Germany Regional Train Ticket Help

Wait Wendy, Lee will be along sometime today for the complete answer.

Generally speaking Länder tickets are valid, as the name suggests, in one German state (Land). The three city states (Berlin, Hamburg, Bremen) are part of other, neighboring Länder tickets. There are other multi-state cooperations as well (e.g Rheinland-Pfalz and tiny Saarland).

Youre right, theyre just day tickets.

But if you're just in Berlin for 5 days you would just need tickets for the Berlin public transit, not necessarily for the regional trains. Depends on your the details of your plans (i.e. day trips outside of the Berlin city limits [zone A and B of the Berlin public transit] and/or neighboring districts/cities [zone C]) though.

Laender Tickets are good for one day's use in a particular Land which is a "state" in Germany. Don't say "Region" because some states have passes valid in a just a part of the Land (e.g., the Werdenfels-Ticket in Bavaria around Garmisch-Partenkirchen), and they call them regional passes. Three states, Sachsen, Sachsen-Anhalt, and Thueringen share one Laender-Ticket. It's called the Sachsen-Ticket if you buy it in Sachsen, etc, but it is valid for travel in all three states.

Berlin, and the surrounding Land of Brandenburg are one transit district, Verkehrsverbund and have common passes for both.

In Berlin there is an entire range of tickets. I think the smallest multi-day transit pass is for 7 days and is sold for specific regions in Brandenburg (i.e., all or parts of Berlin, Potsdam, etc).

In Berlin, there are also visitors passes which include 2 or 3 days of transit.

All this is on the Verkehrsverbund-Berlin-Brandenburg website (www.vbbonline.de) and can be displayed in English.