Auschwitz vs Dachau

This is a personal choice.

And it’s hard to recommend on this subject.

Dachau was a concentration camp that was long running and targeted a wide range of victims— political opponents, any group the Germans persecuted, Roma and so on.Only a fraction were Jewish.

Auschwitz was a death camp and its victims were mostly Jewish. While there were a few that escaped immediate execution to work, death came quickly for almost all.

I personally believe everyone should visit Auschwitz but again recommendations on this are difficult. These are inhuman, bitter and cruel lessons from history.

Rick Steves tours are extremely well done. I am sure you’ll end that tour on a happy and high note. This might be a difficult coda from that experience.

I agree with what David says above about this being a very personal choice and difficult to recommend. I will say I found visiting these locations to be extremely different experiences. Visiting Auschwitz to me felt a lot more solemn as it is the site of a horrific mass murder on a scale which is hard to fathom, whereas Dachau was more of a work camp, tho of course many died there as well. If I remember correctly you also need to be with a guide to visit Auschwitz 2/Berkinau (or at least that was the case when we went a decade ago) and it meant visitors were more respectful. My personal experience when visiting Dachau, where visitors can walk around on their own, was some people were not really appreciating the gravity of the site and not acting in a way I would consider respectful. I hope this can help you decide. I will say one more thing which is that even tho it was a decade ago, visiting Auschwitz really stayed with me and I still think about my visit all the time. I think it is hard for it not to have a lasting impression on those who visit.