Planning on staying 2 days (after the 29 and 30). Going by bus on the early AM to Auschwitz on the 30th. Anyone planning likewise, please respond on forum. FYI, you need a reservation (free), but reservation window is 2 months out from date of visit.
Reservation window for Auschwitz (auschwitz.com) is now open for people staying over after the tour ends in the 29th.
Marvin Nakashima
Jo Sauve
When I was I Krakow during the summer of 2018, advance tickets to Auschwitz were sold out for 8 days into the future. I was happy I had (for once) bought my ticket in advance. At that time it was possible to go to the memorial site and stand in a very long ticket line, with fingers crossed. That's not a desirable situation, because the line was outdoors and uncovered.
Take water or other beverage with you. Tourist-sight pricing is alive and well at Auschwitz.
When I went to auschwitz. com, I saw tours being booked to June 11, 2023, but I DID NOT SEE a choice for visiting w/o a guide. So, I plan on looking periodically up until April 30, 2023 which would be 2 month ahead of June 30.
The fact that you are not on the RS tour might complicate matters if you are not staying at the Hotel Grodek.
All visits to Auschwitz begin with a tour conducted by an employee of the memorial. It doesn't matter whether you just buy your own bus ticket or take some sort of tour (however expensive); you're getting a camp-provided guide. At the end of the visit, you're free to walk around. I don't remember whether you're able to go back inside the buildings covered by the tour. Tickets are likely to sell out in advance this year.
Note that Auschwitz is a fiercely crowded attraction. One reason for required proprietary guides and barracks dedicated to countries or oppressed groups is to divide the crowds. Most barracks also have ten domestic box or oscillating fans on the floor to moderate the heat. Do not make the mistake of assuming this is like visiting a famous museum on a busy June day. Book in advance. This is not the time for rugged individualism.
There is no problem. You go on a tour, transport and tickets included. For this you can get a tour tomorrow if you wish. I just looked it up. It was on Viator.
I am on the same tour and will be staying to go to Auschwitz. Also plan on takng the train from there to Wrocław for a couple of nights, before heading back to Warsaw to fly back to US (am flying in and out of Warsaw, all other options were ridiculous $$$$$). I will be in Warsaw the week before the tour to do a visit to Lodz to visit a couple of museums there on my list.
Commercial-tour tickets often are available for some time after the (usually much cheaper) tickets are sold out on the official website.
Note, though, that in this case--as explained above--you may not be getting much for that extra expenditure, since regular entry tickets include a guided tour of the camp. I would hope a commercial tour would have a guide on the bus to and from Auschwitz, imparting background information. On the other hand, you'll be stuck with the tour's timing rather than being able to choose your own time for return to Krakow, within the limits of the public-bus schedule.
Viator doesn't conduct any tours. It is just a third-party middle man selling tickets to tours conducted by others. You might save money, and the tour company will likely make more money, if you book directly. The name of the company actually operating the tour can be found in the Viator listing under "Additional Info".
This might be useful - a trip report to Auschwitz by CNN's Wolf Blitzer and Dana Bash.
https://www.cnn.com/2023/04/21/politics/auschwitz-birkenau-wolf-blitzer-dana-bash/index.html
This week, we traveled to Poland to help commemorate the 80th anniversary of the start of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, when Jews revolted against their Nazi oppressors, who had forced them to live behind barbed wire walls in horrific conditions.
We also participated in the March of the Living, an annual two-mile walk from the Auschwitz concentration camp to Birkenau, where Nazis brought Jews from all over Europe to be starved, humiliated, terrorized and murdered in gas chambers.
For both of us, this trip was intensely personal.
