train from Frankfurt to Trier Germany for start of Rick Steves tour info please

Did you order the guidebook for your tour yet? The travel possibilities are mentioned there. You will also get very specific instructions about 1 month before your tour.

Take the train. Normal routing is via Koblenz, which means you can ride through the Rhine and Mosel Valleys on the way to Trier (very scenic.)

It's not just scenic but full of interesting old-world towns and castles. Because it's a long train ride to Trier, the only logical thing to do is to arrive a couple of days early and spend them in one of the nice towns there as our tour won't be stopping there :(

Cochem (Mosel) https://www.der-takt.de/typo3temp/_processed_/csm_NEU_T_Reichsburg_Cochem_3_087e83a8d1.jpg

Boppard (Rhine) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J2IjTma6VRY

Marksburg Castle in (Braubach, on the Rhine) https://www.marksburg.de/en/circuit/

Find your train schedules here: https://reiseauskunft.bahn.de/bin/query.exe/en

To: Trier Hbf (or any town name - Cochem, Boppard, etc.)
From: Frankfurt(M)Flughafen (which is Frankfurt airport.)

Here's a recent thread on this topic.

https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/germany/frankfurt-to-trier-by-train

Will you be arriving a day ahead? I'd recommend that if you can, maybe even 2 nights. I found lots to do in Trier that is not on the tour!

Also it's a good idea to have a printed out googlemap of the location of the Residenz where you'll be staying. In 2016 when I did this tour the taxi drivers were not familiar with it. It's actually an Assisted Living home with a hotel wing. Breakfasts are excellent - in a separate room from the residents. Very interesting place to stay and very centrally located.

www.bahn.com. You can't really see the schedule for September now, as there is a general schedule revamp due in June, but they should not be a whole lot different if you look at days in May.

I suggest going to the Regionalbahnhof and buying a German Regional Day Ticket (QdL in German), which will cost 52 EUR for 2 when bought from a ticket machine and 2 EUR more if you use the ticket window. Then you can get there by regional train in one or 2 changes. You can take any regional trains, even make stopovers along the way if you want. Travel after 9 am weekdays, anytime weekends.

There are even less expensive ways to do it, but they are a little complicated and take a bit of time to describe. You can reply back if you want more info

We used Flix bus. Easy, direct, with no changes and cheaper than the train and just as fast. They leave from the airport and downtown Frankfurt.

There are even less expensive ways to do it, but they are a little complicated

Complicated, but worth knowing. At FRA Regionalbhf, you buy 2 local (RMV) tickets for the airport to Mainz Hbf for €5 pP and a Rheinland-Pfalz ticket for two for €31. That's €41 for the two of you vs. €52 for the QdLT, as savings of €11. I think that's worth knowing.

You can buy the FRA-Mainz tickets from an RMV automat, or from the RMV counter and the Rheinland-Pfalz ticket from the same machine as you get the QdLT.

We used Flix bus. Easy, direct, with no changes and cheaper than the train and just as fast.

The train connection to Trier takes 9 minutes more than 3 hours and it has a simple, 12 minute, three platform change in Koblenz.

With the train, you have a connection every hour. With the bus, one, rarely two, connections a day. I looked at the schedule for September, and for every day, there were no connections less then five hours, and the least expensive bus connection was only about 50¢ less than the standard train fare. All things equal, I would prefer the roominess of a train, but it doesn't look like all things are equal.