Another transportation Question ...

Dachau is a suburb of Munich and easily visited using Munich metro (MVV) transit. A Muenchen XXL Gruppen Tageskarte, for 15,40€, will cover the S-Bahn (S2) to Dachau Bahnhof and the bus (#726) to the Memorial.

Both Füssen (Neuschwanstein) and Mittenwald are accessible by regional trains from Munich. A Bayern-Ticket (Day ticket for unlimited use of regional trains in Bavaria) for 28€ for two people will cover your travel to/from either place. There are other day passes for more limited areas, such as the Regio-Ticket Allgäu-Schwaben (to Füssen) or the Regio-Ticket Werdenfels (to Mittenwald), that let you do the same trips for a few euro less.

For Munich to Innsbruck there are more options. Do you plan on doing it as a single day trip? Or will you spend at least a night there? Innsbruck is about 2 hours each way from Munich by the fastest route, making it a lot of traveling in one day for not very much time in Innsbruck. Will you be stopping in Mittenwald on the way to Innsbruck? Innsbruck is only about an hour from Mittenwald by the most scenic of routes for only 10,50€ per person, each way.

Are you talking about Selters near Limburg? For longer trips, you can get non-refundable, advance purchase discount tickets for a low as 29€ per person from the Bahn website. There are also all day passes for slower regional trains (Schönes-Wochenende and Quer-durchs-Land tickets).

For Mittenwald and Innsbruck we are thinking of only a day excursion for each place. Having to travel 2 hours there and then 2 hours back doesn't really damped it for us. I'm sure we can get an early train out of Munich and a later train out of Innsbruck and be fine. After all, here in the States, we travel the 4 1/2 hours to go to St. Louis for a day and are still able to get in all that we want to do. Thank you for the help. I was hoping there would be someway to get a ticket that can cover multiple trains like that but since the dollar is getting closer to the Euro, those prices aren't too terrible.

OK, then. For Innsbruck for a day, go to the Bahn website (link above) and select Munich to Innsbruck and pick one of the ECs. If you go to the website 92 days before your travel day, you will find Savings Fares of 19€ per person each way. Savings Fares are train specific and non-refundable, so make sure you can commit to a specific train.

As for Mittenwald, the Bayern-Ticket is only for travel on a workdays after 9 AM, so try to go on a weekend day when you can leave any time after midnight. If you want to leave on a workday earlier than 9:32, you can purchase, in addition to the Bayern-Ticket, 2 3 zone Munich metro tickets to Tutzing for 8,10€ per person. The 8:32 train gets to Tutzing at 8:59. When it leaves Tutzing at 9:01, the Bayern-Ticket will be valid for the rest of the day.

Thank you for the help. Trying to figure this out is going to be the death of me. I'll have to do all my scheduling before hand to get a feel of what I'm supposed to do. Again, thank you.

Oebb.at will offer 19 euro tickets Munich / Innsbruck 6 months out if you are ready to buy, this is the Austrian rail website. Of course if the cheapest tickets have sold here wait for Bahn.com to release their cheap tickets later-- it's a different pot. If it's not blue sky (1 in 3 odds) Innsbruck may not be worth the trip.

I would really encourage you to try to tie Mittenwald and Innsbruck together for a single trip. It's less than an hour from Mittenwald to Innsbruck (and a scenic trip, at that) and the fare is only 10,50€/person. Plan to stay overnight in Mittenwald, Innsbruck, or somewhere in between. You can return from Innsbruck via the Inn river and Rosenheim.

For the dates you give, except for May 10, the EC is only running from Innsbruck to Rosenheim. DB shows the fastest connection from there as a Railjet to Munich. It looks like the lowest Savings Fare would be 29€/pers (58€ for two). And that fare would be train specific and non-refundable.

If you want little more flexibility to stay longer in Innsbruck, albeit with a 40 min longer trip back to Munich, you can buy a 33€ Einfach-Raus-Ticket, a day ticket for two-five people on regional trains in Austria, in Innsbruck for Innsbruck to Kufstein, on the Inn river on the border, and a 26€ Meridian Guten Tag ticket (like the Bayern-Ticket but for a smaller area, southern Bavaria). You take the S-Bahn down the Inn to Kufstein where you pick up a Meridian regional train through Rosenheim to Munich. It will cost 1€ more and take 40 minutes more, but you won't be tied to a specific train.

This is tremendous information, thank you very much. When you give me a price on train ticket, is most of these per person or for 2? Also, is anyone familiar with the Karwendelbahn in Mittenwald? Is that something easily accessible once in Mittenwald, by foot?

