Train help for the following itineray

What determines your pricing and whether you buy in advance is the TYPE OF TRAIN you use for each journey. Any journey that is regional-train-only can be bought on the day of travel. Any journey which includes a long-distance train is one that you might wish to pre-purchase for savings. Maybe you aren't sure what is regional and what is not.

Regional trains: RE, RB, ALX, BRB, etc.
Long-distance trains: ICE, IC, RJ, etc.

If you aren't sure what's what, please provide the train type(s) for each journey in question.

"...wanted to see if I should get a bahn pass for it..."

Are you referring to a German Rail pass?

If you mean a day pass for regional trains only - which might be offered by DB or by local transit authorities - the type of day pass you might need is shown at the end of each search at the DB site.

Bamberg is one of my favorite cities in Germany but I would not bother doing an overnight there arriving at 4:15 and leaving the next day at 1:20. Just too short a time checking in and out of hotel and getting to and from the rail station, especially with a 2 year old. Consider going straight to Nuremberg and eliminating 😢 Bamberg. But return someday for the Christkindl Markt in Maxmilliansplatz - thinner crowds and homier feeling than the madness in Nuremberg!

Sept. 24
Book asap, saver fares will increase. Reservation recommended

Sept. 25
The 13:17 train from Bamberg is an (expensive) ICE, better take the regional train at 13:04; travel on a "VGN plus" ticket; it's €21.50 for the entire family. The ticket is good for any other trip in Nuremberg and within the VGN area same day. No reservations, non early booking. Buy from a vending machine at the station.

Sept 27
Rothenburg is in the VG area too. Travel on a VGN plus ticket as above. No reservation necessary or possible.

Sept 28
I can see three connections involving the train dep. Rothenburg 18:05. Two of them use an ICE (either from Nürnberg or from Augsburg) and imply three transfers, the other is regional trains only and can be done with a cheap Bayern Ticket (€34/2, no reservation possible). This connection is only 12 min slower than the second one and has only two transfers.

Please note: there is neither a ticket window nor a ticket automat in Rothenburg presently; so book your ticket with the DB app.

October 1th to 8th.
Travel on Bayern tickets (cf. above). No reservations, no savings with early booking.

@russ, That is very helpful to determine which ones I need. And yes. Sorry I meant the German Rail Pass, do you think it's worth it for my case?

@philip, I was strongly debating Bamberg. I've heard it's beautiful at night, and wanted to get a sunset photo of it. Already made hotel reservations for it. I might regret it, but I think it will make me want to come back in the future for more time.

@sla1 This is amazing. Thank you. I will definitely take the VGN for Bamberg to Nuremberg. So seems like I would only need to reserve the Berlin to Bamberg one. Can you tell me a bit more about the Bayern Ticket?

@dsauna:

• Bayern Ticket information: http://munich-touristinfo.de/Bavaria-Ticket.htm

• Today I just didn't feel like pulling up all those train journeys, which you just gathered yourself, to determine whether they were regional or long-distance trips. sla019 was very kind to do that and is a better person than me for sure, at least today. Anyway... it's really good for YOU to be able to find your own answers at the DB search page. So don't rely just on our words and judgments... ferret out the information you need to answer your questions on your own too. It may take a little time to catch on to how it works but it's worth it.

• With that in mind, I sincerely doubt that the GRP would be a strong choice over these other options. But you can make the Euro-to-Euro comparison yourself. You can find the prices for individual journeys at the DB site. Here also is the GRP page for comparisons; note that certain pass varieties are on sale now:

https://www.bahn.com/en/offers/passes/german-rail-pass

That said, the German Rail Pass definitely has added advantages if your € comparisons come up close! We can review thosee stated and unstated advantages if your analysis actually shows the GRP to be fairly close in price to the total of your other options.

Thank you very much for your answers. Yes definitely @sla09 is a saint for looking up all of those, but yes @russ the explanation you gave is very helpful.

Another quick question. If I buy the tickets online, i can just show them from my phone, right? I don't need to print them, correct?

that's correct