plane travel Boston/Munich/Zurich/Boston or Boston/Zurich/Munich/Boston?

lisa, do you know about open jaw fares, aka multi-city routing? You can fly into Munich, and out of Zurich, for example. It would take up a lot of time (and train fare) to get back to Munich from your Swiss stops. Fares would likely be close to the roundtrip cost to/from either.

PS you can reach the Zurich airport rail station by train from Luzern in about 1.25 hours, so you don't actually have to go to Zurich.

You are certainly right to try to avoid unecessary returns to a city you've just been to. I don't mean to influence your itinerary, but there's a lot of Germany between Berlin and Freiburg. Isn't there a chance you might visit Germany again? I mean, Freiburg is perfectly nice, and the BF has a lot of hiking, but all of Germany has a lot of hiking.

I don't mean to urge this, but after years of travel, we relaxed our demands for direct flights. That was partly a result of needing to go to more "secondary" cities, after seeing a lot of major cities. But my point is that (speaking from the East Coast USA here), it is quite common for a two-segment flight, on the same or affiliated airlines, to be almost the same price as a direct flight. I'm thinking particularly of United/Lufthansa, but you have to "try" the bookings and see what you get.

It's perfectly true that connecting flights increase risk, and perhaps stress. But since you can't get into a hotel room at 8AM (but only drop your luggage), sometimes it's nice to arrive in your "first" destination at 1PM. It's a matter of taste, travel style, and experience. This might mean flying home from Basel or Stuttgart, to a bigger hub for your flight home. OHOH, if you're uncomfortable with a two-segment trip, you could try it on the outbound trip from home. Just an idea.

Are you sure there are no direct flights to Berlin for you? (We fly out of the NYC airports, so I have no insight for your trip.) Are you familiar with "codeshares?"

Your itinerary is not exactly in a straight line. Why not fly into Berlin and out of Zurich? You'd have to make a connecting flight in Paris or Heathrow but that sure beats having to backtrack.

We were in Berlin a year ago, and were not really thrilled with the city. It's important and worth seeing, but the museums were essentially second rate (compared with other big European cities.) I would prefer to skip Berlin and the Black Forest and spend more time in the other cities you mention. We do like flying into Munich, and adore the Austrian Alps, Salzburg and Bavaria.

Berlin is the outlier here and if you’re spending time in Bavaria add days there and take a day trip to Salzburg (2h by direct train) before renting a car and exploring the alps. I didn’t care for Munich and believe the true draw here is its access to Neuschwanstein, Hohenschwangau, Füssen, Oberammergau, Zugspitze and Berchtesgaden. Assume you’ll return to Germany and visit Berlin then which is quite doable if combining it with Prague.
To get from Bavaria to the Black Forest, take a train from München Hbf (Munich’s central station): https://www.bahn.com/en to Freiburg (4h 45m) that requires a connection. To get from Freiburg to Wengen (3h 45m) involves three transfers. To get from Wengen to Luzern consists of three connections taking 2h 45m: https://www.sbb.ch/en. To get from Luzern to Zürich Flughafen (airport) it takes 1h 15m by direct train.

Thanks everyone!! We are now 60ish, and we have a long list of places we'd like to explore over the next bunch of years -- so going back to Germany may never happen. We are particularly interested in Berlin AND have a friend to visit there, so... it's on the list! And we have family roots in the Black Forest, which is why Freiburg is on the list. I understand that the route isn't super-efficient for touring, but it really does meet our needs.

Thanks for the flight tips!!

Lisa without trying to derail your itinerary, if you fly into Munich you'll take the S-Bahn (which is a full-on train) from the airport into the city in about 30 minutes. Zurich to Lucerne is less than 1h30m.

Transfer time wise, I would call those a wash, not enough difference to make a difference.

Lucerne might be a more relaxing place to start your trip than Berlin. Berlin is a big vibrant city. Me personally I like to ride out jet lag in easy less urban environments.

I'd also think about weather. The later it gets in June, the more likely it is that you're going to have really nice weather. In my opinion nice weather is much more valuable in the mountains than in cities. In northern Europe weather is always a bit of a crapshoot, but there is quite a difference between early June and late June.

And now the horn in on your itinerary. You're probably better off flying to Berlin from Munich immediately upon landing. It's only an hour flight, it's cheap, and Lufthansa departs almost hourly all day. You could visit Alsace when you're in Freiburg - less than an hour away.

I like Munich. When my family returns to Munich next summer it might be my 10th trip to Munich? Something like that. But I will say that there are cities with far better old world architecture, and that Munich is largely a lifestyle city. It's not as much of a sight city as a place like Paris. It's a fun city to be in and do somewhat ordinary things, go to the park go out to dinner go to some markets. some pretty good museums too. But really it does seem to combine best with visiting some smaller places in Bavaria as well. Bavaria is really about its towns and villages. Unless there are some specific things that you want to do in Munich, Munich itself is not necessarily a must see.

Then again I keep going back so I suppose it must have some appeal :-)

I guess everyone has a different set of preferences, and of course many of you have been to Europe a zillion times which is awesome! This is likely to be our one and only trip to Germany (and possibly to Switzerland), and we've worked hard to do everything we actively want to do on this trip.

So yeah, Berlin is out of the way but we are eager to see the history and we have friends there. Freiburg may not be the ideal spot for some, but it's where our ancestral roots are. Munich is a great place to fly into for us (we are flying from Boston so Berlin is not a direct flight option) AND we really want to see Salzburg and Fussen and can get there from Munich. We really have thought it out at length!

I understand that we don't have to stay in Zurich and we don't plan to; we will spend a few days in Lucerne before taking the airport train.

I was just trying to figure out whether we should fly into Munich and out of Zurich or flip it! I think the "slower pace" of the Oberland might be a good reason to flip it... thanks for the thoughts!!

Better to go where you want to go than be as efficient as possible and not!

Into Zurich out of Munich seems like a good call.

I have been to Berlin several times, starting in 1967 when the wall was fairly new and it was a divided city. It was wonderful to return in 1994 and again in 2015;and see how different it was. Since it is important to you, it doesn’t matter that it is a bit out of the way.

For a June trip, I suggest you put Switzerland last, for weather reasons. Mountain weather ( Berner Oberland) can be iffy through June, in our experience, while I have had great weather in Berlin as early as May.

So a rough itinerary would be fly into Munich as you propose; visit Salzburg and Fussen and whatever else you wish to see, then head up to Berlin. This is a long enough journey that we chose to break it up with an overnight in Bamberg in between. I recommend that, unless you prefer another intermediate stop.

After Berlin, it makes sense to head to Switzerland via Freiburg. You should plan another intermediate stop; it is a 9-hour journey by direct train between the two, but that would be too long for us. Köln would be nice but is a bit out of the way to the west. Frankfurt is right on the path of direct trains, but may not be of interest. You can use the bahn.de website to see the towns that are right on the direct route, as well as figure out detours that might be worthwhile. Hopefully others will have good ideas to offer, as I am not familiar with that part of Germany at all.

We just visited Freiburg 2 months ago on our way from Frankfurt to Switzerland and really enjoyed our time there. It was our arrival night in Europe so a bit fatigued, but we liked walking around the old town area and were impressed that the main town square was ringed with restaurants filled with locals enjoying a summer evening. We plan to return, as It seems like a good base for a longer visit. And a convenient gateway to Switzerland, with direct trains to Basel. From Basel you could make your loop, down to the Berner Oberland and then to Luzern via the scenic Brunig Pass route. As you already know, you can spend your final night in Luzern and easily reach the Zurich airport for your flight home the next day.

It sounds like a great trip.