The 6 Top Recommended Tours in Berlin

There are many options to see Berlin from the water, with boat tours varying in duration and theme. Passing some of Berlin’s most prominent sights – including the Reichstag and Berlin Cathedral – the one-hour city boat tour is an excellent place to start. The tour offers personal audio guides with a number of language options, while there is also a bar and café on board, meaning you can combine your exploration with a cold German beer or a classic Berlin currywurst. Tours start every half hour, with the last one leaving the dock at 5.45pm – the perfect option for a sundowner cruise.

There’s no denying that Berlin’s past has had some extremely dark chapters, and a visit to a former concentration camp probably tops the list for a solid dose of sombre Second World War history. This guided tour of the Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp is a face-to-face encounter with the atrocities committed by the Nazi regime. As the closest camp to the city, a short 40-minute train ride away, the guided tour comes highly recommended as a day trip from Berlin. Taking visitors through the barracks and the old infirmary, this tour – both fascinating and harrowing – gives you a glimpse of what life was like in the camp, which was open from 1936 until 1950, first as a Nazi concentration camp and later as a “Soviet Special Camp”. This tour meets at the iconic Brandenburg Gate and lasts five-and-a-half hours.

An easy way to see Berlin’s most popular and well-known tourist spots is to simply grab a seat on the Hop-on-Hop-off Bus Tour. Perfect for visitors with only a short amount of time in Berlin, this tour allows you to ride comfortably around the city with live commentary providing information on each of the 22 key landmarks passed on the journey: from the looming TV Tower at Alexanderplatz, to Checkpoint Charlie and the glitzy fashion stores of Kurfürstendamm. Lasting two hours in total, staying onboard for the entire route is an excellent way to get your bearings in Berlin. As the ticket is valid for 24 hours, another option is to meander your way around the city, without having to worry about how to navigate public transport.

For a little break from the city, take a memorable day trip to Potsdam, just outside of Berlin. This UNESCO-protected town is widely regarded as one of the most beautiful in Germany, and was once the home of Prussian kings and the German Kaiser. The tour, which meets at 11am at the Brandenburg Gate and includes the easy train ride from Berlin to Potsdam, explores King Frederick the Great’s rococo-style Schloss Sanssouci and the breathtaking 18th-century park Neuer Garten. Pro tip: because this tour uses public transport, it is necessary for tour attendees to have a metro card for zones A, B and C.

For anyone looking for a more high-energy dose of sightseeing, a canoe tour along the River Spree and Landwehr Canal may be just the thing. This 2.5-hour scenic canoe tour begins in artsy Kreuzberg and then you’ll head out onto the beautiful Spree River. Gain insider knowledge on this open-minded, multicultural city while you see the sights from the water.

Berlin Nightlife: The Original Pub Crawl is a tour for night owls, and for those curious to experience what Berlin’s renowned nightlife is all about. Weekend-long raves, intense club culture and every type of bar you could dream of: Berlin has it all. On this guided nighttime tour, you’ll enjoy a raft of diverse Berlin bars, starting with drinking and dancing in several trendy bars on Simon-Dach Straße – ranging from pumping electro to relaxed shisha bars – before enjoying VIP entry to one of the city’s legendary clubs. This six-hour tour includes free drinks and cheap shots throughout, along with party games and opportunities to win prizes. Put your dancing shoes on and meet at 9.30pm at ONE80° Hostel Berlin on Otto-Braun-Straße. Top tip: the bars featured in the tour change each night, so join the tour for a second time to experience another side of Berlin’s vibrant nightlife.