Getting around Germany (flight / travel strategy)

Question

So here is my plan to visit Germany & Romania as a USA native.

USA or Newark EWR -> Bucharest, Romania (4 days) fly to -> somewhere in Germany (Munich or Berlin) (stay 10 days) ---- > fly back to Newark EWR.

Other than electronic nightclubs we have 0 expectations for Germany and most likely will pick random things to do on top Germany travel/sightseeing lists.

My original plan was to fly into [One of Germany's busiest airports (Frankfurt, Munich, Berlin or Düsseldorf] Then rent a nice car for the 10 days days because Germany seems to have nice highways and then end at the same city and fly home.

I came to think there is a better plan. For example, what if I flew into Munich or Berlin, then drove to Nuremberg, then Frankfurt then Cologne then to the last city to fly back to the States. Does this make more sense? Ie start at Berlin or Munich then spend, say 2 days, in each of those major cities driving towards the other one to fly back out to the home (Newark EWR of the USA). Does this make more sense? Pretty much I have roughly 10 business days + 3 weekends so I was going to try and visit the most "touristy" areas of Germany.

Also if I wanted to start out or end at Vienna Austria because 10 days in Germany was a bit too much could I drive a rental car across the border or would I have to fly from say Berlin to Vienna or Frankfurt to Vienna?

we plan to visit in August

I think that the reason for closing this question is WRONG. The question is not really about "constructing travel and tour itineraries", as insinuated, but rather about the choice of a means of transportation. — Maître Peseur, Apr 20 '15 at 10:28
Is there a better stack exchange site this should have been posted on? — Frank Visaggio, Apr 20 '15 at 12:04
There is only one site about travel, as far as I know. Anyway, I have voted to reopen this question ... — Maître Peseur, Apr 20 '15 at 12:28
I did not vote either way but the issue is not the topic of the question (it does not to be moved to another site) but its form (it needs to be edited). Specifically, the best questions on the Stack Exchange platform are sharply focused on one issue only and it should be possible to give a single objective answer. Open-ended what-could-I-do/can-you-give-me-some-ideas questions are frowned upon and I guess your question is leaning a bit too much in that direction. — Relaxed, Apr 20 '15 at 13:14
You can edit it but the focus of the question is , "is it viable to drive around germany from city to city to have a different arrival and departure city?". For example in romania that would be a terrible idea due to the road quality and averaging 30 mph during your travels. — Frank Visaggio, Apr 20 '15 at 13:18
@PESEUR I understand that and I am not interested in an argument, I just tried to explain the situation to Bob Sinclair. — Relaxed, Apr 20 '15 at 14:01
@BobSinclar Like I said, I did not vote to close the question and I even submitted an answer. As you describe it in your last comment, it sounds like a valid question to me but I must also admit that, as currently written, it was not completely clear, which I why I suggested editing it. — Relaxed, Apr 20 '15 at 14:07
But you implicitly agree with closing the question because of it falls under the (admittedly debatable) category "constructing travel and tour itineraries". — Maître Peseur, Apr 20 '15 at 15:16
@PESEUR That's complete BS, I even posted an answer! You are just trying to pick fights rather than help the OP and it won't end well (and I am saying this as someone who always had some sympathy for your positions). — Relaxed, Apr 20 '15 at 15:39

score 3 · Accepted Answer · edited Apr 13 '17 at 12:52

Start at the end, by arranging the flight out of Germany. Choose the city of departure that is the most convenient regarding prices and schedules. This way you will have fixed three parameters: the arrival in Bucharest and departure from Bucharest as well as the departure from Germany.

Then, choose a flight between Bucharest and Germany. Choose again a flight that is convenient regarding price and schedule.

Now you can fill in the “gap” between the arrival in Germany and your departure. That should be easy ass you already have plenty of ideas in mind.

Use your favourite flight search engine to find out about flights between Bucharest and Germany. As you need a one-way flight, you could have a look at the following companies: Germanwings, Wizzair and Air Berlin.

You seem to be focused on cities. In that case, renting a car does not really make sense. There are excellent train and bus connections between the German cities. Germany used to have “nice” highways some time ago. Now they are crowded, in a bad shape or subject to construction works.

It is not a problem either to fit Vienna into your plans. You can then fly from Bucharest into Vienna. Use again your favourite search engine. One company to have a look at is Niki. Alternatively, you can take a direct night train from Bucharest to Vienna. From Vienna you can continue by an ICE or Railjet high-speed train to Germany.

There are some threads on this site that may be of interest to you:

Places worth visiting by train from Munich to Berlin

How to travel (relatively) cheaply by ICE trains in Germany?

Cheap bus lines in Germany, something like Orangeways?

Berlin to Munich in 5 Days

You can also browse through the GERMANY tag on this site:

https://travel.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/germany

When you say avoid those airlines that is due to their unreliableness and likelihood of delays I assume? — Frank Visaggio, Apr 20 '15 at 13:20
On the contrary. That's not what I meant. These are airlines you could consider for your one-way flight. They probably have lower prices than e.g. Lufthansa, AUA or Tarom. I have tried to reformulate the sentence. I am not a native English speaker. Sorry for that. — Maître Peseur, Apr 20 '15 at 15:23

Relaxed · Answer 2 · 2015-04-20T15:44:50.023

In a nutshell, everything is possible: dropping the car off in another German city, renting in Austria and dropping it off in Germany or vice versa. You will pay a premium for one-way rentals and then extra on top of that for cross-border one-way rentals. But you can do it with all the major international brands.

Beyond that, German motorways are not quite what they used to be but driving around the country is reasonably fast and easy, if that's what you want to do. I have crossed it several times (from the Austrian border to the Netherlands or from the French border to Berlin) in less than a day, no problem at all (I usually drive around 110 mph where possible).

Forgoing getting a car entirely and going around by train is also a perfectly reasonable option in Germany/Central Europe, at least if you want to focus on cities and not on more rural areas like the Rhine valley, Black Forrest, etc.

From Vienna you can also easily include other neighbouring countries, at the very least Prague and the Czech Republic on the way to Berlin. But I could also easily spend ten days in one region or a couple of cities in Germany (although if you are from the US and not coming to Europe frequently, I can see why you would want to cram as much as possible in this one trip).

If you want to rent a car, check the fine print: Germany/Austria/Switzerland/France is almost certainly fine but further east some rental companies or class of cars might have additional restrictions, the contract will list which countries are included.

score 2 · Answer 3 · answered Apr 20 '15 at 06:34

If this doesn't affect the price of your flight tickets, I would suggest to fly to one city, e.g. Berlin, drive to the other end of Germany, eg. Munich while stopping at Frankfurt or Nuremberg and then fly home.

I see little sense in driving back to the arrival airport, unless this affects the price of the flight tickets or the rental car (one-way rentals are usually more expensive).

Frankfurt and Munich have probably the most connections to the US, Berlin not so much.

Driving from Germany to Austria and back should be no problem (check with the rental agency!), however renting the car in Germany and giving it back in Vienna could be a problem (or expensive).

Getting around Germany (flight / travel strategy)

3 Answers3