Buying last minute ticket on the Deutsche Bahn

You could use local trains only and buy a Quer durch Lands ticket for 44 EUR and depart after 9 am M-F or anytime weekends. Unlimited travel for the day on local trains. The local trains take about 1 3/4 hours vs 1 hour using ICE trains.

Thanks Sam.

Am I able to purchase a “Quer durch Lands ticket” at the Gateway Gardens S-Bahn station which is one stop from Frankfurt airport?

Also does it include EC trains?

The QdL ticket Sam suggests does not need to be pre-purchased; if you DO, it's non-refundable... so don't. It will be available at the station on your day of travel. As he says, it does not tie you to a specific travel time, only the travel day, or to specific start/end stations. You can use for your first journey, your return journey, and as many journeys in between as you wish, and you can use it to travel anywhere you like that day within Germany on the regional trains (RE, RB, S, and others.) NO EC trains, IC trains, or ICE trains (high-speed trains = "Fernverkehr" are verboten.)

To find travel schedules for the regional trains, be sure to click on "only local transport" at the DB search page.

https://reiseauskunft.bahn.de/bin/query.exe/en

You can buy anywhere there is a ticket machine. In fact, I believe there is a service fee if you buy it from a human. You can also use the DB app on your phone to buy it.

Thank you.

Train tickets in Germany are by default flexible.

When you select a train in the booking interface that is so that the system knows what route and train category you want. But you get a ticket valid on any train on the route, in the chosen category, or lower.
It is only if you buy a Sparpreis or Supersparpries that your ticket is limited to the trains selected, but these are advance purchase tickets. Tickets bought on the day at the ticket machine will be Flexpreis, and are thus flexible.

WengenK, a flexpreis ticket. If I may ask:

I just looked at the DB app. Instead of waiting until the day I travel to buy the ticket back to Gateway Gardens from Heidelberg, could I buy that ticket today and by doing that, give myself the same flexibility to take any train to Gateway Gardens that day?

Also, the flexpreis option includes a City-Ticket. Would that City-Ticket be in effect in Heidelberg?

Thank you!

Two comments:

(1) To make your ticket fully flexible, you need to buy one that includes the highest product class, which is the ICE. So look for any connection that includes an ICE there and back, and book that (and yes, you can book the ticket at any time). Then you can really travel with any train and with any connection.

(2) The DB "city ticket" is only valid for a single trip with the city transport to reach from the station a certain destination in the city, so it is a rather useless affair if you want to use urban transport more often. In this case, a day ticket from the vending machine of the local carrier, in this case the VRN, is recommended.

Thank you! I bought the one way Flexpreis ticket from Heidelberg to Gateway Gardens for Tues Sept 26 that includes an ICE train. The flexibility is exactly what I wanted and the price is only €5 more than Super Sparpreis.