Advice on whether to buy train tickets in advance

Children under the age of 15 can travel with a parent or grandparent
free of charge if they are specified at the time of purchase and
entered on the ticket. In other company or travelling alone, they pay
50% of the regular fare.

Source (translated with DeepL): https://www.bahn.de/p/view/angebot/zusatzticket/familienrabatt.shtml

You can buy tickets online in advance with children. The advantage is that you can make a seat reservation.

2 adults can travel all day in the region of Bavaria for 32 Euro. Kids < 15 travel free. I think the last 4 bullets are all covered by the Bavarian Ticket (Bayern Ticket)

We will be in Europe in May and have made reservations for most of our railroad trips . Check out Trainline.com as an option, we have had a good success with them.

You certainly can save money by pre booking the St. Goar to Munich leg. Everthing else is regional traffic: Frankfurt to St. Goar: S-Bahn Ticket to Mainz + Rheinland-Pfalz Ticket. Munich to Füssen & Oberammergau to Salzburg: Bayern Ticket. Salzburg to Berchtesgaden: S-Bahn Salzburg. Berchtsgaden to Munich: Bayern Ticket.

The 1st you can use a Quer durchs Land ticket for 52 EUR bought out of a ticket machine. But it brings up a question, is this actually from Frankfurt airport after landing? Or are you staying in Frankfurt beforehand? If so, have you thought of using the KD boat from Ruedesheim or Bingen Stadt to get to St Goar. There are also some ways of using local network ticket to Mainz, then a Rheinland-Pfalz ticket from Mainz to St Goar.

2nd definitely buy in advance for a discount Sparpreis ticket.

Sam - we are staying in Frankfurt for 2 nights after landing.

We do plan to do a KD boat cruise, but not on the transit day We'll be doing it on our full day in the region.

OK, but you could kill two birds with one stone on the boat, and have a full day for castle touring.

Check out Trainline.com as an option, we have had a good success with them.

Wihin Germany and Austria, it usually makes more sense to book directly with the respective operator (on bahn.com / bahn.de for Germany and oebb.at for Austria).

Welcome to the forum, Randy from Rocklin.

Frankfurt to St. Goar (Frankfurt > Mainz + Mainz > St. Goar

St. Goar has great river scenery and is a good choice for train travelers and river cruisers. Good choice. Rheinfels Castle is right in town as well.

We do plan to do a KD boat cruise, but not on the transit day We'll be doing it on our full day in the region.

It's a little tricky to advise you without knowing all the time details of your first few days, but I'm going to strong-arm you to do as Sam says anyway. If you do the cruise - the best cruise anyway - on your "full day", then you will need to backtrack to Bingen (which you passed through the day before) by train, then cruise back to St. Goar (yes, the best segment) and you will burn 2.5 - 3 hours of this day doing that. And besides the time savings and train ticket cost savings, why "spoil" your virgin journey to the Rhine and a later cruise by taking the train, when you could instead enjoy the passing castles, towns, cliffsides and vineyards from the best perspective - from the middle of the river? There are afternoon cruises to St. Goar at 14:30 and 16:30 in case you aren't leaving Frankfurt in the morning.

The quickest and cheapest way to get from Frankfurt to Bingen Rhein Stadt station (closest to the boat dock) is by regional train (RMV ticket, kids are not free.) You'll pay €34.50 for a group day ticket from a station ticket machine (which is cheaper than adults + kids tickets.) Show these tickets at the KD dock for a cruise discount.

Then on your "full" day you can truly have a full day. Visit Rheinfels Castle (if you didn't the day before.) Visit another town or two nearby (10 minutes to Boppard and take the chairlift ride and to an awesome lookout? 5 minutes to Oberwesel? 10 minutes to Bacharach? Braubach - home of the truly medieval and absolutely intact Marksburg Castle on the opposite river bank - (a little further - use the St. Goar Ferry crossing + the train.) A full day on the river to these places will run you €23.60 for the whole family for a VRM mini-group ticket (which includes that ferry crossing as well.) Buy that at the station in St. Goar too. (Pssst... it covers the ferry crossing as well.)

You won't have time for everything, but you will have time for lots more than if you cruise on this day as well.

Actually that VRM mini-group pass covers all these places but Bacharach - but you could pay an additional €2.70 each adult (kids free) for a DB ticket that extends your trip from Oberwesel to Bacharach.)

Russ - thanks for the tips. I am open to that suggestion, but if we do that, we'd be touring from Bingen to St. Goar and miss the part from St. Goar to Koblenz. My thinking was during our full day, we'd tour on the river and hop on and hop off at a few points during our full day.

Also, what would we do with our luggage (family of four each with one carry-on roller and one backpack) during the cruise from Bingen to St. Goar where our hotel is?

FYI - we will be in Frankfurt for 2 nights and a full day before we depart for the Rhine Valley on our second morning.

"... but if we do that, we'd be touring from Bingen to St. Goar and miss the part from St. Goar to Koblenz."

