Staying outside of Vienna and commuting in to the city?

Susan, IMHO, it would be better to stay in Vienna, as commuting back and forth will waste both time and money.

What small towns are you looking at?

Checkout K&T Boardinghouse for two great center city locations. You can walk to the Ringstrasse tourists sights or jump on a subway. 70 Euros. You can get anywhere from there on public transportation. And great restaurants and a large supermarket's in the neighborhood.
It's just so easy to see the city from their locations.

The decision is up to you, but here are some issues to think about if you are planning to stay in the outskirts of a city: Look at public transport maps and schedules in depth. How close is your intended lodging to the nearest station or bus stop? How long is the journey into the city? How frequent are the services? Is the frequency reduced in evenings or on Saturday/Sunday? When is the last journey back from the city centre in the evening? How crowded are services likely to be at peak hours? Also look at fares. How expensive will each journey be? Is your lodging within the area of validity of city day or week passes, and how expensive are they? Is there a restriction on use of passes (eg not early mornings or evening peak)? If your main reason for staying outside the city centre is to save money, will fares cancel this out? Is the city centre so walkable that you wouldn't need to spend money on public transport at all if you weren't staying in the suburbs? In German-speaking countries in particular, there are sometimes special discounts on travel passes for people staying at specific hotels. Check with the hotel to see if this is true. In many cases this information may be hard to obtain unless you fluently read the local language. If there is an English-language website it may be a simplified version directed at tourists staying in the city centre. Automated translation may not be accurate enough to cover subtle issues about, say, pass validity and zoning.

One idea might be to stay in Neustift am Walde, which used to be a separate village, but now it is a suburb of Vienna. It is where the city meets the vineyards and the Vienna Woods. The main street is packed with Heurigen (little taverns with wine gardens that sell their own wine and rustic food). There's plenty of hiking in the adjacent vineyards and Vienna Woods. In the other direction, the 35A bus will take you direct from Neustift am Walde to the U4 Metro in about 35 minutes. Then you are in downtown Vienna (district 1) in 3 or 4 stops. So, a total commuting time of about 45 minutes, I'd say. http://www.fuhrgassl-huber.at/piv_d/archive.php?c=l_main&w=&t=l_front.html Grinzing is another possibility, and it has the advantage that the 38 Tram takes you straight to district 1 in 22 minutes. It's a very easy connection. http://www.wien-vienna.at/blickpunkte.php?ID=527 Grinzing is slightly more touristy, but also slightly more lively. Either way, both are where the city suddenly gives way to vineyards.

Vienna is huge. I would stay in the city center, near tram and/or metro stops. Vienna needs a lot of time, which means a lot of commuting.

Another consideration is nightlife. Do you want to be traveling back and forth if you stay out late for a show or some other activity?

Thank you everyone for your contributions. I've done a bit of research on places to stay within the centre of Vienna (Rick Steves and Tripadvisor recommendations) but was just wondering about the outlying suburbs and whether they were workable. Clearly there are trade-offs, and you folks have provided some pretty sound reasons and options. Vienna is one of several stops on this holiday. We've not been there yet, so will probably stay 5-7 days. We're trying to decide if we will use a car on this holiday, as we have on past visits to Europe, or whether we will take the train everywhere. Past holidays have primarily been in more rural areas, not highly urbanized areas, so we're looking at what options there might be if we choose to have a car for most of the holiday. Train travel is definitely easier for larger centres, but we're keeping our options open right now. We won't be going until Oct 2014, so we've got time to plan and ask lots of questions.

Again, it would be helpful to know what areas you are interested in. It is impossible to provide feedback unless there are specifics. For example, Klosterneuburg is a small town outside of Vienna; really lovely, but a pain in the neck for travel into Vienna. Stammersdorf, on the other hand, is in the middle of vineyards and connected to central Vienna by tram. Lots of little towns both within and outside of the city limits of Vienna could potentially be a nice base, depending on your expectations. In addition, I would not characterize Vienna as huge, in any sense of the word. Vienna is a small and suprisingly compact capital city. I can walk across town on foot quite quickly. London and Paris are huge. As for James' comment, some suburbs are not technically within Vienna, so additional travel costs would apply. Klosterneuburg in the example above is outside of Vienna, so it costs about 4 Euros to get there, rather than 2.20.

By "huge" I meant the amazing number of sights to see and things to do - miles of museum corridors alone, but worth every step.

Letter from Munich ; We were just in Vienna for two weeks ( dream of a lifetime ) and agree that staying in town is the best choice ( we stayed at Westbahnhof , a great location , ten minutes to the Altstadt on the U3 . However , Thomas' suggestion about Grinzing touches a nerve . It is beautiful and his remarks about access to town are spot on . We went up there several times to eat and wander , and to visit the cemetery where Gustav Mahler and his wife are buried . I hope you enjoy Vienna , it is truly magnificent!!

We have stayed in Floridsdorf in apartments on 2 occasions. The area is on the other side of the Danube and working class, (not a small town) but safe and the apartments were very nice, plus very good price. Ilona, our landlady, was great to work with and very helpful. The ride on s-bahn to Wien-Mitte/Landstrasse is about 15 minutes. We enjoyed our stays there and did not find it too inconvenient. We since have stayed closer, over in Augartenstrasse, which is about 5 min from city center by U-bahn. You could try south in Gumpoldskirchen which is also in the vineyards.

Hi, Susan: We just stayed for 10 nights in Vienna in the most convenient and ideal place, Pension Sacher - immediately adjacent to St. Stephen's Cathedral. (We did the whole 10 days without a car - Vienna's transportation system is outstanding!). You could not ask for a more central location, with the U-Bahn just steps away. Pension Sacher is an apartment-like accommodation...we had a washer machine, which came in handy, and a full kitchen. Spotlessly clean, spacious, with great hosts. Spectacular view of the cathedral at night. We loved having such a great location that we could come back to during the day to get off our feet and relax before heading back out again.