Reaching a long-distance destination cheaply, quickly and in an environmentally friendly way is actually an impossible task. Fortunately, there are nearby dream destinations that are just as beautiful as the most beautiful places in the world. The only difference is that the carbon footprint of getting there is much smaller.
As world champions of travel, many Germans have a personal bucket list of dream destinations, usually exotic places that they want to visit once in their lives. These lifelong dreams are often not so easy to fulfill, because there are many things that speak against it: long vacation requests and long journeys by plane, as well as high travel costs and a high environmental impact. But luckily we don’t have to travel that far, because both in our own country and among our European neighbors there are numerous destinations that have doppelgangers in the big wide world. We present seven destination dupes – so far and yet so close.
Powdery sugar beaches, emerald-colored sea, cool drinks and a wonderfully warm climate: every beach lover dreams of a beach holiday on one of the 7000 Caribbean islands. But why spend at least ten hours on a plane when there are equally beautiful beaches in our neighboring country Italy? With 300 days of sunshine, 1848 kilometers of coastline, white sandy beaches and turquoise sea, Sardinia enjoys the reputation of a Caribbean bathing paradise.
The second largest Mediterranean island is surrounded by hundreds of small islands, surrounded by the most beautiful colors that the sea has to offer. The water temperatures are over 20 degrees until autumn and, unlike the doppelganger destination of the Caribbean, at least offer a little refreshment. If you want to windsurf, you can do so off the Isola Dei Gabbiani peninsula at the northern tip, like on Aruba. The small town of Porto Pollo is considered one of the best wind spots in Europe among windsurfers, kitesurfers and wingsurfers. Instead of rum cocktails, people on the Costa Smeralda drink champagne, Aperol Spritz or Sardinian white wine – ice cold, of course.
Neither entry permits, long stopovers, high travel costs, acclimatization nor anger at the Chinese occupiers are needed for Tibet in the Hohe Tauern National Park in the Austrian federal state of East Tyrol. This is also where the oldest alpine pasture in the country is located. After the Felbertauern tunnel, turn right into the Defereggental and at the end of the road a hiking trail to the left of the river and a cycle path to the right meander up to the Jagdhausalm – past flower meadows, pine forests and grazing cows.
Above the tree line at an altitude of 2000 meters are Austria’s oldest alpine pastures, which are 800 years old. The 17 houses are made of stone instead of wood, and between the grassy slopes, rock faces and snow-covered peaks they give the impression of being in the high valley of Tibet. The Maria Hilf Chapel replaces the Buddhist monastery, and anyone who doesn’t get stuck in the alpine pasture, which is open between the end of June and the beginning of October, can continue the two-hour tour to the Klammjoch and look down on South Tyrol.
South of Berlin lies the double of the South American Amazon region: the Spreewald in Brandenburg. It is one of the most extraordinary water landscapes in Europe. The countless branches of the Spree river form a water and forest labyrinth over 1000 kilometers long, whose canals are connected to old Sorbian villages and isolated farmsteads. If the screeching of parrots and monkeys could be heard in the high forests and floodplains instead of the fluting of common rosefinches and the clattering of white storks, the Spreewald could easily be confused with the Amazon.
The flora and fauna in the Spreewald is unique; the swamp area has been an international biosphere reserve since 1990. Although there are no jaguars, sloths or anacondas, there are otters, beavers, red deer, wild boars, kingfishers, 113 species of mussels and snails, 48 species of dragonflies and grass snakes. The people who have lived here for more than 600 years also exude a touch of exoticism. The Sorbs are descended from a Slavic minority and, like the indigenous inhabitants of the Amazon, have retained their own language and culture. Another advantage of the German Amazon region: instead of piranha soup and fried tarantulas, the specialties here are lard sandwiches with Spreewald pickles or mustard pickle soup.
