Stuttgart

Wikitravel has a small article for Stuttgart. (Could local people add some more information there?) Lonely Planet also has a few pages on Stuttgart online. There is also the Lonely Planet book on Germany, with good information on Stuttgart and around it, if you want to do the planning the very careful way! The Virtual Tourist has lots of information on sights, bars, restaurants and hotels (as well as some experiences).

For local transportation in Stuttgart, see Getting around in Stuttgart.

If you want to see around Stuttgart while you're there, consider checking the Stuttgart Marketing (!) website for information. Of interest, may be the Stuttcard, a tourist discount pass for EUR 11.50. You can combine it with the local transport 3-Day Ticket and get a Stuttgart Plus at EUR 17.00. These and possbily other passes, plus information, should be available from the i-Punkt Tourist Information Office, near the main train station.

You should be able to exchange money quickly enough and with best prices in the main train station (search for Reisebank).

Local transportation in Stuttgart

A taxi from/to the the airport should cost around EUR 25.00.

But the public transport is recommended for almost everything (even for your airport trip), consisting mostly of S-bahn (suburban) and U-bahn (underground) local trains. Look around for large S and U symbols for stations. VVS, the public transport operator, has lots of information available online (English, German). VVS has various kinds of tickets available, which you can find about at its Tickets & Fares page, but specially recommended are the 3-Day Ticket, the Single Day Ticket, and the Group Day Ticket. There are automatic ticket machines, which should not be hard to use for GNOMies, but there is a manual anyway.

Specifically, note that DB (the German inter-city train operator) long-distance tickets can also be used for free continued travel with public short-distance transit. So you don't need tickets to get from the main station to your accomodation in Stuttgart or get back to the main station if you have just arrived in Stuttgart or if you are leaving Stuttgart with DB (more info). [I'm not sure if this is only for the S-bahn or also for the U-bahn. Recheck before you get fined.]

Shortcuts (conference venue is near main station):

The conference venue is the Haus der Wirtschaft, on Schlossstrasse. It's about 1000 meters on foot from the main train station (Hauptbahnhof). Walking directions (with pictures!) and a map for the path from the Hauptbahnhof to the conference venue are available.

There are two U-bahn stations a little nearer to the conference venue: Friedrichsbau and Berliner Platz (on U-bahn lines U4 and U9).

Official hotels are all in walking distance from the conference venue, but the Youth Hostel is a little far. To get to it, use the U-bahn line U15 (towards Ruhbank), and take off at the Eugensplatz. The Hostel is about 100 meters farther (there are supposed to be signs).

To get to the Hauptbahnhof from the Stuttgart airport (or vice versa), you can take the S-bahn train lines S2 or S3.

To get to the camping site from the main station or the airport, take the S-bahn lines S1 towards Plochingen, S2 towards Schorndorf, or S3 towards Backnang. For getting back, use S1 towards Herrenberg (only for main station), S2 towards Flughafen, or S3 towards Filderstadt.

A map of the local U-bahn and S-bahn network is available (PDF, 168 KiB).

The tourist office and Hotel Unger (see Accommodation information) should also be able to offer bicycles for hire, which you can even take on the local trains during some hours, but not all. (You may need to buy a child ticket for the bike: more information.)

General information on how to get around in Stuttgart is available at http://www.stgt.com/stuttgart/oefverke.htm (which may be a little out of date). The main site of the Stuttgart public transport (aka VVS) is http://www.vvs.de/en/