Overland Travel Across Borders: A Tale of Two Frontiers
Schaanwald to Tisis and Ruggell to Feldkirch: The Main Roads
These are the crossings you will actually use. The busiest is Schaanwald on the A13 motorway; you roll straight from Triesenberg or Vaduz into Feldkirch at full speed, past the abandoned customs plaza now used as a truck stop. Further north the flat Rhine dike road at Ruggell turns into Austria with nothing more than a small blue EU sign. Bus line 11 from Vaduz to Feldkirch crosses twice a day without braking, and the number 13 postal bus treats the border like a bus stop that forgot to exist. Cyclists follow the Rhine dam path and never notice the change except for Austrian licence plates appearing. Random police checks are gentle and extremely rare.
The High Trails and Old Smuggler Routes
Above the treeline the border dissolves completely. The famous Fürstin-Gina-Weg from Malbun climbs over the ridge and drops into Brandnertal in Austria in about three hours of easy walking. The Three Sisters path from Planken to Gamperdon valley once carried coffee, butter, and cigarettes at night in the 1960s and 70s; today it carries only hikers and the odd mountain biker. In winter the ski connection between Malbun and Brand is seamless; one lift ticket covers both sides. Locals still chuckle about the last big smuggling bust in 1989 when a farmer hid 200 cartons of cigarettes under hay in his tractor. These days the only contraband is cheaper Austrian beer carried home in backpacks.
Cross however you like: by car, bike, foot, or skis. Nobody will ever stop you. One moment you are in the sixth-smallest country on earth, the next you are drinking coffee in Vorarlberg. The Alps simply continue, and the border is only a line someone once drew on a map.