Germany/Austria/Northern Italy

If you are a smart and experienced driver, I would encourage you to drive as it adds so much flexibility to your trip. If you discover that you would rather be moving on, you can. It gets complicated if you book all your accommodations ahead. Seredipity may find you at somewhere you want to stay longer. In a car you can drive a couple miles out of your way and stay on a farm B&B. Friends of mine also stay in condos/apt. in big cities and do day tours. When we travel we stay just outside of big cities and take a commuter train or bus into town. Just remember there are bucket list places with too many people at certain times, just go where the sheeple aren't. Sounds like your itinerary will work.

This is not a complete comparison. You must add in the time to park the car, the cost of the car sitting in car parking lots for 8 of 14 days, the cost of violating ZTL rules (if you don't know what that means, you need to find out before you rent), and the cost of the traffic tickets you are likely to get.

When you take the train, you do not need to worry about tickets, parking problems, and so forth. You just get on the train, and drink the coffee you get on the train, and read your Rick Steves guide about the next destination.

If you want to get to a trail head, hire a taxi. Mostly you will NOT need a car.

I'm not sure that Google maps is as accurate as other sources. Rome2rio suggests that the car (1 h 38M) is longer than the train (3H 13M) but not by much. You need to also rent to car, figure out the route, etc.

We've been to Europe 8 times in the last 12 years. We rented in 2 situations:

1) the 2011 trip with 5 in the party - a car is much cheaper for a larger party
2) the trip to Bretagne which is poorly serviced by trains.

If you are a party of 2, you will be better served in your trip by trains and buses.

Is it not possible to fly into Frankfurt and out of Munich (a "multi-city" ticket rather than a roundtrip)? That would avoid that long, next-to-last-day drive from Garmisch to Frankfurt. Should you have to make that drive and take the fastest route, which seems to be through Austria, you'll probably need to buy an Austrian highway vignette for your car.

I’d go with a car. We’ve done similar trips to yours before. Some opinions.

Flying into and out of Munich for your destinations on this trip makes much more sense. Either that or fly into Frankfurt and out of Munich. Check fares. We did this before.

With a car don’t stay in Salzburg town. We have always preferred to stay in the Berchtesgaden area (5 times) and visit Salzburg for a day. It’s only 40 minutes easy drive away.

Skip Kastelruth and stay in either the Val Gardena or Alta Badia for the Dolomites. I would make this 3 nights and take a night from Garmisch or just skip the night in Munich. We’ve driven from Rothenburg to Berchtesgaden before.

The Austrian Vignette (toll sticker for highways in Austria) only costs €10 (for 10 consecutive days) and is well worth having.

When going to Europe, it's always best to book MULTICITY tickets, that way you don't circle back. Fly into one city and home from another. Maybe fly into Frankfurt and out of Munich.

Ah the car vs train debate. We have driven for most of our trips in Europe, but that it was due to our desire to see remote areas and have the ultimate flexibility when traveling. It is not for everyone.

It may cost more for two people, but we accepted that. You are not guaranteed to get a ticket, but it could happen. Parking can be a challenge, but is not insurmountable.

Trains do come with problems as well. Stations are not always near where you are staying. The times may not be convenient and stations can be confusing. Train service can be disrupted.

In the end it is a personal decision. If you do not enjoy driving at home, the you will not enjoy it in Europe. For your trip, I would drive, but that is only an opinion. Have a great trip.

"For example, according to google maps, it takes 2 hours to drive from the Frankfurt airport to Rothenberg and it takes 6 hrs 35 mins by train."

??? Let's just agree first of all that not everything you read on the Internet is true, and it's not easy to judge the reliability of your sources!

German Railways (DB, the train operator in Germany) shows that trains reach Rothenburg from the FRA terminal in less than 3 hours. Example for tomorrrow's date:

8:02 - 10:51
10:01 - 8:51
https://reiseauskunft.bahn.de/bin/query.exe/en

Assuming the 2-hr. driving time is accurate, there's hardly any difference once you've shuttled to the car depot, signed paperwork, etc., and finally hit the road.

What is hugely significant after arrival on Day 1 after an overnight transatlantic flight is the driving task if you choose the car. A red-eye flight across many time zones often results in a lack of adequate sleep, drowsiness, jet-lag, and general unreadiness to drive alertly and safely. You'll be driving an unfamiliar car in unfamiliar territory with road signs in an unfamiliar language as well, which adds to the driving task.

Sometimes I arrive at FRA rested and ready, sometimes not. The thing is, it's not predictable. There are too many variables to know in advance. Crying babies, flight delays, health conditions, all sorts of things can have their way with you - or not. So it's best to plan any travel on Day 1 by train, I think, or to stay over in Frankfurt or elsewhere nearby.

Even after that, I would never choose a car for your particular route. I've done each of those train routes several times successfully and would gleefully opt to do them again the same way. (We actually stayed in Klausen/Chiusa on our trip into the Dolomites, so not precisely the same train trips, but nearly.) A bus took us to our hiking trailhead from there.

In G-P it's much the same... but here, all guests receive a guest card which provides free local bus trips, discounts, and freebies:

https://zugspitzarena.com/en/Accommodation-Tickets/Guest-Card
https://zugspitzarena.com/en/Info-Service/Public-Transportation

How many are you?

Thanks for the info everyone! I appreciate the information. We are a party of 3.

A red-eye flight across many time zones often results in a lack of adequate sleep, drowsiness, jet-lag, and general unreadiness to drive alertly and safely. You'll be driving an unfamiliar car in unfamiliar territory with road signs in an unfamiliar language as well...

A red-eye flight across many time zones often results in a lack of adequate sleep, drowsiness, jet-lag, and general unreadiness to drive alertly and safely. You'll be driving an unfamiliar car in unfamiliar territory with road signs in an unfamiliar language as well...

Russ makes some excellent points, and Frankfurt isn't the easiest place in which to drive. Even though I lived a couple of places between Frankfurt and Rothenburg, on our last visit we flew into Frankfurt and took the train straight to Rothenburg with no problems at all. You can get everywhere you listed by train, but if you must have a car consider this: Upon arrival, take the train to Wurzburg and stay there the first night. Tour the Prince Bishop's Residenze the next morning, have lunch, and then get a car and drive the old road to Rothenburg. Also, when in the Garmisch area, take a short trip to Oberamagau. Google those two places and see what you think.