Baden-Württemberg, 5 days, self-drive
The Black Forest’s reputation abroad begins and ends with cuckoo clocks and cherry cake, which undersells a region of genuinely dense hiking trails, thermal spa towns, and half-timbered villages that see far fewer international visitors than Bavaria.
Days 1–2: Baden-Baden
Start in Baden-Baden’s belle-époque spa town, where the Friedrichsbad’s 19th-century Roman-Irish bathing ritual is worth the full afternoon it takes. Walk the Lichtentaler Allee along the Oos river before heading into the hills proper.
Days 3–4: Triberg and the High Forest
Triberg’s waterfalls — Germany’s highest — are an easy stop, but the real reward is the hiking network radiating out from the town: the Wild Line trail through old-growth forest sees a fraction of the crowds at the falls themselves.
Day 5: Freiburg
Finish in Freiburg, a university town with a genuinely walkable medieval core and the Bächle — tiny stone runnels of water threading through every street, a centuries-old fire-suppression system locals now consider good luck to step in.