Deutschland Ticket v rail pass within Germany

One key element to consider is the dates of your trip. Will it fall within one calendar month or across two? One calendar month makes the D ticket more attractive than two.

I suggest you price out your expected journeys and do a cost comparison.

I personally love the D ticket for its ease of use.

As suggested, price it out. And, for me, I factor in the value of not needing to spend time on an app getting tickets. I almost always do a D-Ticket plus ICE when I travel to Germany.

Hi Pam, here's what I did just a couple of days ago. I'm going to be in Germany with my sister in December for several weeks, and we will be there entirely in December. I wanted to compare costs for all the tickets that we would be buying versus just getting the Deutschland pass, but I was feeling lazy, so I actually turned it over to AI.

I used Google's AI because it's easiest to get to. I gave it a list of my destinations in Germany, the approximate dates I would be going to and from, how many tickets I needed, and then asked it for a comparison of cost between purchasing the tickets separately (even using Bayern passes and so on) and getting a Deutschland pass. It came back about five minutes later with the list (all broken down and itemized) and showed me that I would be spending around €254 for all the tickets that we needed (fro two people) and only €126 for the D-tickets for two people.

I don't know how much you're traveling, but we are actually going to quite a few towns while we're there, mostly staying only one or two nights at the most in each place as we're visiting the Christmas markets. That made a lot of sense. I did double-check it when I had more energy, and it was very accurate, so just something to think about.

Just my experience, but you can pay for a Deutschland ticket in 2-3 days of travel, so definitely go that route, not only for the regional trains, but local transport. For Munich to Baden-Baden, if you want to do that direct, I would probably spring the extra for an ICE ticket, mainly because it would cut the travel time by about 2 hours (~4 hours vs 5+) but if you don't mind a long day, you can do it just on the D-ticket. Right now, ICE tickets for December run anywhere from 30 to 50 euro for that trip.

I wouldn't waste time and money on travel to Baden-Baden. If you are going there for a spa experience, well, there are all sorts of spa towns you can visit that are much closer to Munich. Bad Woerishofen, a top spa town, is just 90 minutes from Munich by regional train (the Deutschland-ticket works for all regional trains.) Therme Erding and Therme Bad Aibling are even closer and also accessible with the D-Ticket. Spa resources:

https://www.tripadvisor.com/Attractions-g187293-Activities-c40-t255-Bavaria.html

I wonder what you'll be doing on the trip to Baden Baden? I've been around there frequently - I use the circular shopping mall as I drive past - and have stayed at what was the Sofitel many years ago.

Are you going for the Casino or for a concert? Or for the black forest experience (Baden Baden is not in the Black Forest, despite some guides saying it is)? Or for the spa experience (I went once following the book before I realized southern and central Germany is honeycombed with fabulous spas - the aforementioned Erding which is northeast of Munich in the general direction of the airport is the world's biggest and is absolutely fabulous with something for absolutely everybody, the S-Bahn from Munich stops very close)?

Or is there another reason, maybe family?

If you don't detour to Baden Baden you can put a whole day of travelling back in your time wallet.

I will be in Germany beginning 1 Dec for ten days and plan on traveling a bit. The advantage to a Deutch Ticket is it allows you on any local train at any time. No tight schedule to keep. Further, you get local public transit as well in at least, Munich and Salzburg. The negative is it does not include high speed trains. I will suffer that for the convenience of go when I want.

To that end, I purchased my ticket today through the Man in Seat 61 site. It cost 66€ or $76.94

the Deutschland ticket does get you regional transportation TO and FROM Salzburg but it does NOT give you any local transport within Austria, specifically not in Salzburg.

It does provide local S-Bahn and bus/tram/U-Bahn throughout Germany, not just Bavaria or Munich in addition to regional trains throughout the country.

Very interested in any advice Nigel, I am thinking Baden baden as a Black Forest option with ICE train options between it and Berlin as well as ICE train between Baden Baden and Munich.

Baden-Baden is about high-end spas and casinos, catering historically to wealthy globetrotters. It has very little to do with the Black Forest and its way of life, and it's a weak travel base since the train station lies at some distance outside the town center and requires a 20-minute bus ride to get there from town.