Day trips from Munich
5 stopsBest: June to September for the mountains. Dachau and Salzburg, all yearUpdated July 2026
The Alps are visible from the city hall tower on clear days and they’re an hour away by train, and that changes what coming here means: Munich is the only big German city where you can have breakfast on a square and lunch at fifteen hundred metres. Salzburg is ninety minutes off and already another country.
And one trip on this list isn’t a trip. Dachau is twenty minutes on the S-Bahn: it was the first Nazi concentration camp, opened in March 1933, and the model the others were built from. You don’t go to have a nice time. You go because it’s twenty minutes away and because the place exists.
The route, stop by stop
5 STOPS- 01
Dachau
Dachau opened in March 1933, weeks after the Nazis took power, and it was the first: the camp where the system was tested and where the officers who later built the others were trained. It ran for twelve years, longer than any other. Today it’s a memorial, entry is free and there are audio guides in several languages.
It’s twenty minutes from Marienplatz on the S-Bahn, and that closeness is part of what you learn: it wasn’t a secret in a distant forest, it was the next town along, with a station and neighbours. Set aside half a day and don’t chain it to something cheerful afterwards.
With children, the memorial suggests twelve or thirteen upwards, and it’s right.
- 02
Neuschwanstein
It helps to know what you’re going to see, because almost nobody does: Neuschwanstein isn’t a medieval castle, it’s a nineteenth-century fantasy. Ludwig II started it in 1869 taking his cues from Wagner’s operas, bankrupted himself paying for it, never finished it, and only slept there a few months before dying in 1886 in circumstances still unclear. It opened to the public six weeks after his death.
Two hours out, two back and a guided tour of thirty-five minutes at an assigned time that sells out weeks ahead: those are the real numbers. It’s Munich’s most popular trip and its most oversold, and even so, the first time you see it from the bridge, it works.
Go knowing you’ll spend the day on the road.
- 03
Salzburg
Ninety minutes by train and you’re in Austria, in a city that got rich on salt, hence the name, with a whole baroque centre wedged between two hills. Mozart was born here in 1756 and the city has never got over it, for better and worse: there are chocolate balls with his face on every corner.
What to see is the Hohensalzburg fortress up top: nine hundred years old and never taken, and from up there you understand the city at a glance. It’s the best full day on this list if mountains and difficult history aren’t your thing.
And one practical detail people forget: you cross a border, so if your eSIM is Germany-only, in Salzburg you have no data.
- 04
Garmisch and the Zugspitze
The Zugspitze is two thousand nine hundred and sixty-two metres, the highest point in Germany, and you go up without walking: a rack railway and a cable car put you on top from the village. From the summit, on clear days, you see four countries. The village, Garmisch-Partenkirchen, is eighty minutes by train from central Munich.
What decides the day isn’t the timetable, it’s the cloud: if the valley is socked in, you see nothing up there and you’ve paid for a white sauna. Check the summit webcam before leaving the flat. It’s the one case on this list where improvising beats booking.
Down below there’s a gorge, a river, and the village of the 1936 Games, which has its own reading.
- 05
Nuremberg or Regensburg
An hour by ICE separates Munich from Nuremberg, Bavaria’s second city. You know it for two things and both are there: the Nazi rallies, whose grounds still stand half-ruined with a documentation centre inside, and the 1945 trials, whose Courtroom 600 can be visited. The old town was rebuilt from scratch after the war.
Regensburg is the opposite: it wasn’t bombed and it has the largest intact medieval centre in Germany, with a twelfth-century stone bridge the crusades crossed and world heritage status on top. It’s ninety minutes away on the Danube and almost nobody outside the country knows it.
If you want one and not both: Nuremberg for the history, Regensburg for the walking.
Frequently asked
Can you visit Dachau from Munich in a day?
Yes, it’s about twenty minutes on the S2 plus a bus, and entry to the memorial is free. It was the first Nazi concentration camp, from March 1933, and the model for the others. Allow half a day and don’t chain it to something cheerful afterwards.
Is Neuschwanstein worth it from Munich?
If you know what you’re going to see, yes. It isn’t medieval: Ludwig II started it in 1869 inspired by Wagner, it was never finished, and it opened to the public six weeks after his death. It’s two hours out, two back and a thirty-five-minute timed tour that sells out weeks ahead.
How long is it from Munich to the Alps?
About eighty minutes by train to Garmisch-Partenkirchen, and from there a rack railway and a cable car go up the Zugspitze, Germany’s highest mountain at 2,962 m. The cloud decides the day: check the summit webcam before you set off.