The hosts of Euro 2024 are famously keen travellers, which means that wherever we go, they are usually already there. And they are equally keen on their own country, it seems, outspending any other European nation on domestic tourism , with an estimated €270bn (£228.5bn) in 2024 (the UK comes in second, at €150bn (£127bn).
So why do so few Britons visit Germany outside major sporting events and business trips? In 2023, there were just over 2.4 million UK visitors to Germany , compared with 17.8 million to Spain and 9.
1 million to France. It remains somewhat of a mystery – Germany has two coastlines, the Baltic (with its own Riviera, islands and nature reserves) and the North Sea (with more islands and nature reserves), forests, rivers, lakes and mountains alongside numerous historic cities. And it is all very accessible, whether you go by air, train or road.
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The Baltic coast Read Next The eight Paris rip-offs to look out for during the Olympics The traditional seaside holiday is alive and well in Germany, particularly on the Baltic coast, with its generous and gentle sand beaches. The best are on the causeway-connected islands of Rügen and Usedom, and in Warnemünde, downriver from the port of Rostock. Here the sand is patterned with rentable strandkorb – basketwork beach chairs – which can be rotated to face the sun and exclude the wind.
No sunbed wars here. Big-name resorts on the mainland.