How to travel the Rhine Valley area with 2-3 night stay in Bacharach, without car.

I like it as a home base - 14 days in past, 7 more coming up.

Rhine cruise - go Bingen or Ruedesheim to St. Goar or Boppard. Take train to start town and show ticket for 20% discount on boat ride. Visit other towns by train on way back.

I always get the RP lander group ticket which is good for about every place you want to go.

Hi!
Most of your questions are answered in the RS Guide Book, along with many others that you haven't asked yet.
RS has a great narrative, as you glide along the Rhine, similar to his "walking tours" guides.
This is beautiful country, and you will enjoy this trip.
Safe travels!

We've stayed three times in Bacharach. The town is very small, quiet town--and it's really not a destination as much as just a place to spend the night. But you could do day trips out of there if you had a car.

Bacharach is a great home base. Several steamer lines go up and down the Rhine from there. See KD Rhine for one example. There are other cruise lines. Most hotels supply or rent bicycles and there is a bike path down to St Goar and beyond. AirB&B may or may not have bikes. Ask. Trains run up and down both sides of the Rhine. Bacharach is on the west bank, but if you go to St Goar you can cross by ferry and pick up the train line on the east side, or vice versa. Marksburg Castle (Braubach) is on the east side and is a great stop. Cruise down and train back is easy enough. Cruise is slow, train is fast (it is just not that far). Mainz and Koblenz are the ends of the romantic Rhine, but one need not go that far in either direction unless you want to.
https://www.kdrhine.com
Stops along the River:
https://www.kdrhine.com/rhineschedule.htm
https://www.bahn.com/en/view/index.shtml

https://www.marksburg.de/en/

The RS guidebook is quite good for stops and side trips.

Here is the schedule for the K-D boats.
https://www.kdrhine.com/rhineschedule.htm
Take the train to Bingen (Stadt) as it is an easy walk to the dock, and there is really nothing to see between Mainz and Bingen. Then get off at Boppard and take a train back to Bacharach from there, or across the river by ferry to Braubach and visit Marksburg Castle.

Nearly everyone here will tell you to stay in Bacharach - that's what Rick recommends most heavily, that's what they did, and they enjoyed their time on the Rhine, so that's what they recommend.

But after many stays in the area over many years in several different towns, including Osterspai, Bingen, Boppard, Oberwesel, Bacharach, St. Goar, and Koblenz, I'll suggest instead that you pick St. Goar. As you've already discovered, from Bacharach, you have to use two trains to take the best cruise - one to Bingen to board, another back "home" to Bacharach after your cruise ends in St. Goar (or Boppard.) Other St. Goar advantages: I just discussed them briefly in this thread:

https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/germany/rudesheim-st-goar-or-bacharach

That said, with one exception in one of my Bingen hotel experiences, I have never had a bad room or a bad time on the Rhine. It's just a nice place to spend time.

Thanks for the posts. You guys are great! I'll read more from RS.
Thanks again!

I like Bacharach as a home base very much. It is easy to get to by train, and convenient for touring the Rhine castle area by boat cruise.

I like Bacharach as a home base very much. It is easy to get to by train,
and convenient for touring the Rhine castle area by boat cruise.

Exactly the same can be said about St Goar, and as Russ pointed out, staying in St Goar makes it easier by train - just the one trip from St Goar to Bingen Stadt. Then, if you cruise the most interesting part of the Rhein, from Bingen to St Goar, when you get to St Goar, you are back at your base - no need to take an additional train ride.

I guess the same arguement could be made for Boppard as a base, but I don't feel that cruising from St Goar to Boppard is worth the additional time and cost.

Then get off at Boppard and ... [cross] the river by ferry to Braubach and visit Marksburg Castle.

Not as easy as it sounds, as Braubach is on the opposite bank from Boppard, but nowhere near "across" the river. The ferry dock on the opposite side of the river from Boppard is in the middle of nowhere - just a parking lot. It's then a 1 km walk along the shoulder of the highway to get to the town of Filsen, from where you take the hourly train down to Braubach.

I've always stayed on the south end of that stretch of river; in Rudesheim. I like the brandy, and it's easy to get to Bad Kreuznach, which is another place I like.

Rhine cruise - go Bingen or Ruedesheim to St. Goar or Boppard. Take train to start town and show ticket for 20% discount on boat ride. Visit other towns by train on way back.

In 2015, we did this trip. We tried to get the 20% discount, but were firmly told that it was not the case. Perhaps we had the wrong ticket.

Paul - was it K-D or another line?