Southern Germany Itinerary Help/Critique Please

Linda, As you're both "novices", it would be a really good idea to read Europe Through The Back Door prior to your trip (if you haven't already). That provides a LOT of good information on "how" to travel in Europe, including "rail skills". You may also want to pick up a copy of either the Germany Guidebook or the smaller "Snapshot" version for Munich and Austria. Happy travels!

I like Meersburg better than Lindau, you should look into that. Castle Meersburg, Mainau Island.

Linda, it looks like you're picking up the car at the Munich train station. Are you returing it in Lindau? Returning it there, versus the Zurich airport, will avoid a fee for returning it in a different country. Your itinerary looks good to me. A nice amount of time at each destination and a nice mix of places to see. Check with AutoEurope or Kemwel for your car rental. Have a great trip exploring Bavaria.

I am wondering about the two nights in Garmisch and one night in Lindau. The two places are really very close together - and I didn't think Garmisch was a place I would have wanted to spend even one night. We stayed in Mittenwald for a week and really loved it. Drove through Garmisch on our way to several small places and what we saw was just a big town and not very picturesque. You might want to read up on other smaller places in Bavaria before a final decision - just to make sure you are spending three nights of your trip in the kind of town you are looking for.
Cochem, Rothenburg and Salzburg are lovely - You just might find something you would enjoy more than Garmisch.

Unless you just want to spend more money, I wouldn't use rail passes (or a car) for this trip. From Frankfurt airport to Cochem (or anywere else on the Mosel or Rhein except for Bacharach) purchase an S-Bahn ticket to Mainz (€4,10/p) and a Rheinland-Pfalz-Ticket (€25 for both of you). If all you are going to Cochem for is to go to Burg Eltz, you might think about staying somewhere on the Rhein, like Boppard. You can go to Moselkern with local tickets or use a VRM Gruppentageskarte for €20 RT for both of you. It will take a little longer to get to Moselkern from Boppard, but will be faster to Rothenburg. For the trip to Rothenburg, you might want to get an advance purchase, discounted Saving Fare ticket from the German Rail (Bahn) website. Once you get to Rothenburg, all of your travel (Rothenburg-Munich, Munich-Salzburg, Munich-Garmisch) can be done with Bayern-Tickets at €29/day for both of you. Instead of a rental car from Garmisch to Lindau, I'd use the train. Again, it's only €29 with a Bayern-Ticket. The train via Munich is about 4 hours, but for the same time, you could go via Reutte and Kempten, a much more scenic route. You might take a side trip from Immenstadt up to Oberstdorf or stop off in Oberstaufen on the way to Lindau. For Lindau to Zürich, consider taking the train along the Bodensee to Friedrichshafen, seeing the Zeppelin Museum, then taking the boat across to Romanshorn and the train from there to Zürich.

Lee's advice is solid, but keep in mind with a Bayern ticket you will be restricted to slower regional trains and unable to travel on the high-speed ICE trains. For some routes this hardly matters, as the timing is similar, but for others it can add hours to your trip. Use bahn.com to "test" your routes, making sure you check the options to show both regional and high speed trains to compare. If you decide a regional train is too slow for a particular leg, you can buy a train ticket directly from the website, and it will be cheapest in advance. Otherwise I think this looks like a good itinerary. Some people don't love Garmish but other people do, haven't been there yet myself.

Garmisch is also not high on my list of towns to see. Just depends on what you want to see and do. Just further south of Garmisch in Austria, are some smaller towns, Ehrwald and Lermoos. This valley is known as the Zugspitze arena. Lots of hiking and walking trails. In Ehrwald, there is a cable car that takes you up to the top of the Zugspitze and in the next town, Biberwier, there is a summer luge (sommerrodelbahn) that is a blast to go on. There are a lot of very reasonably priced accommodations and restaurants in the area. If you want recommendations, send me a personal message. You can get to the castles in Fuessen by driving through Reutte, Austria.

For your routes, the slower regional trains with the Bayern-Ticket don't matter much. From Rothenburg to Munich, depending on the connection, it's at most about a half hour slower by regional trains. Munich to Salzburg is also only about a half hour slower. Munich to Garmisch-Partenkirchen is only by regional trains anyway. Instead of Garmisch, consider Oberammergau. You can get there from Munich with one change of trains in Murnau. There is a bus from Oberammergau to Füssen, and it stops first in Hohenschwangau, which is where you'd want to go anyway.

Thanks to everyone who responded with great suggestions. We plan on tweaking our itinerary based
on your feedback. The train suggestions are exactly the type of help we were looking for. One question remains, do we purchase the Bayern daily at the station or in advance via the website? My husband has downloaded "Europe through the Backdoor" and found it most helpful. Again, Thanks very much to everyone who contributes their expertise to this very helpful forum. Linda