Highlights of Western Austria

With a toddler, of course 😉

1. Small villages in Western Austria

Pick any small town in the province of Salzburg, and stay there for a few days soaking in the views and taking day trips to nearby lakes and hikes.

We were looking for a home base Airbnb that would be close enough to explore Hallstatt, Salzburg city and Zell am See, and happened to find a really great cottage near Hochkonig . There are plenty of cute little villages sprinkled around this province, with stunning mountain views so you really can’t go wrong. Our hosts were super friendly and even greeted us with some wine!

2. Hallstatt

This is one of those magical postcard towns you have to see for yourself to believe.

It gets really packed, so make sure to get there early to get a good parking spot. There’s really only one location to park, as the rest of the town is pedestrian only (except for the locals who live there and have a pass).

Our babe loved walking around here and looking at the swans, the mountains, and the lake. And since the streets were pedestrian-only, I wasn’t worried about her running around.

We only spent a couple of hours walking around here until busloads of tourists arrived and the cozy little town turned into a cozy can of sardines.

3. Innsbruck

We don’t generally enjoy cities and prefer to stay in the countryside, but this one I really liked. It had the vibe of a ski resort town with it’s mountain backdrops and beautiful architecture (and copious amounts of tourists!)

There’s also a gondola you can take to the top of the mountain here and get a really nice view of the city, but given the cloud cover and the excessive amounts of money we’d already spent in Germany to see a cloud we decided to skip this part.

4. Buy a dirndl

No ragrets.

4. Voralberg

I wouldn’t recommend driving out of your way to stay here since this province is very similar to Tirol and Salzburg, but if you find yourself in dire need of seeing Liechtenstein, this is a good base. We stayed in a little town called Schnifis, very close to the border with Liechtenstein. Our hosts were really great and we enjoyed our stay here more than we thought we would (and more than Liechtenstein itself – see below)

5. Austrian signage

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Anti-recommendations

1. Liechtenstein

Not quite Austria, but we did stay in Austria and do a daytrip here and it really doesn’t warrant its own post.

Unless your goal is to complete your world scratch map, this is totally skippable. We didn’t believe our host when she told us this, but aside from the Vaduz castle, there’s really not much to do, and it’s super expensive.

2. Salzburg

This was quite a let down after all the hype and suggestions to visit this city. Maybe people meant the province? Or maybe we’re just not city people. We also ended up with a ticking timebomb on our hands since we forgot to bring diapers and all stores were closed, so I’m sure that added to the ambiance.

The one thing I really did want to see here was the Mozart museum, since I spent 10 years practicing his creative genius on piano. And that was also a big let down.