Munich to Krakow

I'm sorry that I can't help you with the travel to Krakow, but wanted to point out that there is a small museum (I think at the University)
in Munich about the White Rose movement. Sophie Scholl and her brother Hans were very active with other students and a few professors in the resistance movement. The small museum is free and you can make a token donation when you leave. It is done very nicely and was very moving. your son may enjoy being there.

By day, trains from Munich to Krakow take 11-14 hours with 2-3 connections. By evening, it's just one connection to the overnight train at Vienna. How to Look Up Train Schedules and Routes Online gives you the DB train schedule link and tips for using it.

To compare flights, see www.skyscanner.com. I don't think this route will be as cheap as some more traveled routes. I see some from $130, but taxes and fees bring the final prices to double.

In addition to Dachau (very easy to reach from Munich), other Concentration Camp memorials could be closer to your trip route than Krakow, such as Buchenwald near Weimar, Sachsenhausen near Berlin, or Mauthausen near Vienna.

Is there anyway you can change your flight plans to fly into Munich (or Frankfurt) and out of Krakow. If so, you could take the train from Munich to Prague (when you're done with Munich) for a couple of nights, then train from Prague to Krakow for a couple of nights before flying home. It would still be two pretty long train rides but breaking it up in Prague for a couple of days would make it that much easier. I went from Munich to Prague to Krakow when I was there last summer - 4 nts Munich, 1 nt Cesky Krumlov, 3 nts Prague and 3 nts Krakow. Just a suggestion to think about. I found Auschwitz/Birkenau very affecting, sorrowful, and fascinating and definitely worth seeing. I haven't been to other camps so don't have anything to compare it to but it was well worth it for me to go there.

Hi,

I would do a day and night train combo....take the Railjet Munich to Vienna, leave ample time for dinner at the station, then take the night train Vienna to Krakow.

I concur with the suggestion to try to do your trip as an Open Jaw, flying into Munich and then flying out of Krakow back to the USA. Would save a lot of wasted time and effort that way. I personally would bite the bullet and fly from MUC to KRK - just for the comfort and convenience involved. You'll arrive in Krakow refreshed and ready to explore one of eastern Europe's great cities. We've found that trying to save a few bucks by going cheap and scheduling long train rides from point to point is a false economy - just burns a lot of your precious vacation time and, for us anyway, tends to wear us out when we're already fighting the effects of jet lag, thus setting us up for getting sick while on travel - never any fun. We really try to "baby" ourselves on trips like the one you propose - primarily for health reasons - and have found (lots of trial and error talking here) that doing it that way greatly enhances our enjoyment of the experience.
Might add that Krakow is a terrific city. Along with the day trip out to Auschwitz, there's the old Oscar Schindler factory to explore, the old Jewish ghetto, and the site of the infamous concentration camp portrayed in the movie. The old town section inside the Planty is one of the prettiest in all of Europe. The people are friendly, the food terrific, and there are many other things to see and do - it's well worth several days to a week of your time. Happy travels.