germany trains

Your countryman Mark Smith at the Man in Seat 61 can help you or refer you to an agency that can

In all fairness, you really need to give us more information if we are to be of help. How many of you are there, and of what ages? Are you just going to stay in those four cities (Frankfurt, Hamburg, Berlin, and Stuttgart, or are you going to use the trains to go away from those towns on day trips? Give us an estimate of those trips.

German Rail sells advance purchase tickets called SparPreis ticket at a pretty good discount if you buy them well in advance, which it appears you could do. Right now, you could buy SparPreis tickets for Frankfurt to Hamburg, Hamburg to Berlin, Berlin to Stuttgart, and Stuttgart to Frankfurt for a total of 175,20€ ($188,10) for two people. These are NOT the least expensive, completely non-returnable tickets, which are completely non-returnable. You could return them, with a penalty, up to the day before travel.

It looks like two 15 day Eurail German Rail Passes would cost you $946 from RailEurope; a similar German Rail Twin Pass from the Bahn would be 733€, ot $787. Either pass would cover you for regional rail or the S-Bahn in those towns, but not for any other transport (U-Bahn, trans, or buses). For a nominal amount, you can buy day tickets for all means of transport in those towns.

The difference between a 15 day pass and advance purchase, 4 SparPreis tickets between those venues is about 560€. I can't really see anyone spending that much money on side trips with Bahn tickets.

Barring further new information about your planned itinerary, I would have to advise you "no" to a rail pass.

You download the DB app and that is all you need. Have each couple of the group do it for themselves. I wouldn’t book 8 tickets on one device. Try it at home before you go. Download the app and take a look.
I believe that travel with a group of 8 might be a bigger obstacle than the trains.
There are no reserved seats 2nd class on German trains, so no worries about coordinating seating. Buy your ticket on the app and go. It is as simple as that.
We bought individual tickets the day before each day of travel and did fine. Our cost for one person was €140 each for travel between 10 cities over 30 days. That was last month.
Now there is the €9 tickets which I know nothing about.

Lee, I think the slightly garbled phrase in the OP, "the or 8 off us all over 60" probably translates as there is a group of 8 seniors. How senior it doesn't say.

Hi there are 8 off us we are useing franfurt hamburg berlin and stuttgrat as hubs and plan to travel between each hub and spend the day in each place there is no set times places or train everything as we go

Sorry need to make it clear we are looking at traveling to different places each day from hubs so approx min of 1 to 2 places a day

Average 3 nights in each

"...we are looking at traveling to different places each day from hubs so approx min of 1 to 2 places a day..."

Have you actually penciled out your plan and considered the consequences?

Let's look at Days 7-11 just for kicks...

Day 7 Hamburg > Berlin

• Lv 9 am ar 11 am
• find hotel, drop bags, lunch for 8
• 1 pm day trip to 1-2 places (Potsdam? Sachsenhausen? Wannsee? Dresden? Lutherstadt Wittenberg?)

Days 8-10

• Day trips to 1-2 places on 3 separate days

Day 11: Berlin > Stuttgart

• Lv Berlin 9:30 am ar 3 pm (lunch on the train?)
• Find hotel, drop bags; begin day trip to...??? at 4 pm??

Berlin is much more than just a place to sleep in between visits to other places. When did you find time to sightsee IN BERLIN? Standard advice is to dedicate at least 3-4 full days to Berlin alone. I'm also struggling to come up with a good day trip out of Stuttgart that might be completed with such a late start - maybe on Days 12 & 13, but then if you leave Stuttgart on those days, when do you see things in Stuttgart?

I would encourage you to re-plan for maybe 5-7 days in each of TWO hubs - probably Frankfurt and Berlin. Frankfurt could produce numerous train outings. If you want to visit Hamburg, with wise planning you could possibly get 8 people there and back on a day trip from your Berlin base. Likewise, a day trip to Stuttgart from Frankfurt is feasible.

Done in this way, you would have the following long-distance high-speed-rail travel days:

Frankfurt > Berlin (base)
Berlin > Hamburg > Berlin
Berlin > Frankfurt (base)
Frankfurt > Stuttgart > Berlin

To cover these travel days use either the saver fare options (prices vary) or the 5-day nonconsecutive German Rail twinpass option (€410/couple/5 days) with the 5th day to cover some additional day trip. All additional day trips from your bases then get done cheaply by local/regional group day passes as Lee has suggested.

thanks are plan is to stay in frankfurt 3 nights seeing frankfurt and breaking the time up by traveling to other places within 1 or 2 hr train ride to get the feel of them for when we return. same 3 nights hamburg same 4 nights berlin and the same for stuttgrat.i know the twin pass seems best option to get to are basses but i would like to know best why of getting round theses places when we get there are there local day passes buses underground etc and if so which are best thanks in advance