Austria travel tips

12 guides in Austria — when to go, how to get around, which ATMs not to use, and what a fair price looks like.

houses near body of water and mountain during daytime

HallstattAustriaA village of a few hundred people on a lake under a salt mountain, and the most photographed view in Austria

aerial photography of city buildings

ViennaAustriaImperial palaces, coffee houses, and world-class music

Salzburg below the Hohensalzburg fortress at golden hour

SalzburgAustriaMozart, a fortress on a rock, and the Alps starting at the end of the street

The painted house fronts along Kitzbühel’s medieval main street

KitzbühelAustriaA walled medieval town that happens to have a ski resort attached, and the Hahnenkamm downhill every January, which is the most frightening race in the sport

a snow covered mountain with a ski lift in the distance

St. Anton am ArlbergAustriaThe birthplace of the modern ski school, at the centre of the biggest linked area in Austria, with a reputation for hard skiing and harder drinking that it has entirely earned

view of buildings

InnsbruckAustriaA Habsburg city with ski runs above the rooftops and a cable car from the middle of town to the Alps

green grass field near lake under blue sky during daytime

Wachau ValleyAustriaForty kilometres of terraced Danube between two abbeys, with the best white wine in Austria on the slopes

An Alpine village of wooden chalets under the Paznaun ridges

IschglAustriaA high, snow-sure resort that links across the border into Switzerland for duty-free shopping, and puts on a stadium concert on the mountain twice a season

The sun setting on the ski slopes above Sölden

SöldenAustriaTwo glaciers, the first World Cup race of every season, and a road that climbs to 2,800 metres — the highest paved pass in Austria — above the village

white and brown concrete building near body of water during daytime

Zell am SeeAustriaA lakeside town with a glacier twenty minutes away, which means you can swim and ski in the same week and the resort does not shut for the summer

a car driving down a winding road in the mountains

MayrhofenAustriaA valley town at the end of the Zillertal with the steepest piste in Austria dropping into it, a music festival on the snow, and a working village underneath all of it

The waterfall frozen where it drops through the middle of Bad Gastein

Bad GasteinAustriaA belle époque spa town built in tiers down a gorge with a waterfall through the middle of it, half restored and half magnificently derelict, with radon thermal baths underneath