Confused on booking train travel within Germany!

there is a DB site that is tn English - bahn.com

Thanks, @stan - It's not that it's not in the English language, it's just confusing since we don't know the area or what to expect.

With dates someone might help you. A random check of Boppard > Zell am See is a 8 to 10 hour trip with not less than 3 changes. Sounds pretty miserable. Look for a bus or s car.

The DB Navigator shows a convenient connection with a transfer in Frankfurt and then another one in St. Johann just before your final destination, departing at 9:16 a.m. Please be prepared that the first train from Boppard to Frankfurt will be very crowded, and don’t hesitate to ask to sit in the seat next to someone who has put it's bag on it . Unfortunately, people’s behavior on the train (and not just there) leaves more and more to be desired.

We definitely need at least 30 minutes transfer time to keep it from being stressful, esp in places like Frankfurt.

You don’t need 30 minutes to change trains.

That schedule gives you 1+ hrs in both Frankfurt and Munich. Should be plenty of time, just kind of miserably long and a bad hour to arrive.

Other schedules... 9:16 - 20:22 with the same transfer parameters gives you 1:20 minutes in Frankfurt and 0:38 minutes in Salzburg. I like that one better - and it has only two transfers to make instead of three.

For such a long trip, my strategy is usually NOT to spend a full sighsteeing day traveling. Have you thought about breaking up the trip with an overnight stop, possibly in Munich or Salzburg? Then you might have time to do something for half a day on each day, at least.

You don’t need 30 minutes to change trains.

You dont "need" to do anything on holiday except what makes you comfortable and brings you enjoyment. If 30 minutes does that for you, then that's okay.

The itinerary mentioned by Fritz has 1 hour and 20 minutes at Frankfurt Hbf, but only 13 minutes at St Johann im Pongau. However it is on the same platform, so you just get off and wait for the connecting train. If you miss it due to a late arriving train, the next train to Zell am See is 32 minutes later.

I'm going back to the original question because there are two screen dumps - and there should be more.

"Current results" is displaying something akin to google search results- in that you then need to click on each to see the details! All this really shows is the number of trains/transfers in the journey and the cheapest ticket prices available. The grey/green blocks for each train indicate the proportion of the total time spent on each. Black is the highest quality of train, fading through greys, green is basically city suburban network. If you click on one it will give a full itinery, which if you don't know the geography may not mean much but it also shows the transfer allowances. Whether or not you think they are tight and others disagree doesn't matter, you can alter them! In the itinery near to where it says you have 20 minutes or 5 minutes etc. is a box marked "Increase Transfer Time" and if you click on that you can set a different margin, and it will then recalculate. You can ask to arrive earlier or depart later, if one of the trains is a green "S-bahn" then definately alter that because they run at high frequenices and this gives the best chance of success.

But Fritz has also pointed out that the best option is 09:16, in which most time is spent in the higher quality train and the transfer times are more than enough. In fact the time at Frankfurt allows for a late breakfast! After that you will then get into pricing because when you click on the price it will offer others, the rule is the cheapest will have more refund/cancellation conditions that the dearest.

Boppard > Zell am See is a 8 to 10 hour trip with not less than 3
changes. Sounds pretty miserable. Look for a bus or s car

A bus will be an order of magnitude more miserable than the train.

I tink part of the confusion stems from the fact that trains are not "once a day" here like in the US, but "once an hour" or better sometimes. So you search between two places, and get tons of options. So what do you take?

I usually pick the fastest one that has me leave after breakfast and arrive before dinner.

So I would book the 9:44 that gets me to Zell am See in 8:30, with 4 changes. Given that trains run at least hourly, if not better, along the route I would not worry to much about missed connections. If you miss a connection due to a delay you take the next train.