Planning a Trip

Getting There

By Plane -- The nearest international airport is at Hamburg. From there you can fly to the regional Sylt Airport (tel. 04651/920612). There's also regularly scheduled air service from Berlin and Düsseldorf.

By Train -- The only link between the mainland and the island of Sylt is the railroad causeway running from the mainland town of Niebüll. If you wish to bring your car to the island, you'll have to load it on the train at Niebüll for the slow ride. No advance booking is necessary -- you just arrive and take your chances. Passengers are carried free.

Westerland Bahnhof lies on the Westerland-Hamburg and the Westerland-Lübeck lines, with frequent connections. Seventeen trains arrive from Hamburg daily (trip time: 2 hr., 40 min., to 3 hr., 20 min., depending on the train). For information, call tel. 01805/996633.

By Car-Ferry -- An alternative way of reaching Sylt is to take a car-ferry between the Danish port of Havneby, on the island of R?mo (easily accessible via highway from Germany), and the German port of List, at the northern tip of Sylt. There are at least a dozen daily crossings between those points in summer, with a much-reduced schedule in winter. Reservations for your car are possible. Round-trip passage for a car with a driver and up to three passengers costs 85€ ($136). For information, call the R?mo-Sylt Line (tel. 0180/3103030).

By Bus -- The few buses that pull into Sylt are forced to ride the flatcars on the rail line across the Hindenburg Causeway for the final stretch of their journey. Many passengers prefer to get off in Niebüll and transfer onto one of the passenger trains that make the frequent crossings to Westerland from other parts of Germany and Europe. Rail fare between Niebüll and Westerland costs 22€ ($35) per person, round-trip. The ride takes between 30 and 45 minutes each way.

By Car -- Construction of a conventional bridge from Schleswig-Holstein to Sylt has never really been feasible. Therefore, cars headed to Sylt are loaded onto flatcars at the mainland railway junction of Niebüll and hauled out across the Hindenburg Damm (Hindenburg Causeway) to the railway station of Westerland. Drivers must stay in their cars, with the doors closed, eventually arriving at Westerland 30 to 40 minutes later. For information on these and all other (conventional) trains between the German mainland and Sylt, call the Deutsche Bahn information service in Westerland at tel. 01805/996633. Trains depart at 30-minute intervals daily 5am to midnight. No reservations are accepted for hauling your car across. Round-trip transport for most cars costs 85€ ($136). Access to Niebüll is possible via the A7 Autobahn north or south.

Visitor Information

For information, contact the Sylt Tourismus Zentrale, Keitumer Landstrasse 10B (tel. 04651/6026). It's open May to October daily 9am to 5pm, and November to April Monday to Saturday 9am to 4pm.