Tours in Munich

Gene,

I've also taken Radius tours of both Dachau and Neuschwanstein, and for me they were worth the cost.

The Guide for the Dachau tour was excellent, and provided a good history of the site before letting us tour a bit on our own. It was nice to have a chat with the other tour members on the way to Dachau, as we were all interested in the history and I learned a few things from them also.

The Guide for the Neuschwanstein tour was also great. Again, she provided a history of "Mad" King Ludwig, his somewhat mysterious demise and the history of the Castle prior to our tour of the Castle. The actual tour inside the Castle is conducted by the "offical" tour Guides there.

I've also taken the Radius Third Reich tour and Munich Walking tour. As mentioned in a previous reply, I felt that I learned far more on the tours than if I had visited the sites on my own. As I travel solo much of the time, taking day tours is part of my travel style and whether these could have been done just as easily on my own is not really the point.

I intend to continue taking selected day tours that fit my interests, as I did in Normandy with the BattleBus Tours.

Cheers!

I don't know about the Munich Highlights tour, but a Dachau tour would not be worth the extra money.

If you are in Munich for the day, a Munich XXL Partner Tageskarte is an all day pass for all of the transport in Munich's two inner zones for the day. It cost €12,30, only €2,90 more than a Tageskarte for the innermost zone.

That will cover your RT transportation from anywhere in downtown Munich out to the Dachau Bahnhof and then by bus to the Memorial. The Memorial has their own guided tours at 11 AM and 1 PM of €3,- pP, or you can rent an audio guide anytime for €3,50.

From the Hauptbahnhof S-Bahn station, take an S2, Richtung (direction) Petershausen, 21 minutes, to the Dachau Bahnhof. The bus, 726, leaves 10 minutes later from the bus stop in front of the Bahnhof. The stop is well marked, in English, as the bus to the Memorial. The bus takes about 7 minutes.

Some people, who have wasted their money on a "cost-added" tour, will try to convince you to waste yours too by claiming that they learned so much more on the tour. No one has ever proven that to me. I took the Memorial's tour last September, and the guide gave us information the entire time.

I have to disagree with Lee. We did the Radius tour to Dachau and it was a highlight of our 3.5 week trip. In my opinion we learned more on the tour than we would have by doing it ourselves. We enjoyed the experience so much we decided to do the Radius tour to Salzburg the next day. That one was disappointing and we could have done the same trip on our own. It is all in the guide you have. Our guide to Dachau was very knowledgeable and was able to answer all the questions we had. The guide to Salzburg was new and not familiar with the area.

Sometimes the choices people make in traveling is not about how much something costs or how much money you save, it is about what kind of experience are you looking for. I felt the experience we had at Dachau was worth the price we paid.

And how do you know the experience was worth the extra price? Because you paid the extra price? Prove it! If no one can prove it's better, why pay more?

I took the memorial's own tour, and I think it was the best experience I could have had.