Rothenburg Day Trip

Possible yes, but is it really worth it. I checked on Google Maps and you are looking at round trip travel times of 5 hours by car or 7 hours by train which really takes a bite out of the day. Rothenburg is a neat town with a lot to see but the edge is taken off by the crowds of day-trippers. About 5 PM they get back on their buses and the place calms down and by evening it has just about transported back a couple centuries in time as it gets dark. Also in the evening is when you can catch the town's greatest attraction, The Night Watchman's Tour. It is a walking tour of the town combined with absolutely the best and most enjoyably history lesson you will ever have. If you can find a way to make it an overnight trip, it is well worth the extra effort.

Rothenburg is cute, but if you google fachwerk towns in Germany you will get many websites that feature other halftimbered towns much more convenient to Munich.

https://www.google.com/search?q=fachwerk+towns+in+Germany&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en-us&client=safari

but if you google fachwerk towns in Germany

Well, Rothenburg is not a "fachwerk" town anyway. I'd not do it as a day trip from Munich, you would be spending way too much time on rail or roads.

Everyone says that it is so crowded. We just got back and it is not that bad. Prague was way more crowded when we were there 10 years ago. You should spend the night so that you can take the nightwatchmen’s tour. But if all I could do was spend the day, I would get up early to travel there, stay as long as I could and then travel back late. Rothenburg is a great place. You can easily do it in one day.

The Half-Timbered route that runs through Germany will give you some ideas of towns to visit that are not so far away from Munich. That way you can spend more time sightseeing rather than sitting in a car/train.
Please do not fall for Ricks statements that Rothenburg is unique in any way. It isn't. He just hasn't visited any of the other towns.

https://www.deutsche-fachwerkstrasse.de/en/Homepage.html

If you want to see a medieval town Regensburg works much better as a day trip from Munich. And it's a World Heritage Site, unlike Rothenburg.

I do not believe it is a feasible day trip from Munich due to the distance AND the fact that no trip to Rothenburg o.d.T is complete without taking the Night Watchman Tour.

BTW - there are two other "walled cities" in the region; Dinkelsbuhl and Nordlingen. Wurzburg is also a worthy stop if you are trying to justify a day or two in the region.

I love Rothenburg. It's a little touristy, but I avoid the touristy stuff. What I love about Rothenburg is the wall. It's almost complete, it's accessible, and you can walk on it.

My other choice would be Nördlingen. It's a little closer to Munich. It's not as touristy - it lacks a Christmas Shop and a Crime and Punishment Museum - but I don't need those things.

Either place, I would want to spend at least one night.

It's not worth it as a day trip. You'd spend more time on the road or on a train than actually in the town.

To see Rothenburg, I'd recommend spending a couple nights there. It gets very busy and touristy during the day, but is relatively empty in the evening and morning when the tour groups are done for the day.

I've been there a couple times and typically we've spent a couple nights there, spent the first day there, and then day tripped to other places coming back in the evening for dinner, etc.

Don't miss Rothenburg on the Tauber. It is a special place in Germany. Every country in Europe seems to have its medieval walled cities that was preserved to this day. The Romantic Road has Rothenburg, Dinkelsbuhl and some other towns that are worth visiting. I lived in Augsburg, on the Romantic Road and we drove to Rothenburg in a few hours and pretty much did the town. You can do it on a day trip.

Better to do the Romantic Road. To do it properly, stop and smell the roses and spend a couple of nights on the road.

Here are the details:
https://www.romanticroadgermany.com

The first visitors were friends and families of the American soldiers stationed in the large bases in Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg but the idea of the trail from Würzburg to Füssen soon became wildly popular.

It's not too hard to see the reason for the popularity - despite the modern roots of the idea, the tour combines the historic cities of Würzburg and Augsburg with the three medieval walled towns of Rothenburg ob der Tauber, Dinkelsbühl and Nördlingen, and then finishes off with the tourist highlights of Neuschwanstein Castle and the Alps.

I also love Rothenburg. If you think it will be your only ever chance then go for it. The walk around the wall is nice and suprisingly not that many are in to it. If you are interested, there is some nice hiking in the woods down from the west (?) side of town. I'll probably go back for a day this September/October.