"When you give me a price on train ticket, is most of these per person or for 2?"

Unless I've specifically said "per person" the price I gave you was for you and your wife, and I've usually said two people.

The Meridian Guten Tag ticket is 21€ for the first person, 5€ for each extra person to 5 people total. It's 26€ for you and your wife.

The Gruppen (group) Tageskarte in Munich is the price for 2-5 people.

The 19€ price mentioned by Tom was for one person.

You have tremendous knowledge about this. Thank you for that. I'm going to guess, going out on a limb here, you've been to Munich a few times?

9 trips, over three weeks, since 1987, plus two times just passing through.

I wish I could travel like that. If it's for business, are they are hiring? :)

I'm not sure about public transportation, but Google maps shows that it is a 1 km (about ½ mi) walk from the Mittenwald Bahnhof to the Karwendelbahn Talbahnhof. I think the Haus I stayed at in Mittenwald was a little farther than that from the Bahnhof. At night, I could see the lights of the mountain station of the Karwendelbahn from my bedroom window.

By the way, can we buy tickets at the train station and how easy are they to navigate in ordering? We'll have to take the train from Munich to our hotel too. Trying to get all the information I can.

You need to get familiar with the Munich metro website.

A 4-zone single trip ticket, 10,80€ for each person will cover you on the S-Bahn from the airport to one of the S-Bahn stations in town, plus your travel using any other conveyance (U-Bahn, streetcar, or bus) all the way to your hotel, as long as you keep moving directly to it.

On the other hand, a Gesamtnetz Gruppen Tageskarte (day ticket for 2-5 people for the entire network) for 23,20€ will cover any and all travel that day for up to five people by any conveyances of the MVV. It will cover you if you take a roundabout route to your hotel or if you want to go out and use any conveyance after you check in.

I forgot to mention that Austria uses the "British" system (my terminology) where you insert your credit card into a kiosk and enter in a code that then spits out an actual ticket. Thus you need to pay for postage, $5, if your trip starts outside Austria and you purchased online tickets. The German (and Italian) systems do not require physical tickets in hand. Also the German system allows free seat reservations in first class.

"the German system allows free seat reservations in first class."

I think that is more accurately the German systems requires a seat reservation in first class. I've always thought the 1st class fare was 50% more than 2nd class. For Frankfurt Hbf to Nürnberg Hbf, for example, the 2nd class fare is 55€. 50% more would be 82,50€, but the Bahn website shows the standard 1st class fare, with seat reservation included, at 92€. It looks like a seat reservation for someone with a "ticket only" (ie a rail pass or a Bahn card 100) is only 4,50, but I don't see anything to say that a seat reservation is required for them.

See this paragraph (1.10) on the Bahn website.

"Flexibility of travel is to be maintained for customers with a BahnCard 100 or a point-to-point season
ticket. "

So does this mean that BahnCard and pass holders don't need to reserve but can stand if all seats taken by reservation?

I looked at that website, thank you by the way, pretty informative. But, I wasn't sure when it said entire network, if that meant train to the center of Munich and to Dachau or Mittenwald is in that entire network. If so, might as well just get that for a week so we don't have to keep buying tickets every day. Thanks.

The Gesamtnetz means the entire network of MVV (Munich metro, see map). The map shows all the rail stations within the network. Stations with a little train symbol are also regional rail stations. Regional train transportation within MVV network is also included in the MVV tickets.

Dachau is inside the entire network (Zone 2). The airport is inside the MVV (Zone 4). Mittenwald is not in the MVV (but it is in Bavaria and covered by the Bayern-Ticket).

"might as well just get that for a week"

The MVV is divided into four zones and each zone is divided into 4 rings, ergo 16 rings in the MVV. Tageskarte (day tickets) are sold by zones (Inner zone, inner two zones, outer three zones, and all zones, all for one day only. The only multi-day Tageskarte is the 3 day ticket for the inner zone only.) Tageskarten (pl. of Tageskarte) are sold for one, or two to five, people.

Week tickets are sold by the number of rings and for one person only. For example, a 16 ring ticket is 60,20 for one person, 120,40€ for two people. Unless you know exactly to what place you are planning to go, what rings they are in, and the boundaries of the rings, I would not recommend using a week ticket.

By the way, if you use a Bayern-Ticket for a day (covers regional trains in all of Bavaria), it will also cover any conveyance inside the MVV (as well as Nürnberg and several other Verkehrsverbünde (metro districts).