{"id":8027,"date":"2024-06-03T21:48:36","date_gmt":"2024-06-03T21:48:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/justpaste.in\/blogs\/what-is-it-like-to-drive-from-the-u-k-to-austria\/"},"modified":"2026-08-04T08:56:36","modified_gmt":"2026-08-04T08:56:36","slug":"what-is-it-like-to-drive-from-the-u-k-to-austria","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/justpaste.in\/blogs\/what-is-it-like-to-drive-from-the-u-k-to-austria\/","title":{"rendered":"What Is It Like To Drive From The U.K. To Austria?"},"content":{"rendered":"

I\u2019ll just start by answering that question with a huge spoiler alert \u2013 a roadtrip from the UK to Austria is soooooooo much fun!  It isn\u2019t necessarily the most obvious road trip route we would have thought of (in large part because we in the UK live on an island physically disconnect from mainland Europe) but it was absolutely brilliant every step of the way!<\/p>\n

There are a few reasons for this though… \ud83d\ude04<\/p>\n

First off, the car! For this road trip, we partnered with BMW (who are the official sponsors of Snowbombing Festival… more on that later) where we were given our very own shiny BMW X3<\/a> to drive from the UK to Austria!<\/p>\n

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There are undoubtedly so many cool features about the BMW X3 – you can find all the details on that right here (right down to the tech specs<\/a>) but my favourites part were probably the \u2018smaller details\u2019.<\/p>\n

Like how you can control the entertainment in your car with just touchless gestures (felt a bit like using a magic wand).<\/p>\n

Or how there\u2019s a wireless charger in front.<\/p>\n

Or the heated seats for ALL the passengers in the car (not just the driver and the passenger up from).<\/p>\n

Or how if you cross the lines on the road without indication, the safety feature allows the wheel to steer you automatically back into the main lane you\u2019re driving on.<\/p>\n

Oh, and I particularly loved how we drove all the way from the UK to Germany (*our first stop) without needing to stop for fuel once (we did stop for a \u2018rest\u2019 but that was just an excuse to get waffles in Belgium).<\/p>\n

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There\u2019s so much more to discover and each day, we just kept finding out more and more details as we went along. I\u2019m just a sucker for things that make my life easier and found this car such a treat and a delight to drive to Austria.<\/p>\n

The second reason why this was so exciting was that we were going to be driving to Snowboming Festival \u2013 a fun-filled week up in the Austrian Alps with the best music, parties and all around good fun anyway could ask for!<\/p>\n

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I don\u2019t know if it\u2019s just here in the UK but it\u2019s just one of those festivals that almost needs no introduction whatsoever. Ski by day, party at night (or you could just part by day and night).<\/p>\n

That\u2019s not all though \u2013 turns out, it\u2019s a massive tradition every year for festival goers to organise a road trip from the UK to Austria so the party starts even before the party starts!<\/p>\n

This year\u2019s theme was \u201cThe 90s\u201d and pretty much everyone showed up dressed in their favourite 90s-inspired fancy dress! We\u2019re talking Spice Girls, Ninja Turtles, The Mask, Toy Story, Jurassic Park \u2013 the works!!! Cars were painted \/ stickered \/ made-over \u2013 all for the road trip and festival.<\/p>\n

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As relative novices, we showed up totally unprepared and expecting just a few people on this road trip, only to find ourselves thrown into the most colourful crowd ever!<\/p>\n

Thankfully, my FOMO dissipated quickly as one of our fellow road-trippers (who had come very prepared) gave me extra props they had (wigs, costumes), allowing me to transform into what I can only describe as a \u2018fringe-dressed rocker\u2019. \ud83d\ude00<\/p>\n

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After grabbing breakfast, picking up our festival passes as well as other goodies (…and a few impromptu boogie sessions), we all began our journey from Canterbury towards Dover (40 minutes-ish), where we would catch the ferry to France and embark on the next leg of the drive in mainland Europe.<\/p>\n

