Itinerary Help needed for Oct 5-14 (10 nights)

Since you don’t seem to mind 1 night stops, stay Oct. 12 in Bacharach, 13 in Mainz.

You can easily add Nuremberg between Augsburg and Rothenburg, but are you sure you want to do so many one-day stops? You aren't covering great distances, but with the time it takes to pack up each morning, heck out of your lodging, load the car, find you way to your next destination, check in, and get settled, you are going to spend a disproportionate amount of time relocating. Wouldn't you rather spend a couple of days in fewer destinations?

You certainly don't have time for Berlin or Dresden without cutting a lot out of this itinerary. With 10 nights, 3 destinations would be plenty.

Is your flight already booked? If not, you could do Munich, Dresden, and Berlin and cut out all the rest. Then fly home from Berlin instead of Frankfurt. But if you are locked into your flights, I'd stick to the narrow region you've already plotted.

Maybe consider doing some of your destinations as day trips rather than staying overnight.

Thank you!

We have not booked flights and we would be OK with missing Oktoberfest if there are other ideas.
We do not mind being "on the move" but after reading some of the comments it would be good to stay in one place and do day trips since we will have a car.
pondering....

We just did 17 night tour around Germany with a car. Most hotels charge for parking, gas was pricey, and many highways were under construction. We booked a Grey Line tour out of Munich that included Linderhof & Neuschwanstein Castles & Oberammergau. It was 10.5 hours and very short at Oberammergau, but they got the castle tickets, which can be a pain.
Grey Line tour
We drove from Munich to Eibsee and took the cable car up the Zugspitz mountain, the highest point in Germany. (Check the weather and their web cam b4 going) We ate in Garmisch-Partenkirchen. Many people mentioned to me to stay in Bacharach. Cute town, but not much there. We drove from Frankfurt to Bingen and caught a tour boat that went to St. Goar ( with several stops to hop off). We spent a little time in St. Goar, caught the boat back, and got off and ate in Bacharach, then boat back to Bingen. Weather and scenery were beautiful. Heidelberg was nice. Rothenburg was interesting to see. Would like to have seen Dresden, but it was packed and no parking. Be careful where you go in Nurnberg. We went for a walk from hotel and saw some pretty sketchy areas, including brothels. We also really liked Cologne, especially the cathedral. It was really nice that most cities had large pedestrian areas and outside tables at restaurants. Where are you flying from.... you will likely have jet lag.
Hope this helps a little. Have fun.

Thank you!
I think I will look into train travel to 3 areas and booking day trips through the tour companies!
The road construction and parking hassles would really take away from the fun!

How does this sound?
Munich 4 nights with day trips
Heidelberg 2 nights
Berlin 4 nights

Please let me know what are WWII sights for you? This headline is too unspecific for me.
- War / combat places and public bunkers
- Museums / places with weapons
- Nazi terror regime places
- Holocaust places (not artificial memorials)

In Berlin we have some of each, very authentic. But the rest time you have in your mentioned itinerary is really too short for a meaningful trip to Berlin.

And sorry for asking but Baden Baden and Heidelberg rarely fit into what you like to see.

If I were you I would reduce Munich to 1 day and spend three days with rental car on German Alpine road: https://www.deutsche-alpenstrasse.de/en/home turning Füssen into Romantic road, turning to UNESCO old city Bamberg (try smoke beer and visit a prewery). Drop car, drive by ICE train (www.bahn.com) to Berlin and spend 3 days there, fly out from TXL. That would be my trip matching your interests.

Thank you Mark Berlin sounds like the best experience for our WW2 "experience". This is EXACTLY the type of info I was hoping for. As first time travelers to Germany, we need a day to day plan.

Thinking to get the rental car in Munich on day 2 before heading out to the Alpine Road adventure? We could also take a train from Munich to an Alpine Road town and pick up a rental car there (if Munich is too crazy to deal with since it's Oktoberfest).

Also - If anyone has any additional BEER experience/places suggestions along this trip we would love that.

So now it is roughly...:
1 night Munich
3 nights Alpine Road - end up in Bamberg
Take Train Bamberg to Berlin
3 nights Berlin
Now I'm thinking of adding a 2/3 day Iceland stopover at the end of this trip enroute back to Baltimore/Washington DC.

Some infos and tips along the way.

• Romantic road: https://www.romanticroadgermany.com/
  
• Bamberg general: https://en.bamberg.info/
• Bamberg breweries: https://en.bamberg.info/brauereigaststaetten/

Most important for driving in Germany: No turn on red :-)

Berlin: May be do a Hop-on-hop-off bustour at day 1. WWII site collection:

• German Historical Museum: http://www.dhm.de/en/ausstellungen/permanent-exhibition/epochs/1933-1945.html
• Topography of Terror: http://www.topographie.de/en/
• German Resistance Memorial Center: https://www.gdw-berlin.de/en/home/
• Holocaust Memorial: https://www.stiftung-denkmal.de/en/home.html
• Memorial and Museum Sachsenhausen (ex concentration camp): http://www.stiftung-bg.de/gums/en/index.htm

For 3 days in Berlin this shall be enough. In Berlin use taxi or public transport.

If you would do Berlin first you could enjoy festival of lights until Oct 14: https://festival-of-lights.de/de/

Have a good journey.

Thank you ! I feel much more knowledgeable now!

Twice we have broken up the flight back with 3 night stops in Iceland. I don’t think the wife will ever fly home without stoppingt there