Essen is the hot destination in 2025

View from the town hall towards the south, (c) Peter Prengel, City of Essen

Good news for the Rhineland. After Wuppertal, Essen has now also been declared a trend destination for the coming year. In a survey conducted by the travel portal booking.com, which asked users about cities they had visited in the past year, the Ruhr metropolis of Essen recorded a particularly high increase compared to the previous year.

The Rhineland is on trend

Back in September, the travel guide MARCO POLO featured the city of Wuppertal in its new trend guide „Where is the journey going? 2025“ as Trend target for the coming year. Essen is now the second city in the Rhineland to join the list of top destinations. But what makes Essen so special?

According to booking.com, Essen scores above all with nature and culture. There are several cultural highlights: Essen is home to the Zollverein Coal Mine Industrial Complex UNESCO World Heritage Site and the Villa Hügel, the former headquarters of the Krupp family. Both sights are a must-see on a city trip to Essen if you are interested in the city's industrial history. Visitors can find modern art in the Museum Folkwang. It has an outstanding collection of 19th century painting and sculpture, classical modernism and art after 1945, as well as photography, and offers visitors free admission to its own collection. And the city of Essen is green anyway: many of the city's natural and green spaces were created around 100 years ago so that people could recover from the grey of industry. The Grugapark, created for the 1929 horticultural exhibition, is now one of the largest and most beautiful landscape parks in Europe. Another of the city's highlights is the Lake Baldeney. Originally a reservoir for drinking water supply, it quickly developed into a popular local recreation area. Today you can row, surf, sail and fish there.

Other highlights of the city:

• Essen KettwigEssen district with numerous half-timbered houses from the 17th to 19th centuries and winding alleyways
• Phenomania field of experience: Science museum for children
• Limbecker Platz: Largest shopping centre in Essen
• Margarethenhöhe housing estateNamed after its founder Margarethe Krupp, the housing estate is considered one of the finest examples of the realisation of the garden city idea in Germany
• Red Dot Design Museum: The world's largest exhibition of contemporary design with over 2,000 exhibits
• Essen Theatre and Philharmonic Hall: Changing concerts, ballet and theatre
• Borbeck Castle: Baroque moated castle in the Borbeck district

Sounds like it's time for a city trip to the former Capital of Culture, doesn't it? You can spend the night in the Essen Youth Hostel in the Werden district below Lake Baldeney and has cosy double, triple and multi-bed rooms, six of which are barrier-free. The hostel is also a popular destination for cyclists, especially in spring and summer: Essen Youth Hostel is not only a bed & bike accommodation, it is also located on four popular cycle routes.