Even the ferry crossing was fun as we all piled on in colourful outfits, much to the delight and surprise of other passengers on the ferry who were most certainly not expecting the colourfulness that was our road trip entourage.<\/p>\n

In France, we had quite a few options for the drive as we could head down South (well, relatively South \u2013 we were in Northern France so this would have taken us more towards central France), or we could head up towards Belgium.<\/p>\n

After much, \u201cUmm<\/em>\u201ding and \u201cAah<\/em>\u201ding, we finally decided to go for the latter route through Belgium, deciding at the last minute to pop into Ypres \u2013 a historic town I knew very little about prior to making the snap decision to visit (Lloyd was a bit more clued up on Ypres than I was).<\/p>\n

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Although our visit to Ypres was a fleeting one, it was definitely one that left us impressed! It\u2019s such a beautiful Belgian town and a reminder that we definitely hadn\u2019t spent as much time visiting Belgium as we perhaps should have.<\/p>\n

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In fact, I can categorically say that we left Ypres feeling like we definitely needed to spend more time in Belgium come summer!<\/p>\n

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The streets of Ypres as surprisingly quaint \u2013 especially so for a town of its size and there\u2019s so much history in the town, of particular poignancy is the battle here during World War 1 that is still till this day a very important part of the town\u2019s identity (you\u2019ll see lots of references and memorials to the war dotted across the city \u2013 not to mention that a lot of the key buildings in the city were rebuilt shortly after the war in their original style).<\/p>\n

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Leaving Ypres, we stopped off briefly in the city of Kortrijk (another \u201csaw-on-the-map-and-decided-to-visit<\/em>\u201d stop).<\/p>\n

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The main reason we decided to pop in was to check out the famous Broel Towers in the city…<\/p>\n

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…though finding this house here made me wanna stay even longer! Hehehe! (Just imagine owning this Belgian beauty).<\/p>\n

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With that, we decided it was high time we headed for our final stop for the evening, the German town of Saarbr\u00fccken!<\/p>\n

I can\u2019t really say that there\u2019s much to see or do in Saarbr\u00fccken \u2013 in large part because we didn\u2019t arrive till around 9.30pm anyway and went straight for dinner right after in the hotel and promptly to bed after that. \ud83d\ude00<\/p>\n

The next day, we got up bright and early to hit the road (after breakfast, of course). Today, we would be heading straight to Mayrhofen \u2013 the Austria town where we would be based for the Snowbombing festival but as with any good road trip, we soon found a distraction in the form of the German town of Augsburg.<\/p>\n

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Augsburg is one of German\u2019s oldest cities and boasts some rather impressive German architecture.<\/p>\n

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It was promptly decided (after a little gander at the city), that we would have to have lunch here and with that, we found ourselves a good old fashion local restaurant and picked seats out in the sunshine for lunch.<\/p>\n

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Lloyd went for the Schnitzel (because, why not? \ud83d\ude00 I know we\u2019re not in Austria yet but might as well get started on the Austrian food)…<\/p>\n

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…while I went for a traditional German meal of dumplings and a side of pork with gravy and sauerkraut. (Love those dumplings! I can\u2019t really tell you why I do actually, I just seem to always enjoy them so much whenever I have them).<\/p>\n

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Lunch over and done with, we just went straight on to Mayrhofen, which we arrived into, just as the rest of the group were arriving.<\/p>\n

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As more people arrived, a celebration of sorts kicked off, with a live music performance \u2013 before something of a victory lap in Mayrhofen.<\/p>\n

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Now, if you thought we were the only ones excited about the road trip and arriving in Austria for Snowboming, you\u2019d be seriously mistaken. \ud83d\ude04\ud83d\ude04<\/p>\n

Turns out, there was a huge crowd gathered in town waiting for the procession of cars, 90s fancy dress costumes and our fellow about-to-be-revellers to welcome us all in grand style!<\/p>\n

