Epic 21-Day Adventure in Bavaria, Austria & the Dolomites – Need Your Expert Tips!

I don't see how you can productively add more destinations. As it is, you are either changing bases or taking a day trip almost every day. You have mere hours allocated to Vienna.

From the budgetary standpoint, I'd recommend researching transportation costs, starting with the lifts/trains/buses in the mountain locations. They may be more expensive than you are anticipating.

Wow! You have this trip well planned out. I agree with the other poster that it would be hard to add additional locations. I would like to suggest a modification to your plans. Berchtesgaden is not very far from Salzburg, so I think it might save some back and forth if you take a look at combining those two regions together.
Have a great trip!

cheng2simee,
What acraven said. Does your 160 euros per person per day include your lodgings, meals, transportation between locations and entrance fees? Or is that merely for lodging and meals? If for everything, I believe it is not enough for what you want to do. You are doing a lot of moving around. Try to calculate your transportation costs; you may find you need to up your budget or reduce your traveling around and staying longer in fewer places.
If you want to include Prague and Cesky Krumlov, you will probably have to rethink your whole trip.

I wish you luck in your planning.

So you didn't go on a similar trip last fall? https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/austria/urgent-assistance-needed-planning-our-trip There was some good advice in that thread.

I agree that you are moving around quite a lot and that your budget is probably unrealistic especially in bigger cities and popular towns (Munich, Vienna, Hallstatt). September is no longer "off season" and you will pay more especially if you run into any Oktoberfest dates. By your itinerary it looks like you'll be in transit or on a train for a very large chunk of your visit - for example on Day 2 (a day when jet lag hits me hardest) you have 4+ hours on the train to/from Munich and you only have part of an arrival day dedicated to Munich proper (it merits more). I can't see how you could add anywhere else. Best of luck to you in your planning.

Hello:

I visited Malaysia more than a decade ago and really enjoyed its food. Your itinerary reflects your thoughtful research. However, as mentioned, 160 euros per person is very difficult because this part of Europe is expensive. In fact, it's only less expensive than Norway, Iceland, and Switzerland.

Some of walks, such as the Santa Maddalena trail, are challenging. I don't know your physical condition, but you will need to take all this into account. Also, you should allow some more breaks as you are covering a lot of grounds and your body would wear out, regardless of your age. Sometimes, less is more. You want to do more enjoying and less moving around.

It makes little sense to visit Berchtesgaden from Munich when it is much closer to Salzburg.
Generally speaking, you have too many destinations. I would drop at least Bamberg and Rothenburg and devote more days to other destinations. You will be sparing some money but also sparing yourself, as your pace would leave you quite tired. it does not make sense to move all the way to Vienna and not to have time there.

Rather than hostels ( I wrote an article on hostels for a bicycle magazine 50 years ago ! ) and Airbnb, stay at small inns and ‘privat zimmer ‘. A great place to find these places are the town website which will usually have the format www.town name.de. The town wikipedia article also will list it. The town websites should list ALL the accomodations. My wife and I travel in Germany for about 150 Euro for both of us. Last trip we did not do as much and only spentbabout 120 E per day.

In Rothenburg, consider staying at Haus Karin. www.haus-karin.eu

Stephen's suggestion for looking/booking at the local tourist office websites is a solid one. His link to Haus Karin demonstrates the value of his strategy. A double with breakfast at €60, multiplied times even just a few days, assuming you can find similar places elsewhere, will go a very long way toward meeting your budget goal!

Stephen and I might be fraternal twins... shoestring travel, Privatzimmer, hostels, 5 decades... 'cept I am no serious bicyclist. DJH Hostels (the official ones) have changed drastically in that time; modern 2-6-bed rooms with private bath are the rule now, but prices have skyrocketed. Privatzimmer in Germany have changed too. Used to be that you had to hit the TI office to find out about them, but most are online somewhere now. Decades ago, Privatzimmer did not mean private bathrooms, but most have them now. That said, they are becoming scarcer and scarcer. Still worth a look on the TI websites, however, where you will also find private apartments, home rentals which are often not be available on commercial sites like VRBO or AirBnB - and sometimes very reasonable.

Sometimes the town name + .de does not produce the town's Tourism pages directly and/or does not offer English pages. Take the Rhine town of BACHARACH for example. www.bacharach.de gets you to the town's website for all matters - in German - but you must scroll down or use the index to find the word "TOURISMUS". At other town websites you may get lucky and find "Tourist Information" which happens to be both English AND German. Alternatively, you can use the sites search feature using the German words like below...

Unterkunft (accommodation)
Unterkünfte (plural)
Unterkunftsverzeichnis (accommodation directory)
ÜBERNACHTEN (to overnight)
Gastgeber (hosts)
Ferienwohnung (vacation rental)
Ferienappartement (small vacation apartment)
Privatzimmer
Private Gästezimmer (private guest rooms)

My Bacharach noodling took me eventually to this page, managed by a REGIONAL TI office, which lists Privatzimmer in Bacharach AND a couple of other nearby towns :

https://rhein-nahe-touristik.de/gastgeber/privatzimmer/

Not surprisingly, I located the "Irmgard Orth" operation in Bacharch on this page, a place Stephen has often stayed and recommends, where a double with breakfast goes for €55.

I checked a place I stayed years ago near Bacharach in St. Goar at the St. Goar website. It's a small, simple, 1-room apartment on the main street big enough for two, with kitchenette and private bath (no breakfast) that is still listed at €35/night.

So with a bit of intelligent sleuthing, perhaps you will turn up some similar finds in the places that interest you.

"Explore Marienplatz, English Garden, and Elisabethmarkt"

I would think it would be great if you went to the Elisabethmarkt. This way you would explore a beautiful piece of Schwabing (district of Munich). But I'm assuming that you mean the Viktualienmarkt near Marienplatz.