How To Visit Auschwitz From Krakow – 11 Helpful Tips

As even the most casual student of WWII history probably knows, Auschwitz was the most notorious and deadly of all the many Nazi concentration camps. Today the site is a Museum and a sobering Memorial to the 1.1 million people who were tortured and murdered within its fences. And even though visiting Auschwitz is emotionally draining, I believe that a day trip to Auschwitz is essential while traveling in Krakow Poland. But, there are some nuances to be aware of when planning your visit. So let me give you some tips and insights on how to visit Auschwitz from Krakow.

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Organized Tour or DIY?

The first question you’ll need to ask yourself before you visit Auschwitz from Krakow is: Should you arrange to go with one of several Krakow-based tour companies? Or should you do it yourself?

If you go with a tour company, your package will likely include shared transportation in a van (Auschwitz is roughly 40 miles away from Krakow), plus your Auschwitz entry ticket. Some companies also include a boxed lunch. Here’s a few examples on Viator:

Most companies advertise these as guided tours. And indeed they are. But you should know that the Guides themselves are museum staff, and are part of the general entry fee. And you get those same Guides if you take the DIY approach.

Thus, if you do choose to visit Auschwitz from Krakow with a tour company, you are essentially paying a premium for a shared round trip van ride. (Though also, these organized tours do offer less hassle than the DIY approach – which is certainly worth something too.)

We opted for the DIY approach….for two reasons. First, we don’t mind using public transportation which helps us save money when we travel. And second, since all the organized tours leave early in the morning, the DIY approach does provide more flexibility with timing.

Getting to Auschwitz from Krakow

So then, if you are using public transportation to visit Auschwitz from Krakow, what is your best option?

I would recommend getting to Auschwitz from Krakow using the Auschwitz Shuttle. While you can travel to Auschwitz via public bus or train, I personally concluded that the Shuttle is the easiest and most direct way to get from Krakow to Auschwitz. It even dropped us off within steps of the entrance.

The shuttle is operated by a company called Lajkonik. They offer multiple departures from Krakow’s central bus terminal throughout the day. The cost of our round trip tickets was just a little over 13 Euros each. The journey itself took 90 minutes – less than the train and about the same as the public bus. And it was reasonably comfortable.

I would strongly recommend that you purchase your shuttle tickets ahead of time. On the day we visited Auschwitz from Krakow, our 9:40 coach was completely full. In fact, upon our arrival, we discovered a line of people hoping to purchase tickets from the driver. And ultimately, not everyone was able to board. Here is a link for purchasing (and you’ll see the timetable too.)

Entry Tickets – Plan Well Ahead

I would also strongly advise that you purchase your museum entry tickets well before you visit Auschwitz from Krakow. The Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum (official name) is very popular, and the tickets are timed-entry.

We visited in early September. I started looking for tickets two weeks ahead of time, and had to change our desired visit day due to lack of tickets during my preferred midday entry slots. The museum website recommends booking one month in advance.

Also, you should be aware that there are two different types of tickets. The General Tour (with a guide educator) and the Tour for individuals without an educator.

The latter type of ticket allows you to tour Auschwitz-Birkenau on your own and for free. However, entry times for this type of ticket are limited to the end of the day. (Even though these tickets are free, you should still reserve your time in advance – the free tickets are very popular.)

But I can’t really imagine touring Auschwitz-Birkenau on your own. The guides (officially called Educators) offer so much more insight than you could possibly gather by just wandering around yourself. These guided General Tour tickets currently cost 27 USD.

I did notice an automated ticket machine outside the main entry building. However all the tickets for our day were sold out when I checked it. So again, be sure to plan well ahead and purchase your tickets online. After you do, you will be emailed a digital copy that is scanned upon entry. Here’s the Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum website.

Of course, if you decide to take one of the organized tours from Krakow, you won’t need to worry about any of this. That’s certainly a potential advantage of these tours, especially during the busy season – if the tour company has availability on your desired day, you will get into the museum at their assigned time.

