Free camping in Bavaria

Bavaria is where most people picture German motorhome travel, and the picture is usually the Alps. The free stopovers are nowhere near them.

The free places are in market towns: a corner of a Festplatz, a strip beside a Freibad, a car park behind a Mehrzweckhalle. They are in Franconia and the Oberpfalz far more than in Oberbayern. A trip built on them is a trip through the Main valley, the Rhön, the Steigerwald, the Fichtelgebirge and the Bayerischer Wald foothills, not a trip along the Alpenstraße. That is a real constraint, and it is better to know it before you plan than after.

If the word Stellplatz is new, start with the Germany page. It is a looser category than the French aire, and the difference matters most in a state this large.

Free to park, paid to service

The Bavarian pattern is the standard German one: free or cheap to stand, metered to fill and empty.

Krumbach in Schwaben publishes it plainly. Three spaces, described on the town’s own page as a Gebührenfreier Stellplatz, electricity, fresh water, a cassette point and a gray water drain, with a vehicle length limit of 6 meters. Bayreuth’s Parkplatz Grünewaldstraße at the Volksfestplatz is free for up to 72 hours with a Parkscheibe, and then charges separately: 1 euro for 50 liters of water, 1 euro to empty a cassette, 1 euro for 2 hours of electricity at the pitches that have it, coin operated and 1 euro coins only.

Marktleuthen in the Fichtelgebirge is the generous end. Ten spaces, free, and the town states that both the electricity connection and the supply and disposal facilities can be used at no cost. Schwandorf in the Oberpfalz is close behind: free to stand, a free supply and disposal station, and electricity at 50 cents per kilowatt hour from a coin meter.

Then there is the other direction. Vohenstrauß is labeled free on the map, and its own town page now states 10 euros per night including power and water from 1 April 2025, dropping to 2 euros between 1 November and 31 March when the electricity is disconnected. Open the town page for any night you are counting on costing nothing.

How long you can stay

Set locally, and short where it is set at all. Bayreuth publishes 72 hours. Schwandorf publishes a maximum of one week, which is generous by German standards. Most of the small-town sites publish nothing, which usually means the limit is on the board at the entrance and nowhere else.

For anything about what the law permits away from a designated Stellplatz, go to the Germany country page. That is federal and Land law rather than anything Bavaria’s Gemeinden decide, so it reads the same wherever in the state you are parked.

Seasonality

Water is the thing winter takes, not access. Bavarian Gemeinden say this in their own words. Krumbach states that in the winter months the water supply and disposal are not usable. Vohenstrauß states that fresh water is unavailable in the winter months and that the power is off from 1 November to 31 March. Weißenburg states that its supply and disposal station closes during frost periods. Schwandorf, unusually, publishes a threshold instead of a season and says its station is usable down to minus 5 Celsius. Four different towns, one mechanism: standing water in an exposed pipe freezes and splits it.

Elevation beats latitude. A site in the Bayerischer Wald or high in the Fichtelgebirge will be affected earlier and for longer than one on the Main at the same date. Treat any winter stop as a park-only stop and fill your tank where you know you can.

Alpine roads close, and the diversion is the route. Reopening dates move with the snow rather than with the calendar. Check the road authority for the specific pass on the days you are driving, and plan the day around the signed diversion rather than the direct line on the map.

Summer is when the festivals close the sites. This is the Bavarian quirk worth planning around. Weißenburg closes its Limesbad Stellplatz for the whole of August for the Kirchweih. Schwandorf blocks its site for the week before, the week of and the week after the Volksfest, usually late May into early June. A Festplatz stopover is on a festival ground, and the festival wins.

What is mapped here

174 free places are mapped across Bavaria, the largest count of any German state here. Treat it as a floor rather than a total: a blank part of the map is unmapped rather than empty. Where this comes from

84 of them have a full page here, each one linked to the operator’s own listing, which is the quickest way to confirm a site before you drive to it. 26 of those name the Stadt or Gemeinde that runs them. Two to plan around:

• Vohenstrauß is labeled free and now charges 10 euros a night, dropping to 2 euros from 1 November to 31 March. Budget for it or stop elsewhere.
• Roding’s official page has gone dead, so nothing is published about its fee or its limit. Read the board at the entrance and carry coins.

Where free places cluster

1. Lower Franconia and the Main valley. Zellingen, Gerbrunn near Würzburg, Leidersbach, Geiselbach, Burgsinn and Zeitlofs in the Spessart. The densest run in our Bavarian data, and nowhere near the Alps.
2. The Rhön and the Haßberge. Mellrichstadt, Münnerstadt, Maßbach, Ramsthal, Euerbach and Königsberg in Bayern. Small towns, small sites, mostly at a Festplatz or a sports ground.
3. Upper Franconia and the Fichtelgebirge. Bayreuth, Bad Berneck, Goldkronach, Marktleuthen, Schwarzenbach an der Saale, Leupoldsgrün and Weismain. This is the upland cluster, and the one most affected by a cold winter.
4. The Oberpfalz. Schwandorf, Amberg, Vohenstrauß, Erbendorf, Grafenwöhr, Neukirchen-Balbini and Roding, running toward the Bayerischer Wald.
5. Middle Franconia and the Steigerwald. Iphofen, Mainbernheim, Burgbernheim, Weißenburg and the site at Aschbach near Bamberg.
6. Swabia and the Danube. Krumbach, Rain, and the Donaulände at Ingolstadt, with Dingolfing, Geisenfeld, Moosburg and Aidenbach spread across Lower Bavaria toward Passau.

Where to go next

• Germany: the country page for the Stellplatz explained, the Umweltplakette, and who sets the rules away from a designated site.
• What is an aire, if you are coming from France and expecting the same thing under a German name.
• Free camping in Europe for how Germany compares with Austria and Italy next door.
• The Germany map to see all 174.

The sign wins

The board at the entrance and the Gemeinde’s current guidance beat this page. A free site starts charging, a barrier goes up, a Festplatz gets booked for a Volksfest. None of that reaches a map the day it happens, and all of it reaches the board at the entrance.