Drive or tour Colmar area

It's very easy to get to Colmar by train, and that would be the fastest solution at 30 minutes. The trip is 45 miles, so either car or bus would obviously be slower. Trains are extremely frequent, and many are the regional trains (TERs) whose fares do not increase as your travel date approaches. Therefore, you would be able to wait until the spur of the moment to plan the trip if you wanted to.

Colmar is drop-dead gorgeous, with a good-sized (and very colorful) historic district and a very fine museum (Unterlinden) with an acknowledged masterpiece, the Isenheim Altarpiece. I would not want to take a guided tour to Colmar, because it is highly likely that I would not agree with the way the time was allotted.

Many (maybe all) of the TERs running between Strasbourg and Colmar stop in Selestat, a pretty town that is not on the tourist route. I enjoyed it last year, but it doesn't seem to figure on anyone's list of "Places I have to see in Alsace."

The more heavily visited Alsatian towns (the wine route) are basically west of Colmar and comparatively tiny. They are accessible from Colmar by bus, but to try to see more than one of them along with Colmar on the same day would probably be an exercise in frustration. In order to accomplish that, a bus tour or car would be better. (Though I have my doubts about how well you'd be able to see Colmar itself...) I'd definitely prefer going the car route, but I've never driven in Europe, much less out of Strasbourg. It is a very large city and for all I know the traffic pattern might be very tricky.

No prob doing daytrips from #strasbourg solo with a car. U can do the villages one day and then Colmar another day. It is a very interesting town with canals , picturesque
Homes with window /boxes of floral color and great museum.
We actually did the reverse of your plan with a car.

If you want to see both Colmar and nearby villages, you need more than one day and you should stay in Colmar. If you only have time for a day trip to see the small towns, a private or small-group tour would probably be better.