Are there towns in the US that resemble Bavarian towns?

29 comments

1. > that aren’t cheesy tourist traps?

   No.

   Try Baden Wurttemberg or Alsace, both have better towns than Rothenberg

2. It’s not very big but there is a village in North Carolina called Little Switzerland. It’s on the Blue Ridge Parkway, which is a bonus.

   https://www.visitlittleswitzerland.com/

3. Leavenworth, WA

4. There’s [Helen](https://helenga.org/) up in Georgia.

5. New Ulm, MN is very heavily influenced by German culture, including architecture.

6. Short answer: no. There are a few towns with German style Fachwerk houses where German immigrants congregated (like the German hill towns in Texas) but nothing on the scale of Rothenburg, and mostly quite well known on the tourist trail. (As, for that matter, is Rothenburg itself…)

   I mean, towns like Rothenburg have primarily medieval cores, so the timing with the settlement of North America kind of rules it out.

7. We have Swiss. New Glarus Wisconsin https://www.swisstown.com/

8. Frankenmuth, MI. Although it is kind of touristy.

9. >Are there any places in the US with this type of architecture that aren’t cheesy tourist traps?

   no, all of the ones there are are by nature a novelty

10. Helen, GA is a little cheesy but overall it’s a great place to walk around and spend an evening. You can maybe find enough to do for a whole weekend but that depends on your interests. They have some good food at least.

    I’ve lived 30 minutes away from it my whole life so it’s hard to think of it as a touristy thing.

11. Frankinmuth Michigan

12. They’re all cheesy tourist traps. Why wouldn’t they be? It’s not natural to build a town that imitates a foreign country for no reason. Bavaria is thousands of miles away.

13. Helen, Georgia

14. Leavenworth WA

15. Fredericksburg, Texas.

16. Helen GA but it is very much a cheesy tourist trap.

17. Eureka Springs, Arkansas.

18. Danish in Solvang, CA

19. Solvang, CA has a fair amount of Danish influence.

20. Solvang, California is Dutch-themed. Frankenmuth, Michigan is cool too and Bavarian themed. Helen, Georgia also. These are all pretty touristy though. Apparently there’s a swiss themed town in West Virginia. It pretty much doesn’t authentically exist in the US, everything is too new, so what’s there is touristy.

21. Vale Colorado is Bavarian Style and Huntington Beach in California.

22. New Ulm, MN

23. Solvang, California comes to mind but it’s Danish architecture, and like people said about Leavenworth, WA, it’s mostly just a tourist attraction.

24. The closest thing I can personally think of is some Amish settlements. Maybe stoudtburg village, Ephrata, or lititz. There’s also Germantown Philadelphia which has a good amount of german architecture. Other parts of the city also have German architecture. It’s really not very “German” but it’s the best I can think of.

25. [Vail, Colorado](https://discovervail.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/20200929_VLMD_Fall_Family_Stroll_0184-scaled.jpg)

26. There’s a tiny town in Oregon called Mt. Angel. They have a few Bavarian buildings. They throw a huge Oktoberfest every year.

27. Hermann, Missouri

28. Leavenworth, Washington

29. Yep, there’s a number of Bavarian looking towns across the US, but naturally due to their unusual nature, tourism is usually a main industry there. The one I’m most familiar with is Frankenmuth, Michigan.