Bavarian Alps Home Base: Munich, Salzburg or Innsbruck

The State of Bavaria is not in Austria so if you want a Bavarian home base, the only city listed that applies is Munich.

You might do best to use Innsbruck as a home base, as it's about 2 hours south of Munich and southwest of Salzburg. The mountains there are absolutely breathtaking, and we enjoy getting up on the mountainside driving from village to village.
You can easily get to Fuessen and Neuschwanstein from there.
Zell-am-See and the Grossglockner High Alpine Highway is the second highest mountain in Europe, and it's a great day trip down to Lienz, Austria. I think it's the most beautiful place I've ever been.
You can also go through the Brenner Pass into Northern Italy and into the Dolomites. I've even made a day trip out of Innsbruck down to Venice and back.
The mountains south of Munich (in Bavaria) are also easily reached within an hour of Innsbruck.
The Western Tirol has hundreds and hundreds of great bed and breakfasts and small country inns that service the winter sports venues.

On a 3 generation family trip in 2013 we spent 2weeks using Munich as our home base. It was great to unpack and not worry about packing and unpacking. On days we didn’t want to travel there were so much to do in Munich. We took day trips to Salzburg, Garmisch and a tour to the Neuschwanstein area with Mike’s Bike Tours. We would of traveled to more areas but we were with my elderly mother and wanted to spend as much time as possible with her. In terms of cost make sure you make reservations during a non trade fair week when rates go up (just google Munich Trade Fairs ). Our original plans had us spending time in Munich, moving on to Salzburg for 2fulll days and spending our last day/night in the Munich Airport area since we had a very early flight out. We decided to not do this because of mom’s health issues.

You mention Alps, but maybe it is the general location and other priorities you have in mind? If it is about mountains, then of the three, Innsbruck might be a good choice. As mentioned by another poster, it is easy to navigate to Munich and Salzburg, but also to visit farther south on the same train lines to the Dolomites.

Continental

Got it.

Thanks everyone for the recommendations, will help me in planning. Appreciate it.

I've been to this area several times; I head up the Ski and Snowboard group where I teach so it's usually with 15-20 teens to boot - lol! I'd like to echo what others have said, if I may, and say that Innsbruck makes an excellent home base! I really started to look at things to do there last time (Feb 2018) and it is such a nifty little city that is so beautiful. It provides access to so many places as well; there's a train and a small airport there. I suggest looking at the Grauer Bar (the Grey Bear) if you put it back on your list.
Personally, I found Salzburg to be more of a 1 day affair...but that is me. Munich, well my husband and I would love to be expats there, so we're a tad biased...tons to do!

David,

Why do you continue post this lie? It is neither helpful nor fair to people looking for advice. You've been doing this for years. Why do you simply post untruths?

"....Grossglockner High Alpine Highway is the second highest mountain in Europe."

The Grossglockner isn't even on the highest in Europe list:

1- Mont Blanc - France
2- Monte Rosa-Switzerland
3- Dom-Switzerland
4- Liskamm - Border Switzerland/Italy
5- Weisshorn - Switzerland
6- Matterhorn - Switzerland
7- Dent Blanche - Border Switzerland/France
8- Grand Combin- Swiss/Italy
9- Finsteraarhorn - Switzerland
10- Zinalrothorn - Switzerland

The Grossglockner Hochalpenstrasse comes in 15th as far as elevation for a pass in Europe.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_highest_paved_roads_in_Europe