Small Towns Convenient to Munich

How far away are you considering? Ulm might be an option.

Usually during Oktoberfest even in small cities arround Munich you hardly find a hotel selling rooms for a reasonable price.

So my suggestion would be check out everything you could find and book it. Of course not too far away and reachable by public transportation/train. I guess otherwise your way home after a long day at the Oktoberfest would be no fun. Max transport time I would say 1,5 to 2 hours from leaving the Oktoberfest until reaching the hotel.

What about Augsburg or Ingolstadt? I do know some guys they are managing every year their way home to those cities by train even when they are drunk :-)

Wishing you a great time in Munich
Mignon

In 2007, as I was starting my Romantic-Road-without-needing-a-car trip, I spent Saturday night, the last Saturday night of Oktoberfest, in Landsberg am Lech at this hotel. I probably made my reservations around this time of the year. The next morning there were quite a few people in the hotel for breakfast, but I don't know that it was completely booked. It was a nice enough place then, near the town square, and, as I remember, the price and breakfast were good.

Landsberg is actually a quite nice town, situated at a low dam on the Lech river that flows out of Füssen. It's also home of the prison where Hitler wrote the first part of "Mein Kampf". I was surprised to find that the prison is still standing today.

There are two trains an hour (1 change in Kaufering, 45-50 minutes) from the Landsberg Hbf to Munich Hbf.

This question comes up from time to time, here is a previous thread on the subject: https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/germany/octoberfest-hotels-in-and-outside-of-munich

There are quite a few places within an hour from Munich with regular train service that don't have Oktoberfest room prices. For example, I'm staying in the Tegernsee area just south of Munich and my holiday apartment is less than €100/night. Booking.com is a good option if you want to search for independent hotels.

DJ

Thank you everyone for your great comments and suggestions! The group really wanted to stay in Munich so we decided to pay the exorbitant prices after all. The nightly rate was on the high side but not completely outrageous - $380/night for an Air Bnb apartment for 3 people in the Neuhausen-Nymphenburg district - which was actually cheaper than two hotel rooms in some of the outlying towns.

I did check out the area towns suggested in your comments and all look interesting so I may try to get out to visit a few on a day trip. Thanks again for taking the time to add your comments!

I would suggest Ulm and Augsburg too. Why Ulm? For its cathedral.

Too late for your stay, but you might look at Landshut as a day trip. Can be under an hour train trip. A little over half an hour to/from the Munich Airport.

Augsburg is a large enough city that accommodations should not be too bad around Oktoberfest, I can also second Tegernsee, a lovely area, a brewery of it's own, maybe the best bath/sauna I have been to if your up for swimming naked in the lake, and a cable car up into the hills for hiking. An easy ride into Munich on the BOB train.