Berlin Mid-range
Berlin’s real food identity is Turkish and Vietnamese, not German. Get a döner in Kreuzberg, pho in Prenzlauer Berg. Currywurst is a snack, not a meal.
Budget travel in Germany
What a visitor's money does in Germany: every guide rated from very cheap to very expensive, cheapest first, then the things that cost travellers money without buying anything — the ATM, the taxi, the SIM.
Expensive average across 6 guides · 5 is very cheap
Money
Euro (EUR) · 1 EUR = 1.15 USD · 1 EUR = 0.86 GBP
Euro. Berlin is surprisingly cash-dependent for a major capital — plenty of bars, Spätis and even restaurants refuse cards. Always carry €30-50.
ATMs
Avoid: Euronet, ATMs inside Spätis and kiosks, Travelex
Use: Sparkasse, Deutsche Bank, Commerzbank, Volksbank
Kiosk machines charge €5-10. Berlin is cash-heavy, so plan a bank withdrawal rather than a convenience one.
Getting around
A short ride in Berlin: €10–18 across town — pricey
From the airport: BER to Mitte €50–60 by taxi, €4.40 on the FEX or the S9
Roughly level with the meter, and Germany is one of the few places where a taxi is sometimes cheaper.
City by city, cheapest first
Cologne Mid-range
Kölsch is served in 200ml glasses by a waiter called a Köbes, who replaces it without asking until you put the mat on top of the glass. Do not order a Düsseldorf Altbier here as a joke; it has been done. Halve Hahn is a rye roll with cheese, despite meaning half a chicken.
Black Forest Mid-range
Black Forest gateau at its source is nothing like the frozen version — kirsch is the point and it should be obvious. Schwarzwälder Schinken is air-dried ham, Maultaschen are Swabian pasta parcels, and the region has an improbable number of Michelin stars for a place with this many cows.
Garmisch-Partenkirchen Mid-range
Bavarian: schweinshaxe, weisswurst before noon and not after, obatzda, and kaiserschmarrn. Partenkirchen, the older half, has the more traditional places; Garmisch has the newer ones. The Zugspitze restaurants charge mountain prices for canteen food.
Munich Expensive
Weisswurst is eaten before noon and never after — the old rule was that it should not hear the midday bell. You suck it out of the skin, with sweet mustard and a pretzel. Beer gardens allow you to bring your own food but not your own drink, which is why everybody has a picnic and a litre.
Hamburg Expensive
Fischbrötchen — a soft roll with pickled herring or fried fish, eaten standing at the harbour — is the thing, and Brücke 10 is where to have it. Labskaus is beef, beetroot and potato mashed together with a fried egg on top and looks alarming. Franzbrötchen is a cinnamon pastry found nowhere else.
The cost rating is this site's own, for a visitor, from the guides' authors and the corrections readers send in. The general rules — the conversion prompt, shoulder season, the airport taxi — are in budget travel tips.
The guides in Germany
BerlinGermanyHistory, nightlife, and space to breathe
MunichGermanyBeer halls, baroque and the Alps an hour down the motorway
HamburgGermanyMore bridges than Venice and Amsterdam together, a harbour that runs the city, and the loudest night in Germany
CologneGermanyA cathedral that took six hundred years, beer served in small glasses until you say stop, and the Rhine going past
Black ForestGermanyDark firs, cuckoo clocks made where they were invented, and spa towns the Romans already knew about
Garmisch-PartenkirchenGermanyTwo towns the 1936 Olympics forced into one, under Germany’s highest mountain, with a gorge, a ski jump and a glacier all within half an hour