I talked about this in my last post but wanted to post a separate post for those who wouldn't read my post.
Deutsche Bahn has something called a Länder-Tickets, which is a regional day pass. For under €30, up to 5 people (or parents and all children under 15) can travel anywhere throughout the region from 9 a.m. until 3 a.m. of the following day.
If you are planning to stay in one state for the day, it might save some money over using a day on your railpass.
Länder-Tickets information
Yes, these are great tickets if you're traveling in a group. You must take the slower trains but you can save a ton of money by traveling this way.
donna
Krista, Länder-Tickets are something well known to regulars on this site and often mentioned when someone asks, "what is the least expensive way to get here".
As for the regional train restriction, I find that often the routes I want to take, particularly to those out-of-the-way places, are only served by regional trains, so the restrictions of a Länder-Ticket is not much of an imposition.
Actually, several of the Länder charge €30 or more, but the tickets are still a very good deal. Most of the Länder also have a Single-Ticket for less than the 5 person version. Here is a table of the prices.
BTW, the English language page on Länder-Tickets shows the Rheinland-Pfalz-Ticket as €27 (€19 Single), but the German language page shows it at the current price of €28 (€20 Single). Although almost every place on the Bahn website shows the Baden-Württemberg-Single as €19 (which is why I showed it at that price), I think it is actually €20.
And here I thought I had stumbled on to something new! I wonder how I have missed it being mentioned all of these years? I guess I only read what I was looking for at the time. :)
I never hurts to mention it again, Krista. There is a constant influx of "newbies" to this site and they have never heard of Länder-Tickets. That's why we constantly get the question, "What is the least expensive way ....". They are certainly a good way to save money on German travel. I use them a lot.
I've been praising Länder-tickets (like the Bayern Ticket) on this site since at least 2004, or perhaps earlier. They've been around a long while. But the message still hasn't gotten full exposure, and lots of travelers to Germany, like one I was advising on another board recently, are still buying German-rail passes for ridiculously short journeys. So you should keep talking about them with no sense of guilt, Krista.
In 2000 I returned to Germany for the first time in 10 years and, in a kneejerk reaction, bought a rail pass. While I was in Germany I saw information about the Schönes-Wochenende-Ticket. At that time there were no Länder-Tickets.
In December 2001, I used a Baden-Württemberg Ticket. A few days later, on a weekend, I used a S-W-T because the Länder-Tickets, and the time, were only valid during the week. Several days later, in January, I used a Bayern-Ticket during the week.
We used our first Länder-Tickets yesterday to go to Hannover. The ticket was also good for the S-Bahn, so after sightseeing in Hannover we hopped on and headed to the Herrenhäuser Gärten.
A great day for just a few €!
I found out that DB also offers group rates, so we were able to get tickets to Berlin for 30€ round trip. Not a bad deal at all!
