How best to do a day trip from Prague to Cesky Krumlov

This is one of those "can you" vs. "should you" situations.

Can you go from Prague to Cesky Krumlov and back in a day? Yes. The train or bus takes 3-4 hours each way (if there's no delay; when I went, there was construction on the road, and my 3 hour bus ride there took 5 hours!).

Should you go from Prague to Cesky Krumlov and back in a day? Probably not. As I said, you will spend as much time in transit as you will actually there. I did it as an overnight in 2007, and the town was already quite crowded by day. All reports indicate that the daytime crowding has gotten much worse since then. In other words, it's a lot of travel for not much reward.

With only 5 days, I'd look into a closer daytrip.

A rewarding alternative is Tabor: a small-scale historical town which is still enjoyable, and only 1hr15 to 1hr30 from Prague on reasonably frequent direct trains. Consult the website of the Czech Railways for the schedule.

Sandy, not necessarily a recommendation, but back in 2011, I took an all-day guided bus tour. I enjoyed seeing the evidentially prosperous countryside, including big box stores with full parking lots. As I remember, during the 3-hour drive each way, we stopped at a roadside restaurant/rest stop in each dir cation. When we arrived in Cesky Krumlov, we took a tour of the castle, then had some hours of free time to explore the town, have lunch on our own, etc. I remember I asked the guide “about how many people actually live in the town these days?” And he responded: “I don’t know if anyone lives in the town now, they just come in every day to work in businesss serving the tourists.” As I remember, the day-long tour cost about US$95.00.

I recommend one overnight, but probably only one, and taking the bus from the Na Knizeci terminal adjacent to the Andel metro station. It cost me 26 euros round trip in August. The bus gets you closer to the center of CK, and takes less time than the train.

Cesky Krumlov is too far from Prague to be enjoyed as a day trip. Overnight. Good day trip towns would be for example Kutna Hora, Tabor.

If CK is where you really want to go it's certainly doable, it's a common enough day trip from Prague. There are buses that leave Prague fairly early and get you to CK by 11:00 am and they leave CK about 5:30 pm, getting you back to Prague before 9:00 pm. It's a long day but not any more horrible than some of the day trips I have taken in the past that to me were well worth the time, if not the ideal way to see a place. 6-1/2 hours is more than I've spent in some towns that were very enjoyable. So, if you want to go there, do it. A guided tour would work too if you don't want to do it on your own by bus but they will cost more - buses are cheap and reliable. Train is also an option if you don't want to take the bus, but will cost a bit more.

On paper it's faster by road i.e. if you are thinking of taking the bus but there's a strong chance of roadworks in several places so if it was me I'd make myself a nice packed lunch and get the train down. Then as part of exploring the town take a walk over to the bus station and see what time you'll want to head back i.e. late afternoon or early evening when the traffic calms down around Ceske Budejovice which is the main bottleneck outside CK. Student Agency operates a good coach service, download a film or some music and it's a pleasant trip.

Just for completeness, the most costly option, private car and driver should be mentioned. There are enough inquiries about this that Rick makes some specific suggestions in his C.R. book. We took that option many years ago, because CK was so important to me. But it's still a very long time sitting in a car. It depends on how important it is to you, and how many medieval towns you have already been to. That said, I count CK as an outstanding visual destination, on a par with Bruges, Quedlinburg, or Perouges. Would you say that Paris has been "ruined" by mass tourism? I feel that way when I'm in Times Square in NYC, but I'm wrong!

https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/to-the-west/prague-to-vienna-via-cesky-krumlov

MyDayTrip.com is a possibility, with a private driver. It's 175 euros each way but takes only two and a quarter hours between Prague and CK.

Where are you going after Prague?

MyDayTrip.com is a possibility, with a private driver. It's 175 euros each way but takes only two and a quarter hours between Prague and CK.

Just curious, is that $175 each way (total of $350) just for the transportation? Or is the private driver also a tour guide while in CK? That would make a big difference. I know when on vacation time is money, but is it worth about $320 ($160 each way) to save a total of an hour and a half in travel time or does the comfort of a car vs a bus seat add to the 'worth'? I know for myself it would never be worth that, at least not until I win the lottery. But I know that everyone is not the same and places their own 'worth' on such things.

Hi Janet/Nancy,
Just to point out that anybody that says they can do CK from central Prague in 2 hours 15 minutes is going to break speed limits and assumes no delays. Allow 3 hours.

Nancy, that number is just one provider for one trip. Rick gave numbers in the year's edition that we used his recommended provider. But the answer in our case is, it was just for the car and driver. He arranged (at our request) for a local guide - I think we chose 1 hour, but other spans of time were offered. I'm not bothering to look up the number for our ride, because it was ten years ago.

I'm not big on guides and rarely use one. I sprang for one because our time in CK was so limited. The guide turned out to be very useful: By the time we met up with her, I had already been to the town ticket office. I'd bought a tour ticket for the "Castle" easily enough, but the ticket seller spoke no English at all, and we couldn't make contact about the Baroque Theater (which was the entire reason for our trip.) The guide went to the ticket booth and got us (in Czech, of course) the remaining two tickets to the only English tour of the day for the Baroque Theater.

I used a driver when I went to Cesky K. But we visited a castle on the way down, spent the night and visited another castle on the way back. It's been a few years, but seems we paid some place in the neighborhood of $350. Good trip.

Jason - I was thinking the exact same thing but, not living or driving there, did not feel it was my place to make that comment. Thanks for clarifying that.

Tim and James - I understand that Janet's post was just about that one provider's rate. My comments were more about what might be included for that rate. I was also curious as to whether others would feel that the small time savings would be 'worth' such a hefty sum - which again would depend on what's included.

For those not wanting to take a bus or train, there is also the option of smaller van shuttles that are just for transportation and cost much much less than that quoted by Janet for MyDayTrip. These also can include pick up at your Prague hotel and thus avoid having to get yourself to the bus or train station. When I went to CK I did an overnight, not a day trip, and used a shuttle service - it was as fast as a private car and was hotel to hotel so very convenient and very reasonably priced. On my way there I actually got lucky and was the only one signed up for that transfer time that day so effectively got a 'private' transfer for a very small $ amount.

For that sum (more or less as my memory isn't perfect - I would pay that or more today for the same service); he picked us up at our hotel in a fairly new MB C class. We stopped at Karlštejn Castle on the way down. The driver was just that, a driver and not a guide, so we did the stock tour in the castle (pretty fantastic place - loved it). Afterwards we continued down to Cesky K where he dropped us at our hotel (Dvoark). We got the room with the balcony that looks towards the castle. It was stunning. The next afternoon the driver picked us up. On the way back to Prague we stopped at Zvíkov Castle on the way back. In addition to the drive we had conversations with the driver about life and culture in the Czech Republic. Otherwise the only perk was all the bottled water we could drink.

Was it "expensive"? Define expensive. I have friends who, as a couple, spend that much on dinner. For them, no. For me? Sort of at the outer edge; but it was worth it.
Was it worth it for us? Given the short time we had and the desire to see a few things ... yes.

I dont do that sort of thing often, but I have hired private drivers three times into Slovakia for three different reasons. The prices were in the same neighborhood as the Czech trip; one quite a bit more. I've also hired private drivers to reach some remote or special event; like the Busójárás in Mohács, Hungary (worth every penny). Then once a private driver and a separate guide for a week long driving and fishing trip from Sofia to Istanbul. Again, worth every penny.