Your travel guide to Austria! Austria is such a beautiful country. We visited Austria on a trip combined with Slovenia and Croatia. Our route took us through Eastern Austria, so our guide will focus on this portion of Austria. We’ll update the guide when we make it to Vienna 🙂
The best time to visit
Austria can be enjoyed any time of year. In the summer there is plenty to do outdoors such as hiking and biking and it typically doesn’t get extremely hot. In the winter there is great skiing, but the weather can be brutal, especially at higher altitudes.
The off season is usually in the Spring and Autumn between the warm summer months and the ski season. Off season is cheaper and less crowded, and we enjoyed the weather and everything about our trip to Austria in October. Just look at the leaf colors in all of the pictures! ♥
Weather
Austria experiences the four distinct seasons. You can expect 70-80 degree F (21-26 degree C) highs in the summer. As mentioned before, winters can be brutal in Austria, especially in Alps of Eastern Austria. If you aren’t specifically going to ski, don’t visit in the winter. Summers are nice, but crowded and more expensive. The best weather is in May, June and September. October can get cool. But, honestly, we visited in October and had the BEST weather on our trip. Along with the weather, the leaves were changing colors and it made everything even more beautiful.
Currency
Austria uses the Euro like most other European nations. However, cash isn’t necessary in most places. Feel free to use your credit card and rack up the travel points!
Tipping is expected in Austria. However, you don’t have to tip as much as in the US, because there is typically a service charge added to the bill. Also, it is more customary to give the waiter the tip personally and say thank you (or Danke!) instead of leaving the tip on the table.
Accomodations
We found several cute bed and breakfasts in Austria, more than we usually book. We booked two B&Bs and one private upstairs loft in Zell am See through booking.com. They’re starting to be one of my favorite types of accommodations. But, honestly, we usually just go with the cheaper option that works best for our group.
You can see our accommodations for Innsbruck and Salzburg, or find what works best for you. For all tips on finding accommodations, click here!
Transportation
You can navigate Austria without the use of a car. There are buses or trains that go to each major town, and we could have visited all three of our locations without the use of our vehicle. And once we got to each city, we were able to walk to nearly every sight we visited. However, the views between Innsbruck and Zell am See are breathtaking and we took a few pitstops on the side of the road for pictures 🙂 ↓
I recommend using Rome2Rio to see all of the travel options between cities. It will let you know that you can take a train from Innsbruck to Zell am See, but not a bus and give you the price of the tickets as well.
Enjoy the travel guide to Austria! Austria is pretty high on our list of favorite countries we’ve visited. The Austrian Alps are breathtaking (sometimes literally at 3,000 m high) and we enjoyed the culture and beer similar to Germany. Feel free to ask any questions throughout your planning!
Click here for a 72 hour itinerary from Innsbruck to Zell am See to Salzburg!