Since you will be only in Germany, a German Rail pass makes more sense. Salzburg is accessible with the GRP as well. You can get a GRP which allows a certain number of travel days within 30 days. The GRP can be pre-ordered or purchased at major rail stations and airport stations in Germany .

https://www.bahn.com/en/view/offers/passes/german-rail-pass.shtml

The GRP may or may not cost you more than day passes + individual tickets. It just depends. There are certain advantages for each choice. The GRP allows you to use high-speed long-distance IC and ICE trains - the day passes do not.

To get to Hallstatt, just buy train tickets from Salzburg.

For the best river cruise, catch a train from Wiesbaden to Rüdesheim and board there - that's where the good scenery begins. Cruise at least as far as St. Goar (Rheinfels Castle ruins, take a tour?) or Boppard (great small town with nice riverfront, lots of wineries, restaurants, a cool chairlift to a lookout called Vierseenblick.) No need to cruise all the way to Koblenz, which takes longer and costs more but provides very little scenery bang for those bucks.

Take the train south from Boppard or St. Goar to Oberwesel and Bacharach, two great old-world towns worth wandering around. From there, you can catch a train to Wiesbaden via Mainz.

You can use a rail pass day for this day, or... A group day pass will cover all these train rides and also get you a 20% discount at the KD boat dock in Rüdesheim. Buy it at the Wiesbaden train station from a ticket machine. Details here:

https://www.vrminfo.de/en/tickets/tickets/ticket-offers/rheinland-pfalz-ticket/

Thanks, very interesting. I found the map and the only area not included where we plan to go is area around Wiesbaden and Heidelberg. I will have to look into individual tickets for those trips. I am surprised the single country eurail pass is a paper pass only. I like the idea of being able to do everything online, I will have to research to see if Bavaria ticket can be purchased online and used with an app instead of paper tickets.

A paper ticket is not a problem if it is easy to find places to make purchase. If I would want to use the multi person discount my guess is we would have to buy a paper pass.

If we took the cruise to Boppard would Koblenz and/or Cologne be worth a separate day trip by train? We would have three full days in Wiesbaden. One day could be the cruise. Another day we could take train to Heidelberg. Not sure if we could spend the entire day in Heidelberg. what stops could be good along the way? Mainz is just across the river, maybe good to fit in that day. What would you suggest for the third day?

Just to confirm what Russ and bigtyke wrote already: a Eurail pass is not what you need and even a German Rail Pass would not be worth the money if you only do 2 or 3 long-distance trips. Within states or regions there are cheaper daytickets or group-daytickets available. They can be bought through the DB Navigator, the app of the German national railway and imho THE indispensable app for travelers in Germany. For all those shorter trips you can buy the tickets on the day you need them. For longer distances, like from Wiesbaden to Garmisch, you can save quite a bit by booking savings fare tickets in advance, but they come with restrictions. The GRP gives you a decent price at full flexibility, but really that train ticketing issue is one you can take care of once the major destinations in your itinerary are set in stone.

A couple remarks:

Don't bother with Koblenz when Mainz or Heidelberg are the alternative options for a daytrip. Near Heidelberg Speyer (its cathedral being a World Heritage Site) and Weinheim with its cute oldtown are well worth a little detour.

Russ is spot on with his advice for the most scenic part of the Rhine, of course.

The Black Forest features some of the most scenic railway lines in the country, but you'd need to set aside 2-3 days extra just to cover that region. The BF covers 100 miles north to south and is not on route to any of your other destinations. So given that you have a pretty packed schedule already I'd suggest to skip it.

Cable cars to several mountain tops around Garmisch-Partenkirchen can easily be reached by train or bus. The Zugspitzbahn, a cog railway, runs from a station next to GaPa main station all the way up to just below the top of Zugspitze, Germany's highest mountain, and stops at some cable cars along the way as well.

To visit Neuschwanstein from GaPa is possible by bus, but not really convenient as the buses aren't running all that frequently. It may be best to take a train from Munich to Füssen, the lovely town near the palaces, for a one-night stay, do the tours first-thing the next morning (you need to book them online well in advance) and then take a bus to GaPa in the afternoon. Bus schedules can be looked up in the DB Navigator app or at http://www.bahn.com as well btw.

For the 3 nights in Nuremberg at the beginning I don't see how you could do a third sidetrip when Bamberg and Rothenburg are already on your list. You only have two full days there and Nuremberg itself easily keeps you busy for a couple days with its museums alone.

Sorry for not being more clear, the third day would be for when we are in Wiesbaden.

Well, of the 3 full days in WI you already have one set aside for the Middle Rhine Valley, another one for Heidelberg and you wouldn't have seen much of Wiesbaden or Mainz yet. So that 3rd day could well be used to explore the two. Or go visit Eltville https://www.rheingau.de/villages/eltville and Eberbach monastery and winery (a must-see imho!) - http://kloster-eberbach.de/en/monastery Eltville is on the train line from WI to Rüdesheim and there are frequent buses to the monastery.

Are you open to some itinerary suggestions?

Heidelberg is pretty far south of Wiesbaden. As A Mainzer points out, there's already a lot to see/do nearby. Munich seems to be in your sights only for the Bierfest... and you are traveling there twice, I think. So... I suggest you keep your 4 nights in "WI" If it's a real castle you want, one of Germany's very best castle tours is right there on the Rhine River just a ways north of Wiesbaden (Marksburg Castle in Braubach.) You can combine a cruise with a castle tour there, or maybe visit it on a separate day.

https://www.marksburg.de/en/circuit/

Then make a couple of "one-nighters." Day and night #5 just for Heidelberg. Then pack up and spend day and night #6 at the "other" Oktoberfest - in Stuttgart!

https://www.cannstatter-volksfest.de/en/landing-page/

Then on day #7 you can make your way directly to Garmisch and finish out your trip as outlined, finishing up in Munich for your flight. OR...

Have you been to Berchtesgaden previously? It's a really good alternative to Garmisch that is MUCH closer to Salzburg. After Stuttgart, you could work out the remaining 5 days in that area, possibly staying in just one spot and seeing both towns/areas.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IU7ZeErx86o

https://img.fotocommunity.com/blick-vom-jenner-auf-den-koenigssee-144102d2-856a-4f0d-a1f1-3162b549a867.jpg?height=1080

About Neuschwanstein... a day trip to Neuschwanstein from Garmisch or Munich will really eat up your day for the puny 30-minute tour you get. And keep in mind that it's not a castle - it's the most famous non-castle castle in Germany, but it in fact was built near the dawn of the 20th century as a residential palace with a fake castle facade. Marksburg OTOH near Wiesbaden is the real thing - it's stood there for around 800 years!

It isn't quite clear to me what pass or day pass mentioned doesn't cover outings from Wiesbaden - what "map" are you referring to?

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