The guides that answer the real questions
The Local Austria
Daily Austria news in English plus the deepest practical guides library anyone publishes about this country: visas, residence permits, citizenship, tax, pensions, renting, health insurance and driving. Articles carry bylines and dates and the site was current to 15 September 2026 when we checked. It is a paid product and parts sit behind a paywall, which we would rather say than have you discover. For a reader planning this move it is the single most useful English source that exists.
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Instagram and TikTok
Seventeen Instagram accounts and four on TikTok. Only three belong to foreigners documenting life in Austria, and nine are official tourism boards, which is the shape of the country's visual social scene rather than a shortcut on our part. Every Instagram follower count was read off the profile itself on 17 September 2026. Six of the boards post mainly in German and the cards say which.
Jonny Balchin
The New Zealander behind Austriankiwi on YouTube. Runs an influencer marketing agency, a clothing label and a hot sauce brand
891,000 followers, read off the profile on 17 September 2026, which makes this the largest account of anybody living in Austria by a wide margin. Same material as the YouTube channel in shorter form: Austrian dialect, Austrian habits, and being a foreigner who has stopped being a visitor. Entertainment rather than advice, and heavily commercial, but it is the clearest window on what it sounds like to live among Austrians rather than to be served by them.
oida Austria
Anastasia Postoeva, a foreigner in Austria explaining the country in English. Sells merchandise and carries sponsored posts
116,000 followers. A daily English feed about Austrian practicalities that nobody warns you about: everything closing on Sunday, how much of the country still runs on cash, how sharply life differs between the states. It is the only account at scale doing this in English, and for somebody in the research phase it is a steady drip of the small frictions that decide whether a move works.
The Wurst Guide to Living in Austria
The Instagram account of the bilingual podcast, run by an Australian and an Austrian host
24,500 followers. Short clips from the podcast plus the running commentary between episodes. Its own bio calls it a bilingual comedy and culture podcast about life in Austria, which is an accurate description of the account too: about half the material assumes some German. Useful as a way to sample the podcast before committing to an episode.
Expats in Vienna
A Vienna expat network founded by a named organiser. Sells a paid Vienna survival guide
10,300 followers and, as far as we could find, the only Instagram account in Austria organised around the expat experience itself rather than around a personality. The feed is mostly events: meetups through the year, integration evenings, social nights. That is genuinely what it is for, so read it as a way to meet people once you arrive rather than a source of information before you do. There is a paid product behind it, which we have said so you can judge the free material accordingly.
Sabrina and Kati
Sabrina Brett, an American, and Katrin Walzl, an Austrian, based between Vienna and the Dolomites. Blog funded by affiliate links and advertising
53,600 followers covering alpine hiking, hut-to-hut routes and where to stay along them. The reason it is on a relocation page rather than a travel one: Austria's selling point for a lot of our readers is the mountains, and this is the account that shows what serious access to them looks like week by week rather than on a holiday. Much of the recent feed is the Italian Dolomites rather than Austria, and the card says so rather than letting you find out later.
Vienna Wurstelstand
Vienna's English-language city magazine, run by a Vienna creative agency. Advertising funded
86,300 followers. Its own bio is the best description of what it is: a guide and a community for people who live here, love it here, but were not born here. City guides, openings, the practical odds and ends of Viennese life written for an international reader. The closest thing Vienna has to a local publication that assumes you are staying.
Natalie, Explore Vienna
A Vienna city guide account. Sells a paid guide and carries partnerships
98,300 followers covering food, museums, hotels and city tips. This is visitor-facing content rather than resident-facing, and we have listed it on that basis. It is a good shortlisting tool for the central districts and the museum quarter if you are still deciding whether Vienna is your city, and much less useful once you live there.
Foodiewien
A Vienna food and activities account. Posts mainly in German. Carries restaurant collaborations
52,100 followers. Where to eat, what to do and what things cost across the numbered districts, organised by postcode, which is a genuinely practical way to browse a city you are trying to learn. The captions are in German, so it works as a visual and price reference rather than a read. Listed because Vienna's English food coverage is thin and this is the account Viennese people actually use.
Visit Austria
Austria Tourism, stated in the account's own bio. Official national tourism board
531,000 followers and the largest Austrian account run by a public body. Posts in German and English. Useful at the earliest stage, when you are still working out which of the nine states you want, because it is one of the few accounts that spreads its attention across all of them rather than defaulting to Vienna and Salzburg. Read the follower number as reach, not as a community you can ask questions of.
