Day Trip to Salzburg

Direct trains on this route take 2.5 hours each way, faster than a van can drive it. Once you arrive to Salzburg, it's a very walkable city. So my inclination is to do it that way. I haven't experienced any escorted tours.

It took me 2 1/2 hours by train to get from Vienna to Salzburg. I would think at the least, you are looking at 4 hours round trip. Have you looked at perhaps a day trip along the Danube, like to Melk? or Bratislava is about an hour away. Salzburg is a lovely place to visit, I hope that you get there if not on this trip on another. Have fun in Vienna!

It is doable easily, as said by train. The fastest express train needs 2:22 hours, the slowest 2:53 hours. There are about 5 trains per hour leaving from either Wien Hauptbahnhof or Wien Westbahnhof, operated by OeBB and Westbahn.

If you take an early train to go to Salzburg, e.g. 6:30am, and a late train back, e.g. 7:08pm, you have 10 hours for visiting Salzburg.

Check online for cheap bargain tickets which cannot be purchased at the ticket office.

Although I prepurchased my OBB bargain tickets for Vienna-Salzburg for a great savings, you don't need to prepurchase tickets at Westbahn. In fact, I believe you purchase them on the train. The price was about 30Euro the same as my prepurchased tickets. The advantage would be that you wouldn't be tied to any itinerary and you could come back as you pleased. You could go back to Vienna quite late and relax on the train. You could have a lovely latish lunch in Salzburg and skip dinner to use that time to sight see and then have a later picnic dinner on the train. There was a small, lovely town market where you could buy picnic supplies.

It's certainly an option as a day trip, although a very long day. I personally prefer train to bus travel so would likely do it on my own, but if you are not comfortable doing it independently, this website shows several options for guided tours. You could also do a combination of taking the train yourselves and then hooking up with a guided tour of Salzburg (check with the TI) when you are there - at least you would avoid that long bus ride between the two cities.