Aloha! The Hawaiian greeting (meaning love and grace) is a perfect fit for the Azores, and not just because of its initial letter. The nine permagreen islands that belong to Portugal have a lot in common with the eight main islands of Hawaii, which belong to the USA. They are located in the middle of the North Atlantic, far away from any mainland. It is 1369 kilometers to Europe. It is 4382 kilometers to America and 2342 kilometers to Newfoundland in Canada. The Hawaiian islands are just as isolated: in the middle of the Pacific between North America and Japan.
Like the famous dream destination, the Azores delight with their landscape, a symphony of blue and green: Atlantic, spectacular waterfalls, active volcanoes with crater lakes, blue hydrangea bushes, lush green hills, tropical plants and laurel forests. In the sea, dolphins and whales can be observed and divers can meet blue sharks and mako sharks, as is only possible in a few underwater places in the world. The Gulf Stream is the reason why large fish love the island waters so much. It washes up relatively warm water.
If snow, ice and cold fans could have one wish, many would choose a trip to the South Pole. Expeditions to Antarctica, the largest contiguous mass of ice on Earth, are extremely expensive. They start from far away places like the south of Chile. But there are also gigantic ice mountains in our neighboring country Austria. In the Hohe Tauern National Park alone, 342 glaciers and 300 three-thousand-meter peaks tower into the sky. As do the highest and fourth highest mountains in Austria: the Grossglockner at 3,798 meters and the 3,666-meter-high Grossvenediger.
Southwest of the majestic ice dome of the Grossvenediger, high up in the Virgen Valley, is one of the largest glacier plateaus in the Eastern Alps. Huge masses of ice. Whistling wind. Icy cold. Civilization? None to be found. Further down, however, there are no penguins waddling, but instead there are wolves, brown bears, lynx, bison, red deer, ibex, chamois, marmots, mouflons and mountain hares.
Wild East instead of Wild West: Monument Valley with its striking sandstone cliffs is synonymous with the Wild West in the USA. But there are also thousands of bizarrely shaped rock formations and table mountains made of sandstone in this country – in Saxony, southeast of Dresden, in the Saxon Switzerland National Park. There, the sandstone needles and rocky reefs such as the 194-meter-high “Bastei” glow reddish in the evening and morning light – confusingly similar to their American counterparts.
However, the East German canyons and rock towers are significantly younger, at 80 million years old. However, the area is less dangerous: instead of scorpions and rattlesnakes, animals such as polecats, beavers, slowworms and 250 species of birds live here. Climbers can exert themselves on more than 1000 peaks such as the Schrammsteine, the Affensteine or in the Schmilka area. For hikers, a 1200-kilometer-long network of paths leads through the rocky landscape – such as the 112-kilometer-long Malerweg, which also passes where Caspar David Friedrich painted his famous “Wanderers above the Sea of Fog.”
Why sacrifice a whole day to get to La Gomera (first a flight to Tenerife, then a ferry) when we have enchanting primeval forests here too? In the Kellerwald-Edersee Nature and National Park in northern Hesse, for example. With its extensive, old beech forests, which look like mystical fairy forests and are also a UNESCO World Heritage Site, it can certainly keep up with the famous laurel forest on the second smallest Canary Island. The trees in the Hessian low mountain range are not quite as old as the laurel trees on La Gomera, some of which are up to 1,000 years old, but that does not detract from the wild, romantic atmosphere.
Rustic tree shapes cling to the steep slopes and give the impression that gnomes and elves are hiding behind them. In the almost 600 square kilometer Kellerwald-Ederse Nature Park there are numerous certified hiking trails, such as the Urwaldsteig Edersee or the Kellerwaldsteig. If you want even more forest bathing in the old beech forests, choose the Lichtenfelser Panoramaweg or the Habichtswaldsteig, which ends at the Edersee dam. Incidentally, the Edersee is called the blue eye of the nature park and is 27 kilometers long – the island of La Gomera, with a diameter of just 25 kilometers, cannot offer anything like it.
