Rail Germany vs Local Tickets?

I can speak for the Bayern ticket. It's fantastic especially because it gets you to Salzburg as well as all of Bavaria.

I don't see where any 4 tickets should add up to $199. You can use Länder tickets everywhere.

Note that for St. Goar to Rothenburg, if you can go on a Sat. or Sun, you can use a €35 ($51) Schönes-Wochenende-Ticket for all of you or you can book ahead (on bahn.de) with a Dauer-Spezial fare of €29 each, any day of the week. Either is less than a day of the rail pass.

Also, for Berchtesgaden to Salzburg, the fastest way is by bus, and it only costs €8,50 RT pP with an RVO Tageskarte.

Oh, the Bayern-Ticket IS a Länder-Ticket. There are also Länder-Tickets for Rheinland-Pfalz (€26) and Hessen (€30), but for everywhere you are going in Hessen you can use P-P tickets in the RMV (Rhein-Main-Verkehrverbund = Frankfurt metro).

Main legs:

FRA to St. Goar: could also be done with regular tickets cheaply - maybe 13-14 Euros each one way.

Munich-Berchtesgaden and Berchtesgaden to Munich airport can be done fairly easily on a Bayern Ticket (although the latter could be a problem if you have an early departure time whether going by fast or slow train.) Rothenburg-Munich is okay on the Bayern Ticket too, but compare travel times "Local transport" vs. ICE, EC at www.bahn.de

For St. Goar-R'burg, regular tickets are about 50-55 Euros, but advance purchase tickets are 29 Euros.

Day and side trips:

St. Goar - Cologne: The Rheinland Pfalz ticket is only good to Bonn; you'll need regular a Bonn-Köln-Bonn ticket on top of the RP ticket, or do this trip on Sat or Sun when the Happy Weekend ticket is in effect.

Basically, you only have one "main" leg - St. Goar-Rothenburg. Looks a good bit cheaper to skip the railpass and just get tickets for that one leg; use the Länder or happy weekend tix for the others.

Sounds like daily tix are your cheaper route. you can easily figure it this way. Divide the number of days you need to travel into the price of your pass... 199/4 = 50$ worth aday. If most of the days are cheaper than $50 each - no brainer - buy local and check for the Landler weekend rates. Sometimes you get other discounts for family/couples/ "pensioners" (aka seniros!)

If you have long hauls across country - it can be cheaper with a pass... so use the DE-bahn website to verify.

For St. Goar to Köln, the Schönes-Wochende-Ticket is your best bet at €17,50 (half of €35 for two). However, with the Rheinland-Pfalz-Ticket to Bonn, rather than 2 €6,30 p-p (Einzelfahrscheine) from Bonn-Köln-Bonn for €12,60 RT pP, use a €20 5 person VRS TagesTicket for unlimited travel between Bonn and Köln for the day.

Two options for St. Goar to Rothenburg:

1. Buy p-p regional tickets from St. Goar to Kahl am Main (21,10 pP) and a Bayern Ticket (€27). Take a regional train to Frankfurt Hbf and another regional train from there direct to Würzburg. Select a train that stops in Kahl am Main (I think they all do). The Bayern-Ticket will be valid from Kahl to Rothenburg. Total cost pP for two will be €34,70, about $51.

2. Buy a Rheinland-Pfalz-Ticket (€26) and ride from St. Goar to Mannheim via Mainz. Make sure you stay within the validity area of Rhainland-Pfalz (www.der-takt.de/fileadmin/Bilder/Karten/karte_rp_ticket.html). In Mannheim buy regional (Verkehrsverbund-Rhein-Neckar) tickets to Würzburg at €8 per person. Take the S-Bahn to Osterburken, then the train to Würzburg. In Würzburg buy ticket to Rothenburg at €10,90 per person. Total per person for 2, €31,90 or about $47.

The two options, above, are slightly more than the €29 Dauer-Spezial, but they don't require a specific train commitment or a three day advance purchase, and they are always available (don't sell out).

St.Goar - Rothenburg leg is on a Sunday. I could buy a "Schones-Wochenende" ticket at 35 Euros for 2pp, as long as we travel after 9am, correct?

This 1 ticket will cover all other trains we need to use that day, correct?

There is no 9 AM restriction on the Schönes-Wochenende-Ticket. It is valid all morning from midnight. The 9 AM restriction only applies to the Länder-Tickets on weekdays (presumably to keep you off the trains during rush hours).

Make sure you stay on regional trains (RB, RE, IRE, S-Bahns). Express trains (IC, EC, ICE) are not covered, but most of the travel from St. Goar to Frankfurt, and everything from Würzburg to Rothenburg is regional anyway. There are regional (RE) trains from Frankfurt Hbf to Würzburg on an almost hourly schedule.

Thank you everyone, especially Lee.

I'm reviewing our rail trips, writing down the options, & will relook at the train schedules.

The individual prices I had found were dated for March. May isn't available yet on the de bahn site.

But wow, the savings is amazing to what I was thinking. The various names and regions for tickets was getting to be a big blur.

Rewriting it out is helping, I'll be back for a final critique.
Thanks again,
Di

"St.Goar - Rothenburg leg is on a Sunday. I could buy a "Schones-Wochenende" ticket at 35 Euros for 2pp, as long as we travel after 9am, correct? This 1 ticket will cover all other trains we need to use that day, correct?"

Yes, it will. And it may be a good idea to use the SW ticket for this route. A normal trip that includes the faster trains takes about 4.5 hours and 3 changes of trains; the slower trains available on the SW ticket require 4-5 changes of train and another 45 minutes or so of travel - but that inconvenience will be offset substantially by the lower price.