4 Days From Munich: Bavaria Day Trips
Four days is where a Munich trip stops being a city break and becomes a Bavaria trip with a Munich hotel room. It’s our 3-day plan , Munich, Neuschwanstein, Dachau, plus a fourth day crossing into Austria for Salzburg. Most itineraries stop at three days and skip the border entirely; that’s a mistake. Want the Zugspitze too? See the 5-day version .
Book these before you go:
- Neuschwanstein day tour by train : the timed slot is the real bottleneck
- Dachau Memorial tour from Munich : free entry, but a guide adds context worth paying for
- Salzburg day trip by train : handles the cross-border rail connection for you
- A hotel near the Hauptbahnhof : every train on this itinerary starts there
| Day | Focus | Distance/time from Munich |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Munich orientation, beer garden dinner | Home base |
| 2 | Neuschwanstein Castle | ~3h door to door |
| 3 | Dachau Memorial | ~50-60 min door to door |
| 4 | Salzburg, Austria | ~1h42 by train |
Day 1: Munich as a base, not a bucket list
Get the practicalities sorted before getting precious about sights. The MVV network’s S1 or S8 from the airport takes 40-45 minutes into the Hauptbahnhof for EUR 13.60; don’t bother with the Deutschland-Ticket for four days, it’s EUR 63 a month and only earns its keep on longer stays or constant day-tripping. Carry cash regardless: bakeries, imbiss stands and a lot of beer gardens still don’t take cards, and Sunday shop closures are a nationwide law, not a Munich quirk.
Walk Marienplatz, glance at the Glockenspiel if the 11am or noon show lines up, and don’t build a schedule around a twelve-minute mechanical clock. Spend the real afternoon at the Englischer Garten watching the Eisbach surfers, the better free spectacle in a city full of church interiors. For dinner, skip Hofbrauhaus. It’s a tourist stop, not a benchmark; Augustiner-Keller and Hirschgarten, Europe’s largest beer garden at around 8,000 seats, do better beer and better food without the tour-bus noise.
Day 2: Neuschwanstein, booked before you packed
Neuschwanstein sits near Fussen, about 2h10 from Munich by train plus a short bus, and it’s a fixed-time guided tour only, roughly 35 minutes, no walk-up tickets exist. Book through the official Hohenschwangau ticket center weeks ahead; the 10am-2pm summer slots go first every single time. Do the tour, then walk up to Marienbrucke for the view that’s actually on every postcard, since the castle itself photographs poorly from inside its own courtyard. Lunch in Hohenschwangau, then back to Munich for the evening; there’s no reason to linger past the tour.
Day 3: Dachau, treated as what it is
Take the S2 to Dachau, about 20-25 minutes, then bus 726 to KZ-Gedenkstatte. Entry is free, the site runs daily 9:00-17:00 with last entry at 16:30, closed only December 24, it does not close on Mondays despite the pattern at most German museums. English tours run roughly 11am and 1pm, and this is a memorial and documentation site , not a tourist attraction, however it gets ranked on generic top-ten lists. Give the site a genuine half day and don’t schedule anything upbeat right after. Don’t combine this with Neuschwanstein in the same day either; each needs its own travel time and its own headspace, and doing both back to back cheapens whichever comes second.
Why does this itinerary keep Neuschwanstein and Dachau on separate days?
Because they demand opposite moods. Neuschwanstein is a festive, crowded, timed-slot attraction; Dachau is a solemn memorial that deserves a clear head and no rush. Squeezing both into one day, even when the train timing technically allows it, means neither gets the pacing it needs. Separate days cost you nothing on a four-day trip and fix the problem entirely.
Day 4: Cross into Austria
Salzburg is roughly 1h42 away by train at its fastest, and yes, you’re now in Austria, so bring ID even inside the Schengen zone. The Altstadt is UNESCO-listed and small enough to cover in a day: Mozart’s birthplace, the Getreidegasse shopping street, and Hohensalzburg Fortress reached by funicular for the view over the Salzach river. Skip the organized Sound of Music bus tours unless you genuinely want to sing along on a coach with strangers; walking the old town yourself covers the same ground without the script. Take an evening train back to Munich, or a later one if Salzburg’s own beer gardens have a claim on you, they’re good enough to compete.