Food Options at Auschwitz

When you visit Auschwitz from Krakow, you are in for a long day. The guided tour lasts 3.5 hours. Roundtrip travel time is 3 hours. And there are waiting periods too.

You will certainly need to eat. And there aren’t many food options. So again, it is best to plan ahead.

You will find a small cafeteria on site, but there aren’t any restaurants in the immediate vicinity.

I’d read some fairly uninspiring reviews about the food selection and food quality at the cafeteria prior to our visit. So, we packed our own lunch…

This worked out just fine. We found plenty of covered benches near the entry building to sit and eat while we awaited our assigned entry time (And covered was good – as you may have noticed already, it was quite rainy during our day trip to Auschwitz).

Also as I mentioned earlier, if you do decide to take one of the organized tours to visit Auschwitz from Krakow, some of these include a box lunch in the cost of your tour. So definitely pay attention to the booking details.

The Entry Process

The Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum advises you to start your entry process 30 minutes prior to your assigned tour time. This is because lines can be long (even with timed entry), and you do go through a security check.

The photo above was not our line. It was a line later in the day. Our own check-in was pretty quick and easy. Maybe 5 minutes total.

Once we passed through security, we were given a badge that indicated our tour time and tour language.

And then we sat and waited. Our English-speaking tour guide appeared just a few minutes prior to our assigned time.

Before walking into the Camp, our group of about 15 stopped in an audioguide room. We were equipped with headphones that allowed us to hear our human guide better than with our naked ears alone.

Touring the Auschwitz Camp

The guided tour at the Auschwitz-Birkenau museum consists of two parts. You will first visit the Auschwitz Concentration Camp, which is located directly behind the museum entry buildings. After which, you will tour a second camp called Birkenau. The two concentration camps are connected by a shuttle bus.

This post isn’t really about the history of these concentration camps. I don’t feel I can do it justice in a blog post. You will learn about it all anyway when you take your own day trip to Auschwitz. My goal in this section is simply to give you a general idea about what to expect.

The Auschwitz Concentration Camp consists of a collection of buildings that were originally Polish Army barracks. The Nazis repurposed them for their own dark use.

The tour takes you through several of these buildings, while you learn about the Nazi atrocities that took place within the Camp. You’ll also witness the inhumane living conditions that the Jewish, Polish, and Romani prisoners were subjected to inside the buildings.

Each building you enter is set up as a sort of mini-museum with its own theme. You’ll see large photos on the walls illustrating what your guide tells you about the Camp’s history…

And you’ll see various devastating displays of prisoner belongings confiscated by the Nazis – things such as shoes, luggage, hair.

You’ll also learn about the development of the Nazi extermination program (which didn’t really reach its peak until Birkenau was built.) And at the end, you’lll walk through the very first gas chamber used to murder Auschwitz prisoners.

The Auschwitz portion of our tour lasted 1 hour and 45 minutes.

Crowd Expectations

This is a good place in the post for me to mention crowd flow expectations when visiting Auschwitz.

I was admittedly a bit shocked at how crowded our experience at the Auschwitz camp was. I expected that the timed-entry system might help mitigate crowd sizes. But they moved a lot of people through Auschwitz while we were there.

While our own individual group was a reasonable size, and while the audioguide system made it easy to hear our guide, there were many groups all touring at the same time. And even though the starting times for each group were staggered, there was a lot of backup into the various buildings…

And shoulder to shoulder crowds of visitors inside the buildings….

If I am being perfectly honest, it did detract from the overall experience of visiting Auschwitz. It felt rushed and there wasn’t much time for reflection. But people do need to see this. And the museum needs to accommodate the demand. So it’s an understandably difficult balance.

The second part of the tour at the Birkenau Camp was much less claustrophobic.

Transfer to Birkenau

After touring the Auschwitz camp, you will take a shuttle bus to the Birkenau Concentration Camp which is located 3 km away. The bus runs back and forth between the two camps every 10 minutes. And the journey itself takes about 10 minutes.

