By backpacking I assume you mean no car - how will you reach the area? And what do you class as "south west"? Camping or B&B? I'm thinking Black Forest to Swiss/French border. Dead easy to get around without car -and mostly free transport if you get organised!

Yeah we generally get around via bus or train but free sounds good too
Maybe start in Frankfurt and make our way to Munich via the black forest. Totally open to ideas at this stage, just looking for things not to miss.

Munich is south east....

anyway, start with Frankfurt. There are 2 airports called Frankfurt, the one near Frankfurt and the one Ryanair use at Hahn. The latter is so far west it's closer to Luxembourg! Frankurt real airport isn't served by low cost operators, you can get return flights to it with Lufthansa etc. at prices that are similar value to the low cost prices but if you wanted to go out to one airport and come back from another it would get much dearer. If you use either of these it's worth staying in the area of the airport for a couple of nights, for Hahn consider one of the Rhein or Mosel riverbank towns.

Moving around Germany. You need to know the Federal States or Länder - each one has a cheap rail rover ticket which is good value especially if there are between 2 and 5 adults travelling together (5= a car load and many German public transport offers have spotted this!). So the trick is to plan to avoid crossing state boundaries a lot. Long distance point to point train fares are quite expensive by British standards unless you can book well in advance with lots of conditions. Hahn is in Rheinland Pfalz (which shares it's rover ticket with Saarland and allows use of buses as well). Frankurt itself is in Hessen. The Black Forest region is in the southwest corner of Baden-Württemberg. You can stay in state by using Baden airport (Ryanair from London). Basel airport is actually in France but is linked to the city centre by a fenced off Swiss road and is a cheaper transfer to the Black Forest than Frankfurt, try easyjet or Swiss.com (return fares only!) . State rover tickets cannot be used before 09:00 Monday -Friday.

B-W has it's own rover ticket but if you stay within the Black Forest and are registered in accomodation that collects the local tourist tax (usually a couple of euro per day on top of the rate) then your guest card doubles up as the regional travel card for free! Only very simple accomodation like a room in a private house would be excluded and most local authorities have joined the scheme. This ticket is known as Konus and covers all regional trains and buses in a huge area. It's valid from when you check in until the end of the day you leave. So the trick would be to do the jump from the airport to the Black Forest in one planned go with an advance booking ticket and get yourself a well placed base to explore from. Northern boundary of Konus from January 2012 is Karlsruhe, the southern end is actually Basel main railway station (which is in Swizerland). The 2011 network covered is at http://www.schwarzwald-tourismus.info/content/download/25904/235587/file/KONUS_Strecken_und_Linienkarte.pdf . The purple lines are rail, yellow are bus. It's a huge area, Karlsruhe to Basel by fast regional train takes over 3 hours! Konus (or state rover tickets) can't be used on ICE, IC, EC high speed trains.

I'd suggest getting a base close to Freiburg. The city is worth a look in itself and you are easy reach of Basel (historic centre untouched by WW2 bombing). For just a little bit extra you can reach Strasbourg by train (change at Appenweier and pay the last miles from Kehl border crossing). Apart from cities, Freiburg is near to Europapark theme park and there are walking routes in the forest or higher up above the tree line. You could easily fill a week from there.

Munich is a bit far, well out of state and therefore an expensive trip. But you could stretch a bit eastwards to Freidrichshafen, it's off the Konus area but still within B-W so from Freiburg would be about €15 each if 2 travelled together. This is a nice town on Lake Konstanz, home of the Zeppelin airships - there is a museum and in fine weather you can even have a ride in one (from €200 for 30 minutes!!) http://www.zeppelinflug.de
Ryanair fly here from Stansted. Good cycling country here with flat marked routes around the lake. Or have a cruise across the lake - people don't believe you can go to Switzerland on a car ferry!

http://www.freiburg.de/servlet/PB/menu/1140679_l2/index.html
http://www.blackforest-tourism.com/
http://en.friedrichshafen.info

That's brilliant, thank you so much for your time

steve8482 wrote:

anyway, start with Frankfurt. There are 2 airports called Frankfurt, the one near Frankfurt and the one Ryanair use at Hahn. The latter is so far west it's closer to Luxembourg! Frankurt real airport isn't served by low cost operators, you can get return flights to it with Lufthansa etc. at prices that are similar value to the low cost prices but if you wanted to go out to one airport and come back from another it would get much dearer. If you use either of these it's worth staying in the area of the airport for a couple of nights, for Hahn consider one of the Rhein or Mosel riverbank towns.

Steve Flybe fly to Frankfurt from the uk, we went last May.

Frankfurt would be a good city for a couple of nights, there are some great bars especially south of the river.

I don't class Flybe as low cost like Ryaianir or easyjet or even compared to Lufthansa for returns, although they are worth bearing in mind for singles. They might have a few promotional bargains but I've always found them upper end of the pricing ladder.

steve8482 wrote:

I don't class Flybe as low cost like Ryaianir or easyjet or even compared to Lufthansa for returns, although they are worth bearing in mind for singles. They might have a few promotional bargains but I've always found them upper end of the pricing ladder.

Really??? We have flown all over Europe with them and have got great prices. How very strange .

We are in danger of turning a thread about Backpacking around Germany into one for Flybe, however to take a backpack on Flybe will cost £13 per sector. These are ex BA routes and for most passengers with luggage the overall prices will be on a par with what BA would be charging if they still operated them. I've just done a genuine comparison enquriy for a Monday-Friday trip I'd like to do in mid- March (so hardly last minute), Manchester -Frankfurt. At similar times on same dates, including luggage, Lufthansa was £207.51 and Flybe was £217.21 - turns out Flybe have dropped the direct service - you have to go via Southampton and they charge you more for less convenience. Ryanair don't fly the dates I asked for but would have been about £100 less the next days at very inconvenient times on a "No Taxes" promotion (Lufthansa dropped £50 and was still convenient, Flybe don't fly next day). As I said, this was a genuine enquiry for dates I'm already stuck with and Flybe came out dearest. I have used Flybe in the past but I've only got a price worth writing home about when they were running dated promotions.

Flybe is indeed a low cost airline, I phoned them today and asked if that is what they classify there business as and a low cost airline serving european routes was the reply.

So dannyfry, book with them if you like

Well they may be classed as a lowcost carrier but their prices and routes don't compare with the real low cost carriers such as Easyjet and Ryanair.

I have looked into flights with Flybe in the past but the only flight available to Southwest Germany (Stuttgart) is from Birmingham and was at the time almost twice the price of Lufthansa and flights to Frankfurt, which isn't really the very South West are from Southampton. I'm sure there are bargains to be had with this company but there seems to be more choice of destinations at lower prices with others.