Auschwitz Birkenau Tour from Krakow: Self-Guided Explorations and Insights
4.3
326 Ratings
Kraków
Embark on a self-guided tour of Auschwitz-Birkenau from Krakow and explore the memorial and museum at your own pace. Reflect on history, discover hidden gems, and gain deeper insights.
Duration: 7 hours
Cancellation: 1 day learn more
Highlights
  • Krakow - Start your tour with a pickup from Pawia 18b, bus stop Kiss and Ride (K+R). Then relax in 1.5-hour minivan drive to Auschwitz-Birkenau.
  • Panstwowe Muzeum Auschwitz-Birkenau - After 1.5 hour of drive you will get to Birkenau near the town of Auschwitz. Upon arrival have a short break. Before you start your tour collect informational booklets in your own language and receive from the driver all important information regarding what you must see. Explore the biggest Nazi extermination camp on your own. Spend at least one and a half hour seeing the remnants of living barracks for prisoners and the notorious gas chambers. From the Birkenau Memorial make your way to the Auschwitz Museum.
  • Panstwowe Muzeum Auschwitz-Birkenau - Before you enter to Auschwitz I, receive guidelines from the driver and spend up to 2 hours in the Museum visiting numerous permanent exhibitions intended to provide an account of the horror of the camp.
  • Krakow - Finish your tour and go back to Kraków to the starting point, seeing various landmarks on the way. Travel back to central Krakow and finish with a drop-off in town.
What's Included
  • Guidebook in preferred language (subject to selection)
  • Explore at your own pace with a self-guided tour
  • Includes entry tickets to Auschwitz I and Birkenau
  • Round-trip transportation on the same bus
  • Comfortable, air-conditioned vehicle from Cracow city centre
What's Not Included
  • Gratuities (optional)
Additional Information

Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum stand as one of Europe’s most visited museums, welcoming well over two million distinct visitors annually.

A guided tour allows for serene contemplation of recent history - embark on this journey at your leisure and maximize your experience of the day.

Explore at your own rhythm for the opportunity to visit areas that are not typically shown by the guide.

  • Eating, smoking, taking photographs inside the buildings and acting in a disruptive manner are forbidden at the site.
  • Please note, that the maximum size of backpacks or handbags brought into the Auschwitz Museum & Memorial can not exceed dimensions: 30x20x10 cm.
  • Please, wear comfortable shoes - the tour requires a lot of walking. Also take an umbrella or a raincoat with you in order to be prepared in case of rain (the majority of the tour will take place outside).
  • Take you ID or passport as tickets to the museum are personal!
  • Departure time may change. Please contact the supplier to confirm your exact departure time the day before the tour.
  • We encourage you to bring snacks with you as there won’t be time for lunch between the visits to the Auschwitz and Birkenau camps.
Location
Pawia 18b
Pawia
Pick up address in Krakow: Pawia 18b, next to Mercure Hotel Return pick up address: Stanisławy Leszczyńskiej ( in front of the main entrance to Auschwitz Birkenau Memorial, next to the parking).
Cancellation Policy

For a full refund, cancel at least 24 hours before the scheduled departure time.