Wien, Vienna
The Vienna Tourist Board, stated in the account's own bio. Official city tourism board
627,000 followers, the largest Austrian account of any kind, posting in English and German. Museums, music, events and the city's own seasonal calendar. Its saved collections are the practical part: the city card, the transport tips and the district walks are all things you will use in your first month rather than your first afternoon.
Tirol
Tirol Werbung, the state tourism organisation, stated in the account's own bio. Official. Posts mainly in German
281,000 followers and the largest of the regional board accounts. Tyrol is the state most of our readers picture when they imagine alpine Austria, and this is the most complete visual record of it across all four seasons, which matters more than it sounds: the difference between a Tyrolean valley in February and the same valley in July decides whether a lot of people could actually live there. Note the handle. Tyrol is visittirol, not tirol.
SalzburgerLand
The SalzburgerLand state tourism board, stated in the account's own bio as the official resource. Official
210,000 followers covering the state rather than just the city, which is the useful distinction: the Salzkammergut lakes, the Pinzgau valleys and the alpine pastures are where the state's cost of living and quality of life actually sit, well away from the Mozart trail. One of the few regional boards that posts consistently in English.
Visit Carinthia
Kaernten Werbung, the Carinthian state tourism board, linked to its own imprint from the account bio. Official. Posts in German and English
94,500 followers. Carinthia is the quiet answer for a lot of our readers: the warmest state, the lake district, and property well below Tyrolean prices. This is the most sustained visual record of it, and it is unusually good at covering the smaller lakes rather than only Woerthersee. Worth pairing with our Carinthian lakes guide.
Steiermark
Steirische Tourismusmarketing, the Styrian state board, stated in the account bio as the official account. Official. Posts mainly in German
77,100 followers. Styria is the green half of the country and the one whose value case is strongest: Graz is Austria's second city, it costs markedly less than Vienna, and it has a university population that keeps it lively year round. The feed covers the wine country, the spa towns and the hill villages that most English-language coverage of Austria never reaches.
Oberoesterreich
The Upper Austria state tourism board. Official. Posts in German
87,200 followers. Upper Austria is the state most people moving to Austria never consider and several end up in: Linz is affordable and industrial, the Salzkammergut lakes reach into it, and the Muehlviertel is genuinely rural and cheap. The account is German-language and visual, which limits it to a browsing tool, but there is very little else covering this part of the country at all.
Vorarlberg Tourismus
The Vorarlberg state tourism board, stated in the account's own bio. Official. Posts in German
43,200 followers. Vorarlberg is the far western state, closer to Zurich than to Vienna, and it behaves differently from the rest of the country: higher wages, higher prices, a strong architectural tradition and an Alemannic dialect that even other Austrians struggle with. If you are looking at it, this is effectively the only sustained account covering it. Note the handle, visitvorarlberg.
visitniederoesterreich
Niederoesterreich-Werbung, the Lower Austria state board, linked from the state's own site. Official. Posts in German
40,300 followers. Lower Austria surrounds Vienna, which makes it the practical answer for anyone who wants the city within reach but cannot pay Viennese rents: the Wachau, the Weinviertel and the commuter towns along the rail lines. Read the handle carefully. The tourism board is visitniederoesterreich. An unrelated 29,000-follower account holds the plain niederoesterreich handle and is not the board.
Austriankiwi on TikTok
Jonny Balchin's TikTok account, the same operator as the Instagram and YouTube entries
Approximately 527,700 followers, from Social Blade on 17 September 2026. The same Austrian dialect and culture comedy in the format it was arguably designed for. Note the spelling difference, which is a trap: the Instagram handle carries a double i and the TikTok handle a single one. Both are confirmed from his own site.
Visit Austria on TikTok
Oesterreich Werbung, the national tourism board, confirmed from its own B2B site. Official
Approximately 150,500 followers, from Social Blade on 17 September 2026. The national board's short-form account, publishing in German and English. It is the only national-level Austrian account that is genuinely current on TikTok, and it ranges across all nine states rather than the usual two.
Vienna on TikTok
The Vienna Tourist Board's TikTok account. Official
Approximately 137,800 followers, from Social Blade on 17 September 2026, publishing in English and German. Note the handle. The board is vienna on Instagram but vienna.info on TikTok, and assuming parity will take you to the wrong account.
SalzburgerLand on TikTok
The SalzburgerLand state tourism board. Official. Posts in German
Approximately 29,100 followers, from Social Blade on 17 September 2026, and posting every couple of days. The smallest account on this page by some distance, listed because it is the only Austrian regional board maintaining a genuinely active short-form presence outside Vienna.