We were given a 10 minute break after we finished visiting Auschwitz. We then boarded the bus together with our assigned tour group and headed to Birkenau.

Touring the Birkenau Camp

Birkenau is an entirely different experience compared to Auschwitz. Much of this camp was destroyed by the Nazis during the last days of the war. They wanted to destroy the evidence of their horrors. So you can expect to find a lot of open space here (it’s a huge camp), and lots of destruction. The majority of the buildings are in ruins.

Because of this larger size, tour groups can spread out a little more throughout the grounds of the Camp. This does allow for a more thoughtful experience. And I was grateful for this, because the events at Birkenau were even tougher to process than the things we learned when visiting Auschwitz.

As you tour Birkenau, you will stand next to the ruins of the large gas chambers built here, while you learn even more details about the horrific extermination process. At Birkenau’s peak of operation toward the end of the War, 1500 prisoners were killed in each chamber per hour….there were 4 chambers…and the chambers operated 24 hours per day.

You will walk the “Road of Death” along the camp train tracks. This is the route Jewish prisoners would walk after being selected for immediate death upon arrival by train from across Nazi-occupied territories. Straight to the death chambers at the end of the tracks.

You will enter one of the remaining barracks that were hastily and poorly built to accommodate the prisoners still strong enough for forced labor.

And you will see their horrific living conditions – where 7 people slept per bunk. And that’s per bunk level. Each bunk compartment had 3 bunk levels including the floor. So that equals 21 prisoners in each partitioned space that you see below!

Ultimately, we spent a little over an hour touring Birkenau. After which, we boarded the next available shuttle and returned to Auschwitz.

Scheduling Considerations

When planning all the details for your day trip to Auschwitz from Krakow, you will need to orchestrate the timing of your transportation and your museum entry. And for me, there was a little bit of guess work – I didn’t find a blog post like this. But you did. So here is what the timing of our day trip to Auschwitz ended up looking like.

Shuttle departure from Krakow at 9:40

Arrival at Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum at 11:10

Lunch on a outdoor bench until Noon

Entry into the Museum at Noon (30 minutes prior to assigned time)

Tour Start at 12:30

Tour completed & back at Auschwitz at 4:00pm (the tour took exactly 3.5 hours as indicated on the museum website)

On Time shuttle departure from Auschwitz at 4:30 pm

Arrival back in Krakow at 6:00pm

It turned out to be a perfectly-timed agenda for us to visit Auschwitz from Krakow.

Emotion Management

Visiting Auschwitz is undeniably an emotionally difficult experience. And we knew it would be.

However, that’s not a reason to shy away from going. The Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum is also a Memorial to the lives lost, and an opportunity to learn. It’s certainly one of the best reminders in the world of the ongoing potential for man’s inhumanity towards man. And, the only way to avoid repeating history’s mistakes is to learn from them…hopefully.

During the tour itself, I found it hard to emotionally process everything I was seeing. Especially at the crowded Auschwitz Camp, as I pointed out earlier in this post.

Birkenau did provide more opportunity for reflection. But I found myself doing most of my emotional processing during our 90 minute shuttle ride back to Krakow. And in the days that followed. And still even now.

Sure, I’ve read plenty about Nazi concentration camps over the years, and watched many WW2 movies. But there is no substitute for visiting Auschwitz in person. It can’t help but affect a permanent change deep inside of you. If you are traveling in this part of Poland, don’t miss it!

If you would like help determining how to best fit an Auschwitz day trip into your overall Krakow itinerary, then check out this post:

How Many Days in Krakow: 3, 4, or More For Your Itinerary?

If you would like to read more about our travels in Poland then check out these posts:

Riding the Train from Krakow to Warsaw & More Polish Train Tips

12 Things You Shouldn’t Miss When Visiting Gdansk Poland

A Day Trip From Gdansk to Malbork Castle

All The Reasons You Should Consider Visiting Wroclaw Poland