Customer Ratings
4.3
(326 Ratings)
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Aga_w
May 16, 2024
Best tour guide - Great organisation of the trip. Our guide Mirosław was outstanding, his knowledge was really impressive. The way he passed all the information was not just dry facts but you could really feel how emotionally invested he was in the history of Auschwitz. He was one of the best tour guides I have met during my travels.
Review provided by Viator
Nmaidwell123
May 14, 2024
Very educational yet so very sad - We were originally told we would be picked up at 6.30 and fortunately the night before we were told it would be 9.30am. Our personal transfer driver was really good and delivered us at the door and handed us over to a rep. The queues to get in were large and fortunately we were told by our driver that we would need photo identification to enter. The toilet queue was very long and we were slightly late for our tour start time due to this. Our tour guide was excellent and explained the history and suffering that occurred and many were reduced to tears. The exhibition is something I am grateful to have seen however it is also so very sad and a day I won’t forget.
Review provided by Tripadvisor
Hanna_b
Nov 15, 2023
great experience! - We loved the ease of the experience, the driver was very friendly. However it was difficult to distinguish the transport with the the other coaches and cars at pick up, this could have been a little clearer.
Review provided by Viator
Paul_d
May 5, 2024
Discover Cracow company - recommend only as last resort - Discover Cracow tour was booked with 5.30am departure. This was changed to 4am the previous day. We queued out in the cold for 3 hours with no information other than as you asked. Eventually passengers returned themselves to bus to wait out of cold. We were only thankful that we did get into see Auschwitz as they obviously had no pre arranged tickets. We paid £450 for 8 of us.
Review provided by Viator
Jamie_j
May 19, 2024
Unprofessional - Bus had no aircon and was booking for the entire journey there and back. Your guide kept walking off at his own pace not waiting for people to catch up before talking. The guy on the bus phoned 5 minutes before we needed to be there saying he would wait 5 minutes longer. Then slept the entire journey to auschwitz couldn’t be bothered to talk about what would happen so put on a pointless video with subtitles and no sound that you could not read absolutely useless guide poorly managed trip rushed round the trip because they wanted to get back home.
Review provided by Viator
Vagabond305
May 9, 2024
Discover Cracow Only cares about their money and not the customer experience. They are not even hiring the tour guilds. - Do not use this company. I am warning you now. They do not care about the customer experience and when you figure out what’s going on with them, they will tell you we’re just a third-party. We do not hire the Tour guides don’t even let me get started on the tour guides as they show no passion and do not care about the experience. They only cared that you paid for the tour. This is a horrible set up. They’re hiring tour guides with no experience that do not care about what the customer experiences And only cares about their money. I try to tell Viator the same thing, but they literally told me the same answer that they’re only a third-party and that that’s not their problem. I’m just letting you know to try to help you this is the worst company I’ve ever been on and they will literally change your whole appointment a day before the due date of your appointment. Do not use this company and use another company. I was looking forward to this tour for months, but due to their unprofessionalism, it ruined my whole experience on this trip and it really ruined my trip. This was supposed to be a special tour with a lot of history, but because of this company, my whole experience was ruined and now I would never Truly feel what I should’ve felt on this tour, which is supposed to be an emotional tour, but thanks to the tour guide. We were just running through everything and she really didn’t explain anything to us. I’m warning you before your trip gets ruined like mine did, Any other company but Do not use discover Cracow, They will tell you that they don’t care about the customer experience and that they’re only a third-party. Who even does the hiring for the tour guide…. It seems like they’re picking people that are not passionate about the subject right from the streets. This left a bad taste in my mouth for my whole Poland trip.
Review provided by Tripadvisor
Escape38196217388
May 7, 2024
Dodgy Company that's can wreck your whole experience - We left the whole day open to see Auschwitz, and they cancelled the tour on us. They are just a bus operator and a bad one at that. After talking to a guide that is employed by the Auschwitz Camp and has live in the area his whole life, is how it works with all tour companies to Auschwitz. They don't buy the tickets until the bus is full, and leave it as late as possiable to buy them. This is because to stop ticket reselling they put a name to each ticket and check it with goverment ID. So only the person who they book for can use that ticket. This means sometimes they don't have tickets for anyone and just risk waiting at the gate, hence why there are some many reviews of leaving at 4am to be the first there when it opens. All the good reviews must of been when it was super busy. So my story. I booked through headout but got put with their local guide discover krakow. Always book direct with a company not a middle man like headout, they made it seam like they were the company not the middle man. The morning of I get to the metring place at 6.15am for my 6.30am tour. It's gets to 6.45am and a full bus come and picks up about 12 German speaking tourist, she tells us the English one will be here soon. It gets to 7am and another guy calls, they tell us that our trip was moved to 4am but hangout didn't inform us. This guy apperanlty also got a call at 3.40am that morning telling him to be there at 4am. The only reason we came to Poland was to go to Auschwitz, so we decide to get a train there to see if we can get in. We get there at about 10am wait for tickets was about 1hr, we get a tour for 12.30pm, tour took 3.5 hrs. Get back to train station for a train at about 5.30pm. HOW TO AVOID Booked tickets here visit.auschwitz.org it's the place that's does the tours. 10,000 people come through everyday and they have 300 guides, that speak 20 languages. It's a well oiled machine. Catch the train Its an hour train trip from Krakow main station to Oświęcim (polish spelling of auschwitz), and a flat walk of about 20min to the museum where tour startes or there is a bus.
Review provided by Tripadvisor
Emily_t
May 6, 2024
Needs a lot of improvement. Official tour was good (not this company) - I should have listened to the poor reviews. The tour ‘company’ don’t buy the tickets in advance, so they just pick you up in a coach and take you to Auschwitz, where you join a queue for general public, in the hope of securing a ticket. They always change the booking time the day before, by text message. Our original pickup time was 5:30am, but was changed to 4am! They pick you up early to try and get to the front of the queue. You’ll spend 2 hours waiting in the freezing cold and the person that takes you on the coach won’t give any explanation- quite a stressful experience. Once you’re in, it’s only the official tour guides from the museum that take you around the sites, luckily. I would highly recommend going, but book directly on the website, as this is basically just bad transport. Get yourself a taxi there and buy the tickets directly
Review provided by Viator
Mark_t
May 6, 2024
Con - After we had paid for the trip we were informed that we would be picked up at 5.30 a.m on the Sunday morning. Whilst this was very early, especially considering we travelled at 3.00 a.m on the Friday morning, we agreed. The trip was free cancellation up to 24 hours before pick up so I guess I shouldn't be surprised that we weren't notified of the pick up time being changed until 8.45 on Saturday morning. They expected us to be collected at 4.00 a.m as they had failed to secure tickets for the agreed time. We were not willing to get up at 3.00 a.m again and so refused to accept the change of time. Had we been notified earlier we could obviously have cancelled f.o.c or of course they could have done their job properly and secured the correct tickets. When I replied to their message saying we would not accept the time change I requested our money be returned or that we should at least receive a credit for a later date. I have had no response to my message which just undelines for me how pre-meditated this has all been. There are plenty of sites offering this trip and I would suggest looking closely at them all but under no circumstances use this company.
Review provided by Viator
Kimeu3227bv
Apr 25, 2024
APPALLING!!!!!AVOID - Absolutely appalling...do not use this company. Our along with many many other people had the prepaid for trip totally ruined by this company. Instead of 6.30am pick up get there at 8am tour starts at 8.30am we were all informed by text message late the night before to be ready for 4.30am take it or leave it!!!. They hadn't even brought the tickets yet. We arrived at Auschwitz at 5.40am and had to wait in the cold until 8.30am. Our guide just dissappeared and left us. It was disgusting.
Review provided by Tripadvisor
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