Following Rick Steve's Germany Itinerary - Do I Need a Car?

I personally enjoy the train. My experience is that the driver of a car has less opportunity to enjoy scenery since he/she must always be focused on the road ahead. Add in unfamiliar roads and driving practices and you have added another layer of stress.

You didn’t mention dates of travel or budget. These would also play into your decision.

The Deutschland (or “D” ticket), allows for unlimited use of all local transportation and regional trains throughout Germany for a calendar month for only 49 euros. It does not include high speed intercity trains. I think the majority of your travel would be covered by the “D” ticket. Since Germany is the focus of your trip, I think you would find tremendous savings by utilizing it.

I enjoy using trains and find it much more relaxing. I haven't been to a lot of places in Germany, but I would HATE having a car in Munich because I'd want to stay city center. A day trip to Salzburg is cheap and easy using the Bayern ticket.

Mosel is doable with public transportation, but harder. We have done the Rhine via river cruise and car, and both were nice. There are day cruise trips on both the Mosel and the Rhine that would eliminate a need for a car in those areas.

I think with a few modifications, you could construct a nice trip using public transportion. It might take a bit longer in a car and with a car you may not be able to explore the Black Forest very much, unless you did some kind of tour.

I'd set up a route, and see what makes sense via train and then if you feel necessary, rent a car for the portion of the trip that a car is actually helpful. Just a quick look at the itinerary and assuming you'd do an order of cities that makes sense, you might consider visiting Munich, Salzbug via public transportation, pick up a car for Rhine and Mosel, get rid of the car before Berlin. I have not found one way car rentals within one country to be significantly more than round trip.

Dates of travel:
Arrive in Frankfurt: Aug 28, 2024
Depart Berlin: Sep 17, 2024.

In the past, following RS's guidebooks with many of his side-trips, it was pretty much essential to have a car. I look at the high level map of his suggested itinerary, and we've done most of that (in pieces) over the years, and that was all using a car to get around. To me, the driving was fun and easy. The parking - there and anywhere - was frustrating for sure. For Munich, we parked in a big parking garage a little bit out of the center (in RS's book? or maybe from the hotel's recommendation). Never made the Dresden/Berlin leg with a car, but the other places are really not awful for cars when I was last there. The rule would always be to find full day/multi-day parking and LEAVE the car until headed to the next destination.

As an example, if you have the Germany guidebook (and the link), and look through his plans for Day 7-8, a car would be optimal for these days - especially as "normal" folks would just spend a whole day of energy in Neuschwanstein plus the walk up, hike to the overlook bridge, castle tour, slow meander back to town. Throw in Hohenschwangau and hours of time are eaten up such that a car tends to be the most efficient way to get right back to your hotel (if it's in Fussen or Reutte). And I bet going from Fussen to Salzburg, the guidebook likely suggests Oberammergau or other spots to stop along the drive. IOW, a car is baked in for a lot of that "cover large swaths of a country" touring RS often recommends.

Day 7: Visit Neuschwanstein, other castles, and explore the region (sleep in Füssen or Reutte)
Day 8: More Bavaria/Tirol, then drive to Salzburg (sleep in Salzburg)

There are too many destinations in that itinerary and too many ground miles. Berlin is seriously shortchanged as regards time. And Rick is offering you the most heavily-touristed places you might possibly go. And you are traveling at a very busy time of the year, with no reservations anywhere so far, I assume.

So what you have is an opportunity to visit some LESS-popular destinations. Other nice Bavarian cities he does not mention (Bamberg and Regensburg for example) which are lesser known but better than some of Rick's picks might offer availability and experience. Do a little research. It's late to be planning train journeys. I reluctantly advise you to rent a car and also look into these theme routes...

The German Fairytale Route
The German Half-Timbered house Routes
The German Wine Route
The German Castle Route

We lived in Germany 6 years with our own car and had great trips to small towns and natural wonder sights.

We have had over 20 return trips and only used trains as we mainly wanted to visit cities and towns. We have much enjoyed train travel.

It depends on what types of sights you want to see. I would not try to see it all, no matter the mode of travel. The best way to sightsee for us is on foot. taking time to absorb what we see.

As others noted, what HAVE YOU PLANNED already? With just a bit of time left before you depart, do you have the MUST SEES and the timed tickets or similar that will dictate the pacing and path of your trip?

Having done the RS approach to travel in our 20s and 30s, we started tapering off the GO-GO-GO pace in our 40s, and now have traveled enough that we use our own experience to pick and choose from RS and other sources available, but go at a pace more enjoyable to 50yr olds :)

If you are going to get a "D" ticket, get one for September only. It will cover Sept 1 through when you leave. Just PM me if you want any help in how to get the D ticket. I use the MVV app. It will cover a day trip from Munich to Salzberg and back no need for an extra Bayern Ticket.

The idea of combining train travel with a day or two of car rental makes some sense.

Carol now retired:
Is the "D" ticket the best one to get around Germany? Do you think it gives you the best flexibility?

We just bought the flights as a cheap price came up, so we're still trying to learn how to navigate Germany.

Back in the pre-smartphone era, I can't even remember what I used to get around. Probably my Lonely Planet Germany, maybe the Rick Steves Germany at the time. Are they worthwhile or is simply using Tripadvisor what people do nowadays?

The D-Ticket is good for the whole country, but only on regional trains. It was designed in essence for residents of Germany for commuting and for trips of shorter distances... not for tourists attempting to cover longer distances (like some of the ones you intend to adopt from Rick Steves suggested travel itinerary. ) Using these regional trains will normally require significant additional travel time as well as more changes of train for a given itinerary.

The travel leg Freiburg > Füssen (7-8 hours on 5-6 different regional trains) is especially messy, even when
the faster long-distance trains are used.

Also, the D-Ticket would be two D-tickets (each) - or one D-Ticket plus additional p2p tickets - since it covers only one calendar month and you are traveling over 2 months.

For most of those journeys the IC/ICE/EC trains would be the normal choice of travelers. And if you want FLEXIBILITY of scheduling, then the Eurailpass for Germany, which covers those trains and all regional trains as well, is the standard option:

https://www.eurail.com/en/eurail-passes/one-country-pass/german-rail-pass

A railpass doesn't cover most inner-city transport, so a combination of pass and D-Ticket, which could also be used for certain shorter train trips, could work for you.

However, with your flight less than 2 weeks away, you are likely to find this Rick Steves itinerary problematic for other reasons (crowded trains and destinations, desirable lodging that is also near the train stations you will be using, pacing, etc.) which is why I suggested creating your own trip and using the car (despite my intense preference for train travel.)