Munich walking tour: eight walks compared

If a Munich Old Town walking tour is what you came for, four of the eight listings are exactly that. The $25 Old Town Walking Tour is the closest thing here to a Munich top attractions walking tour: its listing covers the major attractions of the Bavarian capital at an easy pace and adds a break in the English Garden. The other $25 listing is, in its own words, a Munich city walking tour with a local guide: the Frauenkirche, Marienplatz and stories of the city’s culture.

The Walking Tour of Old Town & Viktualienmarkt is shorter, 90 minutes, and names three stops the others do not: the traditional market, the Hofbräuhaus and what the listing calls Germany’s most exclusive shopping street. It runs as a private or a group tour and is listed at $269, so check the listing for what the price covers before you set it against the $25 walks.

The Old Town Highlights Private Walking Tour is the long one: six hours for $354, with Marienplatz and time inside St. Peter’s and the Asamkirche. It is the one Old Town listing here whose text takes you into two churches rather than past them.

Start with what a Munich walking tour costs per hour. Two hours for $25 works out at $12.50 an hour with a guide, and both listings at that price carry several hundred reviews: 655 at 4.7 and 562 at 4.6.

This site’s top pick is not a walk. It is the hop-on hop-off bus at $27, with 4,805 reviews at 4.3. The $25 Old Town Walking Tour is the lowest-priced main sightseeing listing, which is why the site’s from price points to it while the top pick stays with the bus. On rating the walk is ahead, 4.7 against 4.3.

Above $100 the question changes from whether to walk to who walks with you. The three private listings have 30, 23 and 19 reviews, so their ratings say less than the 4.7 on the $25 walk. The $586 private walk adds BMW Museum and BMW Welt entry and is rated 4.2.

Three things a Munich walking tour description here leaves out: the meeting point, the language and the size of the group. Each listing shows them at booking, and they are worth thirty seconds of reading, because two walks at the same $25 can still start in different places.

Length is stated. Three are two hours, two are 90 minutes, the private Old Town walk is six hours and the BMW walk four. The private tour with a local quotes two to six hours and builds the route around you; its listing mentions landmarks, lively squares, green spaces and local neighbourhoods without saying how much of that is on foot, so ask before you book if walking distance matters.

Prefer wheels to walking? The hop-on bus at $27 and the guided bike tours from $44 are compared on their own pages.