Germany/Prague

It's hard to answer your question, really. If you only want to see a couple of castles, R'burg, and Dachau, I imagine you could do that in 4 days including travel time if you move quickly. But I could easily recommend a week in each of the three areas you plan to visit; there's a lot to see in the Rheinland and near Rothenburg and Dachau, and a reasonable plan would allow for more time in each place. Without your time constraints, interests, the season you plan to travel, etc. it's hard to know what to say.

?I always plan my itinerary by creating a page with the dates down the left and activity columns across the top, listing the town where you spend the night, travel time to that town, cost of accommodations, cost of meals, miscellaneous expenses and any other items of importance to you.

In that way you can budget your travel time, sight-seeing and nights. You can add the estimated cost for each day and determine how much your trip will cost.

Spend some time studying a map of Europe so you will
know the distances between towns. Estimate travel
time between towns where you will spend the night.

If you research on the web for travel costs, such as
train, ferry, air fares and hostels in each town you
can save a lot of money. The key is RESEARCH.

After 20 years of planning, I have come to rely on
info gathered on the web. It is invaluable; and I have found it mostly accurate. Although you will find
some errors.

Always use your ATM card to purchase local currency. It is by far the cheapest, easiest and quickest way. You will find machines in supermarkets, service stations, in front of banks, hotels, air and RR terminals and shopping centers.

So that you won't have to carry excess currency, use
your credit card for accommodations and meals. Be
sure to ask if that business takes credit cards before you make your purchase.

If you scan this Graffiti Wall in other categories you will find lots of tips from other travelers. And read the Graffiti archives too.

Thanks, Carl. This will be my 9th trip so I have most of it down to a science. My problem with this one is the need (or rather want) to skip to different areas within a reasonable time frame. I was hoping someone out there would be able to give me some suggestions of time needed to explore each of the areas I mentioned. For example: 2 days to cover the most interesting Rhine sights (with opinions of favorites), quick and easy way to jump from the Rhine to Burg Eltz, favorites in Munich, and best jumping off point for Prague. Traveling from the Rhine to Rothenberg to Munich is no problem since I've done Frankfort to Bavaria to Black Forest before. Germany is the only country I've done by car so my "history" there is moving at will rather than by train. I was hoping to save myself some research with the friendly help of the posters here.

One more thing. I had a great Excel spreadsheet that I used for planning my itinerary where I list the city, points of interest w/costs, hotel, transportation costs, etc. I input in Euros and then can convert to dollars. This way I can change the exchange rate to get an updated cost of the trip. Unfortunately a new virus took my spreadsheet (and everything else)recently. I'd be happy to send it out once I've re-invented the wheel!

Munich to Prague is a fair distance but you could break up the trip with another stop in Germany. For example I was in Prague last year (for 4 days), and from there I went to Dresden, just a two hour train trip away. I stayed in Dresden 2 days, then 2 days at Erfurt, and on the last day took a train to Frankfurt airport. All short train trips. I'm sure you could arrange a similar sort of trip taking in the Rhine and Munich as long as you give yourself enough time.

Why not go the other direction to northern Germany, visiting Berlin and then Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp instead of Dachau. This puts you nearer to Prague so you won't be jumping around quite so much.

I spent 4 days in Prague last year and had a magical time, and think that it was long enough. We wandered for 3 of the days, taking in a few sights and a ballet, and then went for a day trip to a world heritage listed sight called Cesky Krumlov - by far the highlight of our time in Prague, and in my opinion an absolute must. I recommend staying in town (preferably the old and nearish the bridge if you can)for wandering after dinner at night. The Jewish cemetary was also beautiful.

3-4 days in Prague is probably enough. Prague's a great city to walk and explore, but it's a little low on musuems or other knock-out sites.