11 countries with a Germany page. Useful guides and articles on practical matters with links are included but it is best to note the date on the information and sometimes it will be advisable to check further.  Again, there is advertising material on the site.

The Local Berlin-based expat site offers news (much with a lifestyle flavour) and links including noticeboards, job ads and blogging. Its Toytown Germany partner site is a networking and chat forum offering advice, opinions and reviews on all manner of topics. There is a searchable resource for the forum as well as lists by region.

Youth sites: For students the Deutsches Studentenwerk site’s English version can offer tips about studying in Germany and a guide to the range of student services.

Deutschland.de is a Frankfurt-based online magazine about German politics, business, culture and environmental concerns. There is a related blog, Facebook site and RSS feeds. Its Young Germany page is about youth lifestyles including education and career opportunities, events, arts, language learning and social media networking.

News

It is not hard to find news in English while on the road in Germany, and some of it comes from German sources.

Newspapers: Newspapers with an international profile – by and large UK or US mastheads – are not difficult to find in big cities at major transport hubs, especially rail stations, large bookshops or other press outlets. Expect a markup on prices. For a guide to online editions see below.

Papers in German are available free in first-class carriages of Deutsche Bahn main-line trains.

Television: In big cities most hotels offer pay TV services and access to BBC World, CNN, CNBC and Bloomberg makes it easy to stay in touch 24 hours. But this is not normal in budget accommodation such as pensions and youth hostels, although some of these may offer communal rooms with TV access.

Online: For news on Germany, Deutsche Welle is the leading news site offering English material in depth with breaking news and background stories. Business, culture, science and sports are covered. DW also offers an international perspective for travellers wanting to check the latest.

The Local is an expat site offering news with other links. Deutschland.de is an online magazine about aspects of public life in Germany and its place in the world. The website of the German news magazine Der Spiegel has an English version covering German news and German views on world news. Major German daily papers such as Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, the Munich-based Süddeutsche Zeitung, Die Zeit  and Berliner Zeitung offer news stories in English free with advertising inserted. English translations from Die Welt are also available.

Several news sites, such as The Guardian, and the New York Times International offer a wide free coverage of international events. But to keep in close touch with home over several weeks or months, consider an online subscription with a favourite news source for tablet or mobile devices.

For television news, DW News in English is accessible in many countries but the online stream is also easy to find at the media centre. Video and audio streams and podcasts for many programs are available. DW sends news and current affairs programs in English through its international radio network.