Select Hiking Trails Austria

This site is designed to provide quick, organized access to informative hiking websites about Austria. Private hiking enthusiasts like you have created excellent web pages on Austrian hiking trails -- then posted those pages on free web servers -- only to be ignored by search engines. The purpose of this site is to provide a way to find these personal hiking pages, and make your research easier.

• General here's the TourMyCountry.com guide to all things Austria by Benedikt Mandl. A native Austrian, Benedikt seeks to cut through the clutter of the tourism industry and present a realistic, no-holds-barred guide. It focuses on background information, suggested itineraries and other things that international visitors might miss out on a conventional website. Not a lot here about hiking specifically, but certainly an invaluable reference for planning an itinerary.



• Seefeld Plateau Site is a guide to hiking and biking vacations on the Seefeld plateau near Innsbruck in Austria, with a number of trail descriptions and photos. A must-see site for anyone planning a trip to Innsbruck.

Climb Every Mountain...

Never has mountain climbing sounded so frightening as when the Mother Abbess sings that tune to Maria. Of course if you look at the itinerary from a typical Austrian trek, that can be fairly frightening as well. So I suggest you look for a copy of Walking Easy in the Swiss & Austrian Alps which puts together a number of excellent -- and not exhausting -- hikes. Well, walks as they like to be called in Europe. It's written by Chet and Carolee Lipton, and it features some nice descriptions, maps, and a series of walks that run from 2 to 6 hours, with opportunities for even shorter jaunts if you're so inclined.

Now if those aren't enough for you, the book you ought to look at is Walking Austria's Alps: Hut to Hut 2nd Edition by Jonathon Hurdle. This is a nice guide to eleven of those epic Austrian journeys that go from hut to hut, where they even put a piece of chocolate on your pillow after a day's journey. Well maybe not quite, but you get the idea.

Both of those links above go to Amazon.com, so you can order them with confidence and probably for a few bucks cheaper than that massive impersonal bookstore at the mall. And you don't have to drive to the mall, where you'd probably have to order it anyway from some distracted teenager. Not that I have anything against distracted teenagers; I was one myself. A long time ago. The other thing I like about Amazon is you can return stuff if it turns out to be something you don't want. I'm not picking on teenagers! You know they also have clean used copies available through Amazon, same money back guarantee, usually at a fraction of the original cost.

Speaking of Maria, did you know that the song Edelweiss is not a traditional Austrian folktune at all? It was composed by Richard Rodgers (music) and Oscar Hammerstein II (lyrics) strictly for The Sound of Music. It's thoroughly American -- except for the title and the wildflower subject. Yet it's one of the most requested songs at German-American festivals. Either way, it's a terrific tune.

-- Rick Bolger

Please click here for the Slackpacker web site

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