Where’s a cheap place to stay in Freiburg, land of the Deutsch. . . (and pretty much in many places). . . with or without your family? Try camping! Here’s a quick review of campsite “Camping Hirzberg” in Freiburg, Germany. We stayed there for an over-nighter in late August 2019, on the 27th day of our go-slow, camping-in-one-tent, road trip in the summer of 2019, from Spain to Poland and back again.
We (the free electrons family), with 2 young and very active kids, review places that we have visited and things we have seen, generally from a foreign-family perspective.
Check out our family-friendly, one-day itinerary in Luxembourg… with kids!
CAMPING HIRZBERG is about Convenience and closeness to freiburg city center
Accessibility
So what’s that one thing (if we can only say one thing) that we liked about this campground? Convenience. It’s the closest camp site to the Freiburg city center with about a 2-kilometer/25-minute walk (with kids) on one of the main streets (Kartäuserstraße) of Freiburg.
Alternatively, you can save your kids from getting tired (and being “marudzi” or, loosely translated, having a “loss of coolant action”–LOCA) by driving close to the city center and pay to park, like on “Stadtgarten“–the city park with an excellent playground, and keep your children’s happy spirits high! During weekends, you can park for FREE (but please check signs) in the residential area around this park.
Suitability (for family with children)
In terms of suitability for a family with kids, this campsite is a little tight and I did not see a PLAYGROUND in it.
The night we arrived, it was packed and had only 2 spots left for pitches with electricity.
There were more places in an open field at the back of the campground with better view but without access to electricity.
Apparently, there was some sort of festival in the city center and we were lucky to find a place.
The staff was very helpful in accommodating us.
After our excellent unplanned visits to Schengen and Strasbourg in the day, we ended up arriving and pitching tent in the dark, well after 8 p.m., and meeting an old friend an hour later. Vroom. Vroom.!!! We were huffing and puffing it.
We were unable to park our car in in the pitch itself because the plots were on “terraces”, some 2 or even 3 levels up. So we had to unload the minimal set-up.
Yes, we highly recommend having a pre-determined and easily organized minimal set up when going on a camping road trip, especially when you are just fully “free-planning” it. You know, when you do not have any reservations ahead of time.
So, after a long day of driving from Luxembourg and playing speedy-gonzalez tourists in the EU-centric town of Schengen and an hour at the home of the European Parliament in Strasbourg… the kids were tired… everyone was tired and cranky.
And yet, while we pitch our tent, our home-for-the-night, in the dark the tired kids still did help a lot, carrying and shuttling our stuff from the car to the plot area, going up and down the terraces. Then Kaj ran the inclined streets, tripped and got a little hurt. . .
What else did we like about Camping Hirzberg?
Camping Hirzberg had a freezer for use of all guests, specifically for “cooling packs” . This came in handy for tent-campers like us who needed to freeze our ice packs to preserve food when on the move. It was old and small (and located in the common kitchen) but was very useful.
It also had a common kitchen space where you could actually cook in one of the three electric stove tops. This would be very helpful to those with camping pitches without electricity. So, you could save some money by just cooking (and topping up your phone while doing so) instead of paying extra for the electricity at your tent.
Staff was very friendly and could speak multiple languages.
Services/bathroom: Sufficiently clean with toilet paper (yes, I have to mention that here because we have been to a few camping sites that did not have them at all).
Shade and screening: There were plenty of shade at the main camping site from fully grown trees. . . a pleasant thing to have in the summer.
Tent pitch/ground: We had a bit of a problem putting half of our tent pegs into the ground that was covered with small wood cuttings (see picture).
WHAT DID WE NOT LIKE ABOUT CAMPING HIRZBERG?
What we did not like about this camping site was the fact that the toilet/shower areas were alongside the street AND that the camping site did not have a gate to secure the camping site.
I woke up in the middle of the night, for example, walked down to the bathrooms towards the front of the camping site.
When I got to the front, to the entrance to the camp site, I noticed that people could easily walk into the camp site from the street, and could technically use the toilets.
I did not notice any staff at that time too and I did hung around in front of the entrance, admiring the quiet street, for a good 5 minutes.
I suppose this is the benefit of having a SAFE and FREE city. Big Smile!
Timeframe of visit: late August.
