IS HALLSTATT A TOURIST TRAP? & HIKING IN DACHSTEIN

OCTOBER 2020

Hallstatt had been high on my bucket list for quite some time, so I knew exactly where I wanted to go when we rented a VW Van in August. Originally I had planned to go to Hallstatt at the end of May, but at that time the borders were still closed. The VW Van was the perfect opportunity to tick off one item of my bucket list. Apparently, Hallstatt was the inspiration for the movie Frozen and over the years it has gotten extremely popular to visit Hallstatt. In this blog I will discuss whether it is actually worth it to visit Hallstatt or whether it can be considered a tourist trap. We combined our visit to Hallstatt with a day-hike in the nearby Dachstein, which we would absolutely recommend!

Where to stay in Hallstatt

We visited with a VW Van, so we had to stay on a camping spot. The campings near Hallstatt didn’t have good ratings, which I will get into more in the next chapter, but I will explain in this chapter about where we should have stayed instead. If you have the option to stay in the old city center of Hallstatt I would absolutely recommend doing that. Staying in the small city center itself, compared to staying in a town nearby or visiting Hallstatt as a day trip, gives you the opportunity to walk around the town early or late and enjoy Hallstatt without lots of other tourists. By staying outside of the city center, you lose precious time that you could have been spending in Hallstatt. Please note that Hallstatt is carfree, so you do need to park your car outside of the city center. However there is a (luggage) shuttle from the parkings.During tourist seasons these parkings do tend to fill up quickly, adding additional stress and planning into your day.

We had drinks and snacks at Seehotel Grüner Baum and I wish we stayed here instead. The hotel has lovely views of lake Hallstatt, amazing food and is comfortably located in the middle of the town. Room prices start at around € 150 per room, but possibly higher in popular seasons and when the pandemic has passed. Hallstatt lost a lot of tourism income, because Americans and Asians did not visit in summer, so room rates are currently lower than usual.

Where we stayed in Hallstatt

Pretty much all campings close to Hallstatt had very bad ratings due to customers having had issues with the owners or just due to the high rates of the campings. We couldn’t imagine actually getting into arguments with camping owners so we picked the best of the worst: Camping (Park) am See in Obertraun. The set up of this camping seemed great, there is a lot of nature on the camping site and it is situated directly at Lake Hallstatt. You can probably kind of guess where this story is heading, these were in fact all the benefits of the camping.

Pretty lovely shower building at Camping am See..
Hielke took a dip into Lake Hallstatt at our camping, Hallstatt is located at the other side of the lake

At (Camping) Park am See you could only check in from 3PM-7PM and because of a traffic jam we almost weren’t in time for check-in. The gates closed at 9PM, so you always needed to have dinner early and hurry to get back in time. The gates also didn’t open before 9AM and it was impossible to get bread before 9AM. As there is no bakery anywhere near the camp site, this meant we could never leave before 9AM, which is very unhandy when you want to do a day-hike, want to get to Hallstatt early in the morning or have to leave early for your next location. On top of that, the bus that goes to Hallstatt only goes a few times per day, so that wasn’t any help. We ended up staying outside of the gate on our last night, because we had to leave early to get back to the Netherlands in time. We were told that they were very inflexible due to the lack of personnel in COVID-times, but when you look at reviews they were always very strict and inflexible. All around, we didn’t feel any freedom during camping, but instead felt locked up and limited. When we tried to talk about this we were met incomprehension and rude answers.

I made a reservation at the camp site a month before we went and we had to do a payment of € 26,50 per night, which seems like a reasonable price if you want to stay in a popular place. However, we were very badly informed that this was just a down payment. As we wanted to leave early, we wanted to settle the bill the night before. It turned out we had to pay about € 60 per night and they did not want to explain why, we should have read the tariff structure (which was inconceivable even for a financial like me). Of course, this had to be paid in cash, so we had to get to the nearest ATM in Hallstatt late at night. When we came back they told us the check-in desk was closed, even though they recommended us to go get cash, so we couldn’t settle the bill. In the end we paid the son-in-law of the owner and decided we didn’t want to stay on the last night (which we did pay) as I didn’t feel comfortable and welcome anymore. We therefore booked a parking spot for € 10 for the night somewhere else.

Anyway, we had a very bad experience with this camping site. This has definitely been one of my worst experiences with the hospitality industry. I noticed that the Tripadvisor and Google Reviews went down even further after our stay and that many people had similar experiences. Do not go here!!

Is it worth it to visit Hallstatt?

