Tourist Information for Leavenworth, WA

A summer day, high above Leavenworth

We get a lot of questions about who we are and what we do. Especially when folks see our website or when we ask for information to include on the site or we take pictures of their business. I thought it’d be a good idea to let you know more about us.

Who we’re not:

• We are NOT compensated by the Chamber of Commerce nor connected with it, other than membership
• We are NOT connected to, nor paid by, the City of Leavenworth
• We are NOT connected to or supported by any retailer or innkeeper organizations in Leavenworth
• We are NOT a lodging or reservation service
• We are NOT paid for reviews or endorsements (although we do take some advertisements)

Scotte enjoys the free wifi outside SOUTH (the food’s great too!)

Who we are:

Simply put, we love Leavenworth, Washington and get a lot of enjoyment from visiting and blogging about Leavenworth. Accidental Bavarian is a website dedicated to Leavenworth and meant to give first-time and returning visitors information they need to plan a great vacation in Leavenworth.

We’re Scotte and Renae Meredith and we live, love and work in Spokane, Washington, when we’re not in Leavenworth. Scotte’s day (and sometimes night) job is as a contracted programmer and developer for a theater management software company. My, Renae’s, day (and often night) job is as a theater designer and costume coordinator for the drama department of a local college. Both of us enjoy traveling to Leavenworth and to other cities around the country where our kids and grandchildren live.

So, why Leavenworth, WA? We first visited the Bavarian village in the Cascade Mountain Range many decades ago. Scotte had been several times and enjoyed introducing Leavenworth to me. It quickly became our favorite place away from home. Our infatuation with Leavenworth led us to plan many special occasion weekends there. Family trips through the state were planned to travel Highway 2 so we could stop there, for an afternoon or a night. Each time we were in Leavenworth it never seemed long enough, and we were soon dreaming of how we could get to Leavenworth more often and for longer.

Renae outside one of her favorite shops, Kris Kringl

Scotte, who’d designed websites for his business, came up with the idea of creating a database driven website about Leavenworth. We were both excited about the possibilities right away. How about a website that talked about Leavenworth for people who love Leavenworth as much as we do, but not privileged enough to live there? What if we could create a website that helped newcomers and returning visitors plan their trips? And if, while we’re working on the website, we wind up feeling almost as if we’re there, then that just gets us bonus points. Working on the website gives us more reasons to schedule time in Leavenworth, staying in new places, making new friends and acquaintances, eating new food and taking lots of photographs and writing new blog posts.

That’s how Accidental Bavarian was born. After spending time thinking, dreaming, planning, writing and coding we launched the full version of our site 18 months ago. Scotte does the coding and database writing and management, I do most of the writing and photography and we collaborate on design. Since launching we’ve learned so much, met so many great people and been able to visit Leavenworth much more often than years past. We also hear from a lot of people who are planning a visit to Leavenworth and want advice about where to stay or eat and things to do during their stay. We’ve had inquiries from future Leavenworth tourists in the U.S., Canada and Australia.

We have a lot of fun with our website mascots, Fritzi and Mitzi. Sometimes it’s just fun to put words in the mouths of little bouncing yellow balls.

We’ve also added a Facebook page and a Twitter account. It’s great connecting with people from all over the state, country and the world who want to hear more from and about Leavenworth and Washington State travel.

Fritzi & Mitzi

We’re excited about the launch of the latest version of the website, Accidental Bavarian V. 3.0, coming in a few days. We’re adding a lot more photographs, a larger page format and room for select ads on each page. We’ll have pop-out reviews and ratings, and new travel related quotes. The reviews will be expanded as we visit Leavenworth and the surrounding area more and more often. Our future plans include mobile versions for use on iPads, iPhones and other smart phones, and community photo albums.

Do you have other questions for us, or for Fritzi and Mitzi? What else would you like to see on the Accidental Bavarian website? We’d love to hear your suggestions and ideas.