About me
I am Manuel. Here I show you the Black Forest from my perspective – with the places and experiences I would recommend to my own friends.
Sections
Who I am
I grew up in the Black Forest and live here again now. For close to twenty years I have worked in media design, marketing and web development.
Black Forest Patrol is a project of mine, grown in my free time. Here I bring my experience in design and development together with my love of photo and video.
Why this guide exists
There are countless sites about the Black Forest, and most of them show everything: the remarkable next to the ordinary, same typeface, same space. Fair – but no selection. Naming everything says nothing.
What is here has convinced me myself. I build this guide with a high standard for design – and I pick the places by exactly that same standard.
Almost everything is going digital. I want to bring what I have learned on the web together with what only happens outdoors: real experiences. The guide is merely the tool for that – it has done its job once someone pockets the phone and drives out.
What is in it
Two kinds of thing. First, what you have to have seen in the Black Forest – the gorge, the spring, the tower, the view you should have stood at once.
Second, what you do not find on your own: places, experiences and people who do something special and have earned the attention. The innkeeper, the carpenter, the family on the farm – often small, often quiet, almost always the better story.
The known, so that you get it right – and the overlooked, because otherwise it stays overlooked.
What cannot be bought
Black Forest Patrol is not a directory you buy your way into, but one you are taken into. There are no ads and no commissions, and no place in a list can be paid for.
If you run one of the places here, I will invite you to take over your entry: the basic entry is free, and you keep your address and opening hours up to date yourself. And I am glad to come by and get to know you – with the camera.
Glad you found your way here
There is no editorial team behind the guide, just me – and it gets better the more people look who know the area. If something is missing or wrong, write to me: [email protected].
Stories about people from the region are in the magazine, and on Instagram you find me as @blackforestpatrol.
I am a maker. Are you in?