Not to worry. The part north of St. Goar is mostly nice cruising but in the opinion of most cruisers and day cruise companies NOT as intense or impressive as the southern segment and not essential. KD cruises offers cruises all the way to Koblenz, but only 3 per day - that's because the demand for this segment is lower. (In fact, the closer you get to Koblenz, the less impressive the scenery is.) Most people don't want to pay the N-level fare of €42.20 to cruise that far - or spend 4 hours on the boat - when they can enjoy the more intense Bingen-St. Goar segment in 1.5 hours and pay the G-level fare of €20.20. (Ask for the train-arrival discount of 20% and show your ticket, and it's only €16.) The Bingen-Rüdesheimer cruise company focuses on the southern segment even more narrowly - no cruises to Koblenz at all (Bingen-St. Goarshausen only.) Here is their map. The other problem with cruising to Koblenz is that you disembark quite far away from the train station there and must trek across town.

"My thinking was during our full day, we'd tour on the river and hop on and hop off at a few points during our full day."

That usually ends up being complicated, even without bags, since there are only a handful of boats per day. You end up leaving whenever the next boat comes (which might be 1 hour, 2 hours, or 3 hours.) It's probably wiser just to do the cruise to St. Goar in one swoop. Then after you check in, if you want to backtrack to Oberwesel to the south, it's a 5-minute train ride and €3 each way - without your bags. Bacharach would be 10 minutes and €4.30. Trains run every hour or better in each direction, which gives you more flexibility to come and go as you please.

I recall keeping my bag with me as I went upstairs to the open deck. But I believe there's a place you can leave it downstairs, at least others have reported such. I have never hear of someone being turned away because their baggage was excessive - I suppose that's a possibility, but probably a remote one. Baggage is a common sight - see this photo.

I gave you less-than-complete information about train tickets after you reach St. Goar...

The train ride to Bacharach (€4.30 each) is a DB ticket, so your kids ride free. The €4.30 each way applies only to the adults. So your round trip St. Goar - Bacharach - St. Goar would cost €17.20 total. Note also that with the DB ticket you can stop off for as long as you like in Oberwesel in either direction. The ticket is valid at any hour the same day - buy separate tickets for each direction.

The €3 ticket to Oberwesel is a VRM adult ticket. Kids pay €1.80 each. So round trip you'd have to pay €19.20 if you bought normal VRM tickets. If you only plan to visit Oberwesel, then buy ONE VRM mini-group ticket at price level 2 (€10.50) and that will cover your whole family for the St. Goar - Oberwesel - St. Goar round trip. Depart and return at any time you like that same day.

All these tickets are available from a ticket machine at the station. Have small bills and change handy to avoid card problems.

Check out Trainline.com as an option, we have had a good success with them.

Wihin Germany and Austria, it usually makes more sense to book
directly with the respective operator (on bahn.com / bahn.de for
Germany and oebb.at for Austria).

I have to agree with Chris, for travel in Germany, use the Bahn website. Trainline used to offer tickets at exactly the same price as the Bahn, but they seem to have added a margin to their prices recently.

For St. Goar to Munich for a day in late June, the Bahn offers a 5½ hr trip leaving St Goar at 9 AM with 2 connections in Koblenz and Mannheim for 59,80€. That's $67.56 at today's exch rate per Oanda). For the same connection, Trainline shows a fare of $71.08, which is 5.2% more than the Bahn fare. Now, if you don't have a credit card with 0% exchange rate discount, you might have to pay a transaction fee with the Bahn, but it's unlikely to be 5%. In addition, Trainline now adds a "booking fee of $2.15, making their total charge $73.23.

Trainline shows the lowest fare at $61.81, but this is for an entirely regional connection of 8½ hrs with 4 changes. It uses a Quer-durchs-Land-Ticket which, for 2 adults (their kids free) costs 52€ ($58.75 today) from the Bahn, plus Trainline adds a booking fee of $1.85.

If you don't have a no fee credit card, you might have to pay the exchange rate fee with Trainline, even though the bill in US$, because they probably bill from the UK. It's called Dynamic Currency Conversion.

For Salzburg to Berchtesgaden, there is an RVO bus (#840) that goes from Salzburg Hbf to Berchtesgaden Hbf. Last time I took that bus the single trip adult fare was about half the price of an RVO day ticket (Tagesticket), which I think now is about 11€, so, for a one way trip, the bus is probably your least expensive option. I don't think the kids go free, but the child fare is probably half the adult fare. So the combined fare for 2 adults, 2 children on the bus to Berchtesgaden is probably a little more than 15€.

I've finally reviewed and analyzed all of the super helpful tips I received in this thread.

I've summarized our transit plans during our Germany trip in a Google sheet and output it to PDF.

You can find it at the URL below. If anyone sees any holes or has further suggestions, please let me know.

https://app.box.com/s/uy06ipcw51n09qqenb1yivogfyqr8wkv