American moving to Uberlingen in January 2008

Hi, I am moving to Germany in a couple of months, Uberlingen to be exact! I am very excited but also very nervous because I have never been to Europe so moving there is going to be an experience! I am currently living in Mexico City but have only been here for a few months and will leave in a couple weeks to spend some time in my home of Portland, Oregon, USA before I head off to Germany! At this point, I am looking at staying there for a year but it has the potential to be longer. Who knows.

So hello to all of you and perhaps I can join in on some group when another one meets in the Bodensee area after January. I'm sure that I will be looking for some guidance! I speak a little Spanish but no German, yet. I will start classes as soon as I get back from Mexico. I'm sure I will have lots of questions to post in the upcoming months! My biggest question at the moment is how to get from the Munich airport to Uberlingen and does anyone know that best place to try to find apartments? I'm having the worst time trying to find good info on Uberlingen on the internet.

Thanks again and a big HOLA! from Mexico City!

Hola y bienvenida! Überlingen? Near Konstantz? That is not near Munich...

Munich is the closest airport, presumably.

Stuttgart? Strasbourg? Zuuuuurich? (Ok on the last one you have to deal with the Swiss)

Airport
Friedrichshafen airport (30 km) --- had a flight from London - don't know anymore?
www.fly-away.de
Zürich airport, Switzerland (100 km)
www.flughafen-zuerich.ch

Zurich is closer than Munich but maybe she doesn't want to bring yet another country into the equation; only she can tell us.

I guess so, a pretty place, in any case. Fantastic vacation as a child and skiing...

And to be useful - here you might find an appt or house: http://www.immobilienscout24.de/immobilien...ueberlingen.htm

Well, honestly I was trying to find the cheapest flight I could ad Munich seemed to be the ticket. But Zurich, hmm, I didn't think of that. Would that be less or more trouble than flying into Germany?

And thanks for the link, I'll check that out!

if you fly into Munich you will then need to take a train, so you are looking at some additional costs. Try www.kayak.com to see cheap flights Portland ot Zurich...

Welcome to TT Lisastown. Sorry I can't help you as I live in NRW and haven't got a clue where you want to go So I'll step aside and let the others help you and answer your questions

I think it would be much quicker to fly into Zurich and take the train from there. You'll find all the information on the Swiss Railways site (www.sbb.ch). From Zurich airport to Ueberlingen it takes between two and three hours, depending on the connections (some of them involve taking the boat, those are the longest).

Whereas from Zurich she can walk? Jesus, what a lot of fuss about nothing. She could have flown to Zurich, Munich or Frankfurt; Munich is as good a choice as any and the flight is now booked. Use the journey finder to get train times from Munich Airport to Überlingen (type in "Ueberlingen" not Uberlingen). This is the town's website, all in German unfortunately, but Wikipedia has some information in English about Überlingen and Bodensee generally.

Überlingen is a nice town, but there won't be many native English speakers there. For better nightlife, you'll want to take the train or boat to Lindau or Constance. The Bodensee region is gorgeous: beautiful landscape and charming towns (Lindau, Meersburg etc). Apparently the people in that region are the most content in Germany, and I can well believe that.


Meersburg

stb, crystal ball tells you flight is booked? 230+km is less than ideal, but hey...

Everywhere is less than ideal to Überlingen. From Zurich you have to change 3 or 4 times.

I beg to differ. I looked it up and it can be done changing only twice, in Winterthur and in Schaffhausen. Anyway, the various possibilities are all detailed on the SBB site.

Actually, I haven't booked my flight yet so I appreciate any help that involves the least amount of transfers. I figured Ueberlingen would be difficult to get to and since I've never been Europe nor know any German (yet) I am having the worst time figuring out the best way to get around. So I appreciate any and all help!

Another concern I just realized is that I will have a considerable amount of luggage, probably three suitcases, so that makes it tough as well. It almost seems like it might be nice to rent a car but I'm guessing that someone who is not familiar with Germany and has never been to Europe may have difficulty with a such a thing.

Any thoughts?

I really appreciate all of your help!

And thank you Small Town Boy, those links are helpful and that picture is beautiful. I'm so excited to move to the Bodensee area!

Carrying three suitcases on your own will be tough. If you do fly to Zurich, you could leave a couple at left luggage and collect them another day. That will perhaps be less stressful than negotiating European roads when tired and jetlagged (and you'd still have to return the car somewhere).

