How to go to Oktoberfest in Munich

Oktoberfest is one of those internationally known events like Carnaval in Rio, Mardis Gras in New Orleans, or the World Cup. My sister and I went to Oktoberfest with almost zero planning and pulled it off successfully. Here's what we did:

1) Stay in an adjacent city connected with a train: Munich will likely have outrageous hotel and AirBnb prices as everyone floods in for Oktoberfest. Another more affordable option is to stay in a place like Nuremberg and take the train to Munich (about 1.5 hours). This adds a great time to pregame Oktoberfest as you'll see many Germans doing a similar strategy fulled dressed in laderhosen and dirndls on the train drinking beer. To make sure you get a seat in a tent, you'll want to arrive before 10 am, which means taking an 8 am train. The bigger the size of your group, the earlier you'll need to arrive.

Nothing like an IPA at 8 am to start things off right.

2) Buy some Oktoberfest clothes: You'll have a lot more fun if you have something that resembles Oktoberfest clothing. You don't have to splurge 200 euros on an authentic laderhosen. I picked up a blue checkered shirt for 30 euros, which I'll definitely wear for other events. The Germans we met with appreciated that we had tried. Notice the two guys behind me have literally the same shirt. When everyone is standing on the benches no one can really tell if you have laderhosen on or not, but they can see your shirt.

3) Find a tent that doesn't require reservations: When you arrive to Munich, go to Theresienwiese. It is basically a giant oval area with 14 giant beer tents and roller coasters. It's a 15 minute walk from the train station. Many of the tents will have open seating beer garden areas as well as reserved areas. Some will also have open seating areas inside. This is what you want. We had to go to about 7 tents before we found a tent that had open seating (first-come first serve) in the Paulaner tent.

We got to the tent at around noon and it was SUPER crowded (this is why I recommend arriving earlier than we did). We were happy that there was standing room as most tents wouldn't let you stand still. We thought it would be hard to find a waitress because we didn't have a table, but one appeared almost instantly and we had beers within 5 minutes. You can only order 1 liter and it costs about 12-13 euros. The waitresses will carry 8 liters of beer, which has to weight 50 pounds and they'll come barreling through the crowd like a bulldozer. I got hit hard in the back and I made damn sure to get out of the way for the next time. The glasses are extremely heavy, plus they have one liter of beer. Both my sister and I had sore hands the next day from holding the steins all day.

Prost!

Even at noon we saw two people throw up and get removed by security. My favorite throw up incident was in the bathroom. A guy threw up in his mouth, but was able to contain it within his mouth. Being a good rule-abiding German, he patiently waited in the sink line behind 3 people until it was his turn and politely spit it out. I didn't see one, but apparently some bathrooms at Oktoberfest will have puke sinks equipped with bigger drains and handle bars.

4) Find a table, be aggressive: In the open-seating area, the competition to getting a table is tough. Luckily we were just two people so we were very flexible. A group of 3 or 4 might work, but more than that will be very challenging. Our strategy was to look for Latinos to make friends with who already had a seat and work our way in. We targeted some Brazilians first and Julianne was able to secure a seat and I stood at the end of the table. This was our toehold. It's unrealistic to expect two spots to open up together so we had to take what we could get. Once you have someone at the table, you have right of first refusal to any additional spots that open up ahead of no table scavengers. After about 30 minutes, a second spot opened up and I swooped in. It was definitely a bit tight, but beggars can't be choosers. There was an American girl on our left, but she had been in Germany for 1 year and was WAY to cool to talk to us tourists. On my right were the Brazilians who were down to talk as always.

5) Make friends with Germans: A German guy that Julianne had originally stolen the seat of invited us to their bench because they preferred us to fill the empty space compared to random people. We jumped at the invitation because these were authentic Germans and our Brazilian friends were leaving anyway. I imagine most Germans are annoyed at tourists, but these Germans were very welcoming. They were visiting from Berlin so in a way they were also tourists. The beers also helped to make friends. They were a group of about 9 people, 5 guys and 3 girls (and two sets of siblings). The German guys helped us order from the German menu and made sure we got beer when we needed it. They all spoke flawless English so language wasn't an issue at all.

One of our German friends.

Our table had a cold war against the table next to us which consisted of annoying piggy girl, passed out drunk girl, Mr. Man Bun and annoying Indian selfie guy. The table next to us was trying to take over more of our bench, but we would not allow it. Julianne was having trouble maintaining ground against Miss Piggy because of a weight disadvantage so she switched places with the guy above, who was 6'5" and quite strong. He immediately regained our bench territory. Miss Piggy also started smoking inside the tent, which was not allowed. The big German guy didn't hesitate in grabbing the freshly lit cigarette out of Miss Piggy's fingers and throwing it into an empty beer glass and swirling the glass to ensure that the cigarette was completely out. Miss Piggy was upset, but there was really nothing she could do. The table next to us also banged their glasses so hard together that some of the glass shattered into our food. They were a very pleasant bunch.

6) Party!: After about 3 pm, the entire beer tent was standing on the benches singing. There really was no more sitting and sitting was actually quite dangerous because you had heavy glass 1 liter beer steins swinging around your head. I wouldn't want to know how it would feel to get hit in the head with one of those.

Periodically, the band would play the same drinking song which goes:

Ein Prosit, ein Prosit

Der Gemütlichkeit

Ein Prosit, ein Prosit

Der Gemütlichkeit.

I didn't know the lyrics at the time, so I would sing:

"I'm prosting, I'm prosting,

The beer is gone!"

It pretty much sounded like what everyone else was saying.

Ein Prosit! (song with lyrics)

They also played "99 Red Balloons" and everyone went crazy. They played some German songs, but many of the songs were in English. For example, "I will survive", "Gloria", "You're the one that I want" (from Greece), "Se eu te pego", and others.

In the end we only had 4 liters of beer (1 train + 3 in tent), but we were feeling pretty buzzed as we hadn't had very much food as it wasn't really an environment to sit down and enjoy a meal. We left around 8 pm to catch our 9 pm train back to Nuremberg. This was really a good time to go, because the event was getting quite rowdy and I could see our bench flipping over easily. The benches everyone stands on are just free standing benches. Julianne got pushed forward at one point, but was saved by one of our German friends.

7) Ride a roller coaster:

Before leaving the Oktoberfest tent area, you need to ride 1 roller coaster. You're natural instinct may tell you that a roller coaster after 4 liters of beer and German food is a bad idea, but your instinct in wrong. It's a GREAT idea! We decided to do the Predator ride, but the letter P light wasn't working so it just said "redator". That really instills confidence. I normally hate carnival roller coasters because I figure they aren't as safe as established amusement parks, but I figured that this is Germany so it MUST be safe. I definitely wouldn't do the same at a pop-up carnival in Latin America.

Waiting in line for "redator"

8) Have a relaxing 2nd day:
After the chaos of Oktoberfest, you deserve to treat yourself to a relaxing day of walking around Nuremberg. The city is fucking fairy tale. Here are some pictures to show you how delightful it is. I recommend just strolling around the city at a slow pace with no real itinerary. Maybe walk up to the castle, have a coffee, walk some more. Sit. Walk. Stroll. Lunch time. It was a very relaxing day after the revelry of Oktoberfest. You will NOT want to drink a beer.

I really like how Germans relax on Sundays. None of the stores are open and families are just strolling around the city. The point of the day is to be together.