This blogpost has been pretty negative due to our bad experience at the camping site, but the answer to the question is: Yes, it is absolutely worth it to visit Hallstatt. I think Hallstatt is a great destination year-round. The town is just so fairytale like, it is probably even prettier in wintertime. The fact that the town is carfree does make it a little harder to visit, as parking spaces tend to fill up quickly you always need to time your day, but this is also the reason that the town is really relaxed, quiet and easy to photograph. In the neighboring area you can do so much cool things, so you can have a super diverse holiday when visiting Hallstatt. I loved the flower baskets in summertime and how well maintained it was. I can imagine Hallstatt getting really crowded when there is no pandemic, so I would advise to visit during the shoulder season. But honestly, when we visited in August it wasn’t too bad. Sometimes touristy places are popular for a logical reason and that is exactly the case with Hallstatt.

The town actually looks like this from the famous viewpoint!!
At some spots I could even notice Japanese influences

Things to do in Hallstatt

Getting to the famous viewpoint: A can’t miss activity in Hallstatt is the famous viewpoint, it is even indicated as the postcard viewpoint on google maps. We visited on two different days, as the weather had totally changed and it was breathtaking in any way.

I also loved the view of the town from the other side, as pictured below. If you have a good camera you can even photograph the swans that swim in front of Hallstatt. If that isn’t a postcard view, I don’t know what is?

Renting a boat: We rented an electrical boat for an hour just to enjoy the views of Hallstatt from the lake. There are a few rental companies near the town which charge pretty much the same prices, I think we paid about € 20 for an hour. Renting the boat was a really relaxing activity, yes it is touristy but at € 20 it doesn’t break the bank and you have Hallstatt to yourself for a moment 😉 The boat rental is available for spring and summer.

Enjoying all the flowers and pear trees in Hallstatt: One thing I didn’t know about Hallstatt is that there are a lot of pear trees growing against houses and they were in full production mode when we visited. If you zoom in on my picture below you can spot so many pears, such a fun sight. The whole town is super colorful, you will find lots of pink houses, beautiful timbered houses and many flower baskets. You can walk the town within an hour, but I would recommend to fully take the time to appreciate its beauty.

Views of Hallstatt from the church graveyard: This might sound a bit strange, but the graveyard of Hallstatt’s upper church offers the most picturesque views of the town and the lake. It is just a small hike up, there is no admission fee and plenty of amazing photo spots.

World heritage view Skywalk: We didn’t actually do this, but probably would have if we had more time and the opportunity to leave our camping site early. You can take a train or a steep hike to the Skywalk, which is a triangular viewing platform situated over Hallstatt. The Skywalk is connected to Salzwelten, which offers plenty of touristy kid friendly activities if you are into that!

Enjoying the nearby nature: Of course you can take a dip into Hallstatt Lake if you like your swim to be cold, but you do many other activities nearby Hallstatt. Hallstatt is located super close to several mountain areas in Austria; in winter time you can combine your skiing holiday with a visit to Hallstatt. We decided to do a hike in Dachstein-Krippenstein to fully enjoy the mountains surrounding Hallstatt. I will write about that in the next chapter. My sister decided to take a hike around the Gosausee, which looked amazing in the pictures as well, and she would recommend combining Hallstatt with a visit to Gosau. There are plenty of nature trails to chose from nearby Hallstatt, which can make your holiday super diverse!

Hiking in Dachstein-Krippenstein

We love to combine sightseeing with something active, so we decided on a hike at Dachstein-Krippenstein. I can be a lazy hiker, I love good views but I prefer to not have too much of an incline, so I can actually enjoy my day. I therefore picked the Heilbronner Circular Trail which took us about 2,5 hours to complete. On your way you walk past some interesting landmarks, overall it was a really relaxed hike. I would recommend hiking shoes, as the ground is very uneven en slippery. The trail ended at the Gjaid Alm hut, where we had a lovely mountain lunch with späztle and gröstl while enjoying the sunshine! I even brought my Heidi dress, so I could take some twirling shots with the mountains in the background 🙂

View of Lake Hallstatt from the gondola

We bought the “Panorama tickets” for the gondola for € 33 per adult. Just know that you have to wear a mask in the gondola during COVID and that keeping your distance is not possible. I didn’t know before, I don’t know if we otherwise still would have went, but we had an amazing day and we didn’t catch COVID.

There is something else that looked really cool at Dachstein-Krippenstein and that is that you can also do cave visits on the mountain. We didn’t have enough time as we weren’t able to have an early breakfast and leave on time due to our camping’s restrictions, but otherwise we would have done the cave visits. You can visit several caves with a tour and you can buy an all-inclusive ticket with your gondola ride. You receive a time slot for your cave visit and bring warm clothes. If you want to do this, I would recommend spending a full day at Dachstein-Krippenstein as you don’t know exactly which time slot you are going to get. For more information you can check the official website.

Because of all its activities and easy hikes Dachstein is super kid friendly. We saw several families doing short and long hikes. You can visit the caves, visit the 5fingers viewing platforms and go to the world heritage viewpoint (not the same as the Salzwelten one).

Kids can also climb into this shark!

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