Colmar, France to Rothenburg ob der Tauber

Since this involves regional trains crossing borders, you can book at www.trainline.eu
What is the family make-up and ages? There maybe ways to reduce the price by booking separate ticket in France and Germany.

For the German leg, search for trains from Kehl (a few km across the border from Strasbourg). That will give you more and cheaper connections to select from. Buy a separate ticket for the Colmar - Kehl connection.

The DB website ( https://www.bahn.com/en/view/index.shtml ) only sells tickets for trains within, to or from Germany, even though they will shows trains in most European countries. The first leg of your trip is Colmar to Strasbourg, which is a French internal train.
The same is true of any other national rail website.

Go to https://www.trainline.eu/ as Sam suggested.

It will be my husband, me and our 10 and 12 year old traveling. We thought about getting a car but I think I remember hearing it's expensive to take a car from one country to another. Is that true?

Thanks so much for info!
Heather

Trainline was showing a total price of 108 EUR for a random midweek date in July, I guessed 2 adults and 2 13 yo's. That matches up with a ticket of 60 EUR from Colmar to Kehl (in Germany across the Rhine from Strasbourg) plus 48 EUR from Kehl to Rothenburg with a Sparpreis advance purchase nonrefunadable ticket which were on the French and German rail websites.

If you returned the car in France, there would be no cost. Another option would be to send the driver on a bus and train trip to Freiburg and rent a car there and bring it back to Colmar. It is only a 1 1/2 hour trip taking the bus from Colmar to Breisach, Germany, then train to Freiburg, rent a car, drive back would probably just be 1 hour.

Heather - what's the rest of your trip look like? Are you traveling further in France before Colmar? We're taking a similar trip and renting a car to explore Alsace, but we are picking up and returning in Germany. If you share some of your other logistics before and after, there might be a better option for you. (My research indicated that we needed a car in Alsace to explore off the beaten path, but depends on what you want to do.)

We will be in Paris before Colmar, then heading to Rothenburg. From there we'll go to Fussen (we'll pick a car up in Munich), and then after a few days, take an overnight train from Munich to Venice. We'll spend a few days in Venice, a night in Orvieto, a few days in Rome and then fly home. Our trip will take 3 weeks and we are trying to do most of it by rail. We'd love to spend more time in Alasce but will only have a day and 1/2 there. If we didn't have kids w/ us we'd be doing many of the wine tours but since the kiddos will be w/ us, we'll be lucky to hit 1 or 2 :)

"Paris... Colmar, then heading to Rothenburg... Fussen (we'll pick a car up in Munich)... overnight train from Munich to Venice... 3 weeks and we are trying to do most of it by rail."

Colmar-R'burg-Munich by rail involves 10 hours or so on 8-10 different trains.

The Russ family has done two car trips and a dozen+ rail trips in Germany and seen nearly every corner of the country. We still have a few new places on our bucket list and a few trips left in us, trips we will surely be doing by train. Not one of us wants to go back to the car. I definitely support your decision to use trains.

What I don't necessarily support is your choice of destinations. IMO there are no "must-see" places - see what you want to see - but then, how does a first-time visitor to Europe know what he/she wants to see, exactly, and what towns to stay in?? It looks to me that with Colmar, R'burg and Füssen on your plate, your main goal might be small, old-world towns (maybe Munich is just about the car rental and a train to Venice?) which is fine, fine, fine IMO - visit those smaller places. But I think you'd be wise to swap out 1 or 2 of your choices for different smaller places, towns/cities that...

• are more easily connected by train as you move between Paris and Munich and...

• are NOT so heavily assaulted by hordes of international tourists throughout the summer (which surely compromises the cultural experience.)

Colmar, Rothenburg, and Füssen are all towns at the end of trunk railways and/or can be tricky to access. Paris-Munich is a fast route that can take less than 6 hours. What if you stayed/visited some smaller places on/near that route in their place? It is primarily super-touristy Rothenburg (NOT the only old walled town in Germany, btw) that draws you away from your route.

Suggestions/Options:

Paris-Strasbourg: Strasbourg is right on the direct route to Munich and from Paris is less than 2 hrs. by train. Drop bags in Strasbourg, visit Colmar (30 min. train ride) and return to Strasbourg. Next day: day trip to the old walled town of Gengenbach (about 40 min.) and Gutach (a bit further into the Black Forest) in Germany.

Strasbourg-Günzburg (also right on the direct route) has a nice old town center. Legoland Deutschland is there and easy to reach.

Or maybe Strasbourg-Augsburg: Augsburg is right on your route and also on the Romantic Road, a good base from which to visit other RR towns by train - Nördlingen (old walled town with "Wehrgang" walkway) Harburg, and to the south Landsberg, and Füssen are all possibilities (DIRECT trains go to Füssen from Augsburg in under 2 hours; why not just use the train if Füssen is "must-do?")

Thanks Russ for your feedback! I appreciate it since you've been there and seen those places. I will look into some of those other cities and see if we should redo that part of our trip.

Thanks!
Heather