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I\u2019ve got to admit, I was slightly surprised by the turnout! I had no idea there would even be anything like this and the excitement in the air was contagious.<\/p>\n

My surprise very quickly gave way to over-excitedness and much car-dancing, with high 5s doled out to the crowd from our (very slowly) moving car (also worth noting that for this part, we actually had a driver so we the dancing and high-5\u2019ing wasn\u2019t done while driving).<\/p>\n

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Eventually, we bade the procession farewell, and headed off to our hotel to check in, before heading back into town for a night of drinks and good food with our fellow road trippers!<\/p>\n

The next couple of days brought in skiing up in the mountains in the mornings (It was nearer the end of the ski seasons but this had to be done! Even in that foggy weather, we had on the first day \ud83d\ude04).<\/p>\n

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One one of the days, we stayed up in the mountains for lunch at the Schihu\u0308tte Schneekar restaurant, with a panoramic view over the mountain \u2013 which alas, we couldn\u2019t really see thanks to the fog. (Ironically, it was only foggy for that one day we had lunch booked up here and totally cleared out the very next day! \ud83d\ude00 )<\/p>\n

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Lack of views though did nothing to dampen our lunch as we tucked into delicious steaks, burgers and the biggest pancake dessert ever!<\/p>\n

Post-lunch daytime was spent exploring the nearby area (which has some pretty stunning views \u2013 some of which, alas, we couldn\u2019t access as the roads weren\u2019t open yet for summer \u2013 they\u2019re closed due to avalanche risks in winter).<\/p>\n

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The roads that were open, however, showed off the beauty of this part of Austria. It\u2019s just such a gorgeous place and hands-down one of the most amazing venues for a festival.<\/p>\n

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Evenings were spent flitting from venue to venue, enjoying one of the most fun festivals we\u2019ve ever been to!<\/p>\n

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I don\u2019t know if it\u2019s the mountain air, or if it\u2019s just the fact that everyone\u2019s focused on a great time here but boy did we had such an amazing time!\"What<\/a><\/p>\n

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You could almost show up anywhere without knowing anyone and leave with a huge horde of new friends. It was brilliant!<\/p>\n

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Alas, eventually, we had to say farewell to Snowbombing and hand back the keys to our epic BMW X3<\/a> (we were gonna fly back home to London though I\u2019m pretty sure there\u2019s a return road trip leg to this).<\/p>\n

We\u2019d actually wanted to do Snowboming for years and were disappointed a few years ago when we couldn\u2019t organise mutual time off for our group of friends to go together to do it (it was like herding cats that year) and in a lot of ways, I\u2019m kinda glad we didn\u2019t get to do it then as getting to experience it the way we did, with the road trip and that beauty that was out BMW X3 (which I filled to the hilt with as many road trip snacks as possible) was just such great fun and easily one of the best ways to do that road trip. \ud83d\ude00<\/p>\n

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It was just the brilliant farewell to winter I didn\u2019t even realise I needed and just the most amazing, crazy, colourful fun few days in the Austrian Alps. \ud83d\ude00<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019ll just start by answering that question with a huge spoiler alert \u2013 a roadtrip from the UK to Austria is soooooooo much fun!  It isn\u2019t necessarily the most obvious road trip route we would have thought of (in large part because we in the UK live on an island physically disconnect from mainland Europe) … Continue Reading<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8028,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40,396],"tags":[759,760,697,355,528,761,762,763],"class_list":["post-8027","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-travel","category-travel-journal","tag-augsburg","tag-austria","tag-belgium","tag-europe","tag-germany","tag-kortrijk","tag-mayrhofen","tag-ypres"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/justpaste.in\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8027","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/justpaste.in\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/justpaste.in\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/justpaste.in\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/justpaste.in\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8027"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/justpaste.in\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8027\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/justpaste.in\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8028"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/justpaste.in\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8027"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/justpaste.in\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8027"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/justpaste.in\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8027"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}