Quote:
Originally Posted by bmoneystatus
Awesome, thanks for the all the advice. Last question: any resources/websites you suggest looking into while planning the trip? Thanks again!
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No prob. As far as resources for ED...BimmerFest (I hope I don't get in trouble for mentioning other forums) has the best ED forum around. You will find a wealth of info there.
If you are going through Austria, save some time by buying the vignette in advance:
http://www.tolltickets.com/country/a...spx?lang=en-GB
Took a couple of weeks for it to come to GA so plan ahead.
Also, look into sim cards or roaming and see what the cost will be so you can have your phone data available for emergencies (for looking up stuff or navigating). In Switzerland I just went to the Swisscom store in the ZRH airport and for 20 euro or so I had a data plan for the weekend. In Germany I used a Blau sim and paid for the 30 day data plan and I can tell you their service isn't that good.
You'll need to unlock your phone first (a GSM phone). If you are subsidizing the phone through your plan they may not unlock your phone. AT&T unlocked my phone via their unlock website because I paid cash for the phone but they would not unlock my wife's because it was her upgrade last year and that was still contract-locked.
I also planned all of my routes in advance using Google maps and created an itinerary chart with all of the info and addresses I needed per day. I printed the Google maps routes between each segment so I could have printed backups if the navs failed (helped me once when my nav kept boot looping and freezing).
A lot of the info I found in advance was just from Googling stuff. There are dedicated websites for the Grossglockner, Nurburgring and all that stuff that will give you opening times and seasons and whatnot.
The Nurburgring schedule I went by was this one:
http://www.nurburgring.org.uk/calendar.php
Opening/closing times for Grossglockner high alpine road:
http://www.grossglockner.at/en/service/
As far as accommodations, I researched heavily with TripAdvisor as well as the reviews on Booking.com. I booked through Booking as well as Expedia...just whatever was cheapest between the major booking sites.