In terms of the flight to Europe, Frankfurt will offer the widest selection of direct flights and low prices, and the journey time from there (4.5 hours) is similar as from Munich but with only one change necessary. Zurich is certainly the closest airport, but has far fewer direct flights to the US, although you may get lucky. Seeing as you haven't booked your flight yet, I would probably discount Munich unless you've found an especially good deal. Whereas at both Zurich and Frankfurt the mainline trains go straight from the airport, in Munich you have to sit on an uncomfortable local train for 45 minutes in order to get to the mainline train station, and drag all your luggage up narrow escalators when you get there.

I would suggest flying to Friedrichshafen via Frankfurt, then taking the train from the Friedrichshafen Airport to Überlingen (about 33 minutes without changing if you take an IRE train)

http://reiseauskunft.bahn.de/bin/query.exe...25&OK#focus
From is Friedrichshafen Flughafen
To is Ueberlingen Busbahnhof

There is a train departures from the airport at 10:54- it's the direct train.

This seems unnecessarily complicated, not least since there aren't actually any flights between Frankfurt and Friedrichshafen. And quite right too – there's no reason one can't take the train.

To preempt the next suggestion, you could fly to London and then fly with Ryanair to Friedrichshafen, but there's only one flight per day and you'd have to drag all your luggage across London to Stansted Airport.

My suggestion would be to fly direct to Zurich or Frankfurt and take the train from there.

STB, I haven't flown there for a few years, but I did just that in 2003. There aren't a lot of flights there, but the train ride from there to Überlingen is a lot easier than it would be from Zürich or München.

EDIT: Lufthansa flight 390 departs at 850 in the morning from Frankfurt to Friedrichshafen and is scheduled to arrive at 945.

Lufthansa, flys from Frankfurt Directly to Friedrichshafen.
and Intersky From (Berlin-Tempelhof, Cologne/Bonn, Dresden, Elba, Graz, Hamburg, Nice, Naples, Olbia, Prague, Venice, Vienna, Zadar)

This is the closest Airport to Ueberlingen. Other than that a train ride will take 4hrs and run you 50-80 Eur. from Munich.

I stand corrected; I misread the map on the airline's website. If the OP can get a Lufthansa flight from her local airport in America straight through to Friedrichshafen via Frankfurt then that would definitely be the most convenient, because the luggage would go straight through. If she only gets a ticket as far as Frankfurt, then I can't see any advantage to flying to Freidrichshafen over jumping straight on a train, especially as the trains are cheaper and more frequent.

I would love to take a direct flight, however those are very expensive and I don't have that kind of money. I was hoping my employer would pay for my ticket, but it looks as thought that is not going to happen. So I need the absolute cheapest way to get from Portland to Ueberlingen.

Now I see that it wasn't just me not knowing the system, it really is not easy to move to Ueberlingen!

I've got the same price on a scan from Portland to Mun and Portland to Zur around 448$ (dollas), anyone do better?

DB timetable
From: FRA airport
From: STR airport
From: MUC airport
From: Zuerich airport
To: Ueberlingen

Zürich airport to Überlingen is EUR 19,80.
From Stuttgart airport to Überlingen you could use the Baden-Württemberg Ticket Single (EUR 19,00).

When flying into Frankfurt or Munich check if your airline takes part in the Rail&Fly program. Price for the Rail&Fly tickets is set by the airline, but it will be less than what normal p2p tickets will cost.

From Frankfurt airport there are good connections with only 1 change of trains.
From Zürich airport there are 2 hourly connections with 1 change of trains (08:01, 10:01, ...). S-Bahn to Schaffhausen, IRE to Überlingen. These local train types are relative luggage friendly. Just place yourself in the section marked with a bicycle sign.

If you plan to use the trains more often, it might be a good idea to buy a BahnCard 25 or 50.

Where did you find this price? I can't seem to find anthing that cheap! The cheapest I've found so far (after the the amazing $400 USD tickets vanished from the website) have been $699. Please, let me know where you are searching, because that's just downright awesome!

And thank you abalada, that's fantastic information! You all have been very helpful, thank you very much! I'm starting to feel a little less nervous about this trip and this whole thing was really confusing me so it's very helpful to get the insight from those who live there.

I can't wait till I am over there, getting the hang of the trains and soon traveling all over Europe. If you decide to take a trip to Ueberlingen after January 2008, drop me a message!