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I think were going back to Europe

We bought refundable tickets on united/lufthansa last week from Sacramento to Frankfurt, return Munich to Sacramento via Denver both flights, late August thru late September,24 days on the ground. Want to visit Bonn possibly, for sure Heidelberg, Black Forest region including Freiburg, potentially going into Switzerland with Luzern, Thun, Grindelwald, Bern, perhaps the Ticino region on the list. If we don't do Switzerland more time for Germany in which case we'd probably visit more in Baden Wurttemberg, plus maybe more in Hessen and Rheinland area. Looking at fully cancelable accomodations as we get closer to time, and as most of our potential travelling in Germany will be in short stretches probably lots of day tickets.

I have found that there isn't too much of a price difference for Deutsche Bahn ic tickets for short stretches, as they only go so low if you buy them months beforehand and don't seem that high if you buy them close to travel date. For Switzerland however, on some routes that I'm looking at there are bigger differences based on purchase time. If things seem to be tightening up closer to time, with cases on the rise and a greater degree of travel uncertainty, we would cancel things, but right now its full steam ahead, just got to figure out where we want to go.

Posted by
28247 posts

The Deutsche Bahn has some really great deals on regional day-tickets. If a lot of your side-trips are within the same region as your base city, they will be dirt-cheap for the two of you. I believe you can't leave on weekdays during the morning rush hour, but that's a reasonable limitation.

Posted by
10634 posts

I’m sure you’re very excited about your trip. We had the same SMF-DEN-FRA flight booked for next year, but I’ve changed it to layover at SFO. In mid-March I had concerns about weather issues in Denver. Obviously that’s not an issue in August. In booking places to stay for our trip I’m only considering places with good cancellation policies. I’ve booked, then cancelled a few places. If you book now and change your mind it won’t cost anything. I’m also concerned about buying train tickets too far ahead, not knowing what will happen with Covid.

Posted by
34005 posts

There has been major devastation by flood and landslide this week in Germany (including around Bonn and many parts of western Germany), Switzerland (including many places in the Alps), Netherlands and Belgium.

Check before travelling. The recovery will take a long time.

Posted by
604 posts

Update, decided to shift trip to Switzerland and stay in Switzerland as its so darned beautiful and with united's easy change policy was able to get even cheaper tickets from Sacramento to Zurich with San Francisco layover and Zurich to Sacramento with Los Angeles layover. Arrival Sept 6 leaving Sept 27. Four less days on the ground (its Switzerland got to get back to work a little earlier to make up for things budgetwise).

Posted by
3186 posts

Hi Rob, Switzerland is an excellent choice!! There’s a lot of recent info. (entry form info. etc.) on the Switzerland forum as several of us have trips planned in the next month or two and a few just returned. So, let us know if we can help with your planning. You might want to look into the Swiss Travel Pass. And you can still see the Black Forest if you want. From Zurich airport, I’m planning a stay in Basel to take a day trip to Freiburg. I’ll also go to Colmar and Strasbourg from Basel. Then we head to Lauterbrunnen and Lucerne.