October 29, 2024, 5:04 pm | Read time: 5 minutes
The TRAVELBOOK Award is already entering its third round this year. The trending travel destinations of the coming year have once again been selected and honored for in 2024. The nominees in the “Best National Park (DACH)” category include the German Berchtesgaden National Park. TRAVELBOOK reveals what makes it so special.
In Upper Bavaria, on the border with Austria, there is a hiker’s paradise in the very south-east of Germany. The national park we are talking about is home to a network of trails with a total length of 260 kilometers. And it is one of the nominees for this year’s TRAVELBOOK Award in the “Best National Park (DACH)” category. Do you have any idea which one it might be? That’s right, it’s the Berchtesgaden National Park in Bavaria. But what makes this national park such an attractive place?
The magic of Berchtesgaden National Park
Berchtesgaden National Park is an absolute tourist magnet for good reason. If you want to find out what it has to offer, you have to get up high. It can hurt, but it can also give you a feeling of happiness. At seven in the morning, all is still well with the world. At half past seven, things look different in Schönau am Königssee. There is already a long queue at the ticket office for the first excursion boat.
Many people leave it at a trip to the St. Bartholomä peninsula, with its small pilgrimage church. However, it is well worth exploring the alpine nature of Germany’s second-oldest national park, which celebrated its 40th birthday in 2023, on a hiking tour.
You can also listen to tips and inspiration about Berchtesgaden in winter in the following podcast episode of In 5 Minuten um die Welt – narrated by TRAVELBOOK author Susanne Resch:
Impressive wildlife
Animals that many only know from documentaries on public broadcasting are still at home in the 210 square-kilometer national park: golden eagles and marmots. And suddenly, a chamois appears at the edge of the path, unsure what to make of the hikers, and with a swift leap, it vanishes into the verdant underbrush.
But the national park is no walk in the park. There are one or two obstacles on the way up, such as the Saugasse. On this stretch, with its more than 30 hairpin turns, the path ascends steeply, climbing over 350 vertical meters. That hurts – at the very least the subsequent sore muscles in the calves and thighs.
The climb is worth it
But every effort is rewarded. Eventually, after a rewarding five-hour ascent, the Kärlingerhaus comes into view, an Alpine Club hut perched at 1,630 meters, where a night’s rest awaits. To the left and right of it are the peaks of the Berchtesgaden Alps, and in front of it is the path that winds its way through the green meadows to the door of the hut. It is very quiet up here, the clouds are motionless.
A stone’s throw from the Kärlingerhaus lies the lake Funtensee, renowned for recording Germany’s lowest temperature, an almost unfathomable minus 45.9 degrees in December 2001. In summer, the lake is not exactly bathtub temperature either.
Summit hike
As dawn breaks at the Kärlingerhaus, the spirit of adventure beckons. The journey continues with a hike to the summit of Feldkogel, reachable in just under an hour’s trek. Lake Funtensee lies quietly in the shade. The sun hangs low, casting a gentle light over the landscape.
And so it’s uphill through the morning Alpine landscape towards the summit, past the lush green of the Alpine meadows. The summit cross stands at an altitude of 1,886 meters, and the view from the top down into the valley extends far over the Königssee. The church towers of St. Bartholomä can be seen, and the houses of Berchtesgaden are at the far end. The nearby Watzmann mountain rises more than 2,700 meters into the sky.
Bavaria’s Berchtesgaden – the fourth-ranked national park in the DACH region
At this year’s TRAVELBOOK Awards, the Berchtesgaden National Park impressed the jury for several reasons. Berchtesgaden National Park scored particularly well in the infrastructure assessment criterion, where it scored 33 points. This high score clearly set it apart from its German and Austrian competitors and compensated for the comparatively low score of 27 points in the area of versatility. The other nominees are the Swiss National Park (CH), the Gesäuse National Park (AUT), the Müritz National Park (DE) and the Schleswig-Holstein Wadden Sea National Park (DE) – the latter being the overall winner in this category.
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Methodology for the TRAVELBOOK Award
Although the TRAVELBOOK Awards 2024 on October 9 selected the winners in each category, all nominees are already winners. They have all made it onto the shortlist in their categories. The TRAVELBOOK editorial team drew these up on the basis of the respective long lists – with a focus on trending travel destinations.
The jury of eight experts had already answered a detailed list of criteria for each shortlisted destination and category by mid-July. A score of 1 (very poor) to 5 (very good) could be awarded for each criterion and destination. In the “Best National Park (DACH)” category, the jury decided on four criteria: Unique selling points, infrastructure, versatility, and trend factor.